Category: House

String of Bananas (Curio Radicans) and Hanging Plants from a Closet Rod Tip

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | 1 Comment on String of Bananas (Curio Radicans) and Hanging Plants from a Closet Rod Tip

String of Bananas Repot, Chop, and Prop

Isn’t it funny all the trailing plant names? String of Pearls, Bananas, Fish hooks, Dolphins, Turtles — just to name a few! Today, I repotted my something and decided to use Google Image search to identify it. Turns out it is a String of Bananas Plant. Well isn’t that cute? Now that I’ve found out what it is — everyone has all these very fussy instructions on how to care for it.

Listen. If you’ve been to my house in 5, maybe more years — you’ve seen the terrarium on my kitchen table. It’s where my succulents live. They’re in a terrarium because Jack was a plant eater. Louie gives no fucks (typical Louie).

I just buy the little 2 inch pots at the nursery. I’m not good with succulents so when they die, I just pop them out and replace them like a kids goldfish. Nothing to see here. But the String of Bananas was one of the OG succulents in here. It might be the only OG I have.

When I started this terrarium of succulents (before that it had other plants rotated in – including a bonsai which died leaving that square pot), I bought a variety. I wanted different textures and colors. So the String of Bananas would add a little hanging accent. Mom always said you need a Spiller, a Filler, and a Thriller. These would be my spiller.

Well, that damn thing just kept growing. It was like maybe 2-3 inches long when I bought it. It just started to fill the terrarium. Eventually I took it out and folded it nicely and put it back in. Still, it had to come out at some point. So when I did my home office and added hanging plants in the window, I put it in a hanging basket. When it got too long, I’d just fold and swing the trails over the pot to grow down the other side. When I moved it to the bedroom, it looked like this:

A few weeks ago, I noticed little roots growing out of the bottom of the inner pot. Time to get a bigger pot! So tonight, I repotted from that 6 inch to an 8.5 inch. But first, I had to untangle it…

Holy shit, the trails are over 5 feet long, easily! It’s pretty thin though. So rather than wad it all up again, I went chop and prop. I cut it into three sections and rooted the lower two sections back into the main pot. I used rooting hormone and this thing has grown like a weed, so I hope they take. Apparently, it will split in two where it was cut, so I hope to get a fuller plant this way. Then when it’s full and long, I can drape the length over the rod like a window swag. I’m so fancy.

Go go, little Banana Strings.

Hanging Plants Tip: CLOSET ROD

Also, when I went to grab that picture, I saw I didn’t post about hanging plants in my bedroom. WTF? I’ve just been so damn tired and fucking depressed and anxious and all over the place lately. Sorry!

So back in June, we had the floors redone. Everything had to be moved out of the downstairs. I’ll link that post here. So all of my plants went to the Master Bedroom. I made myself a little nook to live in since we had to live upstairs for a month. And you know what? I really liked having plants in the bedroom.

(NOTE: Fuck me, I haven’t posted about my MONSTERA? WHAT? I gotta post that.)

So I decided I need some plants to keep in the bedroom. Only problem was how. That card table was only there temporarily so I could put the plants in there. It was also too far from the window to get great light. I wanted to do hanging plants! Like in my office!

As you can see, I just hung the plants in my office from the curtain rod. The String of Bananas was in here with the Creeping Jenny, but I moved it to the bedroom. Now the Creeping Jenny can shine.

Problem: There’s nowhere to put a center support in the bedroom window. It’s a curved window. It’s over six feet wide. A six foot curtain rod would sag without a center support even without the weight of plants on it. So I brainstormed on it for a while. I pondered. Obviously, if I had tools and resources, I could buy a nice solid curtain rod, cut it to length, and make nice brackets. But we’re trying to do this on the cheap here. I need COTS parts.

CLOSET ROD!

Thin closet rods are rated at 30 and 40lbs. And I can get one the right length from Lowes or Home Depot! So I went to Home Depot to look at my options. I chose a seven foot clothes/closet rod and the least intrusive brackets I could find.

BAM! Hanging plants. I LOVE THEM! And this picture is a month old. The big leaf thing has new leaves, the Christmas Cactus of Friendship was trimmed for propagation (to continue the friendship train) and already has three new leaves coming in. The pot of nothing on the far right is the free zig zag cactus cuttings I got from the plant swap. They haven’t done SHIT. They also haven’t rotted or dried out, though. So I’m waiting it out on that.

I’m super happy with it. My joy was a bit (a lot) dampened by the fact that husband thinks it’s ugly. He’s not against the plants, but he hates how far it sticks out from the window. He wishes I would have just got a table or something. But like, that wouldn’t have worked. I can’t just go find a nice two foot tall skinny couch/entry table that looks nice on a $30 budget. Husband is unreasonable on some things. We can make it better in the future — but I can have SOMETHING now.

I don’t love that it’s so far from the window — but I love having my hanging plants in the bedroom! And I think it was a damn clever solution. I even hung some mementos on the ends. He didn’t even recognize the blue heart necklace pendant he gave me 14 years ago that was pinned under my skirt as my “something blue” at our wedding 12 years ago. Now it’s catching the light in our window. With my plants.

Maybe in the future, I’ll hang a nice rod from the ceiling — or do custom brackets. But for NOW, closet rod was genius. It’s not even sagging at all — even with the new larger pot for the String of Bananas. So if you need a dirt cheap way to hang some plants — closet rod.

I’m really enjoying having indoor plants now that my cat doesn’t give a fuck about destroying them.

