October 5, 2012 by Born To Organize

Freaky Friday: The Garden’s Dark Underbelly

It’s not all Sweet Alyssum and roses. Every garden has a dark side. I’m sure it’s no accident that the spooky celebrations of Halloween coincide with the decay of fall.

Use your imagination and come with me as we travel the more sinister side of the garden.

“Bat Wings”…or decaying leaf?

Spider in the gravel…look closely.

Rats Gone Bad

Hallowed orange or hollow orange? You decide.

Tree Rat or Field Mouse? Helping himself to an orange.

Not What They Seem

The Choking Vine? Snaking and staking the trellis.

Urban Decay

Shrunken Head?

I’m a Stink bug. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Cavernous Lair

Something Wicked This Way Comes: Black Widow Haven

Halloween Countdown

It’s The Great Pumpkin, Lindy-Lu!

September 30, 2012 by Born To Organize

September Treats: A Little of This and That

Tiny purple blooms dot the Polka Dot plant

My garden’s been busy over the weekend. In just 24 hours, the Pink Polka Dot plant produced several flowers. I didn’t know the plant would actually bloom. All plants have a flower and a fruit, but many are subtle and therefore go unnoticed. Tiny purple flowers dot the plant. They’re quite small, no bigger than a centimeter, but they look vibrant against the mostly pink and green backdrop of the spotted leaves. What a fun discovery.

Three cheers for yellow!!!

Also growing in one of the pots is a fresh, yellow daisy or daisy-like flower. It’s another surprise from the packet of wildflowers planted in early spring. Every few weeks, a new flower appears. Today’s gorgeous bloom is as bright as a sunflower, but smaller in size. Yellow flowers are the garden cheerleaders: upbeat and sunny.

In that same pot, one or two fuchsia cosmos remain, a nice backdrop for the hummingbirds darting in and out at the feeder.

Bowling-pin Gourd

I smiled when I rounded the corner of the trellis and saw a rapidly growing birdhouse gourd still thriving on the vine. Most of the early fruit was small, but this latest gourd is growing at break-neck speed. In its present form, it reminds me of a bowling pin. Several smaller gourds grew up the trellis to the side of the house and they now hang below the eaves like a string of Christmas lights. Every time I see them I get a good giggle.

Tomorrow is October 1st with a projected temperature of 94 degrees Fahrenheit (34 degrees Celsius). Crazy weather! I’m starting my Halloween countdown in earnest tomorrow, featuring something seasonal daily. Stay tuned.

I love October! How about you?

Cosmo and Hummingbird
Beauty Times Two

Who needs to hang Christmas lights?

September 29, 2012 by Born To Organize

Garden Sunshine: September Winding Down

A special thank you to all my gentle readers for your comments and advice. The birdhouse gourd vine will stay through the winter. I”ll keep you posted on how things go. Late this week I noticed one of the gourds had doubled in size. Woo-hoo! What would a gardening gal do without this community?

Speaking of community, many thanks to gardensunshine for including me in her list of Beautiful Bloggers. I appreciate your kind words I’ve been following her five-part series as she transforms her “shed” from drab to fab. Honestly, it’s more rustic house if you ask me and I’m positively envious of all that space. The shed even has a bit of history:

It is believed to be one of the oldest buildings in our county. From what we can tell it was used as a house or bunker for the men working in the clay pit making clay bricks around 1890 and earlier. It is a really neat crooked building and as we found out when we power washed it full of water, it leans heavily to the left.

Garden Sunshine’s Historic Garden Shed (before)

Pop on over to read her five-part series, and to see the beautiful transformation in words and pictures. It was lovingly restored.

Back at gardening nirvana, we’re in for an early fall heat wave, with temps floating in the low nineties. I’m glad I got the winter garden in when I did. It’s a happy garden too, if that’s possible. The worm bin is a bustling place, thriving on kitchen scraps and leaves.The composter is “cooking” away, making organic mulch for next summer’s garden. I covered the seeds with wire and mesh, to ensure tiny critters give them a chance to grow. Lindy thought it was a new litter box, so I had to put that to rest as well.

October is almost here. I’m so excited.

September 21, 2012 by Born To Organize

Bamboo at the Wild Palms Hotel

Wild Palms Hotel

I’ve escaped across town with my sister for a stay at the Wild Palms Hotel. We’re attending an annual scrap-booking retreat, a cool 48 hours dedicated to the pursuit of our craft. The Wild Palms Hotel is a small inn in the middle of the suburbs. The facade is nondescript, but the inner courtyard and pool are surrounded by towering bamboo. I’m sure there are “wild palms” somewhere around here, but it’s the bamboo that dominates.

Bamboo is an amazing plant, capable of growing at rates of 100 cm (39 in) in 24 hours. It’s considered the fastest growing plant on earth. This tall, graceful grass can be made into paper, clothing, furniture and building material. Bamboo leaves and shoots nourish the giant pandas of China and the bamboo lemurs of Madagascar.

