Aerogarden lettuce - WIN!!!

I've been slacking on writing this week's blog post but not without a good reason. The common cold from hell came and whomped me good. I'm still getting over it and am glad this came this week instead of next week which is flower show week! If you find yourself in the Providence area next week, come on over and visit the show. I'm in booth 313 in the marketplace for the 5th year in a row. I didn't design the RINLA exhibit this season because my other roles in the organization was going to take up way more time and energy. But, after doing it for 4 years, it was time for someone else to take the job. ;)

I've been taking weekly pics of the aerogarden lettuce crop and I will admit I am shocked at how well it grows lettuce. I had to finally add some fertilizer tabs early this past week and the rate of growth is insane after I dropped them in. I know I have only grown lettuce for just under three weeks, but I would definitely recommend this little gadget for anyone who wants to grow veggies in the winter or if they have limited or no space outside. I'm almost dying to get another one and try something else in it. Maybe after the flower show I'll indulge myself with a three pod aerogarden.

Below are the photos I took last week and you can see the growth is really good from the photos I posted on here last time. I am using just tap water for this crop to see what happens and the quality of the foliage. I found this wonderful place - Areogarden Growers Community and a lot of them recommend distilled water for other crops like tomatoes and peppers. According to them, some municipalities have decent water and one could get away with using your tap water. I think I may use distilled water for some other crops because I don't want to take a chance with crappy results.





These are the pics I took a couple of days ago after adding the fertilizer tabs. Look at that difference!! I even lifted the lights up one notch because of the height of the plants. They said in the literature you can harvest lettuce three weeks into the growing process. I will admit, I was skeptical about that premonition. But now, I can see it is completely feasible. I think you almost have to harvest at three weeks just so the plants can be maintained.








My name is Cris, and I am now officially an Aerogarden junkie.

Tit for Tat

Eric couldn't let me be the only one with stuff in print! LOL So he had to out do me and get himself in an herbicide ad campaign in a national magazine!!! I'm married to a model!!! This product is an herbicide for ground ivy and Eric had given them a raving review for it's effectiveness. So they decided to have him be the spokesperson! This ad is from Lawn and Landscape Magazine. I guess it's supposed to be in others and he has another company talking to him and trying out their products.

"Buy this product or I'll knock your lights out" (ROFL!!!) Apparently the photographer told him to look serious. This is the "I mean business" look he mastered in the Coast Guard dealing with people breaking the law.

Cool Stuff for Mr. Larson...before I know it, he's going to have "people" and a posse. LOL Anyway...on to plants.

I acutally had germination a couple of days after we set everything up. I'm glad I started with lettuce because they germinate fast and so far have been easy. The above photos was as of the beginning of this week. The greenery is just cotyledons or the very first set of baby leaves.



I took these below photos just yesterday and now the real leaves are starting to emerge. Some are just green and some are speckled with red spots which I know is a variety of lettuce because I've grown something like this outside before. I've only had to add just a little bit of water since it's been running...I totally could have left it alone and for a while. But I'm like a mother hen with this crop because it's my first. I'm really using great self control on not buying a 3 pod Aerogarden off of eBay for just flowers on my marker desk next to my drafting table. I would like to get one...I don't think my self control will last much longer.

New Garden Gadets and Lake Larson is famous

I'll start with the cool news that just happened today. A year or two ago, Laura Rice (the author of Practical Horticulture - a college horticulture textbook) contacted me and wanted to use some photos of Lake Larson, a tigerlily of mine, and another garden I had designed. I said okay and then didn't hear anything about it again...until today. So, the Fedex truck shows up and dropped something off at the door...I thought Eric had ordered something because I wasn't expecting anything. This was in the package -


My tiger lily photo!! (I'm not particularly fond of them...but I guess they will have to stay now)


Lake Larson back during the first season we had the wet pets -


Lake Larson as the focal point as you start the book....freakin' cool!!!


I didn't see the other photo she had asked for which is a bummer for the client...I had told them about it when she first contacted me. I wonder since all of the pics are in black and white, it didn't have the pop that it has in color. :(

But, on to the rest of my post! I have been toying with the idea of getting an aerogarden after talking with a client of mine who had one. I looked and read the reviews online from people who had them and that sealed my decision. The only thing that kept me from getting it was the price...for a good sized one, they are around $150 - $200. Um, yeah...I couldn't really justify that. So, I started looking on Craigslist for one and got it for half of the price. That I can justify especially if it can take some $$ off of weekly groceries, I'm all for that. I decided to start out with the lettuce greens pack. I have been researching and learned that you can resuse the pods for your own seeds which I plan on doing once the lettuce goes by. Yesterday, the pods came and after a little technical difficulties with the water pump - we're up and running!!! I have it down in the basement because the thing is bright and I can also keep an eye on it since the office is down there too.



