Free to a Good Home...

{Just kidding; don't care what kind of home - you want tomatoes?!!}

'Cauuuuuuuuuuse, so this thing happened where I accidentally grew like 6 tomato plants.

How?

It's really quite simple. Let me walk you through it:

Step 1: get a tomato plant.

Step 2: watch it grow taller and taller and out of its tomato cage and spill over the empty pot next to it and fall to the ground by the end of the summer.

Step 3: chop down dead tomato plant - but make sure you wait until spring so that any bad tomatoes you'd left on the vine are able to fall into the pot below to rot to compost without your being aware of them.

Step 4: later in the spring, plant lettuce in empty pot in garden.

Step 5: realize that what's grow is not just lettuce...

Step 6: dig out what one hopes is are Better Boy tomato plants (or whichever kind you bought last year that you really can't exactly remember).

Step 7: replant the largest tomato seedling in the edible garden and put the largest tomato cage you have around it.

Step 8: pot the rest of the mini tomato seedlings in leftover containers and give to friends and coworkers with the disclaimer that you're actually not sure what kind of tomato it is.



Normally I grow dozens of mini tomato plants from the compost I spread around, however, since store bought tomatoes (that are treated with who knows what) of all varieties are mixed into compost with home-grown ones and so who knows what kind of freaks we might come up with (though, that logic makes no sense since it all has to do with the blooms, so I may have to reconsider this whole theory....I just don't think we'll get the best tomatoes second generation from the compost, okay?!)

However, these I feel quite confident about (famous last words) because I don't believe I put compost in there last year (it stayed empty pretty much the whole year).


So make sure you stay tuned for the adventure of the {insert tomato breed} accidental seedling growing in my edible garden right now!

Christmas in May

Look who randomly popped out to say hello...

Yup, the Christmas cactus decided to bloom.

Just one flower.

"Hello.
 Now I'm done."

Well, ok then.

The Accidental Avocado Trees

Have you ever done that nifty thing where you save the avocado pit and poke holes and set it in water and wait for it to spring roots?!

Yes, well mine never got past something like this:

I did get a root once!

But after 3-4 failed attempts to ever produce a tree, I gave up.


Until I saw something popping out of my compost bin.

Huh.

Hi, little planty-tree-looking thing...

[gently pull out]

Oh...you're connected to an avocado pit, yes, of course you are.
Can't grow these darn things the "right" way, but I can throw them into my compost bin and voila - trees!! [shakes head]


Well, the first came out about two years ago. Each summer I put it outside in my shade garden (full sun seems way too intense for it, which makes no sense because it's tropical, but whatever) and it just thrives and bursts new leaves as far as possible.

And then every winter I bring them in.

Oh yes...I did say "them", because last summer I discovered two more mini trees growing!
I pulled them out, potted them, gave one to family, then up-potted my original one and put new little guy in its pot.

And boy are they just as happy as can be!

I just put them back out on the deck and will move them down to my shade garden soon.
I'm hoping for the same results as previous years: where leaves shoot out from every possible place and burst open as it rejoices in being a "real tree" - freeeee in the great outdoors! (Shhh, don't tell it that it's still in a pot!)

Hoping the newer of the two gets good and hardy; it's still a bit scraggly since it just came out of the compost pile last summer.
Unfortunately the other one really can't get much bigger because any larger pot will be too heavy for me to haul in and out of doors every year. Alas.

Below next to the bird house (behind the monster Hosta) is the original one last year in the smaller pot; fuller, but probably not much taller than the newest one shown above is now:

So see how much he shot up since I've up-potted 6 months ago?!
Think I need to rig up a cart and pulley system so I can put them in huge pots, but move them across the yard, up the second story deck and into the house with minimal effort :-D


And for the record: they will not produce avocados. I would need to graft and that just seems waaaay beyond my expertise right now.
Perhaps someday. (But would it even product much when it won't get bigger than these pots...? Dear Google: )

If we lived in a warmer place, I would have an entire grove of avocado trees; I eat about 3 avocados each week (plus 2-3 more when I make guacamole!)

But for now, I'll settle for buying them way overpriced from the store and just enjoying my fruitless, but super cool-looking accidental trees!

Make Me an Offer I Can't Refuse...

Complements of a friend who will remain anonymous, but who knows me well :-D

The Shade Garden

It has come to my attention that have yet to post anything about my shade garden!!

And I realized why:
Because it's my one success story!
There are no funny accident stories!

But hey, girl's gotta brag when she's got ONE sole thing to brag about!

April 2015 I ripped out yards and yards of vines, vinca (gag!) and hugely overgrown boxwoods and planted my dream: A Shade Garden!!

