Stunning Brugmansia

 The angel trumpet is finally in full bloom despite the cold snap we just had. Its only in its first year from seed too! They look stunning. and surprisingly they did come out being white, so hurrah trade winds fruit for actually giving me the color i actually purchased this time! They're in the garage, so sorry for the horrible photos. i'll post another when i set them back outside again.

The tomatoes came out fairly unscathed through the cold weather. they still haven't really done much but i think that this season has been a good learning experience and i've gotten to see what varieties have out performed the others. I've been pleased with the roma tomatoes, sweet 100 and the better boy (in that order) and the beefmasters have been a grave disappointment. i'm not sure if it was that i bought it so late in the season or what, but i'll be very weary of buying them again....

more growth

 the angel trumpet is finally poking out little flowers. they appear yellow although i ordered white : ( 

if you ever order something from tradewinds fruit online, the color you get is not what they state. i ordered both this and the datura in white and neither came in the color i requested.

all the compost in my new veggie bed is turning to really lush soil!
I turned all of it today and it looks great, worms and everything.

the snow peas got their first bloom the other day!

poppies are growing crazy fast

this weekend is gonna freeze and i'll probably be gone from the house since it'll be christmas. I'm worried about the tomatoes and not sure if i should pluck off what i have now or just cover them... i've read that you cover them in fabric (like a sheet) and then a layer of plastic (i'm assuming like a tarp) over that. i'll try that and cross my fingers.

Poppy sprouts

Poppies started coming up. In the spring i had good luck with them sprouting too. they're easy starters i suppose. I just have to keep them watered this time.










And the cold weather has not been very nice to my tomatoes. The plants are not all that bad and the fruit still looks ok. The little sweet 100's got it the worst.

Datura Seeds

The branch holding 2 of the seed pods snapped so i decided to just pull the pods off b/c i couldn't let them go on their own to dry out anymore. thankfully they look pretty ready. the seeds are nice and plump and look a bit like a cross between a bellpepper seed and corn.

as soon as they're dry i'll ship them off to the people that told me they wanted some. yea.

Updates

The light freeze we had this week didn't effect me too badly, although i did see a light blanket of ice all over the place and totally panicked. The tomatoes got covered and the only parts that were really affected were the parts that were in contact with the sheet. So for next time i'll have to put up stakes or something so that no parts of my plants are coming in contact with the sheet. lesson learned. Hibiscus was fine along with everything else.

2 of the 6 four o'clocks have sprouted. yea! one of the marigolds so far. The jiffy greenhouse has algae in it so i propped the lid open so hopefully that will go away. I dont think the algae will affect them too much. I planted some of the nicotiana seeds i saved from my plants from last season along with some columbine (that were labeled as such, but look nothing like what i see online...). Nothing from them yet, but its only been like meh, a week or so.

Planted a poppy mix in a strawberry container. I have no idea how thats gonna go, but they can be winter sown i've read. the container is great b/c it has slots in the bottom already to suck up the water and a nice hinged lid on top. I put it in a container with water at the bottom so that the potting mix could suck it up when it needed it and i could have a bit more room to be careless.

Still waiting on the datura seed pods to be ready. i covered the biggest pod with pantyhose so just in case i miss it i won't lose any seeds. Theres a ton of people who want seeds so i'll have to save as much as i can. i'm a people pleaser, what can i say? i walked outside and it had fallen over and was dry. i freaked out and ran over to it like a mother if my child had just hurt himself. I hope that small drying out period isn't going to affect the pods. Oh, and some of the flowers didn't get pollinated so i think i'm gonna try to hand pollinate the rest of the flowers that bloom. I need to find a nice perennial vine that i like to cover the horrible side of the garage... i donno if this one is gonna fit the bill. I decided if i wanna grow more of it.

Flowering Brugmansia! (almost...)

