The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Growing Mammoth Sunflowers reminds me of the phrase, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Allow me to introduce the good.  Look up to the top of the picture... waaaaaaay up there... do you see it?  Yep, that is a mammoth sunflower standing majestically tall!  Nice!  Right???

Allow me to introduce the bad and the ugly (apologies for the cell phone pic).

Do you see the brown heads drooping in the middle of the mammoth sunflowers and all along the dwarf sunflowers at the bottom?

After three months of coddling my sunflower babies, I went out of town for a week (while Dear Husband was at home) and I then arrived home to large, brown, droopy sunflower heads.

I was furious.  Deflated.  Frustrated.

I was sure that the droopy heads were due to lack of water... because maybe someone (my husband) didn't water them while I was away.  Perhaps!  Maybe???

However, I found this little tid bit about droopy sunflowers and it made me feel better (and got my husband out of trouble).

From a forum:

"If you are referring to the head drooping, that is normal, they are starting to make seed, you will see the inside of the head, sort of shedding small petals the head droops, the coating in the the inside fall off and the seed start to form. You need to feed it through out its life, until you harvest the heads. Simple blossom booster will work well. Miracle grow makes this but there are many brands. Once all the petals fall off and the lower leaves start to brown it is time to harvest your heads. Cut them off with enough stalk to be able to hang them to dry. Once dry the will easily fall from the blossom, and you can soak in salt and bake or harvest for your birds.
If you leave them on the stalk to dry with out cutting, you may loose your seeds to the wildlife.

If your leafs are what is drooping, this is caused by too much water, towards the end of the season the plant requires less water, the roots are actually slowing down. Pull back on the water and allow it to dry well in between.

I have these beautiful flowers all through out my garden. I am growing some to eat but most for the birds. Mine also have reached 12 feet and plus! are they just too awesome!"

The moral of the story is: when you see the heads turn brown and start drooping, do not put your husband in the dog house. This is not his fault.  This is nature's way of providing home grown sunflower seeds for the birds to feast on this winter.  mkay???

So, what was once lost is now found again... and I am now thrilled (proud actually) with my bold and brown drooping sunflower heads.  Aren't you?

Did you know that the sunflower heads would turn brown and sag?

Why didn't anyone tell me this?

Carrots

This is the summer of the carrots, of course.

I might have mentioned a certain little boy...

who happily announces every night that The Carrot Seed is his favorite book.

Have I mentioned this little boy before?

Well, he finally pulled up a carrot.  I wish that I had taken video, but the pictures might be even better.

You see, here is the correct way to pull up a carrot... if, you are a preschooler.

Check your carrots to see if they have grown. 

When you notice some growth, try to be patient and leave the carrot to grow some more.

If that doesn't work, pull the carrot with all of your might.

Give it every bit of muscle that you have.

Announce, "That's a BIG carrot, as you fall back into the grass!"

Examine your carrot with all of the seriousness of a great scientist.

Yes, growing carrots is very serious business in my house.

He immediately ran into the house and washed his carrot himself.

Later, Mommy was reprimanded for cutting the carrot into sticks.  Apparently, someone wanted to eat it whole. Oh -- now I know.

This post is part of the KinderGARDENS series.

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What do you see?

Someone sent me a message on facebook, it said, "Napmom? Where are you?"

I'm here! I promise. I. am. here.

Lookie Lookie!

So, my mom kinda got me to dip my toe in the water of the crazy couponing world. Seriously, not to offend any crazy couponers out there, but the women on those tv shows are not people I would be friends with. I see them as pushy and abrasive... and even sometimes rude and snooty. Disclaimer: This is only my opinion and I haven't watched that many shows, to be honest. I am sure that some of them are sweet, demure, and... ahem... humble.

Nonetheless, I am following a couple of coupon blogs and I made my first run to Target (coupons in hand) and came out with some FREE or almost free back-to-school stuff.  My loot?  10 papermate pens for 2 cents, 3 free rolls of scotch tape, and a free sharpie.  Plus, I saved half off of some facial products that I needed and earned a $5 Target gift card towards my next purchase.  Admittedly, it was time consuming to chase down the coupons and I had to work with the cashier because everything didn't ring up correctly at the register, but in the end, it was a great trip.