IKEA Hallway Makeover

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | Leave a Comment on IKEA Hallway Makeover

Since we moved into our gorgeous home nine years ago, I’ve had a shame. (Well, the bedroom furniture is tragic, but no one sees that.) With an open floor plan, it’s hard to hide. Unless you’ve been to my house, you haven’t seen it. I have probably shown photos of every inch of my house, but not this one. In fact, I’m glad I took some before pictures knowing I was doing a makeover. I can’t find any old photos of this hall! I always clip it out or avoid it in photos. Unfortunately, it’s on display in the house though. It’s the hall where our garage door meets the downstairs bathroom and the cat’s litterbox room. It’s fully visible from the dining room and kitchen and I’ve HATED IT for years.

So, as you know, we recently had our floor redone. After it was done, we had a few days waiting on the movers to move our shit back in. During this time, I saw a fully clean hallway. I realized how much I REALLY fucking hated that hall. And that’s when I decided, I gotta fix this like NOW.

You all know, my husband is not a spender. So until we pay off the house, we aren’t making big purchases. So this hall has always just been some cheap 13-year-old short Target shelves full of shit. I TRIED to make it better by using storage cubes I already had. But yeah, bad. Especially, always seeing the cleaning tools. So I’ve been telling myself that we will have the cabinet people come and build some nice storage there. The other side of this wall is the garage so we could even steal some space from the garage to make them deeper. But that’s gonna cost.

But I finally broke. I needed to fix it. Here it was in its CLEANEST state. That’s because we had just moved everything back in and I tried to make it look neater. I don’t even have any photos of this area before the floor redo. Notice I never hung anything over here so no one would look.

We kinda need the storage. Some of the stuff could go other places (and since has). But we want our shoes there by the door. This works out as a great feeding station for the cat. It’s a spot to drop things off when you come in and out. And there’s just some shit that doesn’t have a home, okay? Where do you keep all your spare candles? All the clips and command hooks and stickies? All you bottles of chemicals? And before the litter closet makeover, this was where the spare food and litter and supplies went as well.

So I needed something with doors. Cabinets. But I needed a broom storage so tall cabinets. So I looked at IKEA. I’ve never used IKEA. But they make affordable stuff, right? Everybody has “cheap” IKEA furniture, right? I decided on the PAX system. Just kidding, that’s sold out and unavailable. How about the Billy? These are Billy shelves with Oxberg doors.

OK, OK. The tall cabinets have a non-optional middle shelf… but like it’s not the LAW that I have to install that. So a single for brooms and cleaning shit. A double for everything else. The 15 inch doors above the cat food station are only available in glass, but I can put some contact paper or something on them. Their cabinets are wider than what we had, so the shoe bench won’t fit anymore. So I added a single short for shoe storage.

I can make that work! And I DID — look at this shit: My so not-at-all-shameful hallway!

Look at how CLEAN it is! Holy shit! All those plants are from IKEA too. They were absurdly cheap. I didn’t intend for them all to go here. However, I like the inspiration to not set anything on top of the cabinets. As you can see, our base molding is taller than normal so they don’t sit flush against the wall. Hence the hanging plants. They were super shiny, but I hit all the plants with some matte clear spray.

It’s so clean! The white is so fresh too! And there’s so much storage! Here they are before I got the tall doors on:

They are shallower than the shelves I had before. So I didn’t get to keep my easy cube storage. But I made it work. Everything has a home! Those storage boxes from IKEA are a perfect fit. They’re the Kuggis boxes that are 10.25 inches deep so fit like a glove. I’m so glad I bought enough to do a whole row of them. I wish I had bought more. They’re like useful little junk drawers. One is for clips and hooks. One is hardware and wires. One is craft miscellaneous. The last is WTF miscellaneous. I got a basket with all the pool bits and bobs in it. But most importantly…

I HAVE A BROOM CLOSET, MOTHERFUCKERS!

I never thought a broom closet would make me so fucking happy. But it does. It really really does. Like I didn’t know those broom handles were eating my soul until I put a door there. LOOK! (For those wondering, that middle shelf did seem kind-of required. I assembled it without the middle shelf and when I stood it up it bowed out just enough for the back to pop out. My solution was to install the middle shelf vertically. It is glued in using the wood dowels in the back most holes.)

Also, all of these units are screwed together with barrel bolts and screws for the PAX system. Six for each tall connection and four in each short. So this unit is solid. See my post about connecting them here.

Now look at the difference when you exit my downstairs guest bathroom. I mean da-y-mn. Such a difference. Holy shit. I’m so pleased. I just want to look at it. Before vs after:

I am an IKEA convert. Holy shit. This is better than I could have hoped. I meant this to be a temporary stopgap until we could get some professional stuff built. But I’m so happy with it, I think I might just hire someone to do some hacks to make it look more built in later. You know, move the floor trim, flush against the wall, cover the outside sides with real wood. For now though — holy fuck, 90% there! I can’t believe it was so affordable! I can’t believe how much I HATED THIS HALL.

Oh oh oh — did you notice the hardware? The IKEA Oxberg doors come with the tiniest joke of a door knob known to man. So I went online and picked up some simple handles and knobs. Turns out I bought the EXACT SAME hardware that is all over my house. I guess my tastes on cabinet door hardware doesn’t change much. I used the existing screw hole for the bottom of each handle. The shorter doors I bought the option of handles or the matching knobs. I did not like the look of the handles. Since they wouldn’t line up with the other three, I thought it looked bad. So I used the knobs. I don’t absolutely love the knobs, but they match the handles (same set). Oh and I used extra knobs to switch out the silver ones in the guest bath so that cheapo cabinet matches now too!

This is such a big win. I just can’t stop looking at it. No more avoiding photos now! This is AWESOME!