 The angel trumpet (Brugmansia) has finally put out little flower buds! I'm so excited about it and can't wait till they bloom. Theres a bunch of little droopy pods.

catface, he's got a big catface.
He's got the body of a cat
and the face of a cat
and he flies thru the air
cuz he's got a catface....catface

The Sweet 100's are finally showing color. It seems like it took forever. I was afraid with the cold weather coming they wouldn't show any color at all>

< The roma tomatos are still getting hit by something. I'm still not sure if its catfacing (which the bottom shows signs of) or an elusive worm... sigh.

The first of the sprouts has um, sprouted. It's one of the marigold seeds.

This morning was full of pleasantries.

Speaking of, happy giving of the thanks. I said Gobble son!

Rose problems and Misc.

fo I keep having this reoccurring problems with my roses. They keep getting this deep green color on the veins of the leaves. When i looked it up in my garden encyclopedia it looks like a textbook example of magnesium deficiency (literally, they have a picture there!). So i used epsom salts to the soil, like it calls for, at least 3 times and it's still happening. I haven't tried a foliar feeding but i guess thats next. It happens to the rose i propagated thats still in a pot as well as the ones in the ground. I'm at a loss of what to do about it at this point... they are really not doing well.

But on a positive note, the Verbascum is doing very well. I almost killed them about a month ago. I put them in their little SIP containers and that was all well and great but my mistake was that i put them in direct sun. When i went to check the water in the bottom reservoir i finally figured out that the water was very hot, like sticking them in a hot-tub!

So i moved the planters in the shade and what once were crispy, pink and yellow leaves has turned to happy green and healthy again. lesson learned.

The Datura pods are HUGE now. I'm not sure when to pull them off, but hopefully they will start to dry out and crack or show me some signs that the seeds are ready to go. If i try to extract the seeds too early they won't be viable and i surely don't want that. I probably have 6 to 8 pods on there and i won't know what to do with them. seems like a waste to just toss them out...

Tomato Munchers

A few days ago I went out and noticed that there was a perfectly bored hole right in the side of my Roma tomato. It was so perfect Da Vinci couldn't have done it as well. Anyway, so today i go out and to my devistation it had 3 holes in it now in addition to its neighbors being munched on. Irritating. 

I split them open looking for a worm but nothing. I'm thinking some other animal wouldn't have done such a perfect, clean job of punching thru it. I just want to figure out what it is so i can get it under control before it gets out of hand...

Note: after looking on a forum, it might be something called catfacing. I looked it up, but i'm not entirely convinced about it yet. I saw no deformities on the fruit, which seems to accompany the problem from all the pictures i saw online. I'll keep looking for signs of it though. But hopefully it won't spread any further and i wont have to.

Lycoris and Crocus Bulbs

So around October I noticed some pretty wispy flowers that came out of nowhere growing on the side of my house. I looked them up and found out they're actually lycoris. I'm thinking that the last freeze we had killed much of the ferns and other plants that were growing there, so i was finally able to see what was there the whole time.

Lycoris Bulbs I pulled up

No telling how long they were growing there on their own, so i went yesterday to investigate and found that there were a ton of bulbs over there! I dug out less than a foot square and pulled up over 30 of them. I left a large clustered clump of bulbs where they were already established just in case the transplant went bad. 

I also planted 18 bulbs of crocus around the tulip tree nestled in along with the ranunculus. Oh and the ranunculus are already starting to put up little leaves again! Only about 4 of the 10 or so i planted last year have started to peak out so far.

More fall tomatoes!!

Now both the Roma and the Better Boy have started putting on fruit as well, and I'm pretty happy about it. The Sweet 100's have been green for a long time and have yet to show any color. I'm not sure if this is normal or what... I'm also not sure if any of the tomatoes will be big enough to actually be able to do something with. Cold weather is approaching and we'll see how it goes. The Beefmaster tomatoes are just now starting to put on flowers so I don't have too much hope on them producing anything.