Also, I found this 20 Page Photo Flipbook for $5.00 Shipped deal.  I get great information spam mail about similar deals all of the time.  So, this is not a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  However, I have been thinking about doing a book for one of the kids and since (1) I had all of the pictures I needed and (2) the price is right (only $5 including shipping -- wowser!), I ordered a flip book. 

Where have I been?  I could have been blogging, but I created a flip book instead.

Brody is so so so super excited about his book, The Carrot Seed and gardening in general.  He is the proudest gardener you could ever meet.

So, I made a gardening book based on the book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?"  Most of you are familiar with the book.  Here is my version.

Note:  All of the pages have the same border, text size, and text font.  I included the cover as an example.

Brody, Brody, what do you see?

I see a shovel looking at me.

Shovel , shovel what do you see?

I see a wheelbarrow looking at me.

Wheelbarrow, wheelbarrow, what do you see?

I see dirt looking at me.

Dirt, dirt, what do you see?

I see a tiny seed looking at me.

Tiny seed, tiny seed, what do you see?

I see the sun looking at me.

Sun, sun, what do you see?

I see a sister looking at me.

Sister, sister, what do you see?

I see a sprinkler looking at me.

Sprinkler, sprinkler, what do you see?

I see bug poison a watering can looking at me.

Watering can, watering can, what do you see?

{okay, I left out the part about the bug poison mixture}

I see weeds looking at me.

Weed, weed, what do you see?

I see a little tomato looking at me.

Little tomato, little tomato, what do you see?

I see a big tomato looking at me.

Big tomato, big tomato, what do you see?

I see a green pepper looking at me.

Green pepper, green pepper, what do you see?

I see cabbage looking at me.

Cabbage, cabbage, what do you see?



I see a carrot looking at me.

Carrot, carrot, what do you see?

I see a sunflower looking at me.

Sunflower, sunflower, what do you see?

I see a great vegetable gardener looking at me.

The end.

I can't wait to get the book. 

It's small -- only 4 x 6. 

But, I'll take it for only five bucks.  Right?

Gather up 20 pictures and

head on over and make your own little book.

Won't ya?

This post is part of the KinderGARDENS series.

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The Fruits of Our Labor

Cabbages

I had to give in and use a pesticide on my cabbages.  The flour/water mixture just wasn't cutting it.  I am told that the pesticide that I used is environmental friendly and edible.  I'm not sure that either is true, but it smelled horrible.  It is working, however.  Nice!


Eating from the Garden

We are so impatient at my house.  We have been itching to eat from our garden.  So far, the garden has produced 2 ripe grape tomatoes, a small head of lettuce, and lots of fresh mint.

We ate the tomatoes right off of the vine. 

We used the tad bit of lettuce to add to our steak wraps.

And, I am saving the best for last... drum roll please...

we made mint-infused simple syrup with the mint leaves.  Yes.

I know this isn't the greatest picture, but trust me, it was delicious!

What would one do with mint-infused simple syrup you ask?  Drink it straight out of the pot.  Make mojitos, of course.  You can also add it to iced tea (to make mint tea) or lemonade.

The recipe is simple -- that's why they call it simple syrup.  Put equal parts sugar and water into a pot.  Bring it to a boil and melt the sugar.  Add flavors (herbs/fruits) and remove from heat.  Allow to cool.  Strain herb/fruit bits from the mixture.  Enjoy!

I know, these are small victories, but they are victories nonetheless.  Right?

Conversations

Picture this.

My husband and I were laying in bed.  Lights were out.  Bro was sleeping soundly inbetween us.  It was very late at night.  The sheets felt so comfortable after my long (albeit very normal) day.  My mind was wandering... as it usually does... and then we had this conversation:

Me:  {spoken in a loud whisper} Honey - how are we going to stake those sunflowers?

Him:  What do you mean 'how are we going to stake the sunflowers'?

Me:  Well, I mean,so they don't fall over because they are getting so tall.

Pause.

Pause.

Pause.

Him:  You mean to tell me that we are growing plants that can't even hold their own heads up?

Pause.

Him:  I don't know YOU are going to stake them... 20 feet stakes.

And then I giggled... and fell asleep.


So, today I am googling "how to keep a mammoth sunflower from toppling over" and hoping that he is in a better mood when I tell him my the plan.

Any suggestions?

Again, clearly, I have no idea what I am doing.

And off we grow!

Today we will talk about (1) mammoth sunflower growth and (2) cabbage worms.

Let's start with the fun stuff.