Oh, and I know I already did a whole post about the cat lounge and litter room makeover before it was complete. I painted the cabinet doors now. So now all of the extra cat stuff that was on these shelves lives in the litter room (tons of unopened food, cat litter, deodorizers, ect). And the stuff I need daily for feeding lives above Louie’s Jazz Lounge! The opened kibble, the opened case of cans, all of his treats, paper plates for wet food, a water carafe for water refills, even a knife (in the green glass) for splitting the cans of food. And look — hooks for the food scoop and can opener! IT’S SO PERFECT! I whipped up a box to hide/protect the fountain cables and extension cord too.

NOTE: The doors are not painted perfect and you will not comment on them when you see them. It isn’t noticeable, but it’s not perfect. First, I tried just using contact paper on the glass. That was far too stark white, slightly see through, and the corners weren’t great. So I painted it with our house trim paint. That was a huge debacle of rusted paint cans, paint spilling out of holes in the bottom, and rust spots in the paint. But it’s a super thick luxury eggshell paint. I did 3 coats with heavy sanding between each one. But I’m a human without a mechanical sander and you could still see the paint brush lines! UGH! I finished it off with a white wash of acrylic and two coats of clear matte sealant. I’m fucking done with them. Even though some of the god damn paper over the particle board peeled off with the blue painters tape! It was a tiny bit and I touched it up with the acrylic paint. It’s fine. It’s all fine. I’m done. Five fucking coats of paint plus two coats of sealer, I’m not messing with them anymore.

Cat Vibes

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | 1 Comment on Cat Vibes

Apparently, today is International Cat Day. According to Wikipedia: “International Cat Day is a celebration which takes place on 8 August of every year. It was created in 2002 by the International Fund for Animal Welfare. It is a day to raise awareness for cats and learn about ways to help and protect them.”

Apparently, according to the Googles, National Cat Day is either October 29th or February 22nd. But Japan kicks our ass by celebrating on February 22, as the date resembles the words “nyan nyan nyan”(meow meow meow). And they’ve done it since 1979.

So, I am determined to get a post up today to celebrate this catfishing silky bastard, Louie:

That photo is actually from this morning before I knew it was International Cat Day! Look at Louie. That’s his first outside bug catch. We are working on harness training. So the last few days, I’ve taken him out back on the harness while I tend the pumpkins. I have to make sure the female flowers get pollinated with the proper males everyday. It’s also way too fucking hot so this has to be done first thing in the morning.

One afternoon we had Louie out and it was either too hot or he just didn’t want to be in his harness and he walked his ass all the way up the stairs to the door to go inside. This morning he had no desire to come in. So I’ve taught him the word and motion “up up” for when I’m going to pick him up. The motion I guess is because Jack was deaf for three years so we used motions to communicate. So I said “up up” and did the motion and Louie got up and backed away! HA. He was having far to much fun with his new bug friend. I was sweating like a fountain from moving vines around, but I sat and watched him and took some photos. But he couldn’t stay outside forever. I gotta go wiggle my work mouse, you know.

So for today’s cat post, we have DECOR! I’ve been making over the hallway. Basically we had to redo the floors. When they were installed and I saw the hall so clean and uncluttered — ugh, I dreaded moving our shit back in. So I finally pulled the trigger to buy cabinets and make that shit look better. Anyway, Louie has the same food setup that Jack had. One of the shelves had the bottom shelf removed and that was his food and water spot. Well, I really like this setup, so I kept it. It’s just white now and the shelf above with all his food stuff has doors to hide that. But yall, I can’t just make it that simple.

I ordered the cat food mat to use as a decoration. I hung it when I was assembling the cabinets/shelves, and I was like… we gotta run with this. It’s not a feeding station — it’s a Lounge now. K and I went thrifting for tiny picture frames. I decided the mat had an art deco vibe so I asked K what I should do and she sent the gorgeous art deco poster you see on the left. And I was feeling it. So I decided Monday was gonna be a mental health day and I’d spend my Sunday photoshopping for the cat. And that’s what I did.

I put a cat head on the gorgeous lady poster. I found a Jazz album cover and modified it a bit. Then, I slapped a cat head on that guy too and sampled the colors from the lady poster so they would match. Then I did a menu. Did I spend way way way too long on that menu? Yeah. Longer than either of the others. Maybe even longer than both combined. I needed it to be art deco, OK? And fonts are hard. Also, I wanted to be clever so I had to make his food sound fancy. Yes, that is actually what he eats. “Nuevo Nuggets” are actually Open Farm RawMix — it’s available breakfast and dinner. “Cat Cann De” is some over priced canned food and available for dinner only.

Look at these vibes though! I’m so happy with how it turned out. Oh and in that photo, that’s real catnip hung in the back. I bought him a catnip plant to encourage him outside but he gives no fucks. It’s also out of season so the plant was lanky as fuck and desperately needed a trim.

I’m also updating the litter closet. Since I was replacing the shelves, I had extra shelves. So I thought — hey, I should put one in the litter closet and actually make some use of that space. That way I can get the extra cat food out of the hall shelves and all the extra cat litter off the garage stairs.

So… I needed this cat bathroom sign from Etsy. Like NEEDED it. Holt shit, it makes me so fucking happy. It’s by Shadowfire3D on Etsy. It’s perfect. The shipping was super fast and they made me a custom name keychain as a surprise present. Go buy one.

And here’s the before and after of the inside:

Look at that storage functionality! It was a brown shelf and I painted it white to look cleaner. Cause litterboxes are dirty. I wanted it on the back wall, but the new litterbox wouldn’t fit sideways inside it. His new litterbox is bigger than his old one. Yes, he got a new litterbox because I’m insane. I got on this damn cat “cat enrichment” forum and read how EVIL lidded cat boxes are. Are they evil? No. Have any of my cats, Jack, Tabitha, or Louie had a problem with them? No. Did I feel like I had to get an open one? Yes. I mean it’s in a closet with a bathroom exhaust fan so the lid is kinda redundant anyway. That’s what I’m telling myself.

