h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I love seed catalogues
I was thinking about finding a Rowan tree, and a Hazel tree, and some Ash and Elder.
Those are the beginnings of a "Witch Garden".
Roses would figure into my garden as well, but finding roses that are hardy enough for this climate is a challenge... Wild roses are plentiful here, but I favor the blue roses
I had a black rose in the city, that was my pride and joy until some jerk came and dug it up in the middle of the night, and absconded with it
I thoroughly enjoy the exotics. We planted ornamental squash for the kids last year, and rainbow kale, and purple kholrabi, and purple potatoes (although my favorite is Yukon Gold). We also planted yardstick beans, but they didn't grow.
I had better quit for now. I've got a million things to do today.
lady Karen

Wow! I've ever seen a rowan tree. Do they grow in Canada? The hazel, ash and elder should be easy to find, though.

So glad you're a gardener.

Sorry, Hypatia, I got lost in the backlog somewhere!

Cassie is doing really well, she has settled in beautifully and needless to say has us wrapped around her little paws. I suspect Sadie may have left instructions for her to follow.

The rowan tree (sorbus something or other) in next door's garden deliberately leans over and drops its leaves in ours, on purpose I swear But with it and the house leeks (sempervirens something else) in pots outside we should be protected from curses and bad spells.

I have no idea where to find a Rowan tree here...
I was thinking that I would ask a girlfriend from Dublin to find one, and secret it to Canada in her luggage... She once brought me a piece of the Emerald Cliffs as a gift, and often brings that are cheese and onion flavored for me.
Her next trip home is going to be when her Mum passes, but no-one knows when that will be. The old lady keeps surprising everyone, and going home from intensive care, because she is so ornery
I said it's because she hates her next-door neighbor's horse, and doesn't want the horse to eat her shrubs, so she gets better when all seems impossible.
lady Karen

Well, whatever it takes to get well.

And I don't know what house leeks are, either. We have regular old garden leeks that you make soup with.

Sometimes I get a Thompson & Morgan catalog. The names of the vegetables in the Uk and the US are often different. So I may have house leeks in my garden and just not know it.

It's another sunny day here. I didn't get my leaves raked because of Frank's illness, so this looks like a good day to do that. I'm sure some fresh air will do me good.

Have fun
Go make the biggest pile of leaves you can, and then jump in
Then send Frank to the window to watch, as you have great fun doing it It'll make him want to get better faster!
lady Karen

We do indeed have Rowan trees in Canada. You have them in the US, too (the NE US, anyway). You probably didn't know that because on this side of the pond they are called Mountain Ash trees. The native one is Sorbus Americana. The rowan trees in UK would probably be the close relative Sorbus Aucuparia and are planted widely in North America too.
http://ncnatural.com/wildflwr/fall/mtnash.html

Ah! Mountain ash. That I'm familiar with. Nice trees.

GL, it's nice to hear from you again.

They are more commonly called Mountain Ash here too, Rowan is the older name for them:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/plant_finder/plant_pages/874.shtml

House leeks are a kind of succulent:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/plant_finder/plant_pages/850.shtml

the variety I have are greener.

Hen and Chicks? If so, I do indeed have some.

So, you should be able to start your garden.

Hen & Chicks
Nice plant!
I also love the hanging burro's tail. Looks like a bunch of peas strung together
I am really looking forward to planting again
Gave some of my teenagers plants for christmas. Indoor starter kits of beans, peppers, and flowers. (I thought I could entice some of them into helping in the garden that way)
lady Karen

Did they appreciate their seed starting kits? I always manage to work at least one gardening program into my kids programs each spring. They're never too young to start planting.

Burpee has developed an improved Brandywine! How's that for awesome? It bears in just 75 days, it sets more tomatoes; and it has a neater growth habit so it won't take the entire garden. And this year someone...can't remember who, maybe Territorial, has a purple cauliflower that stays purple when you cook it.

