11 Sep

A shocking discovery…

Posted by Becca in water gardening. Tagged: , , , , , .

Each morning, I like to wander around in the garden: noting which plants are struggling, needing water and which are really flourishing. It’s my way of keeping the pulse of the garden. Are the bean seeds sprouting? Are the caterpillars eating a new plant? There’s always a new discovery.

This morning, the discovery wasn’t very nice. At all.

I leaned over the deck railing to check on the water level of the pond. To my dismay, I saw a floater. A floating fish, that is. A floating Miss Sadie to be precise. I was distressed, but I know I don’t have a good track record with fish so I wasn’t completely shocked. Yet.

I hurried down to the water’s edge, to see if perhaps she was merely struggling for breath. Perhaps I could help her in some way. I reached to touch her…

And that’s when I got my second shock of the day. Big shock. Literally.

I’m sure you, my readers, being astute, have already determined the problem. The water was electrified. I looked around and noticed several small fish floating in the water. What????!!! I rushed inside to flip the breaker to the pond pump. It really was a rough way to start the morning…I hadn’t even had coffee…

James was good enough to clean up the pond and give Miss Sadie a proper burial–but what had happened to cause things to go so wrong? Why were most of the smaller fish still living? Even our resident Southern Leopard frog was completely fine!!

James pulled the pump out of the pond and we were met with a sorry sight. The pump had somehow come apart in its casing, exposing the motor. Ooooh. Shudders all around. All I can figure is that Miss Sadie, being a bottom feeder, came into contact with a larger electrical current than the top swimmers. It didn’t make me feel any better but at least this is a problem that can be solved.

Lesson learned, kiddos? Keep a good eye on your water pond. Make sure that any and all electrical parts are functioning properly. Don’t let poor Miss Sadie’s fate overtake your own little fishies!

Miss Sadie

DOB: unknown, resident of BrightHaven pond for approximately one year…

Death: September 11, 2009

Miss Sadie enjoyed swimming, making air bubbles, hiding out in her tunnel and eating caterpillars from garden plants. On some occasions, Miss Sadie had been known to eat some of the smaller denizens of the fish pond. Miss Sadie is survived by one water frog, many smaller co-inhabitants of the pond, by Mr. James and myself.

RIP, Miss Sadie…

8 Sep

Little Green Bees

Posted by Becca in facebook.

Now has a facebook page! If you’re on facebook, we’d love to hear from you! Simply search for “Little Green Bees” in the search box. See you there…

27 Aug

Purples after the rain

Posted by Becca in Rain. Tagged: , .

Though I was highly tempted to entitle this post Purple Rain, it’s really not about purple rain. It’s really about purple things in the garden after the rain. Hence, the more appropriate title.

We awoke at about three this morning to torrential rain. My first thought? Oh good, I won’t have to water tomorrow! My second thought? Yikes! I left my (so many things) outside! Then, I missed the cat. Poor kitty was outside in the terrible downpour. Good thing he LOVES being towel-dried. About thirty minutes later, completely soaked, we’re ready for bed again. This morning, despite the occasional drip, the world is new. And what do we see in the garden?

HOT little pepper!

HOT little pepper!

Purple Pepper

Purple Pepper

We had a garden day with some of the kids several months ago. They were part of a group that needed to earn a gardening/outdoors badge. So, they came to BrightHaven to learn a few things. One of our projects was to plant these bell peppers. Great job, everybody!

Castor Bean

Castor Bean

Though I’ve been wanting a castor bean, I can’t say that I wanted one right here. I’m not sure where it came from. I’ve never had the seeds that I can remember!

Black eyed peas

Black eyed peas

I don’t suppose these really count as purple but this is such a pretty bush I wanted to show it off. It’s now sending off runners, the healthy thing. I initially planted this pea from a bag of black eyed peas I was cooking.

???

???

Who knows what this flower is? (Hint: the leaf below comes from the same plant!)

Massive leaf

Massive leaf

Just to give you an idea of how large this leaf is, I placed my hand in the middle.

Any guesses as to what it is?

26 Aug

Wordless Wednesday: Glimp Beans

Posted by Becca in gardening. Tagged: , , , , , .

Glimp Beans

Glimp Beans

Glimp Bean row

Glimp Bean row

Seeds courtesy of Mr. Hollis and Mrs. Alice

23 Aug

Sign posts for the garden

Posted by Becca in Garden Crafts. Tagged: , , , .

Fence

Fence

What James made: adorable pointing hands that can either show the way or answer the question. Can’t you just picture these friendly hands with cute or silly words printed on them? These guys point the way to the woodshed for wayward children, to the outhouse for unfortunate guests and to the front door for good friends! Think of the whimsical things to which they can point: tree, sky, ground…use your imagination and have fun!

Ground

Ground

They can point up or down or remain stationary.

We were cleaning up in the back and I was tossing bits of wood that were too far gone even for us when I came across a scrap of wood that looked like a rudimentary hand. About an hour later, James had fashioned this handiwork!

Up

Up

22 Aug

Late Blight Warning–courtesy of Silence!

Posted by Becca in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , .

