Pea Trellis, Peanut?

Early Morning...

I woke up very early this morning, around 7am, to spray the grass in the far beds. I realized that the beds get the best sun from when it comes up around 8am to about 12pm so to burn the grass properly I needed to spray before the sun. I grabbed the EcoSmart and sprayed all the grass and for good measure I spray again with the vinegar/detergent mixture I had left in a spray bottle. Then I went back inside. 

Early Afternoon...

I had plans to go to the salon with my Mom today so I wanted to get the watering done before I had to leave at 2pm. I filled the watering can, grabbed a peanut plant, the shovel, and headed over to Patch Market first. I wasn't sure I'd have time for everything before I left but I wanted to get the Peanut plant into my bed before the sun moved. I planted the Peanut, watered everything, and pulled out the jalapeño sign. 

I ran out of time rushed inside to change and left. 

Peanut plant.

Strawberry blooms overnight.

Late Afternoon...

When I got home I changed and went out to do some more watering and planting. I wanted to plant the pepper plants and put the green bean trellises up. Before I did that I went I to Patch Market to show Mike my strawberry flowers. I'd noticed that they'd all bloomed overnight and wanted to show them off. After he left I noticed that there was clover on the left side of my bed. All of the sudden it made sense that I had those red velvet mites that like clover. I didn't know why they'd shown up without the proper food, maybe radishes were a type of clover leaf was one thought, but no there was actual clover. So I went I side to grab the vinegar mix and sprayed the clover until it was soaked. I'm hoping the little red nasties will move on now. The radishes are gone and now the clovers smell bad and will die. 

When I was done spraying I grabbed the pepper plants and looked on the back of there labels to try to figure out the spacing. I couldn't figure out my plan for that box without the Potagar Schoultz diagram from Smart Gardener. I went inside pulled up the diagram/plan and went back out. We'd have one extra pepper plant. I planted the golden bell & jalapeño pepper to the left of the green beans and the red beauty peppers in the 2x2 plot left. I watered the peppers and sprayed them with epsom salt. Now that those were placed and the bed was full I was able to insert the trellises without worrying about the space the legs were taking up in the surrounding spaces. I made a tepee trellis by leaning 2 square wooden trellises against each other for support and aesthetics. 

I was going to plant the remaining pepper plant in a 12x12inch container but the Mosquitos were eating me alive and I'm allergic. I forgot about those pests during my craze and fear over the others. They are actually the bugs in least afraid of but they affect me the most. If I get more than 3-4 bites I get a fever. So I ran inside. 

Once inside I grabbed the nail polish remover and the jalapeño marker I'd brought in and removed the nail polish. I grabbed black and brownish polish and painted the word "peanuts" and pictures of 3 peanuts in there she'll on the tile. I blew on it to dry it and quickly ran back out to switch out the paper marker, that read Have you ever seen a peanut grow?, for the tile one in the bed. 

I ran back in to avoid any bites and I put everything away then of to shower.

Pepper plants; Golden bell (L), Jalapeno (M), Red Beauty (Front R).

Trellises over peas.

Patch Mark-it!

Plant Markers...

The last time I wrote about the plant markers I was so excited to have found something that would not vanish with the rain. It snowed on Tuesday and guess what vanished with the rain... the writing. Apparently, the nail polish pen I was so excited about wasn't nail polish at all. The actual nail polish fought through the snow without one scratch but the writing didn't make it. So, when I was done adding the Perlite to my raised bed yesterday I grabbed them all and trashed them. I must admit I acted a bit impetuously but I was only thinking those didn't work, now what? What I should have done was kept them, cleared off any "nail polish" pen that was left behind and written the names in black nail polish then glued them to the paint mixers I'd gotten from Home Depot. That was the original plan, to glue them to the paint mixers if they made it through the snow...

Once I got inside I instantly regretted throwing the tiles away. I could have just rewritten the names in black polish. I was so cold I didn't want to go out to the garbage and get them so I decided I would just remake them. I had already remade the carrot markers because the carrots I am planning on planting are two different types. I wanted the markers to reflect each type. Before I remade them I took the mixers and drew the veggie and name directly on them. I thought that might look nicer then the tile. It didn't. Then I used paint markers and drew the name and veggie on it, that didn't look good either. So, I started remaking the tiles and even though I had to write the words with a brush they came out pretty well. It was time to glue the tiles to the paint mixers. I grabbed them and a saw and started to cut them down to a more reasonable size. They were originally about 1.5 feet long. I cut them down to about 9 inches. Then I took tile glue that my mom happened to find and I happened to pick up and put it directly on the wood mixer where the tile would sit. At first, I had some trouble getting the glue out which was strange because I'd just tested it. Then I noticed glue was getting on my hand. From where? I looked and couldn't see where the hole was until I squeeze again. There was a hole on the top of the bottle before the screw. I ended up having to use the hole. It worked fine and I glued each tile to there stick. 