I have good luck starting tomatoes and peppers and other veggies from seed. Plus it's more fun, I have a bigger choice of varieties and I can have my plants at the right time. The garden centers here actually bring the plants in too early. Everyone s in such a rush to get going in the spring. They don't realize that the plants just sit there and don't grow until the soil gets warm anyway. So peas, for example, planted on Valentine's Day won't produce any sooner than ones planted the middle of March. You just have another month for the weeds to get started. And tomatoes and peppers set out the first of April won't produce one minute faster than the ones set out the first of May. Unless you enclose them in some sort of mini-environment like a wall-o-water, which is a nuisance and gets damaged by the least little thing.

My gardening philosophy is:
It gets planted when it gets planted.
I'm usually a bit later than most because of the weather, anyway. And this year we will be busy with crops, too. (Wheat, hay, onions, etc..) Lots of farm planting to get work with.
We were fertilizing the organic crop our landlord has a couple of days ago. He hasn't put chemicals on it of any sort for 6 years now, so it will really be a true organic crop this year.
The kids took turns riding on the sled behind the truck, pitching pig poo off of it, into the feild. One of the foster kids fell face first into the pile, and then took my son Sam, and planted his face in it It was pretty fun to watch these kids have so much fun
I think the kids liked their planting kits. son has started his, actually. He's growing yardstick beans, and is planning to keep them indoors

I've started joking with the kids about growing s from "seeds". They are going to try to start their own s from eggs, in about another two weeks. The landlord is setting up an incubator for the kids, and we'll probably have a 4H club of our very own. I have six kids at home, two with , and the landlords have 10 (including 4 of their own).
It should be pretty interesting here this year
lady Karen

My favorite Aggie joke is about chickens. (Aggie jokes are the Texas equivalent of Polish jokes --poking fun of Texas A&M)

A young man graduated from A&M and his proud papa gave him 160 acres of farm land and told him to go make a living. One brother grew cotton and another grew soybeans, so he didn't want to do either of those. He decided to raise chickens.

He went out and furrowed then went to the grocery store and bought a couple of thousand cartons of eggs, planted them and waited for the chickens to grow. After about a month, when nothing had come up, he talked to his brother about it and was told that he had to buy baby chicks if he wanted to raise chickens.

So he furrowed again and went to the brooder and bought 2000 baby chicks. He went home and planted them head down and waited for them to grow. After a month when he discovered that all of the chicks had died he went back to the brooder and bought another 2000 chicks. This time he planted them feet first, went home and waited for them to grow. At the end of the month he went back into the field expecting to find it full of chickens, but to his dismay all he had again was dead chicks.

He knew that his papa was going to be expecting a cash crop, so he decided to get some professional help. He wrote to his agriculture professor and explained his 3 attempts and 3 failures and asked for advise. A few days later he got a post card from his prof with one sentence on it. "Send a soil sample."

Some city folk might get a chuckle from that
I thought it was funny!
lady Karen

If you can't make fun of Aggies, then who can you make fun of?

Frank goes to the hematologist tomorrow and to the cardiologist Monday. Then we have to see about getting him into cardiac rehab. I'll be so glad when all this is over with so I can have a regular schedule again. I come and go at work so much that everyone is totally stressed. We have a small staff and need for me to keep regular hours.

Gonna go read seed catalogs and unwind.

I am to hear about Frank
Give him a hug from me.
lady Karen

Now the doc thinks Frank may have cellulitis. I'm not sure what that is...a skin infection in his foot of some kind. He's on antibiotics for 2 weeks and she tripled his dosage of the allopurinol. So, between the two the foot had better start improving. Now I'm starting to worry again.

I have supper started in the crock pot. That will ease a little of my stress. I hate going home tired and then having to decide what to cook. I keep saying I'll make out menus for the week but never get around to it. So lots of time I go in and just do what's easy.

Hypatia, here is an article from a medical website devoted to kids. I happen to keep it bookmarked because I have them. Kids, that is. But the general definition should help.

It's interesting that it is not uncommon in those that have diabetes or are taking medicines which compromise the immune system.

http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/infections/skin/cellulitis.html

Thanks for the link, WM. His foot is red and swollen. And there are little red blotches moving up his shin. When he sleeps the swelling and redness get better, but as soon as he gets up he puffs up again.

He has mild Type II diabetes that we control with diet and oral medication. His glucose readings lately have been wonderful...better than before the surgery.