If you’ve been reading LGB for an amount of time, you will have heard me mention some gardeners I highly respect. One of these fine folks is Silence DoGood and in a recent blog post at Poor Richard’s Almanac, she had some words of wisdom concerning Late Blight and canning tomatoes. Now, I’m not sure if this is something we’re facing along the Gulf Coast, but I certainly wanted to get the information out to those of you who may not have read her original article.

Late Blight Warning

Silence Dogood here. It’s bad enough to be living in Pennsylvania in the midst of a late blight epidemic, which is wreaking havoc with tomato crops across the Northeast this year thanks to a cool, wet spring and summer that’s encouraged the spread of this destructive fungal disease. But today’s local paper carried a front-page warning that was so serious I felt I needed to share it with you all right away. Food specialists are telling people not to can tomatoes from plants infected with late blight. Some say you shouldn’t even eat them fresh. Yikes!!!

It’s apparently fine to eat a tomato from a blight-infected plant as long as the tomato shows no signs of blight (typically first manifested on fruit as brown spots near the stem end, which subsequently spread over the fruit). According to one expert, Margaret McGrath, a plant pathologist at Cornell University, you can choose to cut away blighted parts of infected tomatoes and eat the unmarked flesh fresh, but, she points out, even that part will have an off-flavor. Luke LaBorde, a Penn State professor of food science, doesn’t think you should eat blight-infected tomatoes at all.

Both LaBorde and McGrath are adamant that you shouldn’t can or freeze tomatoes from blighted plants. That’s because fighting the infection lowers the fruits’ pH and increases the risk of botulism developing after processing.

It’s not worth risking death or paralysis to can these tomatoes, folks. I’d advise simply cutting your losses: Don’t eat them, don’t compost them (which could spread the disease in your garden next year), just put a plastic garbage bag over each infected plant, cut the plant off at the base, seal the bag, and toss it in the trash. That’s apparently the best way to contain the fungal spores that spread late blight.

In case you’re not sure if your plants have late blight, here’s what to look for. I quote: “large, circular to irregular greasy grayish areas [on the tomato leaves]. Humidity may cause a whitish mold on the undersurface of the leaves. Late blight on fruit results in extensive superficial brownish areas.”

After reading this, I think I’ll skip my typical summer tomato canning this year just to be safe. Thank goodness I still have home-canned tomato sauce and salsas from last year!

‘Til next time,

Silence

21 Aug

Interested in a seed swap?

Posted by Becca in Uncategorized. Tagged: , .

I would love to do a seed swap this year.  I participated in one last year and had a blast!  The only problem I found was that by the time I received my seed packet, most of the seeds were too late to plant on the Gulf Coast.  So, perhaps we should have a lower US seed swap.

Anyone interested?

If you are, be sure to comment on this post, leaving an email and we’ll get something pulled together!

20 Aug

Beans are coming along nicely

Posted by Becca in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , .

Black eyed peas

Black eyed peas

So far, the black-eyed peas are proving themselves to be the stars of the garden.  I believe every seed I planted popped right up.  I’ll have to get busy thinning and transplanting those little beauties as I want every black eyed pea I can get!  That’s a speckled butter bean seedling that you see to the right of the black eyed peas.  They grew really well for me the first year.  Not doing so great this year, for some reason…

Glimp beans

Glimp beans

The other front runners are the glimp beans that I received from Mr. Hollis.  They have proved quite vigorous, almost springing from the ground.  They would probably be great for a child’s garden as they sprouted within two days.  Of course, the greenhouse weather and the tropical storms that came through last week could certainly have helped their cause!

Milkweed just waiting for monarchs!

Milkweed just waiting for monarchs!

Couldn’t resist showing you all the beautiful milkweed that has naturalized (but not taken over) in our yard.  The swallowtails are finally coming around, hummingbirds are back in our yard.  Now we’re waiting for these guys…

Pocket melon

Pocket melon

And the second pocket melon.  I say it is the second but there were actually many others between this one and our first harvested fruit.  Some crazy bug attacked the vines and killed the whole thing!  I’m guessing it’s some type of squash vine borer.  Did not make me happy at all!  Not content with boring into the vines, the larvae also bored into the fruit and ate it up from the inside.  In retribution, I fed every single one of them to the fishies!

And, for those of you who may be wondering, the scent is wonderful!  Almost too sweet for me but definitely present and pleasant.  Smells a good bit like a very ripe cantaloupe and keeps for a long time.  The seeds are easy to harvest and I’m also hoping for some volunteers next season!

16 Aug

Black eyed peas are up!

Posted by Becca in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , .

Yay!  Asparagus beans are starting to poke out of the ground as well.  I’m thinking that TS Claudette may be just right for all those new seeds in the ground.  Hope so anyway…

15 Aug

reBlog from Bilbo Baggins: A Walk In The Shire

Posted by Becca in Uncategorized.

I found this fascinating quote today:

If you have a “recipe” for home made insecticides or fungicides, please email us so we can share it with others and do our part for the environment!Bilbo Baggins, A Walk In The Shire, May 2009

You should read the whole article.

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