Listen, yall don’t know how judgy these insane pet people are. I posted that picture of Louie’s new lounge and someone commented about how bad it was to have a cat’s water near their food. Apparently, in nature, food near a water source would mean that water could be tainted. And that’s where I drew the god damn line. Are you fucking kidding me? Do you see how insanely over board my cat lady ass has gone? Do you see that running water fountain he has in his own fucking cat lounge? He’s got his own god damn bathroom. He’s got beds all over my house in every window he likes to sit in. And we don’t even close the blinds in two windows because he likes to sit there. SO BACK OFF. At some point, the cat has ENOUGH. This cat lives better than like 99.99999% of cats and a hell of a lot of people too. Way better. He drew the cat life lottery when he catfished me. He was like, that bitch looks like my kind of insane. Is that a cat tattoo I see? Oh she be the crazy cat lady. Let me go get on that. Oh, I also break the CARDINAL sin of cat ownership — I only have one litterbox.

Anyway…

That flower pot is the bag-of-cat-poop holder. I mean, I needed a cat poop holder and I had that pot. It makes sense.

And I printed off some cute cat pictures! I wanted to find a lot of crazy cheesy cat lady shit at the thrift store but came up empty. That “All Employees Must Wash Hands Before Returning to Work” one cracks me up! Oh and what is that blank canvas? Oh it’s gonna be one of those fun portraits of like royalty they do of your pets. But I haven’t figured out what I want Louie to be. Then I gotta photoshop him in it. I’m just going to get that printed at Staples or online and modpodge it to the canvas.

I gotta say, the litter closet makeover pleases me greatly. It’s a icky chore that I do every night. So having a fun bathroom door sign and funny art in there makes it so much nicer! Now if I can ever figure out how to wire up the fan to a motion sensor by the door…

So there you go. Happy International Cat Day, Louie. I love you. Not like Jack — but like, I’m so glad to have you. It’d be awesome if you choose to snuggle more at some point. I’m here if you want to snuggle. Like right here.

IKEA Quest: Attach Bookcases Together

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | 1 Comment on IKEA Quest: Attach Bookcases Together

Are you looking for a way to attach your IKEA Billy Bookcases to each other? Are you looking for how to screw them together? Glue? What do other people do?

As the youths say: I got you, fam’

Have you discovered the IKEA Barrel and Bolt Spare Parts 100402 & 100644? Are you searching the breadth of the internet for what goddamn bit size you need for your drill?

I got you, motherfucker.

You see, I am redoing my hallway. I am decluttering it with a beautiful array of IKEA Billy Bookcases. It’s fabulous. After I ordered all my cases and doors, I knew I’d need a way to attach them together. I figured I would screw them together. But I didn’t have them yet so I didn’t know how wide the sides were and therefore what screw size to buy. So I took to the great internet wasteland. I found a better way.

IKEA actually has a FAQ about this. “How do I link my BILLY bookcases?”

You’re home free, baby! But wait, the link takes you to a place to order spare parts. They want a postcode, but you keep getting an error. Why have the gods forsaken thee? Fear not friend, you are on the IKEA site for the Netherlands. Are spare parts only available to the Dutch? Do they get legal weed and free IKEA parts while the rest of us are relegated to IKEA Billy Bookcase Hacks?

Nay. You just need to find the same page on the US (or your relevant country) site. Go to your home IKEA site and find “Customer Service.” Then find the link to order “Spare Parts.” From there, click “Order Small Spare Parts” Bam, motherfucker. Free parts unlocked!

Barrel Bolt & Screw

So you want to attach your IKEA furniture together? You need a barrel bolt and screw. You can buy these at any hardware store or online. But did you know that IKEA has them for the IKEA PAX system? And you can use them for your IKEA Billy system? Oh hell yeah you can!

Yes, You just need a few spare parts. You need the pair: IKEA part 100402 and IKEA part 100644. You will need a pair for each join. I chose to join my short IKEA Billy Bookshelves with two near the top and two near the bottom of each join. For the taller ones, I added two in the middle as well. Order extra. You’re going to wait a while for them so make sure you don’t need to order more. Also, they’re free!

That’s right, bitches: FREE. Straight from IKEA. You can google these part numbers and find them on eBay and Amazon. But those people probably just got them free and are scamming you. Yeah. Just get free ones from IKEA. I got 16 of each. They arrived about a week after the shelves themselves (even though they were ordered the same day). You’re welcome.

What size drill bit do you need?

This is where I hit a road block. I scoured the internet. I looked at Reddit’s r/IKEA. I looked on IKEA’s own site. I looked at the Amazon and eBay listings. NO ONE said what size drill bit I needed. What the actual fuck? So I had to go to Walmart to hold the damn barrel bolt up to drill bits and try to figure it out. I figured it was a 3/16 inch by eye. Thankfully, they had a super cheap set of drillbits though so I got that instead of the single bit I THOUGHT I needed. Look, it has a tool for this shit!

Perfect fit for… the 13/64 Inches hole.

Why doesn’t America use metric again? What the fuck is this Imperial shit? 13/64s? Really? Anyway, no, I do not know what it is in metric. I only have this little tool that came with my cheap drill bits from Walmart. I’m sorry. Google it. Or better yet, I saw that IKEA sells a set of drill bits and a drill. Why the fuck didn’t they try to up-sale me that? I’d have totally bought it! And I’m sure it has the right size. Every order of furniture on the IKEA site should suggest you buy those tools. I’d have bought them, IKEA.