Roma

Sweet 100

Better Boy

In addition, the snow pea seeds that i gathered from last seasons crop are going strong. I need to put up some sort of support pronto. I didn't have any soil around that was ready so i took some of the composting stuff from the neighboring bed and set them in it with their peat pods they germinated in. I have no idea how thats gonna go. But i have plenty of leftover seeds so its no biggy if they hate it in there. Theres only 6 vines as of now. As soon as my dad saw them he goes "that's not gonna be enough". the man loves snow peas, what can i say.

Nothing yet from the lettuce or the 4 o'clocks. I would have figured the lettuce would have done something by now, it sprouted so quickly last season. maybe it's not cold enough yet...

Datura blooms

I took pictures every day or two so i could see the double datura metel as it opened. I think of it as a super crappy time lapse camera : ) They're not as stunning as i imagined, but they're still pretty. They just have the appearance of being super poisonous dont they?

Oh, and they're already have little pods going that look equally non-edible. All of this out of that little 3L SIP planter. I probably need to transfer it into something bigger now though... not sure what to use next.

Mystery solved

image from http://gstuff.co.nz

Found out today from dad's friend that the seeds are Mirabilis jalapa or more commonly "4 o'clock" flowers. I looked the seeds up online and they are practically the same as the ones i have. They can be used in xeriscaping, which is fantastic in case i forget to water them and they bloom in the summer. ...so i missed my opportunity to see them this season. I have no idea what will become of the ones i planted just now but i shouldn't have a problem if i plant them in early spring.

They're like a mix between the datura metel and my hibiscus. They should be a good fit to the little plant gang I've been accumulating.

Notes for spring:
Light: Four o'clocks do best in full sun, but also perform well in partial shade. 
Propagation: Plant seeds in early spring or divide tubers any time. If you soak the large black seeds in water overnight before planting they will germinate quicker. If you get one that you like especially, you can dig up the tuber at the end of the season and replant it next spring. Four o'clocks will self seed. The large, elongate tubers make it difficult to transplant very large specimens.

Mystery seeds

A friend of my dad's gave him some seeds to give to me that are supposed to produce these "big beautiful purple flowers". I asked Dad when he gave them to me, "well what is it?" Only to get a response of "I don't know, just plant them and see". great. I'm thinking, well ok, his friend must have gotten them from his own garden so they must have just now dropped seeds i'm thinking, right? so in nature they would be hitting the ground about this time and plants know when to do all this seed dropping business so maybe i'm in the clear to plant them now. so i planted only 6 of them and reserved another 6 or so for after the winter season when the weather starts to warm up again. I kinda don't want to ask what they are just so i can be surprised, but it would be nice to know so i knew when to plant and what water and light conditions they like...

Oh, and the datura vine is putting out flower buds! yea! about 4 so far in its first year. i can't wait till they open. i will defiantly post pics of them. My dad is so fascinated that the vine stems are almost completely black. he actually goes and points it out to people the come over, saying "look how black it is, weird huh?" And yes, they are coming into bloom from the 3L SIP container and nothing else. I should have started the new seeds in those too, but i didn't have any prepared at hand. I'll make sure to when i sow the next batch tho.

Fall is acually bearing fruit

Went out this morning to water the plants that i really had no hopes for and found that the sweet 100 is actually putting on fruit. My first season was so bad for tomatoes; they put out flowers but very few actually bore any fruit. With it getting cold soon i doubt that it will produce for very long but they're still fun to have around just as an experiment. Like a lot of things in life, i don't expect them to last forever... sigh...

The jalapeños are going too, just 2 so far. And i planted some black seed simpson lettuce too, just one row but maybe i'll do successive plantings every few weeks so i'll have plenty.

sweet 100

jalapeño

And the angel trumpet and datura from seeds have really done well so far. Its kinda neat to know how such a tiny little seed becomes a total plant. maybe i should have got into bio instead of chem :) the vine is in a SIP planter and i have absolutely no problems with it, it never wilts from lack of watering. the angel trumpet though wilts easily if i dont watch it close. i'm gonna have to make a big SIP container for it out of a tote or something... oh and i have some carnations that i started in a pot a while back that i treated like total crap (forgot to water, left in blazing sun, the works) and they're STILL putting on buds and going to bloom. I almost just tumped out the whole pot a month ago, glad i didn't.