Here are the sunflowers on June 6.  {{Remember?}}

Here are the sunflowers on June 16. 

In case you are wondering, the sunflower was...

a whopping 43 inches tall, as of June 16. 

We have been measuring them and they are growing about an inch per day.  Goodness!

psssst... are you wondering why we have siding missing from the side of the house? My Dear husband is replacing some of it.  Yes, he really can do everything!

Moving on.

We are also battling cabbage worms.

Something is eating our cabbage.  I am 100% sure that it is cabbage worms... because I finally saw them with my own eyes.

After doing a bit of research and speaking to a local Master Gardener, I decided to use the following plan to rid my garden of cabbage worms.

Step 1.  Spray off any worms and eggs with powerful spray from a garden hose.
Step 2.  Create a solution of flour and water.

Step 3.  Sprinkle flour and water on the plants.

Step 4.  Repeat.  Daily.  Without fail.

Supposedly, the worms eat the flour and it causes them to expand and die.  I sure hope so. 

How do you get rid of cabbage worms?



This post is part of the KinderGARDENS series.

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HUGE

 We are still gardening.

Everyday as soon as we arrive home from daycare, my big boy runs around to check his garden.

First stop?  The sunflowers.

Today he said I could take his picture with the flowers.  This picture just makes me laugh.  Look at this feet... sitting so very carefully in the middle of the garden so that he doesn't smash any surrounding flowers.

These are the mammoth sunflowers that could grow 18-20 feet.

Next, he runs over to the vegetable garden and announces, "Mom - these are so HUGE!"

Why do my cabbages have holes in them?

This is such a learning process.

This post is part of the KinderGARDENS series.

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Water and Weeds

There isn't too much exciting stuff in the world of gardening.

Since we are no longer watering the grass in the front of the house, Bro and Daddy set up the sprinkler to water the soon-to-be mammoth (not an exaggeration) sunflowers along the side of the house.

Bro keeps checking the vegetable garden.  A few of the tomatoes are popping out.  He gets so excited to see them!

The rest of the garden is starting to pop up, finally.  The only problem is that I didn't mark the location of what we are growing and I can't tell the weeds from the vegetables.  I finally identified the carrots.  I see a lettuce popping up.  There should be Basil, Lavender, and Brussell Sprouts in there somewhere too.  Also, I think I see a few tomato plants from seeds that maybe were left behind last year????

Clearly, I have no idea what is going on here.

This post is part of the KinderGARDENS series.

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Planting Sunflowers on Mother's Day

We continue to garden.

Every day when we come home from school, Bro jumps out of the car and asks, "Mom, can I go see my beautiful garden?"

Of course we take a moment to check it out.

Um... it still looks like this.

How do we water all of our stuff?  Right now we have hoses stretching across our yard that are hooked up to an automatic timer on the spicket.  However, we need to think of a better way to water this stuff.  I'll get to that in a moment.

For Mother's Day, Dear Husband and Bro prepped some land next to the house for my sunflowers.

I checked the stash of seeds I bought and found Mammoth sunflowers and Giant sunflowers.  I didn't read the package carefully.  Let's just say... Mammoth sunflowers could reach almost to the window.  Gulp!

Is this tiny little seed really going to be a mammoth sunflower?

Even Bri joined in on the fun.

Bro planted the seeds and gently covered them with soil.  Good boy!

Many gardeners have pointed out that it can sometimes be a challenge to get the teens to participate in the process.  As you can see, my teen is no different.  She cheered us on from the sidelines though.

It was a fabulous Mother's Day.  I never thought I would enjoy a day like this so much.

Now for the watering issue.

This is our current set up.  One main hose comes from the spicket in the back.  There is a splitter and it connects to two hoses.  One hose waters the grass we are growing in the front and one hose leads to the veggie garden. 

These hoses are run by an automated timer that turns them on and off.

However, now I need to also water the sunflowers on the side of the house as well as my new hydrangea bush along the back fence (a gift from my mom).

My question is this. 

How do you manage watering your plants and flowers? 

Right now I am manually (the old fashioned way -- standing there and holding the hose) watering the sunflowers and hydrangea bush.  However, this is not a long term solution for us... I don't think. Wait... hahaha.... my teen will be home for the summer soon.  Maybe I should put "water the plants" on her to-do list.  Perhaps my problem is solved.  Just kidding!

This post is part of the KinderGARDENS series.

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