Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

We have had a busy and productive past few weeks. My husband is on fire! He resolved for this new year to be more productive, and so far he's installed a mirrored jewelry cabinet (he bought as a gift), taken down the track spotlights in the kitchen and installed a new light- I can see now!

Here is the hubby in the kitchen with the original spotlights. Note that they do not light up the area well.

And here is the new and improved, bright and evenly lit kitchen! Note how much more lived in the house looks now as opposed to the previous pic, where we hadn't moved in yet. Jorge also hung the frames on the left recently, which deserve a post of their own. I cross-stitched a massive Save the Date and Wedding invitation. On the right is a double sided clock, imitating a vintage Parisian train station clock. We also finally got our wedding photo framed, and Jorge put that baby up!

Finally, Jorge is helping me plot that garden. I know, it's something we have been talking about since June! Since then, I've lost all my tomatoes and peppers to whitefly, but replanted a few weeks ago. So far, these are doing much better in the cooler weather. I think that the high humidity was a lucrative environment for pests.

This is what the "garden" plot looked like last time I posted about it. Now, here's what it looks like:

We got cedar instead of pine even though it's a bajillion times more expensive (and is very fragrant) because cedar is rot resistant. Those frames are going to house lots and lots of garden soil, and it will look great. Note in the upper left hand corner of the yard, the banana plants have flourished!

When I decided to start planting, I wanted to immediately dig up all the rocks in my little plot and fill it up with soil. I went and borrowed a dozen books from the library on the subject. A few months ago, all we just had were a tremendous pile of rocks that no one wants, and it was either too hot or too wet to plant anyway. The thing about a sudden urge to do something is that it doesn't work well with having to wait. I haven't been taking pictures of our compost bin, but it's actually broken down quite a bit as it is teeming with grubs! Timon and Pumba would love it in there. It's not really enough to amend let's say 200 lbs of topsoil, but I plan on adding some cheap cow manure compost (don't worry it doesn't smell) and using my compost as an organic side-dressing. Hold on, I can't help myself.

Manure. I hate manure.

I still have some plants that are somehow alive. This is the second batch, the first (as you saw in past posts) did not survive the whiteflies and blight. Well, the oregano and succulents did.

Here's my Oregano and sprouts of Sweet Basil. As you can see, the Oregano is doing well.

Here we have the new tomatoes and bell peppers, and a tray of butterfly flowers.

So, the weather is nice and our one week cold snap is over. This weekend we are going to fill that baby with soil and transplant my garden- or bust. The good thing is that with all the work that we (Jorge) put into it, it will last years to come, and there's always next October...

Still Alive..ish

So, the idea of gardening lost a little steam after my tomato plants started to die. I don't think it was the heat per se that did it. Maybe it was the rain. Actually, it's probably a combination of the two. I planted some stuff too early. It wasn't like I even used store bought seed, I just planted seed from produce we used. At any rate, the tomatoes are hanging on for dear life:

 They seem to be suffering from Southern Blight and whiteflies.

My peppers have been infected too, and are also being chewed away by an unknown pest. The one above is the healthiest looking of the bunch. I've caught snails on them before, but am not sure that snails have been able to reach the peppers at this point.
My herbs are doing pretty well for now.

The top three are the Oregano plants that have survived.

Above is my Parsley plant.

I haven't done anything to the bananas and just look at them!
I went to Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden last weekend and brought home two more succulents to add to my collection:

The succulents have been troopers. They survive so much neglect. I'll try not to give up on the whole gardening thing altogether, but I may just scale back to a small handful of plants that I'll plant in October.

Still Alive: my potted garden is surviving the summer

Things are growing, but not as well as they could be. Maybe because I haven't been babying the plants so much and whiteflies are a big problem with the tomatoes right now. They are the only plants I have outside, the rest are in the screened patio (which is kinda crowded now).

Oh, I almost forgot. When I said that we only had our tomato plants outside, that wasn't true. We have a new addition! My mom told us that my brother dug up a banana baby that their plant propagated, but it was sitting out for days without soil or water. It looked dead. But lo & behold, it sprouted new growth! It even produced two offshoots of its own. We put it in a pot for the time being because we needed a place to put it immediately.

Below are my poor tomatoes. Still getting taller, but showing signs of distress from those whiteflies:

I really need to stake the tomatoes. I kinda don't know what I'm doing.

The first parsley picture is one I planted after the bottom picture. The top picture was planted about 5 weeks ago, and the bottom picture was about 8 weeks ago. It sort of hasn't grown in a while. The thing that I find the strangest is that when the first one sprouted, it was tiny. The second one immediately was enormous (and healthy looking) from day one.

Above: My Oregano plant. It's shaped like a cyclone: It is tiny near the root and large on top. Not sure why that happened...

Above: My beautiful hen & chicks plant (Echeveria Amoena I think). I broke off a leaf and gave it to my grandmother-in-law, and it already grew a rosette within a month. Cool!

Finally, my bell pepper. I really want this one to succeed. I so would love homegrown peppers! It's grown so much since the first post I made about them less than a month ago.