Easter Card Success

Playing with Easter card parts.

Easter cards

Had fun making Easter cards for kiddos with help from cat.  Rabbit has basket holding eggs that have slits, two pieces glued together with open middle.  The eggs have chicks, bugs, trucks, and even a vague rendition of a helicopter coming out of them. Hopefully the cards are strong enough to be somewhat interactive.

My New Wheelbarrow!

RIP

A real Truper

Cucumber Beetle

This is a picture of my first cucumber beetle for 2011.  They are voracious eaters and if YOU want any produce, you will have to deal with them harshly.  They are not to be confused with ladybugs which are red and eat bugs and bug larva.  Instead, these guys can eat all the flowers of your cucumbers and squashes while you wait patiently for fruit to form.  No flower, no fruit.  I hand pick them for awhile and then use Neem to keep them away.  If they get out of control, I use Pyganic, a flower based insecticide.  They are not a bug you can "live with".

Basket making

I have to take a break from basket making as we are having a get together next weekend.  If you know us, you know you are welcome.  So, until I get some clean-up done around here, I will take a break.  One last harvest basket for me.  Watch out next winter, I am hooked! Also almost finished with second draft of great novel.  I know there will be a third draft and then who knows, maybe I will submit it to someone.  Until then it is a diamond in the rough, but good brain exercise for me. As garden chores increase, my free time of winter disappears.  Boo-hoo.

More Broccoli

CHEESY BROCCOLI SOUP for dinner!

Seed Catalogs

The catalogs are coming, the catalogs are coming!   I have been going through the seed bin and ordering new seed for this year.  It forces a discussion of what the general plan is for the garden year.  I am trying to stick to the New Year's resolution of more family, more friends, less stress, and more fishing, but the easiest part of gardening is picking out seeds to grow.  Last year, I used up quite a few odds and ends of seeds that were three years old and newer.  This year we have to order enough for this year and some seeds that will carryover for the next year also.  Vegetables like lettuce, carrots, squash, beans, and peas, for instance, don't seem to lose too much germination ability over that period.  Other seeds such as onions are really best that first year.  Cucumber's and melon's seed which are long and flat can get brittle in their packages and can break which ends their viability.  If I had time and inclination, I could move the seeds into dark glass jars for safe keeping, but instead I don't order too far ahead. I try to buy organic seeds, but there are some hybrids from non-organic sources I have been growing for over 20 years that I just can't give up on or find an adequate substitute. I highly recommend High Mowing Seed Company this year!