Sunflowers
Calendula

French Marigolds
Gaillardia Daisies

I love flowers and have several throughout my garden area each year. I hope to add several new flowers this year. I have Calendula, Gaillardia Daisies, Hen and Chicks and Sedum growing right now. As soon as possible I want to plant Marigolds, Zinnias, Geraniums, Petunia and others.


Yesterday it was sunny and warm so I worked out in the garden area. I planted onions, radishes and peas in my raised bed garden. I cleaned out several flowerpots to ready them for flowers, etc. Rich and I are going to try making some Self Watering Planters this year. You make them out of the large plastic totes that you use for storing things. We found them at Walmart for about $4 each the other day. It takes 2 of them to make 1 planter. I found the link for the instructions on a OrganicHomesteading group I belong to on Yahoo. They're not hard to make........might take a while with the first one to figure everything out. I'll post photos later after we get one constructed.


I'm going to get some tomatoes, peppers and eggplants started tomorrow in small pots for later transplanting into the garden. It will be a lot cheaper to start my own plants than buy them in pony packs at the nursery. I found the seeds at Walmart for 10 cents a package last Friday. The pony packs of 6 plants cost $3.00 at our local nursery.


I'm looking forward to the gardening season this year. We are trying to grow more veggies so that we can preserve them for later use. With the price of groceries in the store going up each day this will save money in the long run.


We will be preserving as much as possible over the next few months. I want to get some asparagus and can it in the pressure canner soon. Local asparagus will be arriving in the stores soon. I wish I could find a place where we could harvest it wild. We're fairly new to the area and don't know where any is located.


I'm sure that we will receive plenty of blackberries from Dad and Mae this summer. Dad told me the other day that he didn't prune them back any this winter and they would probably be more blackberries than last summer. Dad and Mae are always picking them and delivering them to me. I tell them that I can come pick them and they tell me that it gives them something to do. I make Blackberry jelly and give it to them during the years. I also can the juice unsweetened for either drinking or making jelly. You can mix the blackberry juice with Diet 7-Up for a refreshing drink.


Talk to you later.