scrubjayspeaks: macro photograph of ladybug climbing a blade of grass (garden)
Welcome to the April edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!

Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.

As for myself...

Read more... )
scrubjayspeaks: macro photograph of ladybug climbing a blade of grass (garden)
Welcome to the March edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!

Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.

As for myself...

Read more... )
scrubjayspeaks: macro photograph of ladybug climbing a blade of grass (garden)
Welcome to the February edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!

Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.

As for myself...

Read more... )
scrubjayspeaks: hand holding pen over notebook (done this week)
I went a whole week without being murdered by my stomach! And there was much rejoicing! And eating of more than four food types!

Is my birthday today! I have done nothing in particular, and I have enjoyed it immensely. I have new pillows, pillow cases and sheets. I also have cookie scoops. Because life should basically consist of baking, eating, and hibernating, especially in January.

My birthday outing this year was a trip to haul logs about! :D After hearing from one of my fellow club members that they had a couple of downed oak trees that had been chopped up and were going free to a good energetic home, we organized a trip over yesterday to pick some up. We stopped at the little Old Town area near there on the way back for lunch and treats and a search through antique stores for frames for my prints (unsuccessfully).

I now have eight lengths of good, solid oak wood suitable for use as natural seating in the wildflower garden and the orchard. I just have to decide exactly where and in what configuration I wish to place them.

Lewisia: 8 new secret somethings written

Gratitude journaling: 35 new entries

Tumblr queue: 28 posts added

Day job: 31.5 hours, and for ~some reason~ I feel more like a real person than I do on a 50 hour week, hmmmm...

Gardening: logs!

Lewisia Expansion: 3100 words, and I no longer have the slightest idea what my structure looks like or what scenes go where, but I made myself tear up with a few bits, so good for me

Ongoing request: I'm hosting two categories for the Rose and Bay Awards this year: Webcomic and Patron. Nomination posts are now live for the other categories as well. Come by and nominate your favorite crowdfunded projects of the past year. One more day for nominations!
scrubjayspeaks: macro photograph of ladybug climbing a blade of grass (garden)
Welcome to the January edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!

Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.

As for myself...

Read more... )
scrubjayspeaks: macro photograph of ladybug climbing a blade of grass (garden)
Welcome to the December edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!

Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.

As for myself...

Read more... )
scrubjayspeaks: macro photograph of ladybug climbing a blade of grass (garden)
My bulbs arrived! EEEEE!

I secretly believed they would never arrive. There had been a problem with the order originally. And then I didn't know when they planned to actually ship them, since they decide based on the zone you live in when will be an appropriate time to send you bulbs. Then I got a shipment notification saying they would arrive tomorrow, and then the tracking never updated to say it had moved beyond New Jersey.

So I have been convinced since sometime in September that I would never actually see a single bulb. I am delighted to be extremely wrong. I came home to a big, honkin' box-o-bulbs. They all looked good when I checked them. Now I just need to get another eight bags of topsoil to finish up the garden, and I'll be able to actually plant them.

BULBS!
scrubjayspeaks: macro photograph of ladybug climbing a blade of grass (garden)
Welcome to the November edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!

Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.

As for myself...

Read more... )
scrubjayspeaks: Bo from Spirited Away in mouse form, attempting to knit (crafting)
Yo ho! Time to swab the decks and all that! It's NaClYoHo month! I've been looking forward to this for months--like a nerd.

I've got a couple definite plans for this month and then some loose ideas. Unfortunately, there's less to do in the house (how dare I do a good job last year?), which was very convenient to do for 5-10 minutes in the evening on work nights. I'll just have to figure it out as I go.

1) Repot (almost) all the succulents: Many of the plants in my collection haven't been repotted in several years. While they don't necessarily need larger/new pots, they desperately need fresh soil to give them nutrients and remove salt buildup. I want to systematically remove dead plants/empty pots, dump out used soil and mix it with fresh and compost, and repot the plants. There will be a bit of consolidating and dividing, as needed, and some things might get transferred to the in-ground planter, which is turning into a properly landscaped area.

2) Clean off the piano and surrounding area: This is my default unread mail, discarded receipts, in-progress books, and miscellaneous stuff drop zone. I need to remove stuff that isn't immediately needed and either file it away or discard it.

3) Clear a path to the server: This is a large, slate-topped piece of furniture that's been in storage since we came up here. Mum has wanted to move it into the house--there's a...semi-suitable spot picked out for it. At the moment, though, it's completely boxed in by, well, boxes. I can't winnow a lot of those boxes, as it's not my stuff, but I could reorganize and shift stuff to create a path at least. This is a project of least concern for me this month.

I don't know if I'll post every day about it, but I'll be giving periodic updates on my progress.

Today, I pulled out the aloe nursery pot, the haworthia nursery pot, and the oak leaf kalanchoe pot from the west cold frame. I also took a large aloe that was pupping out the bottom of the pot and a large agave that was pupping and outgrowing its space, and I planted them on either side of the tentacle hedge in the in-ground planter.

The aloe nursery was much too deep for the miniature aloe in there, while the haworthia nursery was just overcrowded and messy. They've all been separated out into individual pots. Some that have clumped extensively got divided and the extras were added to the in-ground planter as filler.

