Spicy's Journal

It has been so long since I have had time to visit my favorite site. To give some idea, I see that 95 posts have been added to groups since I was last on! I’ve been working in my classroom for the last month with few days off. Then, six days before school started I was asked to switch grade levels. Boom! I now teach first grade. After working 12 to 13 hours daily trying to get ready for the first week, my gardens have been sorely neglected.

I had planted lots of seeds for fall, which will now need to be replanted – nothing has been watered. Even my plants around the house all almost died, but I think I watered them all in time.

My father in law has been ill, so he hasn’t been able to work in our veggie garden as well. So sad, but such is life. I had a fabulous summer filled with gardening, but now it is back to school.

Plus, to top everything off, my camera lens has still not been fixed. It has now been way over three months since I sent it to be repaired. No news yet on when I’ll get it back :(

Good news is I have been accepted into my county’s master gardener program. I had my second class the other night which was about soil. Fascinating. It was so nice to be surrounded by people who are as intrigued as I am by this subject. My friend who is also in class agreed that the three hours flew by :0) It was nice to think about gardening again for a few hours.

I scooped out two frogs from the pool the other day and tossed them into our pond. I’m happy to report they seem to have taken up permanent residence and do not seem too disturbed by my presence. I was able to get quite close and watched them for awhile. They were both so pretty, but unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me. Note to self: always have camera handy. They’ve also overturned a couple of the plants in the pond. As I was setting them upright again (they’re not too stable) I realized my hands were deep in frog jelly and many eggs. These frogs work fast! Hopefully most of the eggs will survive.

I’ve also spotted honey bees, bumble bees, wasps, dragonflies and some butterflies are making their way here. The butterfly bushes are finally about to bloom.

I added cat tails and some kind of mint today to a little boggy area we added to the front of the pond area.

I also finished mulching everything and spent a great deal of time battling Japanes beatles in the veggie garden.

Mel has a baby white eggplant. It might be because I don’t really like to eat eggplant, but I hope we don’t plant this again. It seems to attract every known pest to the garden. Everything loves it. Miraculously, the tomatoes and beans seem fine. So far I’ve “mechanically controlled” (read picked off or squished) earwigs, flea beetles, tortoiseshell beatles, japanese beetles, a caterpillar or two, and slugs of course. Or is this normal? I’ve never had a veggie garden before.

I wasn’t sure if I should kill the earwigs. I know they do eat some other insects, but I read they like to eat beans, so off they went.

I’ll try to get some pics soon.

I had my interview today for my county’s master gardener program. They are accepting 30 people, which sounds like a lot, but there were at least 60 people at the open house a few weeks ago. I felt the interview went ok, but who knows? It was like walking into a job interview, which I guess I was, sort of. I sat at a table with 2 master gardeners and the person in charge of horticulture at the extension office. The questions were very easy, really. What do you want to accomplish? What will you add to the program, etc. etc.

I also took a 100 question pre-test, which was hard, but not too bad.

I was so nervous before the interview because I want this so bad! This is the first time in years that they have offered evening classes. I’m a teacher, so evening is the only time I can come.

Fingers are crossed.

Made two fun trips to two different nurseries for pond plants today. My mother-in-law, Paula went with me for the 2nd trip. She gravitates to plants with flowers, while foliage grabbed me eye. Have to look up the tags to remember names of plants we bought. All together we bought 7 plants. Planted all when we got back.

Mulched the entire bed – 7 bags of mulch, two hours. Still need a couple more bags. I am a terrible estimator.

Divided/transplanted two marigolds from the veggie garden. They were getting a little too big and bushy.

Watered my newest plantings. They needed it.