The close up of the pods....


My anti-cat device...high-tech isn't it. But, knowing how evil my cat is, I can see him ruining this in 10 seconds flat.

Birds of a feather feed together!

Happy New Year everyone!! I decided to take a little breather from posting over the holidays...not to mention, there wasn't a whole lot going on gardening wise either. It's been frigid here and I haven't been spending much time outside at all. I think throwing a ball around for Lars has been just about it for outside activities. I do have a new gardening toy I grabbed off of Craigslist I'll debut next week when I have it all set up.

Bird central has been very busy these past several weeks. I really have been enjoying the feathered visitors who come and have dinner with us. I added some suet cages for the Carolina Wren and the Woodpeckers. I snapped a couple of photos of the woodpecker a week or two ago (the last time we've had snow)....



I had a goldfinch who was coming regularly to the thistle feeder for a couple of days but I haven't seen him much this past week. The guests to Bird Central have been primarily the juncos, my pair of cardinals, house finches, and the chickadees. I have sparrows thrown in the mix there but they are not as plentiful. I haven't seen much in the way of nuthatches and titmice which I kind of find suprising.








The other night, we had a visitor of the furry persuasion. I was up late playing Wii **blushes** and heard this banging around outside on the deck. After I figured out it probably wasn't the wind, I peeked outside and saw this -


I'm fairly certain Lars could smell him...because he was all fired up that there was something outside. Lars (and Sam) have discovered opossums before and I can only imagine what they think of them...probably something along the lines of "ugly kitties". I grabbed my camera and popped it out the door so Lars couldn't go busting out there to investigate. Ugly kitty, indeed.

Snopocalyptic Monday

I think this blog posting is going to be a big one...I had planned on talking about my shift from gardening to birding over the winter. Well, then Old Man Winter stepped in and clobbered us over the head. So, I am going to talk about both. As I'm sure you are well aware of by now, the east coast got nailed by a blizzard and heavy rains. This storm was pretty rare for us in RI because we normally get heavy wet snows in small quantities if it does snow in December. This one set records...it was in the top ten for heaviest snow fall ever for RI and was the biggest snow fall ever for RI in December. Below is our little circle on mid Sunday morning...we didn't get freed by the plow until almost 11:30 am. Thank goodness I didn't have any place to be.


Here in Warwick, we got about 15 or so inches. Since it was light, it blew around a lot. Some places in my yard looked like we had a couple of inches and in some spots it was mid chest on Lars. Aquidneck Island got slammed with 20 - 24" which high winds formed into monstrous drifts . Eric has been plowing over there Saturday night, Sunday, and most of today. The drifts won't quit...some are as tall as Eric. I was over there today and the main roads are so bad with drifts they are controlling them with loaders on the side of the roads. I've never seen anything like it including when I lived in Central NY...now that's saying something. Eric thinks he may be home before midnight...he's being hopeful.


Lake Larson has been reduced to large piles of snow and some stakes sticking out of the ground where the nets are for the heron. They flash froze in there...looks like they may be there until spring. There is one little hole in the snow where the air stone bubbles away keeping a hole open for gas exchange.

Bird Central was a happenin' place to be on Sunday. There was bird feeder gridlock at some points.

Of course, after a snow storm, one has to go out and play with their dog. I'm not sure if Lars remembered snow from last winter, but he sure had a blast out there. He kept going to the door asking to head back out there and romp some more. After Old Man Winter dealt us a punishing blow earlier in the day, he softened and painted the sky with a sunset which I haven't seen the likes of in a long time.

Red sky at night, snow plowers' delight...

It was such an intense sunset, the snow reflected the colors....so cool.

Lars was not as impressed with the sunset as I was...all he wanted to do was chase his ball which was behind me. Sometimes he just humors me and my need to pose him in my photos.

Just this last week, I had moved the bird feeders up close to the house where I can easily see who's coming to dinner. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly they find them. I decided not to do the Great American Bird Feeder Count with Cornell's Department of Ornithology. I always have great intentions, log my birds for about a month, then I forget. So, I'm just going to enjoy the birds this winter. Just an informal tally of who's shown up so far: Cardinals, Juncos, Titmice, Chickadees, Nuthatches, House Sparrows, House Finches, Goldfinches, Blue Jays, White Throated Sparrows, and Carolina Wrens. Now that I have written it all out, that's a healthy guest list.