They came out just OK. I don't know if I like them as much as my first tiles except for the carrots but I like them enough to use them. 

Slips in water...

Other than the markers I checked on the spinach (container & faerie plot) and the sweet potatoes. The spinach has been germinating for 9 days and shows no signs of life in either spot. The sweet potatoes have been in water for 3 days and I've already seen some growing roots. I was so psyched to see that but it made me wonder if the spinach will ever grow considering it took my sweets such a short time to show some action. I need to either replant or keep waiting but I think I might replant and keep waiting. See which one turns out first the seeds started in MG garden soil, backyard soil or the seeds I start in organic potting mix. Want to take a guess?

Nail Polish Markers

More Markers...

I was getting pretty frustrated with the broken tile markers. I kept trying the calligraphy ink and they just weren't turning out. I went back to Sharpie markers and that wasn't the look I wanted. So, I got out a small can of sample enamel house paint in black. I started painting one of the tiles and it was looking pretty good but the smell was toxic. I just kept thinking, I don't know if I'm going to pass out mid paint... 

The enamel paint was getting all over the place so I moved to the floor and laid out some extra newspaper and continued trying the black paint. It was too messy, smelly, and thick. It wouldn't dry completely so it got all over my hand but it would dry too quickly on the brush so that my stokes ended up uneven and bulky. It was a complete mess. So I grabbed the trusty acrylic paint kit, a paper cup filled with water and some paper towels. I squeeze out a little crimson, considering that it had worked so well on the sign, and start painting. I stop to take a look at what I've done and it just felt like a child's finger painting. It was too bold not fake enough or realistic enough. Plus, it turns out that acrylic is water soluble when used on tile. May be either way but I didn't think so. I continue sitting on the floor just look at all the samples I've piled up. None of which would work. None of which were up to par. I sigh deeply and got frustrated and started to put all my tools away when I thought, NAIL POLISH! It's waterproof and I think I have most of the colors I'll need. OH MY GOD! I even have a black nail polish pen for the words!! 

I ran to the bathroom and grabbed the nail polish colors, pen, and some acetone for mistakes. I started with the radish plant marker. It looked good. I was even able to add a little shadow on the radishes with the polish pen. Then, I moved on to the carrots. I happened to have this neon orange and I wasn't sure that it would look very good but orange isn't a popular nail color so it had to. I started with the triangles and used Go Aboard by Essie for the greens. They looked great but were missing a little something... adding the little ridges on a carrot in the black polish pen made the carrots. It was officially my favorite. It was on to the sweet potato. This one was going to be tough. I didn't have a true brown color so I improvised with a purplish brown mauve color and a coral for the interior. I figured the only way they would be slightly recognizable was if I made them sliced. So I painted in the body then the coral cross section slice and added some eyes. It was okay... the words made it look even better because they filled in what the oval pots. couldn't. This was finally going well, it was 3 down and 2 to go. The peppers were easy but I made them red even though jalapenos are usually green. I used red because I love the Go Overboard color and didn't want to waste it all (@ $8/bottle) on the marker. Then I moved on to the strawberries and was able to get the tops relatively right. They looked good and amazing after I added all the seeds. I didn't account for the word so "Strawberry" would have to do over "Strawberries." Now, the Spinach. Well what can I say spinach is really hard to paint, draw, copy, & etc. It would have been a green blob and my Essie would have been empty... I decide that I wouldn't make one for the spinach, 1) because it is in a container and the tile would most likely squash it 2) if it wasn't placed in the container it would be placed on the ground and might cut someones bare foot and 3) I'm only using one of that type of container so I know what it is. No need to mark it. 

I am so excited that the nail polish worked and that the markers look good! I was getting extremely frustrated and was not willing to give up on the tile pieces. Thank goodness for nail polish!!!! I'll be putting them out tomorrow along with the decorative tiles... I'll explain about those later when I have them out. 

Mark the Tile

Plant Markers...

I had totally forgotten about plant markers besides what I had used for the faerie spinach patch. So last night I went looking around for something clever...

The original idea was to find rocks of a certain shape and size then paint them fully in different solid colors. Once they had dried I would paint the name and image of a veggie or fruit to reside in my garden. I figured that was a lot more trouble then it may be visually appealing. I found some broken tile and gathered some art supplies. I tried Sharpie's first but they came out way too pale on the tile. Then I tried black calligraphy ink but haven't been able to manipulate the brush over the small pieces of tile. I am trying to recreate the screenshot below;

I hope they work out like the above and not like the below... No real work done outside because of the extremely cool weather... more tomorrow.