My son had a sleepover last night, and 5 of his 12 year old friends made a video all on their own. I was not involved with this at all, and when they showed it to me, I was impressed, blown away, laughing so hard I was crying, and mostly proud of them that they were so creative. This is the type of genius I applaud.
I received permission from all their parents to share this. Enjoy…
You are now looking at an official editor. I can barely believe it myself!
Indie Books Gone Wild is a one stop shop for Indie Authors: a place to find proofreaders, editors, and pretty much anything else they might need.
Here’s the link so you can check it out: http://indiebooksgonewild.blogspot.com/
I’m so excited to be a part of this team, and to have the opportunity to rub shoulders with other inspiring Indie Authors.
Now, get back to writing! Oh, and don’t forget to like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IndieBooksGoneWild?ref=ts&fref=ts
I hate to say it, but sometimes advertising on compost is plain bogus.
The sniff test never lies…
The problem when you use nonorganic compost on your veggies is the plant explodes with massive lush, leafy growth and the roots don’t have time to keep up. The plant releases a stress hormone that attracts bugs like crazy. They come and gnaw on your plant. So at the expense of your plant, you’ve now forced it to do something it wasn’t meant to. I look for even consistent growth. The roots need to match the top of the plant to keep it stable. This is why composts that purport to be organic, but really aren’t, make me so frustrated!
Today I’ve been finishing my last 2 beds. I left them for last because I usually only plant flowers in them, so they’re for aesthetics, but this time, I’ve planted some cantaloupe seeds in one of them for kicks. It’s always an experiment with me…
Before I share the videos I made on what to do if you run out of weed fabric and need a barrier (besides using cardboard or newspaper, without the waxy ads of course), or if you run out of broken down compost, here’s a picture of what I saw at local hardward store, in the nursery section today.
I think you already know what I’m gonna say before I turn red with an annoyed vein throbbing on the side of my temple.
Wrong, wrong, wrong! Just plain wrong. You can’t plant any of those right now. You would’ve had to plant all of these in January, and you’d be harvesting them next month. With the exception of the garlic–that gets planted in October. The onions as well, but you could plant it now, just don’t expect to get a big onion bulb. Won’t happen. To get a large bulb you can cut and put on a sandwich or burger, you plant it in October and harvest it in June. It takes a really long time to mature.
So, why would they put out potatoe seeds, bare root asparagus and bare root strawberries now? Because they have to go by what the rest of the country does in their chain stores. They don’t cater to us Phoenicians based on correct plant timing. I wish they would. This is one of the reasons I plant almost everything from seed and keep my seeds in the fridge. That way I can plant at the correct time without waiting for the plant nurseries to catch up. They’re usually at the tail end of when you can plant your garden.
How do I know this? Today was a perfect example. At the nursery, they had these for transplants: tomatoes, peppers, tons of herbs and strawberries. But did they have any melons, cucumbers or squash? Nope. This is nearing the end of planting season for melons. You plants them in March. All these plants need a good 2 months to develop a good strong root system before the heat hits in May if they’re going to survive our brutal summers.
Seriously wanted to ask who I needed to smack, for them to have my transplants of Armenian cucumbers so I could buy a few in case my seeds decide not to be friendly with me.
All right. Enough ranting disguised as tips. Enjoy the videos…
Once I plant my celosia today and put some compost around them, then my garden beds being planted will officially be complete for the season. Always have mixed emotions about that. And, yes, my compost pile is completely barren–used every last leaf and grass cutting.
A lot of times when we think of a summer garden we think watermelons and sunflowers, right?
Well, they do like to be together, but I want to share some of the downsides of sunflowers. I made this video in August of last year, and although the quality isn’t the best on this one, I want you to see one of the major drawbacks of planting them–removal. It’s a beast to get these things out.
Not only that, there’s this sticky sap that forms on sunflowers along the trunk and branches that attracts ants like crazy. So, now if you’re melons crack and split from the heat and inconsistent watering, the ants will destroy your melon before you can even get to it.
These problems go for all types of sunflowers, not just the mammoth ones, since I usually don’t plant those. I usually plant the wild sunflower types since they are a little smaller and will keep producing flowers and attracting birds.
Did I just say birds? Yep. Birds can be good. I said can, because they can eat insects in your garden, but more likely, they’ll eat your tomatoes, pull out seedlings you’ve just germinated (they love the seedlings for your summer time squash, melons and cucumbers), dig in your garden bed for worms and generally make a huge mess. Ugh! I hate birds at times.
I usually don’t plant sunflowers often because of these issues, but this year (sigh) I did plant them because I was lazy and wanted an easy plant with some color in my garden. Which means, next year I probably won’t plant them. I usually only plant them every few years because of all the problems they create.
So, now you’ve been warned… Sunflowers aren’t as happy as they seem.
A few last gardening things for you…
My beds are planted now with the exception of two areas I’ll be planting flowers after my freesia’s are all done blooming. In the meantime, I’ll share a few pics of my freesias, my irises in bloom along with my poppies and a few other wildflowers.
I also wanted to share a video on why you don’t ever have to buy worms and why it’s a poor investment.
Lastly, I was asked the other day a gardening question that took me off guard for a moment (I was in the middle of cubscout day camp with my son and wasn’t expecting to get asked a gardening question, so I mostly had that deer-in-headlights expression plastered to my face and looked like an idiot). Here’s what they asked me.
What do I do about salt burn?
Good question. I forgot what to do about it since I haven’t had that problem in a long time. What this usually means is that the watering isn’t deep enough. Now, deeply and infrequently is the key, but in the summer here in Phoenix, infrequently doesn’t exist. You’ll need to water everyday and preferrably in the morning. Watering should be at ground level if possible and when you water deeply it washes the salts out of the soil. That can mean that once a week, you put a hose on your garden bed, leave a slow drip on it over night and it should make those roots dig down deeper into the soil, strengthening the plant and get rid of the salt and hard mineral build up in the soil.
Hope that helps.
Happy gardening everyone. Here’s what I planted today from seed:
I just returned from the store, and meant to get 3 seeds packets, but here are the seeds I wound up buying (yes, I am incorigible):
sweet peppers, zuccini, 2 carrots packets, 2 varieties of sunflowers, four o’clocks, and basil (since I ran out of seeds today for this one).
They didn’t have cantaloupe, so I’ll have to go somewhere else to get them.
Here are the seeds I saw available that you do not want to plant:
lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, and spinach
I also saw tons of potted plants of geraniums for sale for $12.99. Are you kidding me? These will fry in a month, or even less if our weather keeps up as it is. Don’t bother buying those.
If you choose to buy transplants, get the smallest ones possible without any flowers or fruit already developing on them, then that way your plant will have plenty of energy to set down roots, rather than having already expended that energy on fruit production. Also, the larger plants that already have flowers and fuit on them, are almost always pot bound, and don’t do well. Remember, you want slow, even, consistent growth and the roots should look tender, like little white hairs and should not be coming out the bottom of the pot if possible.