 I was kind of at a loss for what to grow back there until I started researching shade gardens and wow, did I fall in love!
So many beautiful things for shade areas!
All varieties of Hostas and Coral Bells, Bleeding Hearts and Lamb's Ears and on and on the list goes.
And we finally had a place for the adorable bird house hand-made by my Dad-in-law!
I was very pleased with how it came out!

(Here's the "before" shot from when we first toured the house if you really want to appreciate how far we've come!)

That fall, a friend who is actually a phenomenal gardener, was moving out of state. She wanted to "rescue" at least some of her gorgeous shade garden plants (so she gave them to me?! What was she thinking?!!)
She gave me Astible, a fern, more Hostas, Phlox and goodness I can't even remember what else. It was so exciting! I told her no guarantees they'd be alive when she moved back!
One incredible thing she gave me was Native Ginger...a groundcover that spreads fairly quickly, but doesn't put down horrible roots like so many others; very manageable. And it has these adorable little purple flowers in the spring and again in the summer!

Also that fall I planted my gorgeous Yuletide Camellia (which blooms gorgeous red flowers in December!) in the back corner in the hopes that it truly gets to the 8-10' tall that it promises and fills in that corner!

So here we are last spring when everything started coming back
(which in and of itself is a miracle for me!) ...

I have dozens (hundreds?) of beautiful stones that were underneath an old crushed shed we ripped out and so I started making a little cobblestone walkway...sooooo cute!



Things filled out really well; I was very pleased.
I also painted the bird feeder (also made by my Dad-in-law!) and it is such a cute pop of color (especially on a bleak winter or blah dreary day).

In the fall I moved Hostas around (the one by the white bird house had gotten way too enormous for that space!) and divided up / moved around a few others to fill in the gaps. I want a beautifully smooshed, wild-growing gloriousness in this bed!!

And so far this spring, glorious it is!!

 Bleeding hearts in bloom!

Have I mentioned how much I love Native Ginger?!

I even have mushrooms growing like a magical fairy land! ;-D









Like plants, I also can'at bring myself to throw away beautiful pots, even when they're broken. So they get a resting place in the shade garden!









And of course Google decides to take my photo and make it all "ooohhhh". Pretty crazy!

I rescued this rusted old watering can from its discarded state along
the side of the road while I was jogging at our apartment.
Husband thought I was nuts picking up trash along the side of the road,
but I had a vision! This would become a flower pot in a garden one day when
we bought a house! And lo and behold, over 5 years later it's perfect!

So yes, bask with me in my one success! 

I did have a few grasses that must not have gotten enough sun, so they didn't make it past the first year. And I have a Fuchsia bush who can't seem to get above 6" any given year (supposed to get 3-4' :-/). We took down and thinned out a few crowded trees in the backyard, so we'll see how much extra light that lets in this year.
All in all, though, it is going so well and I absolutely love it. It's a little stress-reliving paradise. Just need to design a bench, have husband build it, get some pillows out there with a book and iced drink and I'm not coming back in!

"Organic Gardening"

At the garden plot we have a hose hanger (is there a more official name for it...?!)

There are four unused holes that are supposed to have screws through them to hang on a wall. Ours is on a fence and so those holes aren't used.

Except that they are used ... by wasps :-/

Every year the wasps are so grateful that we've supplied a little home for them to nest in....aaaand every year we drive them out and fear for our lives.
I was trying to brainstorm with my garden plot partner about what we need to fill them with.

I get a photo while she was out there after work one day...

'Problem solved'

Bahahahahaha! Love it!

Hey, it's simple, cheap, addresses the problem and is so organic! :-D

Cilantro Everywhere!

NOT an exaggeration!

Soooooooo, for those who haven't been following the journey, let me catch you up....

I adore cilantro and can't grow it. I tried. I tried so much.

Then it accidentally seeded itself into my rose bush bed.

And proceeded to survive through intensest heat and coldest freezes and a 30" blizzard and now we're going into year 2 of this magical substance.

In the fall I let it go to seed to start the magic over.


And to seed it did.

EVERYWHERE!!!

Here is the wildflower bed across the sidewalk from where I've let the cilantro grow...

I came out in the spring to a carpet of mini cilantro seedlings.

Oh plants, why can't you grow this way when I want you to?!!


Aaaaand, here's the cilantro and Daylily jungle; the area that started the adventure (and helped inspire this blog!):

That was taken a bit back; it's actually worse now - so thick and tall with me having to pull off heads so we don't get more seeding!

But the great news is....

The cilantro transplants actually took in my edible garden last fall!!!!

This means, that I can harvest the forest of cilantro from the flower bed, make a crap-ton of guacamole and then, my little friends, you are gone!
It's been wonderful having you...you have been a light in the darkness - the reminder that accidents can be wonderful! You've been a constant source of deliciousness through all seasons, all weather, and in a myriad of dishes.
But now it's time to die.
Give the bed back to the flowers and for the love of weeding, please stop seeding yourself in any and every bed!!