Potato Update & More

I got two bird feeders for Mother's Day, and love seeing the birds out often.  Kate absolutely loves it, and is learning bird names quickly.   Her favorites are the goldfinches, like the one I caught this morning on the feeder.  I need to get a telephoto lens for my camera very badly, as I can't zoom in much more than this without things getting blurry.  Though this was taken through my closed kitchen window, so it's not too bad!

The thing my husband dislikes the most about the sunflower feeder.  All the seedlings in the grass underneath.  I think it's funny.
People think you need special skills to be a gardener, and that it is hard to grow things.  This always makes me laugh for the most part.  The seedlings in the grass above are an example of why this makes me laugh.  Here's another one.  This is a potted zebra grass (which died, because I didn't get it planted quick enough after it came) and out of one of the bottom drainage holes of the pot is growing a tomato.  It sprouted from a seed that must have been in my compost bin.  And it has grown this far, out of a drainage hole in a pot, which absolutely no special treatment, as I didn't even know it was there until last night. I don't know what kind of tomato it is, but I'm thinking it may be a lemon drop cherry from last year.  If I can get it out of there, I may try planting it and see what I get.  It will probably be the same as the 5 other volunteer plants I saved from other areas of the garden that sprouted from the compost.

Here's an update and some photos of the potatoes.  They are coming along fine, it appears.  All I can see is the leaves, obviously, but I filled up the baskets with more dirt last night, and probably should have done it at least a week ago.  The leaves are going strong, and one of them even has a flower bud on it.  I figure that's a good sign.  The shoots are starting to grow through the sides of the basket too, which Kate thinks is fun.

New Things

I've gotten a bunch of new things and wanted to share them.  First, the additional raised bed is built - 4'x12', which combined with the existing 6'x12' raised bed brings the total square footage of the raised beds to 120 sq ft, plus the other space I use and the pots, I probably have pushing 150 sq ft of gardening space now, which is pretty good considering the small size of the yard and the fact that I want to keep the swing set and space for the girls to play as they grow up.  Here is a photo of the new raised bed (about 1/3 full of dirt) and the old bed behind it.  You can also note the absence of honeysuckle against the stockade fence, which is down and awaiting the arrival of a chipper.

The second new thing(s) I recently received were 2 bird feeders from my mom, a hanging sunflower feeder and a hanging finch feeder.  They have been out for 2 days and already we have a lot of birds using them.  We've had lots of mourning doves and sparrows (which Kate has declared "mommy birds" and "baby birds" respectively, due to their difference in size), and a few goldfinches.  

I also got quite a few new things at Target today.  I really like Target.  I found plant markers in the dollar bin today (if only they weren't made in China - sigh) and got 3 packs, plus a 2 hr watering timer, which will be WONDERFUL for when I'm running the soaker hoses because I am really bad at getting distracted and forgetting to turn them off.  I also got 2 bottles of the liquid Terracycle fertilizer there for the tomato seedlings and sunflowers we recently planted. I love Terracycle not only because it's an organic fertilizer, but because they package it in recycled plastic soda bottles and recycled plastic milk jugs.  I also got Kate a new pair of rain/mud boots (she picked the dinosaur ones which are really cool), plus a new pair of gardening gloves for her as she lost the last pair she had, and a new watering can because her other two were really cheap and broke so quick.  

The last "new thing" I have is about the worst case of poison ivy I've ever had.  We had a fairly significant poison ivy vine growing up the back fence post behind the garden beds, and late last week I decided to pull it out, as nothing else seemed to be killing it (I even borrowed my neighbors Round Up, I'm sad to say, and it didn't kill it).  I wore long pants, long sleeves, gloves, socks, boots, etc, and thought I was super duper careful, but I still managed to get a fairly good sized patch on the inside of my lower right arm, some on my neck, a bit that has just developed on the inside of my upper left arm and I believe some on the outside of my nose.  Grrr.  It has been a couple of itchy, itchy days.  I have been using hydrocortisone and Benadryl a bunch and trying very hard not to scratch. However, I figure it's better that I have it than one of the girls getting it accidentally and being this itchy.  That would really not be fun.

Finally, here are a couple more potato pictures - I can't believe how much they are growing!