Tagged!

What were you cooking/baking ten years ago?

1997 - hmmm....I was living in South Mississippi learning to make cajun food. Gumbo, fried turkey, etouffee

What were you cooking/baking one year ago?

Christmas candy!


Five snacks you enjoy:

string cheese
any cheese and crackers
sun chips
the cheese crakers with peanut butter inside
kashi granola bars

Five recipes you know by heart:

hippie tacos, baked ziti and my sauce, chili, beef stew, english toffee

Five culinary luxuries you would indulge in if you were a millionaire:

a chef! HA!

Five foods you love to cook/bake:

see the recipes I know by heart!

Five things you cannot/will not eat:

innards from any animal
brussle sprouts
anything with a spongy texture like mushrooms, but I will eat them sometimes


Five favorite culinary toys:

strawberry hullers from c and b
small food processor
wire strainer
salad spinner
my fold up electric griddle...great for the bus!

We dont need no...

You know the rest!

Yeah, it's been a while since I've updated, but I promise more will come this summer. I've been soooo busy at work that I haven't even had time to think!!

Ask the hubby...I've lost my marbles! :)

Deadhead Roses

Last night I spent some time deadheading my roses. When you prune the bushes to specifically cut off old or damaged blooms, it is called deadheading. No lie! My roses have been sufficiently deadheaded!

Because we had the freeze and frost last week, the baby buds that had sprung up on my rose (the Barbie Bush only) were "burned," which means they had frost damage and were not going to bloom. I have one sweet little bloom that may last, so I left it alone.

According to Better Homes and Gardens, roses are best deadheaded in spring after the last possibility of frost. Okay, this is Atlanta, and it COULD frost again, but I doubt it!

Since it was dark when I was working, I'll have to take a look today to see what kind of damage I did! I'm still learning! :)

New Fridge

This weekend was freezing and rainy (AGAIN). Most of my plants look like they will survive, but I didn't get much work done in the yard. I am also very worried about my sweet little Blue Girl. She is not growing as much as the other two roses who flank her. I think she gets too much water from the busted gutter, which I need to do something about!

Since it was yucky outside, we did some work inside. The hubby's parents got a new fridge, so they gave us their old one!! Its not that old, and we LOVE LOVE LOVE it! The MIL hated it, so she was happy to move on to bigger and better appliances. Its a side by side with ice and water in the door. It has the fancy pull out shelves and drawers we can see through! Our old fridge is in the garage with a full freezer patiently waiting for us to fill him up with party food and beer.

Isn't it amazing that making one change has made me want to keep the kitchen looking nicer than ever before. I just cant wait to redo the carpet and floors! :)

Say Say My Rain Barrel...

Remember that old song? I cant think of the rest! Something about sliding down my cellar door, and we be jolly friends forever more, and more, and more....

I think I need to make a rain barrel. I'm going to a spring flower show in old Roswell that is giving away supplies to encourage water conservation. If you search enough, you can find almost anything free!

I have to resize more pictures before I can post them. :(

Have a great rainy day!

Barbie Bush Garden

Its time to focus on a new project! The veggie garden looks good (pictures to come when all is planted), and it's been way too cold to plant anything the last week. I hope all my little veggies survive!

I need to get on this front flower bed. The big rose bush on the left is a Barbara Bush Hybrid Tea Rose, and when she blooms, she is gorgeous! Her flowers are Barbie pink, hence, Barbie Bush!

First things first, I am digging up all this monkey grass and getting rid of it! Monkey grass is a great ground cover, but it will run wild if left untamed! My books suggest that I divide the plants regularly and plant them somewhere else, but then I'd have monkey grass instead of real grass.

A week or so ago, I planted another forsythia bush in front of the window, but it is very small and does not really show in the picture. The weeds have been removed!

Take my extra grass, please!

Oh well, more for the compost pile.

Brrrrrr

Its FREEZING in Atlanta!

The weather tells me it is going to be cold all weekend. I thought we were over the threat of frost, but it is going to get down around 30!!!

I was running around outside covering all my plants with plastic bags to try and save them!


YIKES!

Gypsy Rose: the before and after

This is the front flower bed before and after I planted the roses and candy tuft. My goal is to get it all mulched this weekend! I don't know how to make the pictures all straight, so forgive me! I'm off to bed now because my head has been hurting from the stupid yellow snowlike dusting of pollen that has settled itself all over Atlanta.

Bein' Neighborly

Satruday we spent the day on our boat. It was a blast! It was the first day of the season out on the lake. Carophi and I drank our fair share of sangria, and we ate quite a bit of fruit. So much so that I had to lie on the ground wallowing in misery after Uncle Fos and Caro made us the best darn cuban burgers in the world! (Next time, we'll have bricks!!)

On Suday, Caro and I got up and started sweating out the hangover. She and I spent the day clearing out her kitchen garden area. We installed that cute little fence so Mrs. P will stay out of her veggies. I took a lot less time than we thought! It takes a village, you know! Yes, thoes are the yard bags full of crap we cleared out!

