Bonsai Gardening, or Not!!

Since our blog is about the adventures and misadventures of gardening outside the box, I thought I might share one of my fascinations (and honey there are a lot of them) with you.

This will be about gardening within a box, actually in a tray - did you know Bonsai is actually 2 words – Bon means tray and Sai means planting or growing.

I have just loved little colorful things, like an old mynah bird, since I was just a little pear ~ if it was little, shiny, or colorful, I had to have it, try it, or collect it, and nothing fits this bill quite like these precious little plants and trees!

It doesn’t matter where you live, everyone can have a bonsai tree and if you spend your year in different locations, they can relocate too – I suggest buying another makeup case just for this purpose!

Learning all you can about bonsai before you make your first purchase will save you time, dollars, and heartbreak – I remember my first was a Christmas gift from our son who said “They said you can leave it outside all winter, just water it”. I did and while it was evergreen it got browner and browner until come spring, all I had left was a pot of crispies ~ that was the “bon” and flakes, no sai.

You need a pot, and a tray, there are millions on the market, so get one that you love; then you need to decide on a starter plant or tree, or start one yourself from seeds.

If you are as impatient as I am a plant or tree is definitely the way to go, while I plan to live to be at least 100, I don’t want to spend all those years waiting for a tree to grow from a seed, I want WOW and I want it NOW!

A great starter tree is the Japanese Red Maple; I love this because the tree’s leaves change to bright red or orange in the spring and fall and a deeper red in the summer.

This tree works so well for an upright bonsai and you can train it so the little leaves are one-inch long or less. The trunk and tiny limbs can be green or red.

You will need tools and instructions on how to care for your particular choice. And from your care will come a lifetime of enjoyment watching your little creation evolve!

We think you will find this great ebook on bonsai provides you the information you need to not only get started, but be successful at this adventure!

Bonsai Gardening Secrets:
Click Here!

The Debacle of the Electric Fence

In our high mountain valley there lives the rarest of all creatures, a really good and reliable handyman.

The love of my life, my husband D.P., has many talents- handy he isn’t. Thus Mr. Keller has ever and will forever more help us keep our home together. In a sincere effort to be handier like Mr. Keller, D.P. has invested in stacks of “How to books”. We have books on building, painting, patios, etc. But his favorite book of all time is Plumbing. It is a measure of what he has learned that when he got a book on wiring the last of the kids moved out. I mean it’s one thing to have no water.

You may wonder how this relates to gardening, that’s where the electric fence and Mr. Keller come in.

In an effort to save my gardens (or Deer Buffet as our older Son calls them) from critters I divined that I needed an electric fence.

So from a ranch supply place ,I ordered a reel of yellow tapey wire stuff and a box to hook it up to. I read the directions and proceeded to string it up and plug it in. All set! Right? But how do you know it’s working? I’m not touching that thing. That’s way below my Queenly pay grade. Kids are all gone-remember the wiring.

Now I’m not one to lightly contradict the goddess of queenliness “The Sweet Potato Queen”. But I know what I know. Hours of begging and even the “Promise” could not entice D.P. to “touch that thang”. Guaranteed to work my eye.

Enter stately Mr. Keller who can make anything work. After surveying the crime scene, all that yellow tapey stuff, he gingerly walked over to the fence and gently laid one finger on it.

Yeowwww! His white hair flew up and he did a half hop.

My teeth were clenched and my eyes squinted in a look of horrified concern. This was the only way I could stifle my laughter.

We continued down the fortification until we reached a place where I had flubbed up. In showing me how to fix it, it got him again! He pretended it didn’t and I pretended not to see. My shoulders only shook a little bit.

When we reached the corner where the fence started up the hill ,he bent over and pointed to a better angel it could take. In absolute horror-in slow motion, I watched him back in to the monster. In my head I was screaming “nooooooooo!” but no sound escaped my lips. This time we had full butt contact and it was a 2 hop jolt with arm flailing. I was undone, bent double howling with laughter, tears streaming down my cheeks. All poor Mr. Keller could manage was a pale, slightly sheepish grin.

I swear that I am not normally the kind of person who takes glee in others misfortune. I can’t tell you why this was so funny. I only know that even now whenever I notice the reel of yellow tapey wire stuff in the garden shed my shoulders shake.To my knowledge Mr. Keller was the only critter ever shocked by that fence. The moral of this story is that there are better ways to deal with critters in your garden.

Try this eBook it has lots of hints: Organic Pest Control Secrets
Click Here!

I also know where you can buy some slightly used yellow tapey wire stuff and the box to hook it up to.

Real cheap

WELCOME!!!

Welcome Zimbabwe! Talk to us often. We love hearing from you.