Thinking you can sneak by with that 3/16? You can’t. I tried. I mean, you can hammer it in with enough gusto. I just ended up using the 1/4 bit because that was the next size up I had. Good thing too because I was trying to line up the holes perfectly, and surprise, I don’t drill perfectly straight and parallel holes! So I needed the wiggle room. Even then, I was jamming screw drivers through to find the matching holes.

The videos I have seen have you drill straight through the two sides and attach. I wanted to be a bit more exact. So I separated the cases and drilled through a matching shelf support hole on each case. This way, I knew I wouldn’t screw it up and have a lopsided set of shelves. Cattywampus as we say in the South. But when I lined the cases back up, I discovered: I suck at drilling straight. So good thing I had a little extra wiggle room. I used a screwdriver to find the other hole and determination got me through. Jam that barrel bolt through any way you can and screw in the screw. TA DA!

You will need a screwdriver for each side. One to hold the bolt from spinning and the other to turn tighten up the screw. You’ll also need a vacuum for the saw dust.

Oh and DON’T PANIC — your hole is gonna look like shit. This is MDF with a paper overlay. The drill is not gonna leave a clean hole. It’s ok! Don’t panic. Just shove all the edges back in the hole before you put the fasteners in. See how clean it looks?

NOTES:

  • Drilling holes in things means you can’t return them.
  • If you ever disconnect these shelves, now they have random holes in the sides.
  • Do not use the two top and bottom sets of holes that are for door hinges. You might want to add those later.
  • Know where your shelves are going to go because the screw now takes up that hole so you can’t place a shelf at that level.
  • Do this before you install the doors. It will be a bit difficult for one person to reach both sides of the shelves around a door.

So there you go. The info I couldn’t find ANYWHERE. Go forth and assemble custom shelving solutions on the cheap. If you are going to build IKEA Billy case’s, shout out to this man:

That’s PP FlatPack on YouTube fucking pwning the assembly. Look at how he spreads the panels like a fucking deck of cards. His way is far superior to the IKEA way. Look how fucking fast and efficient he is! You know that instruction book/guide doesn’t even have words. Just watch this. I had watched it before mine arrived, took one look at the book, and did it his way. I had them together in no time.

And yes, I will totally show you the hall transformation in another post. I haven’t put the tall doors on yet.

I did put the two short doors on and that was a breeze! I thought it would be hard. I couldn’t find any particularly good youtube videos for it so I just used the book. Super easy.

Pumpkin Farming Adventures

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | Leave a Comment on Pumpkin Farming Adventures

Welp, the first pumpkin patch experiment continues. I’m learning a lot. It’s not going as well as I had hoped. Keeping up with their water needs has been a huge pain. I had to get a cheap irrigation line and timer. The timer runs every 6 hours (it was that or every 12). They still wilt in the afternoon heat.

But then, global warming is killing us. Like literally, it’s cooking us.

Then I thought, maybe the water was draining through too fast. So I rigged up milk jugs to fill with the water and slowly disperse it through a pin hole. They perk up right after watering, but I worry how it will affect the fruit.

Slugs have also proven to be a problem. I expected assault from above and so I used insect netting. Turns out slugs were coming out between the mesh barrier and concrete and munching my leaves. I went out one night and saw the fuckers just eating away! WTF?

At first, they just terminated two vines early. But by the time I got slug bait/poison, they got to the heart of one plant and the main vine of another. Here’s how they looked this weekend:

Last night, I went out and cut off all the yellow leaves and found the heart of the problem. They had directly attacked the main vine. It has healed, but all that yellow in the middle died. Here it is today:

So frustrating! That’s the Jack-o’-lantern plant that had a month head start over the others. It takes 120 days to mature so it went out early. Bastard slugs!

Still, I’m finally getting some female flowers to pollinate! You can see that I removed the insect mesh since it wasn’t doing any good. I decided it would better serve me to cover more ground to keep out slugs and keep the weed vines from tangling with my pumpkin vines.

The past two mornings I’ve been able to go and fertilize two females each morning. Two minis and two large. Tomorrow, another large should bloom.

Im not sure if it was the slugs or my pinching off the male flowers that was causing my females to prematurely fall off. Maybe both. But now that I’m letting them bloom freely and removed the netting, there are many happy bees. Look at these cuties from this morning:

They were inside the prettiest vine. I think this is the vine that grows the big grey/green pumpkins. Love the variegated leaves and it has the prettiest flowers.

Unfortunately, it’s also the ones where the slugs attacked in the soil. I know because the marigolds I planted there are heavily munched. It is stunted, but still has some growth. No females on that one yet.

Lessons Learned So Far

I was very smart to put down a ground barrier. So smart that I used the insect netting to extend that barrier on the side. I used a sun sail and it is great. It’s thick and doesn’t let water sit long. Also blocks the light out and looks clean. However, I think the double layer of insect netting will serve the same purpose at a cheaper price. It’s much thinner. It will not keep light from the weeds, but it will keep them under it. It also stays wet longer, but I don’t think it’ll be too bothersome.

I like the twine that I tied from the plants (the poles that were holding up the netting) to stakes across the barrier. The vines want to grow towards the south and I’m training them to the East. I just inspect them every day or two to note female flowers and twist the latest growth around the twine. Also, since I’m growing in grow bags, the main plant is about 2 feet off the ground. This led to my first vine folding under its weight (had to use wood trim to support it). The twine has allowed me to slowly train the vines down to the ground while supporting the weight.