When we remodeled our home seven years ago, we replaced the carpet with bamboo. The floors are as solid as the hardest wood, but unlike oak or maple, bamboo grows like a weed. Conversely, one of the softest dresses I own is also bamboo.

It’s dark now, but come morning I’ll be able to glance out the window at the towering bamboo. I’ll pretend a gentle panda is nibbling on the leaves, just around the corner out of view.

Bamboo Towers above the Wild Palms Hotel

Bamboo Leaves Closeup

Bamboo

September 10, 2012 by Born To Organize

SummerWinds Fire Update

An electrical fire destroyed the Almaden Valley SummerWinds Nursery about a week ago. Although firefighters were quickly on the scene, they made the unusual decision to allow the building to burn, given the number of chemical fertilizers and pesticides inside. It was better from an environmental standpoint to avoid contaminated water runoff into a nearby creek.

Fire-Damaged SummerWinds Nursery

Plans to Rebuild

I drove by the site yesterday on my way to a fabric store, and noticed workers outside. Once I got over the ghastly sight of the burned structure, it surprised me to see so many of the outdoor plants and pottery unharmed. I stopped by and spoke to Joey, an employee of SummerWinds, who said they are planning to rebuild, and soon. In preparation for that, they are selling the surviving plants and pottery starting this Friday, September 14th.

Joey C. of SummerWinds

Fire Sale

If you live in the area, and are so inclined, please stop by. You can find regular updates about the nursery, the sale and plans to rebuild by “liking” the SummerWinds San Jose Facebook Page.

Planted at the nursery entrance.I love the resiliency of plants.

Recent updates from SummerWinds website:

September 10, 2012 We’re having a FIRE SALE! – Save the Date! It will start this Friday, September 14th at 9am. Special rules will apply. We’ll get you more details in the next few days.

September 07, 2012 Big News! We will be having a Fire Sale to liquidate all the remaining healthy plants and products. The logistics and permits are all still being worked out. It should happen in the next 2 weeks. We’ll keep you posted! As soon as we hear more… we’ll share.

SummerWinds Plants and Pottery
Fire Sale Starts Friday, 9/14

September 9, 2012 by Born To Organize

Harvesting Pumpkins: Three to Get Ready

Slinky is ready for Halloween

What a joyous day! Fall is in the air and pumpkins are in my house. We harvested three orange lovelies this morning, then brought them indoors for safe keeping. Two have been ready for a while but I left them on the vine for up to the minute ripening. The third pumpkin was a surprise, in more ways than one.

We still have four extra-large pumpkins on the vine, hoping they’ll turn a bit darker. Currently they have a peach complexion. I lifted one of these large pumpkins away from the beds to give it more sun, and discovered a smaller pumpkin had been growing just below. It has multiple cracks in an interesting geometric pattern, but each of the cracks healed over. I can’t wait to take a picture and share it with you. We’ve never seen anything like it. I’m wondering if the extraordinary weight of the pumpkin above caused it to slowly crack, giving it time to heal as it split. My husband and resident carver is looking forward to hollowing it out. He thinks it will look like a star burst. We’ll restrain ourselves until Halloween.

Do you think she’s waiting for The Great Pumpkin?

The plan is to give each of the larger pumpkins a name on our Wii Fit, so we can weigh them one by one. Won’t that be fun?

Meanwhile, I’m practicing sitting on my hands. Every time I go out there I want to harvest the fruit and make way for the winter garden.

Ò Ó Ò

August 28, 2012 by Born To Organize

Winterizing the Double Wide Coleus

Inky Finger Coleus
aka Double-Wide

My beautiful ‘Inky Fingers’ Coleus has been busy. Unlike its tall neighbor, this Coleus is growing out instead of up. I’ve nicknamed it Double-Wide.

Double-Wide makes me smile when I walk up the patio steps. The colors are spectacular. I’ve grown fond of this plant and hope to winterize it if possible. I grew a spectacular Coleus in the same area last year. It even garnered compliments from our landscape designer. Sadly, as soon as the temperatures dropped, the leaves dropped too. I thought it might come back the following year, but apparently when it’s done, it’s done.

Some brave souls bring their plants indoors for the winter, but I’m leery of what might move in with them. After a summer dealing with aphids, scale, wasps and thrips, I’m reluctant to go that route.

This year I want to create a localized greenhouse for the two plants to see if they’ll make it through the winter. I’ve done a bit of reading today, and learned that Coleuses grow as a perennial in Zone 10, an area quite a bit inland from our Zone 15. I also learned that you can take multiple cuttings from the plant in late summer, and start next season’s plants indoors. The challenge is lack of humidity in a dry, winter house.

