"Flowers are not made by singing 'Oh, how beautiful,' and sitting in the shade."
–Rudyard Kipling
5/20/16:
It's getting summery around here! We've had a lot of hot days this week; some mornings start out with a foggy drizzle and then the day gets slowly brighter and drier. That small amount of moisture in the air has not been enough to hydrate my garden however. I watered everything on Saturday, and by Wednesday morning noticed that the lawn, leaves on a few rosebushes, and the recently sprouted peppers are turning brownish. I'll have to get in the habit of checking the plants every other day at least, and setting aside time on weekday mornings or evenings for tending to them. At least my drought-tolerant varieties are flourishing! So are the bulbs planted last fall: orange lilies and pink gladiolus are now blooming.
As for "feeding" the garden, having compost on hand is great. Not enough yet of this (or the liquified seaweed) for fertilizing all the plants, so I bought some organic fertilizer. There's such a variety available: granules, liquid, even manure "teabags" that I'll try sometime. I also picked up a rooting powder. This will help with establishing cuttings from friends' gardens, and with potting stems from my geraniums or tradescantia plants.
Draping netting over my entire vegetable patch has worked to keep squirrels out. It's green tulle from the fabric store: 4 yards for only $6.00. The only drawbacks so far are having to fold it out of the way while I'm re-seeding the planter beds, and some determined spiders who keep trying to connect my net to their webs.
Clusters of flowers on the privet hedges are dropping their petals all over the place. A bit messy, but it's an inadvertent mulch of sorts, for all the planter boxes and seedling pots near the hedges.
Clicking on the small images below will bring up a larger version.
Early summer lilies.
Seedling pots under the hedge.
Gladiolus.
Indoors, my newer plants are growing steadily. The maranta even bloomed: two tiny lavender flowers at the ends of long stems. The flower calyxes on the lipstick plant fell off before the blooms opened fully, however. I need to figure out what's going on there.
There are cayenne pepper seedlings in one of my kitchen windowsill pots. They're getting enough sunlight in this location; developing new leaves daily. Unlike my outdoor vegetable pots, this one's safe from snails, bugs and squirrels. I wish I had kept more of the pepper and tomato seedlings indoors while still tiny; I'd probably have several sturdy plants by now.
One of the things I really appreciate about gardening is that unlike some of my other passions, it doesn't require much monetary investment. I can acquire plants inexpensively (or even for free, from gardening friends or from saved seeds). Composting, and recycling various household containers as pots, are other ways I've been frugal. Outfitting myself for this hobby is low-cost as well: a simple hat, faded shirt, and cutoff shorts or old yoga pants. As long as I can keep my impulse buys at garden stores to a minimum, I'll become "green-wise" in many ways.