As for cons, well, slugs. I’ve got bug repellent and slug killer out now. The vines are so close together that it is murder to walk through for inspection. But I have to keep track of my female flowers. I only have one of each vine so I can’t rely on the pollinators. Maybe two of each type next year? Or make sure I use the same species so they can inter-pollinate? I will judge after the yield.

I’ve also let the vines on the sides spread out to make more room. I’m even letting the Jack-o’-lantern climb the stair railing to get it off the ground and away from the slugs.

The critter netting worked great until I could get everything growing well. Then, I added a layer of compost and a layer of mulch.

Instead of the cheapest timer, it might have been worth getting one with more customization options. Then I could water only in the heat of the day and not every 6 hours. Turn it on when it’s drooping and skip watering when it rains.

Another fail was using a cheap hose. I hooked up the timer with a cheap hose. It burst the next day. No shit. I guess it wasn’t meant to hold water pressure in a bend and full Alabama sun. Had to steal the hose from the garage for it!

This has been a more expensive and frustrating adventure than expected. Especially before this week. For two months I’ve been tracking female flowers only for them to fall off before they bloom. Now that I’m getting possible pumpkin babies, I’m much happier. I do hope they survive so I can watch them grow!

Oh, and I bought little labels to very loosely tie around the females to keep track of them. Super helpful when digging around in there to see if they’re soon to bloom. The females grow much closer to the main stem so you have to push leaves aside to find them.

It’s a big learning experience. I do hope to have something to show for it this Fall! It’s also been nice to watch it grow in that ugly rock corner. Such insanely large plants I started from seed!

Grow, my pumpkins, grow!

Men be living on easy mode

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Guys be living on easy mode and don’t even know it. I know that’s not a grand revelation. Duh. We all know this. But it comes down to the smallest things.

My house has been a construction zone for a month. Workers in and out most days. My cat lives at my friends house. That mess is still on going but the end is in sight. So why am I saying this? I gotta put on a bra.

Every fucking day. I’m working from home but if I wanna go get a drink from the garage, I gotta put on a bra because there’s strangers in my house. Does my husband have to do this? No. He can roll out of bed and go to the grocery store. Can any woman do that? NO.

You might be telling yourself that I don’t have to wear a bra. Technically true — but I’m 41 and fat and my nipples always poke through everything. And I don’t like showy nipples. So just to leave my bedroom, I gotta put on a bra. Men don’t have to do any of that shit.

Thank you for listening.

The Washing Machine Incident Phase II

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So, you may have forgot, but back in February, we had The Washing Machine Incident. The upstairs washing machine leaked while we were in the shower. It leaked through the ceiling, walls, and light fixtures below. That weekend, we had to have mold remediation cut holes in the drywall and run insanely loud industrial fans for 4 days to dry it all out. It traumatized the cat.

It also ruined the floor right below it. We can’t patch that floor because they no longer make our floor — because of course they don’t. So all the floor that touches that area has to be replaced. Hello open floor plan! That’s our entire downstairs. Entrance, living room, dining room, kitchen and hall all need to be replaced.

Sounds cool. Free floor. But it’s not.

One, dark floors aren’t in style anymore. And we can’t pick just any floor. We still have a staircase and the flooring upstairs that it has to match. So with dark flooring out of style, we were severely low on choices. I PRAY this floor looks okay. We are going from engineered hardwoods to vinyl plank which should be awesome. Vinyl has come a long way in the eight years since we built. It should be better by not showing foot prints (I hate that about our current floor) and not scuff/scratch/dent so easily. The engineered hardwood also hasn’t held up great in high traffic areas. It’s easy to chip off those corners in some areas. So it’s an upgrade even though it’s cheaper. Weird. I hope it doesn’t look too shiny.

We had, like, two options. No really. Two options. We originally had three when we came home from the store. They didn’t follow Builder’s instructions though and showed us floor that couldn’t be glued down. So the flooring lady had to find whatever she should that she thought might match and bring it buy. Two. Just-a-two. One we liked the color better and one we liked the finish better. We went with the color. I HOPE IT’S NOT SHINY. Also, when I say we liked the color, I mean to match our cabinets. It’s weird. The cabinets and floor both pulled very dark red when installed. Now they pull orange where the sun has faded them. It’s better than yellow, but we had to account for that. Sorry, beautiful mahogany swatch.

We wanted our builder who did the house to do everything, so we had to wait until he had time. He’s in high demand and doesn’t have time for shit. We were willing to wait though. So now here we are. A few month’s later, we’re ready to go.

The Moving

The moving happened Wednesday. Being that the whole downstairs floor is being replaced, we had to move out the entire downstairs. Including kitchen appliances. Yep. Even the fucking pantry.

We’ve living upstairs. With a refrigerator and a toaster oven in the garage. Also, I bought a bunch of storage totes for the pantry stuff because we’ve had mice in there before.

That’s fun. They broke my refrigerator too. They didn’t put it back together properly and shoved the drawers in. Broke a piece of plastic that the drawer slides on. It’s not terrible and invisible once everything is in place. However, I have very little hope when it comes to them moving it back in. I’m worried. I’m going to ask builder to make sure he or I are here to watch them move it.

It’s really weird. The downstairs echoes so much that even locking the door is heard throughout the house. And if we want a drink or snack or anything, we have to go to the garage to get it and bring it back upstairs.

Thankfully, we both work upstairs. Husband uses his office for work and play. I have no desire to do that. I need to have separate work and relaxation locations. My relax location is the livingroom. That’s where I live. And they took that away. So…

My Nook

Remember when I moved my old apartment couch into the bedroom to make a “nook” to escape when my in laws were visiting? Well, this is where I hung out during the weekend of the remediation. And it’s where I’m hanging out now. Only this time, it will be for a month. And there’s no kitchen. Anyway.