If It Hops, and It's Ears Flop - It's Public Enemy # 1

After spending most of the winter going thru seed catalogs, finding just the right seed for each vegetable for my garden plot, it was time to order. By the time the order arrived, Spring was just peeking around the corner. All those wonderful seeds, I lined up the packets in what order I wanted to plant. I ordered garden stakes so I could tell just what seed was where, I lived gardening, I dreamed gardening, and as soon as possible, there I was, twine on the ground, stakes in one hand and my wonderful packets in the other.

The rows where marked, the stakes on each end, the twine in between, the furrows made, and the seeds sprinkled and covered. The wait began –

And, just as nature intended, the seeds germinated and tiny little plants started to pop up. Here came the lettuce, the spinach, the radishes and onions, and finally the green beans. I was so proud of my garden, taking pictures to send all my friends of the baby plants.

Then one morning, as I strolled to see and measure the overnight growth, I stopped dead in my tracks, my jaw dropped and tightened, my eyes squinted, my backbone became stiff as a board – what had happened to my garden!!! I no longer had green beans, I had an entire 2 rows of little stems with no leaves, no tops, just little sticks – the rabbits had found the garden and devoured all of the green beans.

I sent a queenly plea to all my fellow gardeners – what to do and how to do it ~

De-fence was the solution, spray it around the perimeter of the yard and the rabbits will not cross it – two cans later, the task was accomplished. Three days later the sticks were growing leaves again and all was well in my garden kingdom.

Day 4, I walked to the garden, the beans were sticks again and a rabbit was happily hopping thru the fence between me and my neighbors. The De-fence had failed. Out went the plea again – what to do?

In poured the suggestions, each of one was tried in this order: talcum powder (they ate the lettuce), human hair (they ate the spinach), dog hair (they started to nibble on the okra), hot pepper flakes – the rabbits enjoyed salsa. My neighbor went to the nursery and came home with Hot Wax Pepper in a spray. She had replanted her beans and they were up just one leaf – she sprayed and sprayed, and the next morning – sticks, not a leaf in sight. Then someone suggested dusty miller – so off to the nursery I went, bought the last 4 in town, they were leggy and they were wilty, but they were dusty miller, so I hopefully planted them and watered them like they were gold.

Lo and behold, either the rabbits found better food to eat, or my plants got too big to be tender, or the dusty miller worked the trick, but they quit eating the okra, which other than tomatoes and peppers was all that was left. They still came into the yard, hopping around looking for something tasty, but I thought I was finished with the worst of them.

Then, just before the first frost, I was looking at the baby clematis my sister had planted for me in the spring and it was gone, just gone, chomped off at the top of the cup I had around it.

After a few choice words and more research I am back at the point to last spring – hopeful, wondering what I can do to keep the little hoppers away from my garden, and ready to invest in chicken wire or hardware cloth to surround the garden, the new plants, the yard, and maybe even the neighborhood! Anyone with any suggestions, please post on this blog – they will all be taken to heart!

It is so undignified to see a Queen chasing rabbits out of the yard in her jammies!!!

Want to learn more about rabbits? Check out this book:

How to Raise Rabbits – The Complete Beginners Guide for Rabbit Owners
Click Here!

Does A Bear ..........................?

I must preface this story by relating another one to you - One morning I called this Queen's home. Her husband answered and I asked for her. In his most formal tone he told me she was unavailable. I said "Well, what is she doing?" He started laughing and said "She is out in the yard, she has climbed a tree to look for a mother bear". The fun just never ends!!!

In our part of the country when you have just related the most bizarre tale, purported to be true, the almost immediate and universal response will be a cocked head and the word “Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww?” At which point the purportee will, with the most solemn of faces say, “Does a bear s……….. in the woods?” There is no more solemn oath in these parts. And I for one know this to be true in a big way.

This time of year, late fall, all the critter’s memory of a hungry winter begins to kick in and they go on an eating rampage. We usually have a couple of grumpy ole bears up here who are still kind of picky, sniff the meager outside offerings and go away. This year we had the cutest yearling. He was an almost round ball of fur, about 100 pounds. He hung around for a couple of hours, smelling the bacon and eggs we just finished and peeking in the side lights on the door trying to find a way in to that smell. He finally gave up on that and sat down on the front porch to ponder “What’s next?”

Suddenly, he ran off with his tail up! I gingerly stepped outside to survey any damage. All over the bottom step was a residue of white powder. “What in the world?” Then I saw the bag, a brand new bag of Epson salt ready to be mixed for one last feeding for my beds. It was empty.

Don’t ever ask me if a bear s……..s in the woods.