The kalanchoe needed deadwood removed and long branches broken off and placed to let them reroot. It's now in a bigger pot, as it had been spilling over the sides of the old one.

I now have a wheelbarrow full of extra spent soil, since two of the planters I worked on were much larger than they needed to be for the plants in them. I'm thinking of using that soil to add bulk to the flower garden. I need something to mix with all that compost I got, which will be rich enough to make up for the filler soil being a bit rubbish.
scrubjayspeaks: macro photograph of ladybug climbing a blade of grass (garden)
Welcome to the October edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!

Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.

As for myself...

Read more... )
scrubjayspeaks: macro photograph of ladybug climbing a blade of grass (garden)
I've got a mound of diiiirt, I've got a mound of diiiirt~

There's a plant around here that processes all the county's green waste, turning it into gas for energy and charred, carbon-sequestering compost. Twice a year, they do a giveaway to anyone who can show up with either a truck bed or trailer to be dumped in or buckets to fill themselves. We've never been before, but it was supposed to be a big deal.

It's apparently a very big deal, if the line of cars there before the event even started was any indication.

So I now have a heaping truck bed-worth of the most beautiful compost I've ever seen. I will now have no difficulty filling in the flower garden like I want to in advance of bulb planting (provided I actually get some kind of edging stone to give it a border in which to fill). Among other uses, because holy shit, that's a lot of dirt.

Shoveling it out of the truck was perhaps not the best form of not-actually-post-infection convalescence, but oh well. Priorities. Dirt.
scrubjayspeaks: macro photograph of ladybug climbing a blade of grass (garden)
Welcome to the September edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!

Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.

As for myself...

Read more... )
scrubjayspeaks: macro photograph of ladybug climbing a blade of grass (garden)
The agricultural annex of the local college and the teaching garden associated with it had their first seminar since last year's lockdown. The topic was fruit trees, and mum and I were eager to attend. Our fruit trees have had an assortment of issues this year, from eternally unripening fruit to insect infestations to discolored leaves.

This, as it turns out, is by no means limited to us. The very first words out of the speakers was, so, who here has had a terrible year for fruit? Which was very cheering, because it's always nice to find out your problems are not solely the product of your own incompetence. In fact, our problems are mostly due to drought, either as a primary cause or due to knock-on effects from the trees getting water-stressed. That, and an iron deficiency in one, but I suppose I can't blame climate change for everything.

A lot of the problems are in the category of "try not to let that happen next year." The fruit that didn't set, or didn't ripen, or grew in deformed isn't going to get any less fucked up this year. But if we get another miserably dry winter (please no, pleasepleaseplease no), we'll have some idea of what to do and when to get better fruit set next year.

Also, they had a plant sale. Because of course they did, and of course I bought a bunch of plants. Only one for me--a Russian sage, which isn't really sage but will apparently grow on the surface of the sun if need be--but I bought a bunch for mum. She's been on the hunt for manzanitas for years, but mostly never allows herself to have any even when we find them. And her new fixation is ceanothus (California lilac). Both are native here, thus drought-tolerant, and make attractive living walls. Admittedly, these are all currently small enough to be living walls for the six-inch-and-under population, but, well. Had to start somewhere, and it was a hell of a lot easier than driving down to Riverside or whatever to get to the native nursery I found that sells them in 45-gallon pots.

Plants! \o/
scrubjayspeaks: macro photograph of ladybug climbing a blade of grass (garden)
Welcome to the August edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!

Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.

As for myself...

Read more... )
scrubjayspeaks: macro photograph of ladybug climbing a blade of grass (garden)
Welcome to the July edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!

Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.

As for myself...

Read more... )
scrubjayspeaks: macro photograph of ladybug climbing a blade of grass (garden)
Welcome to the June edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!

Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.

As for myself...
Read more... )
scrubjayspeaks: macro photograph of ladybug climbing a blade of grass (garden)
Welcome to the May edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!

Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.

As for myself...
Read more... )
scrubjayspeaks: hand holding pen over notebook (done this week)
Would you like to know the worst part of it? Having just finished planting the bulk of what I'll have going this year (don't think about the gourds, don't think about the gourds, dontthinkaboutthefuckinggourds), I'm looking at a nursery catalog and have a list of plants I want to add. My back has absolutely learned its lesson, but the information has not managed to move upwards to my brain. What a terrible hobby that I love unreasonably and would not give up for anything.

Lewisia: 3 new pieces written, May bonus revised

Gratitude journaling: 35 new entries

Tumblr queue: 35 posts added

Day job: 31.5 hours

Cooking: lemonade syrup, aioli which was immediately converted into garlic bread

Crafting: patched a ripped seam on my daily backpack

Gardening: succulent club zoom meeting, weeding, set up and planted the four points tires, collected and planted pelargonium seeds, repotting, pruned geraniums and planted cuttings, planted seeds in circle garden, reseeded bare patches in wildflower field *goflopnow*

Reading: finished Sam Starbuck's Six Harvests in Lea, Texas, which I adored and cannot recommend highly enough
scrubjayspeaks: macro photograph of ladybug climbing a blade of grass (garden)
Welcome to the April edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!

Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.

As for myself...
Read more... )
scrubjayspeaks: macro photograph of ladybug climbing a blade of grass (garden)
Welcome to the March edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!

Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.

As for myself...

Read more... )

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