We moved all the downstairs plants up here so they can still get care. I’m a very “out of sight, out of mind person.” That’s how I killed the gorgeous gigantic peace lily. I put in the guest bedroom, and forgot to water it regularly. (NOTE: When gifting plants to people with pets, look up toxicity, for the love of god). My office has plants but it doesn’t get as much light as our bedroom, so we brought up the card table and put everything in here.

Of course, I brought up my laptop and table. That is what I do. But what about the TV? I usually have my firestick playing videos while I play on my laptop. For a weekend it was fine, but a month? So I also brought in the small guest bedroom TV. Why don’t I just use the guest bedroom? Well, there’s just a bed in there. Not a couch.

I have a pretty damn sweet nook going on. I love all the plants being around me. I have a great view during the day time. If I had a minifridge for drinks and snack I’d be rocking and rolling! The only shelf stable snacks are trash. It’d be nice to have a minifridge for drinks and yogurt and salami and cheese snacks. But not worth the expense for just one month. No use for it after this.

I have a fan too! The bedroom’s ceiling fan is broken. We’ve bought a new one to replace it, but we have not yet done that. So zoom in here to my using a full sized ceiling fan in the box as a table for my small table fan pointed right at my face. I solve problems. Extremely comfy couch too.

It’s gonna be a downgrade for the nook when everything goes back to normal. I don’t do bedrooms with TVs. But I am going to keep some plants in here. I like the plants.

What About Louie?

I already told you that the weekend of fans traumatized the cat. We didn’t think it would be bad because we were both here. We were just upstairs. He mostly hang out on this couch with me. But now he’s so jumpy all the time. He jumps when the AC kicks on now! So this whole thing was not going to be good for Louie. Also, he tries to escape out of any door the second he thinks you might be about to open it. He’s watching. Fucking all the builders and people who have come over have let him out. So he had to go.

What? No, I didn’t get RID of my cat. He’s staying at K’s house. He stayed there over Christmas and did great. So she has graciously agreed to let him stay there during this hot mess. I dropped him off Tuesday before the movers came on Wednesday. Friday, I even went over for a sleepover! Cause my house is weird as fuck now and I miss my cat. Did he snuggle me all night because he missed me? No. He’s Louie, not Jack. But look, he did go to sleep touching both of my feet. That’s significant Louie love right there.

I can’t remember the last time I did a sleepover that wasn’t family. Like, did I even do sleepovers in high school? But K’s guest room has been converted to Louie’s room because she has three dogs. So two baby gates in the doorway allow Louie to jump through but not any dogs. And it has her old purple mattress and I’ve never slept on a purple mattress before. She even has a nightlight and fan cause she knows me. AWESOME.

Though, to be honest, the sleepover made me feel worse. Louie let me have lots of his little five-minute snuggles. Where he wants all the snuggles and fake purrs real loud to ham it up. He can be so so so sweet in short bursts. Yet he was still very alert. I was afraid he couldn’t relax and was too high strung. Even though he doesn’t like the big dogs, he’s still all up and about walking around the house and laying on the floor. Weird cat. Strangely, he fears the big gentle dogs but not the small very active dog. Louie, you need to reprioritize.

In the morning, I grabbed some yogurt to eat in the living room. Louie just wanted to stay in his room and wail at me to return. This made me feel terrible. And having to leaving him again was heart wrenching. I wish I could explain to him that I love him and it’s just temporary and he’s gonna come back home!

I miss him too. I MISS MY FUZZY! I know. As husband and K both say, he’s fine. He’s happy with all the entertainment. I just miss him. I worry. K sent me pictures of him purring in her face today though and that made me feel LOADS better. So he is getting some of those good short pet sessions in. I’ll probably, actually feel really bad when I bring him back to our extremely boring home. I did after Christmas.

Two of her dogs just switched weeks to stay with her mom (joint pet custody). So it will be more calm. I hope he makes friends with their big gentle dog. They could be buddies! They made excellent progress over Christmas. I have hopes.

And Now

And now we wait. Drywall guy should be back tomorrow. I think floor work will begin Wednesday. I worry drywall will hold them up though because one of the seams was done poorly and will need redoing.

Also, the construction dust is EVERYWHERE. We have all of the rooms upstairs shut but the hall and railings are covered in dust. We also have to do that while they’re working because they leave the doors open so we turn the AC downstairs off and raise it really high upstairs and just try to keep it in our offices.

Three more weeks? Maybe? Hopefully not more? RIGHT?

I know that, in a year, I’m going to be happy we got new floors. They will hopefully wear and look better. They should have longer life than our older floor. They shouldn’t show my every foot print. They should be more durable. We won’t have the chips and scratches we have now. It should be good. Just gotta get through this mess.

Spiffing up the deck

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Now that I’ve been gardening, I need to start cleaning up the deck. I mean, that lemongrass has to have somewhere to go!

We built the deck last year. The deck plus a professional paint job was like 8sih K. So, of course I asked how to care for it. I was told to give it a pressure wash every year and I should be solid. So, I need to pressure wash. I want to buy a powerful pressure washer. We have a big house. We have the garage, the pool deck, the wood deck, sidewalk, two stoops. I really want to wash the Juliet balcony and stoop ceiling. I did some research and decided to upgrade my price range to about 3 or 4 hundred, but I just got overwhelmed. So I just asked to borrow K’s pressure washer to get the deck done. I will try to get a good pressure washer during off season.