Starting a Vegetable Garden

After many years of living in the mountains, my husband and I moved back to the place of our birth and the home of our hearts – The Great State of Kansas!! It was late summer when the move was completed and once everything was unpacked and put away; the next order of business was planning a garden – a real vegetable garden – which we had missed so much in the past several years.

So, I surveyed my little estate, picked the side of the yard where it was protected from the wind, but got a lot of sun and declared “This will be my garden!”

With the help of my husband and grandson and an entire winter of working (no, it doesn’t always snow every day and it isn’t always cold in Kansas in the winter) we dug out shrubs and found 18” of lava rock on the ground underneath – now I do not know who created lava rock, but there is absolutely no space in my vegetable garden for them. I started with the lofty goal of picking up 20 pieces per day in the most Queenly of manner. It soon became apparent that this method was netting me zero progress! So, we scooped, we put 3 trugs in the dumpster each week, we scooped some more, we took giant boxes full to my step-mother on the other end of the State, we scooped some more. We offered it to local landscapers who offered to trade what they wanted to get rid of to us for ours. We swore that it was giving birth to little pieces each night while we slept. One week I got carried away with what I put in the dumpster and was presented with a note the morning after pick-up that said “Too heavy to lift” and all my lava rock left in the dumpster. Seemed we would never get to the end, and since Spring was right around the corner by then, we borrowed my Godson’s pickup and after three trips to the landfill with the pickup loaded to the max, we were finished with the lava rock. The landfill is an experience no Queen should ever have and fuel for another story, but believe me it doesn’t take many minutes there before I was a real “Prickly Pear” and pretty well finished for the rest of that week – poor little muscles!

Next step – prepare the soil. Sounds easy, doesn’t it, well, let me tell you that is not for the weak at heart! You beg, borrow, rent, or buy a rototiller – and once the gas and oil are full, a mystery never totally solved by me, you start it and away you go – this is the most muscle-building experience known to woman-kind – unless you are training for Miss Universe – and this one doesn’t involve oiling your body, just the machine! There is a rope, there is a little rubber handle and there is a lot of yanking, many invoked blessings, and finally it sputters – this is when you are supposed to keep one hand on one part, another hand on another part adjusting it, and use your foot to hold the whole thing together until the adjustments are made and you are once again upright and composed.

After three trips over the designated area it was time to pick up the grass clumps and rake – carefully judging the weight of each clump to avoid the “Too heavy to lift” note, we filled in all the bare spots that we could find in the yard and tossed the rest in the dumpster, which by then was my most important garden tool. Of course before you can toss any into the dumpster, you must do the “shake, shake, shake” with it to remove any precious soil from the roots.

Time to amend the soil – a Queenly brew of peat moss, horse manure, compost, and staying as organic as possible, no chemicals on the garden. Again, the rototiller, if there is any doubt in your mind what part of your body is flabby, I recommend about three minutes behind a rototiller, anything that is not firmly affixed to bone will shake and rattle, and roll!! So, strolling behind it like a drunken sailor that job was finished.

Finally it was time to do the final raking and sit down with a long tall glass of tea and a stack of seed catalogs that would have killed me if it had fallen on me. What to plant and where to plant it, so many ideas and so little space and room – although I was reminded the space was 27 feet long and 20 feet wide – it seemed so huge when it was being prepared and so small when it came to the planning stage.
I think you might enjoy reading about organic gardening in either of these books:

Organic Food Gardening Beginners Manual Click Here!

My Organic Food Garden:
Click Here!

A Plant's Prayer

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray my leaves the Deer don’t eat
And when in spring, shoots I make
I pray they get a tummy ache
The End

As much as we all love our gardens, it is time to put them to sleep. Sleepless gardens are a pitiful sight.

And besides we have other Queenly duties to perform now, what with the holidays and all.

These are the things we do to ensure they have sweet dreams and gain strength for the coming spring.

1. We wash everything down with: 1cup mouthwash, *1cup chewing tobacco juice, I cup dawn.

Put into a sprayer and work from top to bottom on all perennials. *We buy 1 pk. Of chewing tobacco in the spring, put it in a half gallon container and fill with water. It lasts all season and is a good alternative for organic bug control.

2. We spray with dormant oil and weather protection like “Wilt proof”. Again from top to bottom. Wilt proof is also good to protect your plants from sunburn in the heat of summer.

3. Final feeding for all our beds, bone meal and Epson salts, spread according to directions. Mulch well, we like shredded cedar bark for bug control.

Say “Nite, Nite! Sleep well, don’t let the bugs bite!

I think you will be interested the book "Organic Pest Control Secrets" which tells us how to rid our garden of many of the common pests and still be kind to our Earth:
Click Here!