Our Winter Garden - Part 2

....Continuing the saga of our winter garden. You will recall here that we had some critters that enjoyed our previous winter garden. The animal control man suggested that we put down wire and replant. The wire prevents our little animal friends from digging up our tender seedlings. And it worked!

Scott preparing the wire

The garden plot after the seeds were planted

The seedlings growing through the chicken wire

Peas

Cilantro

Carrots

Picked lettuce ready to prepare for tonight's dinner

Below is a picture of our garden today. With the chicken wire down, it makes it so the raccoons are not able to dig up the plants. It also makes it hard to weed the garden. If you click on the picture, you'll notice that weeds are growing along the wooden fence, not lettuce.

Please pass the salad.

Someone's been eating my.......

You all remember the story of Goldie Locks and the Three Bears.... Someone had been intruding on the poor bear family and ate their porridge, sat in their chairs, and slept in their beds.

I can relate to the bear family because someone has been eating my winter garden of peas, carrots, and lettuce. The tender sprouts were growing so nicely. It was a little unnerving to get up each morning and see my tender plants plucked and dug right out of the ground. Ugh!

I called our city's animal control and they said if I caught the critter, they would release him into the hills. My neighbor came to the rescue with the trap and advice. The little critter was caught red handed and is now roaming the hills above the beautiful city of Duarte. We'll see if he has a mate, and if he does, hopefully we'll be able to reunite them soon.


You can read part II of this saga by clicking here

Weed Killer

I saw this in the paper from Mary Hunt's column entitled: Ordinary Ingredients Can Produce Magic Results .
debtproofliving.com

Here's a recipe for weed-killer that has the power of Roundup for a fraction of the price. Mix 2 cups of ordinary table salt into 1 gallon of white vinegar that has 5 percent acidity. Add 8 drops of liquid dish washing soap.

Label it, and keep it out of the reach of children. This is not toxic, but it will kill any and all vegetation, even the good stuff, so be careful where you spray it.

Another caution: Spraying this multiple times in the same area will sterilize the soil so that nothing will grow there for a long time. It is ideal for killing weeds that grow between cracks in your sidewalk and other areas where you don't want vegetation.

I think I'll whip me up a batch and spray the brick path in my front yard!

Table Center Piece

We had a work party at our house this this past week. I used these flower blooms from our yard as table center pieces. I was happy with the way they turned out and you can't beat the price....free! (You could also use canning jars with raffia bows to put the flowers in.)

Does any one know the name of the flowers? They are always in bloom around the 4th of July and make great center pieces this time of year.

Julie Cole let me know that this type of flower is called, agapantha. She said, "They come in purple and white....once you grow them, the 'bulbs' multiply. They are easy to separate and then you have more. Very easy to grow." Thanks, Julie for the information!

Winter gardens are one of the blessing of living in So. California.

Winter gardens are the best!

There's nothing like a fresh lettuce salad for dinner.

For the lettuce, you just pick the outer leaves and they grow all season long until the plants start to go to seed. If you have home grown lettuce a salad spinner is a must. You can pick a spinner up at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Target or Walmart might also carry salad spinners.

In the front row are carrots, then lettuce and then peas. (The peas are growing up a wooden frame with fishing line going from the top to bottom for the peas to climb up.) I also wanted to plant broccoli, onions, and cilantro but I just didn't get around to planting them this year. ...maybe they will make it into my spring garden.

Mary, Mary quite contrary. How does your garden grow?

This was our Second Street neighborhood watch block party....




This is some of our garden harvest that I used for the table decorations for our get-together. The pictures were taken by my neighbor, Rebecca, from her garden. The pictures were printed up at Costco photo department and mounted on foam board. It make for a nice way to decorate for a party.