Saturday, May 24, 2014

A Growing Hobby

Finding online groups who share my interests are fun.  They can also be expensive.  Why?  Because I see all of these great ideas and I want to try them all.  I joined a gardening group and people keep sharing photos of plants and trees and now I want to run out and buy plants and trees.  So far I have limited my spending to $19 for an 80 pound sack of alfalfa pellets for horses.  It seems that people use it as mulch and fertilizer for their garden.  I was going to buy hay but after joining this group I learned that hay is bad and alfalfa is good.  Alfalfa in pellet form is even easier to handle than hay (except for the 80 pounds part but then how much does a bale of alfalfa weigh?). I love the smell because it reminds me of horses and this is probably the closest I will ever come to having a horse although I did attempt to build a horse stall in our backyard in suburban S. California when I was around 12 years old.

My other purchase this week was Moringa tree seeds.  It is an edible tree and grows quickly.  I need more shade in the yard so I thought that growing a shade tree that I can eat would be worth the time and money.


I bought 10 seeds for $3 plus $3 shipping and I got 14 seeds.  I went to Big Lots to look at pots but I couldn't bring myself to pay $14 for a plastic pot.  I ended up buying three 18 gallon Rubbermaid totes but after some thought, I decided not to use them as planters.


  So far I planted 3 seeds in front of my bathroom window, 6 seeds in old yogurt containers and paper cups, and I need a little bit more soil for 3 more pots.  If all of them grow then I will have something to trade at the next plant and seed exchange in the fall.  I missed the exchange last week but that is probably a good thing because I would be out buying more pots and soil for whatever I got.  I need to just calm down and work with the plants and containers that I have.  With a little creativity I can make pots out of many of the items in my recycle bin and many plants will grow in the regular dirt in my yard or a half dirt/half store-bought soil mix.

Only one item was actually on my shopping list this week and that was a new splash pool for the dogs.  I found one at Big Lots but it was $20 for either a Disney princess or a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pool.  That is ridiculous.


I hadn't thrown last years pool away because I was thinking of planting strawberries in it but I got the bright idea to buy a $4 tarp and just cover the old pool.  Only the dog that I am dog-sitting for next week really likes the pool so it only needs to last for 2 weeks.  I think it turned out quite nice.

2 comments:

Lizzie@her MFW Homeworld said...

ow, exciting week at the Daizy household. I am wondering if those plants woiuld grow at the Crete house. I need plants that dont love water.I will investigate

Daizy said...

I have read that Moringas are invasive. Here in Tucson they will die back every year because they don't tolerate frost. How cold does it get in Crete?