Angel trumpet

Datura vine

Completely off subject

I recently taught myself how to knit since a friend of mine is about to have her first little kiddo soon and i thought i would post a pic of the little cardigan i made for her. This is what i've been doing while i should have been studying for my chem processes class :) it's a free pattern off of lionbrand.com. and it's maroon b/c i'm sick of looking at pink yarn after doing the baby blanket.

front                                                                                                                       back

and no, it's not meant to fit someone the size of the little bear i have it on, but it was what happened to be closest to put it on. i made her the obligatory booties, cap and blanket too but for some reason forgot to take pics of them. i'll get them once she's born and sporting them!


She had her baby on 10/2 by the way -  a beautiful, healthy little baby girl

Some Fall Happenings

Random fall notes:

Moved the hosta i bought a while back into a pot with some miracle-gro potting soil. its supposed to shoot up a flower stalk in the fall - it did last time. With the horrible spot its been at i'm doubtful i'll see any pretty lavender flowers from it. I'm ashamed i left it in such poor conditions for so long. The soil in the front of my house is terrible, even after i tried to amend it a bit to improve the drainage. I figure that if i ever want to plant anything decently in my yard that is not a tree, i'm gonna have to make my own soil and fill a huge area with it (maybe put a layer of rocks at the bottom to boot). So i'm going to have to start saving up all the yard material this season. Come on fall, gimme some leaves.

I moved the old veggie bed after i saw that the east facing wall i placed it up against wasn't getting as much sun as I would think vegetables would need. Its now completely out in the open in the middle of my yard, out of most all of the shadows. The hosta got placed in a pot where the bed used to get the least amount of light. Before it was in pretty much full shade. I'll see how the new soil and sun affect it. 

After moving the old bed into the sun I went to the garden center to buy vegetables. Now I planned on getting the stuff that was correct for the season you know, some greens, root variety and whatnot, but even though i know that now is not the best time and i should have done it months ago (july)... i got tomatoes anyway. i know i shouldn't have but i did. Planted one of each: better boy, beefmaster, roma, and sweet 100. I also planted some green jalapeño peppers and mulched them all like i've never mulched before : ) I bought some black seed simpson lettuce seeds too that need to go into the ground asap and i wanted to try carrots this year maybe some radish too, i donno. I'll see what strikes my fancy when i go the the store.

Moved the angel trumpet into a bigger pot as well. It kept losing water too fast and looking a bit wilty on me so i figured it was time. The roots weren't all rootbound to the sides of the pot but they were getting close. I made sure to loosen them a bit before i replanted it just for good measure. He got mulched like crazy too as well as an extra dose for the roses, who have not been looking too fantastic lately but are starting to look a bit better after i did some fertilizing.

Which reminds me of a silly side story... An acquaintance of my dads came over today while i was outside doing plant-related-happenings and motioned at my angel trumpet (that is NOT in bloom) and goes "hey, is that an angel trumpet?" i was very, very surprised to think that anyone my dad would know would have any inkling of knowledge about what variety of plant that was without it bearing flowers yet. Veggies, yeah i could see, but flowering, non-edible stuff no. So i tell him "yeah, it is actually" only to get a reply of "ah man, you know those make you trip out". Sigh... yes, i looked them up after i bought the seeds and wiki did inform me of that, not that i had any plans on hallucinating any time soon. He then proceeds to tell me HOW to do it. He's all like "well alright, look, here's what you do... you take the little new leaves like this... *walks over to the plant and actually points at a leaf* and you boil it and then you drink it like tea. But don't do too much or you'll end up like my buddy that hit it one too many times and died" which, the last part i'm inclined to believe is a total lie, just put in there to jazz up the story a bit. Then he goes on to say, "aw, well what color is it?" and if memory serves me right its white, which i told him and he got super excited about b/c apparently the white ones are supposed to be like the best for uh, brewing i suppose. He even wanted to trade me for a pink one that he's got. I told him i'd give him seeds if and when i got them. 