Fall is still a few weeks away, so I will enjoy the plant outdoors for as long as I can. I don’t have a green house so I would have to improvise with PVC pipe and heavy-gauge plastic. Gardener’s Supply Company catalog sells garden quilt fabric and plant protection tents good to 24°F, also possible options.

Do you plan to winter over some of your garden plants? Have you had success in the past? Tips welcome! Please reply in the comments section below.

July 24, 2012 by Born To Organize

Natural Gifts: Collecting Cosmo Seeds

The idea came to me a few weeks ago: I’ll collect Cosmo seeds to give as gifts for the holidays.

The prolific flowers are easy to grow and spectacular to behold. Cosmos grow in planters or directly in the ground, and thrive with little fuss. It’s a cheerful gift for the middle of winter: the promise of spring blooms. They’ve given me pleasure all summer long. I want to share that with others.

Collecting seeds is easier than I thought. I’ve enlisted the services of my enormous pumpkin leaves. The vines have gently wrapped themselves around the base of the Cosmos, so they’re perfectly positioned for catching seeds. What synergy. I gently shake the seeds from the leaves into a bowl and bring them inside for safe keeping.

Cosmo seeds resting in the crook of a pumpkin leaf

Designing the seed packet will be fun. I have several ideas rattling around in my head. I might employ the use of my Creative Memories digital scrap-booking software to make postcard-sized packets. I have several photos to use in the design as well.

I’ve enjoyed making envelopes from prior year’s wall calendars so that also has possibilities. I use a template to trace the envelope, then fold and seal. I’ll download planting instructions from the internet and then print them on creamy card stock.

I turned my garden calendar pages into 4 x 6 envelopes.

My little seed packets will be small gifts with big potential, given with hope and affection.

Do you enjoy giving gifts from your garden? Perhaps you make jam preserves, dried flower bouquets or lavender sachets? I love hearing from you and hope you’ll share in the comments, below.

Grows on you is a garden forum with advice and visuals for seed collecting.
Creative uses for your old calendars from my other blog Organized at Heart.
I created this sample page using Creative Memories digital software.

May 2, 2012 by Born To Organize

City Picker: Grow Tomatoes on your Porch, Patio or Deck

City Picker

A few years back, a friend raved about an Earth Box, a self-contained planting system for vegetables. I’m not sure if they were hard to come by at the time, but I never stumbled across one in any of the garden centers I frequent, or I simply didn’t take the time to look.

Our raised beads spread out across the back of our house in past years, but they were too close together making it challenging to get around them without getting your foot caught between them. When we refurbished our back yard this winter, we widened the path in front of the beds, to make room for our summer pumpkin vines. We added gravel, since part of that area isn’t easily plant-able due to pipes, irrigation shut off valves, the electric box, etc. It was a great place for a chair in the cooler months, with the sun reflecting heat off the side of the house. Hoping to capture that trapped heat for our tomatoes this summer, I went looking for an Earth Box. What I found instead was a City Picker, virtually identical in every way, but almost double in width.

City Picker’s are perfect for urban gardeners, since they are a fully contained system in a portable box. The planting box comes with casters, a ventilation tray, a watering tube and plastic mulch. You can roll it around your patio or deck to maximize sun, while at the same time containing the mess. No need to worry about watering your downstairs neighbor!

Here is our setup:

1.5 CU FT. Organic Potting Mix

Dolomite Lime and Fertilizer

Fully assembled City Picker

Fill with potting mix to about two inches below the top
Add a thin layer of Dolomite

Organic Fertilizer:
Make a two-inch trough in the center of the box
Add three cups of organic fertilizer

Mound Potting Mix:
Cover fertilizer with mix, about one inch above the box

Plastic Mulch:
Cover with the elasticized plastic mulch
Clip in place with the enclosed binder clips

Cut Holes in Plastic Mulch:
Cut a hole for the irrigation pipe
Cut additional holes and plant seeds/seedlings

Ready to Grow

I’ve provided links for the Earth Box and the City Picker for feature comparisons. Please let me know if you’ve tried one in the past, or if you plan to set one up this season.

May 1, 2012 by Born To Organize

Pumpkin’s Progress: Wilted Seedlings, Sagging Ego

First, the clichés:

Never give up hope. It’s not over till it’s over. Don’t give up! Don’t be discouraged! Okay…but…

Wilted Pumpkin Seedling

I am discouraged. We transplanted our pumpkin seedlings Sunday evening into freshly prepared planter boxes. The process was challenging on two fronts. First, the seed pods were so close together, that the leaves and stems entangled. As I gently pulled them apart, several of the stems bent or snapped. It was disheartening. Second, the seed pods had to be pushed out from the bottom, instead of scooping out from the top, further damaging the tender plants. I improved my technique as I went along, so the lower box looks a bit better.

On the bright side, I have a reserve of seeds in all six varieties, so I’ll plant those directly into the bed. Stay tuned.

Has this ever happened to you?