Seedling update

So I promised to post new photos of my seedlings. Well here are the photos but I must apologize for the quality. In my defense I was drinking my first cup of coffee at the time I took these but bad photos or not you get the idea of how I have them set up. In the first photo I have a flat of Cleome seeds that have not germinated yet and will probably be another couple of days before they do. The seedlings in the middle are all Tomatoes mostly San Marzano with a few Early Girl, Super Beefsteak, Jellybean, and a couple Zebra. The larger leaves that you see on the left are Hyacinth Bean plants. What you don't see in the photo is another tray of seeds that are waiting to germinate. Most of those are of perennial seeds and I guess some can take months to germinate. I have never grown any of them from seed before so your guess is as good as mine as to when they will germinate but I will post as soon as they do.

Here are the seedling that have germinated. I have a variety of plants here. I have herbs, veggies but mostly flower seedlings. I am quite happy with their success this year but I am still keeping my fingers crossed that all will go well.

Plumeria awakening

This is a red Plumeria that I brought back from Hawaii in 2007. It has never bloomed but with some luck I hope that changes this season. I moved it to a south facing window and she seems to be very happy. I gave her some fertilizer this week. In the past I have given her some slow release fertilizer but this time I am trying a Bloom Booster.

Air conditioning unit cover

With the air conditioning unit being on the doggie side of the fence now I needed to protect it from them. I wanted the unit to be able to have plenty of air movement and I needed it to be accessible for servicing the unit and maintaining the plants around the unit. The right side of the fence is removable with ease. It is hanging on hooks. Yes it might look better without the extension cord hanging on the fence.

The new fire pit and wood storage

As you can see in the photo there is a big wood pile mess in the upper right hand side of the photograph. There has to be a better way.

With some donated lumber and a little research, viola, firewood storage.

In the following photo you can see more of the firewood mess. The cylinder shaped timbers are recycled from my cousin Glenn Jr, who by the way donated the majority of the lumber in all of these projects. It was either scrap lumber or lumber he was not using. A Giant Thank you to Nooner. Those timbers are heavy as Hell and he told me he use to put them on his shoulders to carry them where ever he wanted to put them. OMG are you kidding me, I could only drag them by myself, fortunately cousin Chrissy helped me. I also want to add a Giant Thank you to Chrissy for all her help I could not have done it all without her as well.

I removed the fence to make it easier to haul in the gravel. I also had to replant the Euonymus Tree you see in the center of the picture.

I was over the continuous slope of the lanai and decided to make tiers for easier walking and a better aesthetic. Yes I have a lot to do.

And now here is the new fire pit area. Notice the different benches. Can you tell I am proud as punch. lol I have built four of the five benches that I have planned to do. The last bench will go in the new flower bed that is coming soon.

This is the view looking to the north.

Looking to the south.

Backyard renovation

OK so I don't recall if I have told you that I am giving the backyard a face lift. If I haven't then I am telling you now and it has officially begun. The weather has cut me some slack and it is on. In the following photo you can see that the shorter fence is running east and west. Well that is getting ready to change.

The doggies are still going to have plenty of room, but they are now having to share the backyard.

When I look at these photos I can just see the mountains of work and clean up that I have ahead of me. Ugh. All I can do is take it one step at a time and with a little luck and a lot of hard work, it will all be transformed by May 8th 2010.

Scooter is clearly confused with all the happenings.

The spot for the new Den of Mischief. Notice the fence is now running north and south.

For the record, Chrissy nor myself are carpenters but we do our best. I have this screened in gazebo tent and wanted to make a permanent structure to support the tent without worry that a mild rain would collapse it like it has in the past. This was the idea anyhow.

So as you can see the posts were set and now all that is left is to figure out how to build the top.

We figured out how to make the top and the tent fits. Hip Hip Hooray!!! I will show you photos of the top portion of this gazebo as soon as I take them. lol This is my dad giving a hand.

Then I decide I wanted a built in bench. I found a website that had a how-to about building a bench arbor and I modified it to make it work for this project.

Trust, it will look much better without the mess all around the bench. I plan on painting the entire structure the same color as the cloth in the metal structure.

Early seedlings 2010

My seedling set up this year has changed, for the better I might add. Usually I sow the seeds and set the trays as close to windows as I can. This year I am using the two grow lights that I have previously used for my tropical plants and also purchased two more lights. In the following photo you can only see one of the light fixtures. Now I have all the trays laying across the top of the bench like the one in the middle of the photo. I have two lights hanging above the bench and one attached underneath the bench. Tomorrow I will post pictures of the seedlings as they are now. I thought I had taken photos of them recently but clearly I was mistaken.

Most of the seedlings you see in this photo are Zinnias, Cosmos and the seedling in the bottom left corner is of a Hyacinth Bean. My dad had given me some Hyacinth seed pods last fall and I was not sure if they would be viable but as you can see they are.

February 2010

When the weather looks like this, there is only one thing a gardener can do...

Break out the seeds.