I just find it a bit funny that he recognized the plant not because it was pretty or interesting but because it had hallucinogenic properties. Fan-freaking-tastic. I didn't bother to tell him that the Datura vine sitting just behind it was just as if not more mind numbingly trippy.Oh, the people my dad knows...

Okra lifespan?

I just pulled up all my okra the other day b/c they had gone weeks without any progress. I figured they had just about spent all they had and i thought they had a pretty good run.

But then I go and check the chronicle website and a columnist there is JUST NOW getting pods. While mine seem to have ran their course hers are just getting started. it seems odd that we would both be houstonians (at least i would think so) and plant at roughly the same time and have much different results. she did plant a dwarf variety so maybe that had a part to play in it.


I'm still getting all the beds ready for spring. They still need a lot more material before they're ready. So there's not much going on for me in the fall. I have probably another week to be really solid about not planting anything. I could put stuff in my old bed i pulled okra out of but i probably need to spiff up the soil a bit to feel better about myself and i just don't know if i'm gonna get around to doing it. dad's been bugging me about beans, so maybe i'll do them at least. thats a big maybe though.

Resilient plants

Amazing how plants find a way to develop even in seemingly un-growable situations.

I have this large piece of plastic from a truck bed lining that i was storing raked leaves in and walked by it one day and noticed a little plant started growing in it. Its a plant thats been in the front yard of my house for as long as i can remember and suddenly it has a cousin growing from a pile of leaves in the backyard. i looked it up and i'm almost 100% that it's a firespike plant (Odontonema Tubiforme). i guess there's hope for my new veggie box even if everything doesn't break down completely!

right image from google

New Veggie box

Made the new veggie box yesterday and started to fill it today. Its lasagna style layering with leaves on the bottom and grass in the middle and this hay type stuff on the topmost layer. I need to add more to it b/c it's gonna compress as it breaks down and has a bunch of negative space between everything. put some lining in the bottom to help conserve water a bit. Its has a little bit of drainage tho so i dont flood the poor guys out.

I need to stop by $5 coffee land (aka starbucks) and see if they have any spent coffee grounds i can have. I don't like the idea of walking in there and asking for stuff, seems very awkward. Maybe if i buy a coffee it'll go a little smoother. It's against every fiber in my body to go and pay that much for coffee tho. I hope they have little cup sizes next to "venti" and "grande" b/c i haven't the faintest clue what is what.

i don't know what the timeframe is gonna be for the box to be plant-ready. probably a year, which seems like a reeeealy long time to wait. if it overwintered and was ready by spring that would be amazing. there's no way  i'm sure...

Searching around, buzzle.com says:

Gardeners consider fall an appropriate time because of the availability of the organic materials they get from falling leaves and the general yard waste. Then you can let your garden break down and be ready by the spring time. 

create in fall, plant in spring. nice. i'm assuming that's consecutive seasons :) Everyone seems to have a different opinion of what layers go where, but i think i'll be fine. the only thing i think i'm gonna stick to is putting compost on the topmost layer. Since i lined it at the bottom i'll probably have to add my own worms i'm thinking, as virtually no contact with the natural ground beneath it (where i'm sure all the little wormies inhabit).

 

Quick update

The pickled okra seemed to be too vinegar-y for my taste. the recipe i saw called for a 1:1 of vinegar to water but i think i'm gonna tone it down to 2:1 and add some form of pepper in there next time Procedure was fine, but the ingredients need to be tweaked a bit... made some stew out of some of them with tomatoes and that was good tho. haven't tried to fry them yet, but i've had them that way and they taste incredibly wonderful.