During the heat of the day (yeah, yeah, I know its only March, but it get damn hot down here!) we ran our errands to our favorite stores: Pikes Nursery and Home Depot! I bought a forsythia to plan next to my Barbie Bush, a black berry to accopany my smoothie garden, and a bunch of seeds. I also got stung by a wasp!! He just did NOT like me taking his forsythia! AND he followed me to home depot. I like the Windward location much better than the Holcomb Bridge location.

On Monday, I got my kitchen garden tilled, put in a brick retaining wall, and helped our friend Nathan clear out and trim up the big ole mess of a cherokee rose bush in the back yard. I'll post more pictures tomorrow!

Gypsy Rose: part II

On Friday, I worked into the wee hours of the evening to complete my front rosebed. It looks pretty good, if I do say so myself!

We (Hubby) tilled the soil, and then I added more treated soil. Hubby dug 3 holes, and I planted the roses. I put in a Mojave, Gypse and Blue Girl (Hey Little Lily) hybrid tea roses. I also added in a little candytuft which should grow to cover more ground.

I dont have any of my after pictures here, but I will post more as the roses grow!

Compost Schompost: Part 1

Yeay! Just got word that someone is giving me a compost bin/turner. I'm so excited!

We have been trying to start a compost pile for a while, but those rascally dogs keep eating all the gross fruit. They bring back lemon rinds! (Though I am told to keep those to a minimum to avoid too much acid in the compost)

Now I need to figure out what to do with the dead bird an mole my cats got. Eeeewww! Though, the kitties are protecting all our plants from those pests, so I'm not too upset about it.

Gypsy Rose: Part I

I left school yesterday and headed to Lowe's. Not my favorite place, but I knew they had mushroom compost and black kow compost. Nobody there knows JackSHIT about anything! They drive me up the wall. Well, I don't know anything about anything either, but at least I don't try to work in a GARDEN CENTER!!! Oh, and I also wanted to price the green wheelbarrows, and I picked up a pitch fork. (Very Then I got on GA400 to drive ONE exit to get to Pike's, but it took me 20 minutes. I really am glad I don't have to commute to work daily! At Pike's I picked up some sunflower seeds and a raspberry bush (but I'll get to them later).

I headed home, borrowed the World's Greatest Shovel from Carophi and Uncle Fos, plus their wheelbarrow since I didn't get one at Lowe's. I wandered around the yard for a while assessing my damage and trying to figure out where to begin. So I headed to the in-laws to borrow tools. My pop-in-law has every tool known to man. Literally. Some of them come in duplicates. He has a wrench the size of a baseball bat! Why, because he CAN. :)

I headed back home and decided to NOT turn on the gas tiller without the hubby home. I tend to injure myself, and I'd like to keep all my body parts in tact, thankyouverymuch! Instead, I formulated a list, and focused on the rose beds I am planting. Yay! I really love roses. They do well in our yard, and I love keeping them in the house. The more you prune, the more roses you get. That's a shot of the front - before style.

I dug out the beds, added soil, added compost and watered. I already have three rose bushes to plant, but I don't know if all three will fit in the space. I have a few thing to work around: the spigot, a pipe to the spigot and our termite control thingys. We also have got to fix our gutter or my roses will drown!

Project List

My basic "must-do" project list:

(That's Pete over there ready to help!)

Gypsy Rose

Barbie Bush Garden

Monkey Grass Attack

Backyard Berries

'Maters and Peppers

Herb's Herbs

Ramble On Rose

Sunflower Power

Feng Shui the Clutter

Compost schompost

Driveway expansion

Ghetto Gutter

Oh geez. What did I get myself into?

The wonders of media centers

When starting any new project or hobby, don't forget to check out the local library. I went to our school media center. It is amazing what you can learn just from reading a few helpful books! (Okay, that's the teacher in me)

Like Hubby says: If you can read, you can do it!

I have been enjoying "The First-time Gardener" by Pattie Barron

Oh, and all the people at Home Depot, Lowe's and Pikes are wonderful, and love to talk about plants!

The Neophyte Post

Okay, I am new to this gardening thing, so I thought - hey, now I have something to blog about! I was starting to feel really behind the times without my own blog! I could blog about my job, but someone may read it, and I'd like to stay employed.

My neighbor, the French Tart that she is, inspired me to start growing my own herbs, and now my gardening interest has spiraled out of control. My hubby may even say its borderline OCD! Well, I need something to get OCD about, don't I? He is not complaining, though, because now I am taking an interest in the yard. He's a golfer. Grass - enough said. He even cut down trees in our yard so we could grow better grass.

I am very lucky because my little green house already has some beautiful flowers and shrubs in it. The woman who owned the house before us had the whole green hand. It has been years since the house was purchased, so there is quite a bit of maintinance and renewal work to start on.

My projects:
1. Make new beds for flowers and foods
- I have potted my herbs, berries, peppers and 'maters, but they will eventually need to be moved to a bed.

2. Plant new rose bushes in new front bed (that needs to be worked on)

3. Start composting! This is one of my favorite things about the garden. RECYCLE that goodness back to earth (Yes, FT's Boy calls us his hippies, but we are far from perfect examples - we eat meat!) I have A LOT to learn about compost!

4. Plant sunflowers

5. Plant hydrangeas that are being rooted by my mom-in-law from her bushes

more to come....

I'll post some pictures tomorrow!