My Green Freak

Weekend Green

Jason finally had a little time this weekend to work on another project. And unlike most of them where I just roll my eyes and let him do his thing, this one was actually kind of impressive. We have a huge flower bed in the front of the house that has been in need of attention for awhile now. We've been trying to get rid of this monkey grass type stuff but it keeps coming back all over the place. Not to mention the weeds. This supposedly will fix that problem. All you need is some brown packing paper and some mulch. Just lay down the paper all around the bed and then cover it with the mulch. Any weeds or plants (like yucky monkey grass) underneath the paper won't get any light or be able to grow through the paper so they will just die. You can still water the soil or around any other plants that you might have surrounded because the water will still seep through the paper. And the paper is biodegradable so it will eventually break down allowing you to replant wherever you like. If you need to replant before then, you can just break through the paper. Pretty cool idea actually. Certainly saves us from having to use pesticides or plastics. And we used recylced paper too. I think ours came from some shipments that I received but I bet you could get some from a local Freecycle group. So all around very good for the earth. Now we just wait and see if it actually works!

You say Tomato, I say Tomahto.

So those little tomatoes turned out to be just that...little cherry tomatoes. Not too shabby actually. And they taste GREAT...so very tomatoey!

Oh, and an update on my cans. They have miraculously disappeared today. I think I've finally found the answer. Hints don't seem to work but posting on my blog seems to do the trick. Dang, I should have started this a long time ago.

Have a happy and safe 4th of July everyone!

Juicy Fruit

There's something very relaxing about walking through your own garden. There's a certain serenity that comes with being outdoors watching nature do its thing. Not to mention the huge convenience of not having to go to the grocery store. Just walk outside, pick a few tomatoes, and...oh wait. Scratch that. That isn't my garden. That's the garden that I see inside my head. The one that belongs to someone with money. Someone with time. Possibly a staff. And someone with a husband that has some sense of aesthetics. In this case, someone in Paris.

Now this...THIS is our garden. Can you see the resemblence? Okay, it's not Paris. But it's not a bad garden either. Jason is actually doing a great job with it. It took many arguments, slammed doors and temper tantrums to get to this point. 

Although, I'm still not a fan of those timbers. I'm all for saving a buck or two, but this could still use some work. Sorry honey.

But what concerns me the most is on the stepping stone. That's only one step away from being IN the garden. Suddenly, those green onions aren't looking so appetizing. Anyone local reading this blog will surely never eat a salad at our house.

While I'll never understand why our garden can't look like the one in Paris, at least there are plants growing...like the mini corn from the other day (which by the way is no longer there)...

and the big juicy tomatoes. Seriously. A person would starve if depending on this garden.

Supposedly, we also have lettuce, carrots, green onions, radishes, some other stuff I can't remember, and a pumpkin. I can't wait to see that one. It'll probably be one of those baby pumpkins that fits in the palm of your hand.

But overall, the garden is a good thing. Jason works very hard on it. Every day in fact. I don't know what has to be done to it EVERY day but obviously something does...or at least he wants me to think it does.

And someday, maybe, we'll actually get to eat something from it.

 

Thanks to TreeHugger for twittering about the blog today and to Jardin-école du Breuil in Paris for their beautiful photo.

Let's take a tour, shall we?

One of the things that makes life so interesting around here is that you can always find the beginning of a project or two. Jason is always trying something. Some things work great. Others...um, not so much. Not that I have a problem when they don't work out but I do find it rather humorous. Here's a little tour of random things I found around the house today.

This is one of our suet feeders. We have plenty of birds to feed and Jason's on a quest to make homemade suet. Except, we can't actually make true suet because it's made with animal fat...something we choose to avoid whenever possible. So, he's creating a concoction of peanut butter, crisco, corn meal, and bird seed. It's a good idea and I'm all for it. But we do live in Texas with over 100 degree heat. So naturally, the peanut butter and crisco melt and run down the tree. What started out in a perfect square only a few hours ago is now dripping from the feeder...

and falling to the ground. Birds that like to ground feed will be fine with this. I could be fine with this. But we do have a cat. So for me, this homemade suet quest doesn't really sound like a win-win situation. At least not for the birds.

I honestly don't know what's going on here. It's obviously corn from the garden. But it's rather small. And it's in one of the patio chairs. I'm not even sure how long it's been there. I'm thinking the squirrels might be happy it's there. Let's see how long it stays there.

I don't know about you, but that does NOT look like queso to me. But it is in the kitchen so be sure to look closely at anything before you consume it at our house. Some things I just overlook...like the corn above...but this one prompted some questions. Mostly I wanted to make sure it wasn't something that would kill me should I knock it off the counter. Come to find out, it's actually a mixture of corn starch and water...or glue rather. We don't have a big need for glue in this house so I'm certain a bigger project is on the horizon.

This one I'm a little bit scared about. It just came in the mail a few days ago. It's a worm farm. Thankfully, there are no worms here yet but it's only a matter of time. Apparantly, instead of throwing our leftover food in the bio section of our trash that ultimately ends up in the compost pile, I'm supposed to feed it to the worms. This can't be a good thing. For me anyway. Maybe for the worms. There was some mention of poop as well. There are several layers to this thing so I'm not sure how much worm poop we're talking about. And that little spout on the side...what's that do? I'm certain I don't really want to know. He mentioned putting it in the kitchen. I might not know what it does but I KNOW that there's no way it's going in the kitchen. This one can't be good for our marriage.  

I could have sworn I put this in the recylcle bin yesterday only to find it back on the counter this morning. Something about mosquitos? Not sure which scares me more...the worms or this.