The hibiscus propagation was a total fail. Funny too b/c i was looking and it said to put them in indirect sunlight and i was like meh and just put them out full blast in the july heat. again, procedure great but time of execution and lighting conditions were way off. i've had one root before but i think i did it in early early spring, which is when i will do them next time. i would take pictures but it's way too sad.

The compost i was making in the food grade cylinder has worked out well. originally i had drilled the holes in the side too small and the water was not being able to drain which supported all sorts of... lifeforms and was an overall mess. now that it's dried out a bit more it has that nice earthy smell and looks very plantable-in-like.

Going to do a layered (lasagna type) veggie bed for next season and a SIP planter box. i'm late on getting things ready for fall, but if the bed overwinters it may be good for spring... or so i hope.


Random sidenotes:
            1. My birthday is coming up and i would greatly appreciate giftcards to home depot or lowes, or something electronic b/c gadgets are neat.  : )
            2. went online to look up this flavored ceylon tea that i love (b/c i dont think i can find it in stores anymore) and the shipping was 20 bucks! i'm sorry, but i have a cap on things and more than 6 bucks for shipping on anything is kinda crazy to me. i quickly closed the page and realized i better start calling around local stores if i really wanted it.

Pickling Okra

I tried to do my first jar of pickled okra today with much success. Hopefully the recipe i used doesn't make them taste all funky (i just guess-timated the dill and pickling salt). The top button was depressed when they cooled so i think they're gonna be alright. next year i'm gonna plant so many okra plants its gonna be ridiculous.

Update

Went to Home Depot and got some perilite today to put in some of my hibiscus cuttings. I put them in little styrofoam cups and placed glass jars over them to try to conserve some humidity. Two things i should have done differently tho (since i just kinda cut them and stuck them in there) were: i didn't really pay attention to the nodes and where they were, instead of cutting just below the node i cut just above like the special person i am :), and two, i wish i would have planted them together en masse b/c i read they somehow grow better when they are propagated together. I did cut them at an angle, moisten them and dusted with powder rooting hormone. made the holes large enough so that when i put them in they didn't brush off all the powder. They're said to root anywhere from 4-6 weeks so i'll check on um in 4 by giving them a little tug. i have the glass touching the cuttings on a few of them and i know it's a no-no but i'm thinking it'll be ok.

Also found a cute hanging 3 pot planter that holds little 4" pots so i bought an ivy for it and took a couple cuttings and put them in water with 2 drops of liquid feed for them to root so i can put them all in. I'll take pics of everything later (my camera battery is dead from a trip to San Antonio).

The roses in the front (aromatherapy and moondance) are not having the happiest time. i built that bed too low and i think they've been getting a little too much water. its all hurricane season and rainy and houston so i'll be glad when everything dies down. i do need to get around to making that bed higher tho. sitting in water is bad and even worse when it gets cold... i can see leaf mold spots on them which i periodically pick off and chunk out into the yard.

the fragile roses i pulled out of there are doing pretty spectacular actually. i wish i liked them better. they have just been taking off. i deadheaded them and i have new buds everywhere. they're not retaining water tho like the ones in the front so naturally they are pretty pleased. i have to find a good home for them b/c right now they are just kinda sitting randomly in my yard.

bought some canning jars for the okra. i had the brainstorm when i remembered just how much i enjoy pickled okra. oh, and if you buy them, get them from walmart. they have them too and cheaper than what the grocery store had them for (6.79 vs. 11 something at Krogers). I was a little miffed when i saw that one. i got a lot of enjoyment watching the okra grow so i'm thinking that i'm gonna grow about twice as much next year. hopefully the seeds i have will still be viable next season.

