Simply Practical: May 2016

Or I may not! Sorry, I just had to say that! How's everybody doing? We are all fine! I almost let May get by without writing! I would have been sad if I had done that. I at least want to write a post a month; a week would be better. We've been really busy around here this month! The garden is coming in nicely! Except for the plants I over fertilized. Yes, I got happy with 13-13-13! I know not to do that again! Funny; some tomato plants survived and are thriving! Others, no. I am determined to grow tomatoes here on the homestead and have enough to can! I wonder if that will happen this year? I believe I need to plant more tomato plants! I am experimenting with grow bags. I simply cut landscape fabric to the size I want and sewed the pieces on the sewing machine. They look just like the ones you can order online! I hope they withstand the summer! And all the watering! They dry out daily so they need lots of water. I have them in a plastic bin to hold some water. I drilled holes so the water can run out instead of bogging down the plants. That could be a problem if the container held too much water. I also made two very large grow bins. One has strawberry plants in hopes of detering rabbits. The other has sweet potatoes. I wished I had found out about these grow bins before I planted my regular potatoes in the ground! We will see how this works out. I found out about grow bins from Old Alabama Gardener and Executive Gardener on Youtube. Of course I still enjoy watching John Kohler's Growing Your Greens! Have you experienced growing in grow bags? I think it's a relatively new thing.

The apple sticks all have apples on them! I guess I can call them trees now! We also have grapes! I am so happy! The nectarine, peach, and plum trees are loaded! And man, at the blackberries! I shouldn't have to go off my property to get blackberries this year! What to do with all that jam and jelly? Overall, I am very happy with the growing season! I can hardly wait for harvest! How is your garden growing?

The weather has gotten hot the past couple of days! Got up to 92 today! Yikes! I've been doing the bulk of my gardening later in the evening after 5. Getting my flower beds cleaned out and looking so much better! Laying cardboard and whatever I can find to keep out weeds in the garden. It's just too hot to be out there between 11 and 5! Needless to say, I've been cleaning my very neglected house! It's beginng to look nice again! I'm not keen on dusting so I dusted the other day. I actually have furniture under there!

It's hard to believe Memorial Day is coming up! Ya'll have a blessed and safe holiday! Thanks for reading! Blessings from Bama!