Happy Holidays!!!

Indoor gardening takes over - the sexy orchids.

It's about that time of year where I pack it in, store away all of my tools and bid the garden farwell until about March. I now turn my eye to indoor horticulture where it is much more warm and colorful. Right now I have 4 phalaenopsis orchids which I really have come to love. I was all about african violets up until a couple of years ago. I don't know if I got bored of them or what...but I made the switch. I find the phalaenopsis orchids to be really easy to grow in my house. The slider must have the right light for them to be really happy. We also let our house drop in temperature at night and they really like that too. This is (I think) my 3rd year growing them and I tried something different this summer which I may not try again.

I attempted to place them outside and let them hang out there for the summer over by Lake Larson and the garage. I thought that may be just enough light but not too much for them. Well, when the sun did decide to shine, they got a little fried and had some sun scald on their leaves. Then the rains came...and why I didn't pull them back inside is beyond me. Maybe I had too much on my plate at the time to think about it. But, despite the rain, they flowered all summer...and because of the rain the flowers were riddled with black spots. Yuck. I should have brought them back inside. Oh well. This coming summer, they will be staying inside.

One thing people say to me all the time when they hear I do orchids is theirs never bloom again after they get them. I think one of the main reason is because people take off the flower stems when the blooms drop. Don't do that...you have to leave them on because that's where most of my flowers come from. You can see in the photo above, there's a new sprig shooting off of that spent one. 80% of my flowers come from old stems so leave them on.

This winter I'm also attempting something I haven't done before and that is a new organic fertilizer for the orchids. Phalaenopsis orchids typically bloom from December through May and I'm going to use Neptune's Hydrolized Fish Fertilizer and it's make up is 2 - 4 - 1. It's basically a fish emulsion and I'm using it once a week just to see what results I get. I will say that Lars is fascinated with the plants after I water/feed them. I'm not sure if that's going to be the case with all dogs since he has been graced with a super sniffer, but I'm just saying. I will report, my cat couldn't care less about it.


You guys all know how I feel about Home Cheapo but I am not above rescuing plants from there if they are in good shape. I picked up this little orchid from there around Thanksgiving for 8 bucks...how could I resist. I do have to repot it though because that is a tiny little pot. I was aghast at the instructions on how to care for this poor thing...water it with melting ice cubes once a week. Seriously? **face palm** Is gardening becoming so dumbed down that watering plants has been reduced to leaving ice cubes to melt on them? Ugh. "Gardeners" like that should just do themselves a favor and get a silk orchid from Home Goods.

This pot has three different orchids in it I don't dare separate...there's a plain white, a white with some pink hints, and the white with the purple netting. I have a yellow one that took the most of the beating this summer and it's just hanging out growing more roots. I hope it flowers this winter, but we'll see. I did repot everyone up this fall into much bigger and shallow pots with orchid substrate. I think they are going to like their new homes.



I did get to my winter window boxes this year! I never got around to it last year because Sam took up a lot of my time . I really like how these turned out and I have to get a better photo of the big one featured above...sometimes the iphone camera just sucks at taking photos. I'll have to use my real camera for it. I used cut holly, rhododendron, norway spruce, juniper, variegated boxwood, and lavender. For the accents, I used maiden grass, switch grass, hydrangea flowers, and crabapples. In the past, I have used cut white pine. But this year, I scored a ton of cut holly from some bushes I pruned back for a client. I LOVE IT!!!

Here's the garage window box and this photo was taken with my real camera (what a difference) It's similar to the big one but I kept a sedge in the front that was left over from the summer box and I used cut sweet fern from around the pond. I used the cut holly, lavender, switch grass, and hydrangea. I think it's darling. ;)

Um, the last time I checked...that looks like the color lavender

I want to know what kind of crack these geneticists are smoking...that's not a blue rose. Why do we even need blue roses? Roses come in every color under the sun as it is. If you want blue in your garden, there are umpteen different hydrangea and perennials you can use to achieve that. I can only imagine the hardiness issues and disease/pest issues this plant would have in the landscape. Yellow roses aren't very hardy because yellow is a massively recessive gene in roses...OMG, blue isn't even in the rose color wheel.

Before these scientists get all excited about their discovery....Conard Pyle already sells something "Blue"

Floribunda Rose "Singing the Blues" (Dare I say it...that's a better blue than the Frankenstein rose they featured in the video.