First okra

came home after 3 days and the okra was going strong. i finally pulled the first one off, but i think he's a little on the large side and i should have picked him sooner. he's somewhere around 6".

theres a bit of aphids on one of the plants. i keep knocking them off with the water hose so maybe they wont do too much damage. they are really only on one plant... for now. we'll see how that goes.

the rest of the plants are doing well and i should get more from them soon. i have buds opening everywhere.

oh and i found out that the wood cutting from my mother's rose bush is one from the pink bush. it's a bit weak, but for the first bloom i guess it's to be expected. i should probably cut it off so it can focus on making branches tho instead of diverting its energy into blooms.

i let that portulaca below it go a long time ago btw. ; )

Okra blooms

I think i wasn't able to catch the first flower in full bloom before it fell off so i took this one of the second one i've seen before it spoiled. it should look beautiful when it fully opens with that dark center it has.

i remember dad calling me one day when i was out of the house and telling me the plant had okra all over it and i told him that one of us had to be mistaken b/c i thought they were flower buds. turns out both of us were right. what looks like happened is that, as with any other fruit bearing plant (duh!) the flower is on top of the actual fruit, as the ovaries are situated in the middle underneath all the stigma and stamen and what-nots. so really it looks to me like the okra (which you can see to the bottom right of the flower) is just beneath the actual bloom. it's kinda like a 2-for-1 deal i suppose. that or okra just liking to fake me out. for some reason i imagined the actual pods to form further down along the stem of the plant.

and i do love the idea to plant a few (2 or 3) seeds together in the same spot so that you can twine the stems together. it helps out well especially when they are young b/c they support one another as they rapidly seem to grow taller much more rapid than they get thicker. plus it looks nifty : )

sadly, i still have no idea what this is yet. the super sad part is that i actually went and looked at the old seed list i bought and then looked up the pictures of the plants again and i still can't figure out what it is. i'm pretty sure it's not a weed that just randomly popped up in there. and it's nothing i've seem growing in the yard... i donno. i'm starting to think it's a balloon flower, which would be so great. \/ see any resemblance?


but its growing really really well in the SIP planter and i'm super happy about that. it's time to change containers, no? roots are evac-ing out of the bottom, look at um go.

these planters are pretty great b/c they're like that one oven with the timer that you used to see on all those info-mercials that goes "just set it and .... forget it!" and the crowd screams the "forget it" part. my god, so ridiculous. but really the only thing i have to do is make sure there's water down there for my little plant babysitters. and actually, for the next veggie job i do i'm gonna make a larger one out of a tote box (one of those rubbermaid ones) b/c it seems very simple. saw a nice youtube video of some nice canadian guy making one that anyone could do like a knockoff earthbox. i'll probably do that tomorrow. i'm all about some sub-irrigation.  : )


datura metel and my angel trumpet are going great too. the datura is getting a little yellow in the leaves from the veins - nitrogen deficiency, so i'll fertilize. the trumpet is showing no bad signs other than occasional slight wiltyness now b/c it's so darn hot.

i cannot wait till they bloom! prolly not anytime this season though. i'll still keep my fingers crossed.



< angel trumpet.

Hibiscus blooms

Finally woke up to my first one after the cold weather last winter almost killed my poor hibiscus all the way off. honestly i thought they were gonners, all 3 of um.

the yellow ones beside this one almost open too. i think my last pot has pink flowers so i'll see.

Growth spurt

the datura plant is huge! it must have been all the rain (or the SIP planter) but i didnt even add any fertilizer recently. imagine if i HAD! i'm pretty happy about it. the one on the right is what it looked like only 2 weeks ago (6/17/10). from tiny little seed to this...

the hibiscus plants (left) are finally starting to bud. after the nasty freeze we had last winter i was really scared for them. they had died back to almost nothing. its amazing how resilient nature is.

         the rose i propagated from a stem cutting at my moms house (right) has also put out it's first bud! i started the bare stem back last October i believe, and it's doing really well. i forgot to tag the stems so i dont know exactly what color it will be so i'll be eagerly awaiting the opening

  

and the okra buds haven't bloomed yet, but the leaf size is incredible. i would have never expected little okra that i am accustomed to eating to grow off such a massive plant.                                             i have to re-stake the tomatoes b/c the old ones i used are not strong enough and with all the wet ground they just topple over. my vegetable garden is such a mess right now. i would hate for someone to come over and see it : (