Friday, January 21, 2011

So what has happened…that’s right I did exactly what I said I would do, not have enough time for the blog. Well, now I am on StayCation so I have time to put a few things in here.

2010 Spring Garden

I can’t wait for Spring. Last year (2010) I had a wonderful time starting a vegetable garden, and flower garden in May. I learned a few things about a few plants, and got really tired of cucumbers.

One big thing I learned, cucumber plants look a lot like zucchini plants when they are small. Another thing I learned, tomatoes are picky about turning red. Also, when starting school, all hobbies and fun seems to disappear.

I went to a local Farm, I wanted to buy local and see what they had to offer, as well as the plants were less expensive. When I found them online, I e-mailed to reserve the plants I wanted—1 eggplant, 1 cucumber, 1 zucchini, 1 yellow squash, and 1 tomato plant. When I got to the farm to pick up, all the plants were tagged, they had different prices, and they had additional plants. So I picked up a sugar snap pea plant as well, and a free-range chicken. I started seeds for herbs including thyme, rosemary, cilantro, parsley, basil.


Seedlings for herbs: rosemary, basil, thyme, cilantro, parsley
Tomato, Eggplant, Zucchinin (so I thought), Yellow Squash (so I thought), Cucumber
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June 2010
They grew up and I put them in larger pots! A day or two after I planted them in the big pots, my dog, Stacey, decided she did not like one of the plants and tore it out of the pot and tossed it. It happened to be the cucumber plant. Silly dog! I then purchased another cucumber plant to replace it.

I read throughout the internet about natural pesticides and ideas to keep pests away. I used crushed eggshells to ward of the snails and slugs, and foil around the edge of the pot to ward off birds. The birds still came around and loved my tomatoes. Also, I planted garlic in the pots with the tomatoes, the cucumbers and the eggplants—this is supposed to ward off bugs.
All in large pots, from left to right: yellow squash, zucchini, cucumber, sugar snap peas, eggplant, tomato
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July 2010
Finally Some Color!!! But this was the surprise…I came back from Vacation to find I had 3 cucumber plants instead of one, that’s right, the zucchini and yellow squash I was expecting were actually cucumber plants. So with 3 cucumber plants, and a tomato plant starting to give me some food, it was a battle. The cucumbers wouldn’t stop growing, we had cucumber salad, cucumber dip, I made pickles, stuffed cucumbers, and more and more cucumbers.

The tomatoes took forever to turn red. I read up on that, and apparently they are picky little buggers. Tomatoes have to have the right temperature, no warmer than 86 degrees and there cannot be too much wind. The chemicals that make the tomato red can’t handle the heat, and they do not want to be blown away. As you can guess, the temperature was really high in June and the wind came here and there.

Look how much they’ve grown—oh, and here’s the flowers.
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July 2010
The plants were crazy in July. This was an awesome cucumber growing, it made it’s own little hammock in the vine. By then the heat was almost unbearable, the flowers were growing like crazy, I was fighting the birds for tomatoes, we couldn’t figure out what other recipes or who to give the cucumbers to, we had our 2nd eggplant still growing, the sugar snap peas gave up, we had so much basil, it was great.

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January 2011
Well, it’s January, and everything is dead and frozen. When is going to warm up? I am ready this year. I want to grow some potatoes, ONE cucumber plant, tomatoes again, maybe some peppers, flowers, some more herbs and something more, just not sure what yet.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

It's Only Just Begun...

It’s was hard to come up with something to post for my first blog entry. I figured talking about the blog itself as a commitment to myself as well as share ideas on what will be here is a good start. I’ve read a lot of blog entries, but never read the beginning.

Why did I start a blog? Well I’ve always wanted to keep a diary, but I can type faster than I can write, so this was a much better idea.

Why did it take me so long to start? The same reason I am going to have a problem keeping it up…writing things I want to express and time.

Why did I choose La-la-la as the name? Well, growing up, it was hard for some kids to say my name, so for short they called me lala, even to this day, my nieces and nephews call me that until they’re able to say my name.

What will I blog about? Well, anything going on in my life, past, present and future. I don’t want this to be just any blog, but something I can look back at and remember where I was and what I was doing at the time I wrote it. I plan to share this with family and friends both far and near and especially use it for the future, whatever that may be, just a way to look back.

Blog entries: Ideas, thoughts, good food, good conversations, good beer and wine, great events, whatever I can think of.

Oh, and this will include pictures here and there.

What gave me the idea? My friend Cristin, has a couple of blogs (probably more than that), I don’t know how she ever keeps up with them, but it’s always fun to read. She seems to put just about anything in her blogs. The best blog she has is about her pregnancy, birth, and motherhood…great idea!

I have a lot to share. So here we go…