First, I discovered my deck is like a white car. You don’t realize how dirty it is because it just looks like a different shade of ecru. It was dirty. And I had to clean it like an inch at a time. It was far more tedious than I expected. I didn’t get the good satisfaction either. The red clay is not coming off. So the lighter the deck got, the more noticeable the red clay spots were. Ugh. Also, there’s been a ton of major construction behind us. A whole neighborhood. Right now the house that backs up to us is under construction. This means red clay dust.

I learned about that the first time we opened the pool after construction started. My pool cover is a very heavy thick mesh that lets no light through. But red clay was all over the bottom of the pool. Pool guy explained it was the construction. Well, now I see that that red dust gathered in the piles of leaves that say on the deck for months. So I really should be cleaning it in winter after the leaves fall. Live and learn.

I figured, while I’m out here, I’ll clean the stoop. Oh. My. God. Why is my stoop a whole-ass different color? I knew it was dirty — but jesus! So gross! I was horrified. Now I’m definitely buying a pressure washer! And where I went along the edge of the brick, I accidentally made lines on the concrete. I tried to blend them out and it just looks worse. UGH.

I REALLY want to do the pool deck now. But I want a more powerful washer so I don’t have to do it an inch at a time. Also, I’m not about to out that much wear on a borrowed tool. That’s a lot of concrete to clean.

The steps were not satisfying either. They were just disgusting. The top of the stoop was satisfying. Nice lines I could write in if I wanted. But, see, I thought the top of the stoop was clean. I always have a rug on it. So I thought it was clean. And it was NOT. So now I’m not satisfied or happy I washed stuff — I’m just disturbed. EVERYTHING needs to be power washed now. It’s not OK. But it has to be OK because I’m not buying one right now. I’m about to open the pool and buy a new salt cell to be installed too. And I want an adirondack chair. So it will wait.

Then, I spent half my Saturday dreading putting everything back on the deck. But Husband helped and we got it done. I finally hung the solar lights I was gifted for Chirstmas. Thankfully, I had enough to double over, because these lights were super far apart. So this is actually a doubled over strand. I’m also very happy with the posts I bought to raise them up above the fence. I wish I’d installed them at the top of the board instead of the bottom to get just a little more height, but they’re there now.

Also, I will say: These lights were tangled as fuck. I felt like Russ in Christmas Vacation. They had a garbage tie in the center… and yet, it did nothing. I literally had to walk along the fence and pull each and every bulb from the giant knot. Then when I went to test them, they didn’t come on! So I thought it must have been all the vigorous shaking and tugging of untangling them! So I left them alone and went inside to put pillow cushions on. Then I read the directions for the remote and saw that they won’t come on if there is any light present. They only come on in the dark. This picture was immediately after they finally came on:

Speaking of pillows… I bought pillow covers! My mom has gifted me many outdoor pillows over the years. Walmart always sells them super cheap. They’re $5 right now, actually. And I never had the heart to throw them away. One year was fancy browns with text that I didn’t care for a lot. One year was the flamingo and the watermelon “Sweet Life.” Then the last year was the Blue Flamingos. Those were my favorite but three summers after her death, they were very faded. And the watermelon straight up tore open. I actually considered painting over the flamingos to make them bright again, but I can’t keep every bit of mom.

Then, a thought occurred to me. I don’t need new PILLOWS. I can keep moms pillows. I just need COVERS! So I spent an evening browsing the internet for outdoor pillow covers. I’ve always had the pool in a blue and green theme. Then last year, I replaced the main pool umbrella with an orange one. So I wanted to keep my blue and green but bring in some orange. And here we go!

I got a super cheap 4 pack of the blue and green watercolor. They are actually all 4 different. They’re also not a great material, but they look awesome. Only three needed here. Then I just got a cheap solid orange with white piping. Oh. And the cat. COME ON — I couldn’t not get that dork cat. It’s fucking adorable. I’m sad it’s on yellow because that’s not in my colors, but I had to have that one. I like them so much that I’m getting UV fabric protection spray so hopefully they won’t fade so much.

I’ll also note the difference in everyone’s version of a 16×16 inch pillow case. The orange ones were pretty spot on. The blue and green, the pillow had to be curled over and forced in there. And the Yellow cat was HUGE. I actually stuffed him with pillow fluff to fill it out more. That will be the soft pillow for lounging.

Oh and I ordered bright green spray paint to refresh my faithful 8 year old cheap plastic adirondack chairs for the second time. Problem with those is… I like them on the deck. They’ve been on the deck all winter. In the summer they are across the pool by the tanning ledge. This is so someone (usually husband) can grab them to sit on the tanning ledge and not get wet but have their feet in the water. So I do need them there. However, I’d like to have one on the deck. So I might get a nice(er) one for the deck. Not wood — aint nobody got time to keep up with that. But maybe one of those thicker plastic ones that aren’t all flimsy? I like having somewhere to sit on the deck that isn’t a hammock.

So I spent a lot of time outside today. Mainly waiting on my lights to come on. I refilled the squirrel feeder. As I sat in my hammock chair — desperate squirrels kept coming by to check it. Then the Cardinal couple came. It’s a female and a male and they always come together to watch out for each other. Well, fuck — yall need some black sunflower seeds! So I filled it up and waited on my lights.

The Cardinal couple didn’t come back, but Carlton did! We call the big male cardinal Carl. Now there’s a much smaller male. So I call him Carlton. I left a little pile of black sunflower seeds on the concrete pad in hopes that the couple would come back. Carlton found it!

Excuse how terrible that photo is. It was at FULL zoom. I was trying to move very sneakily so as not to scare him (he didn’t realize I was in the hammock). So I had to slowly sneak the camera over enough to get past the fern.

It’s nice sitting on the deck and watching the wildlife. Carlton is eating seed there, and there’s a squirrel sitting on the feeder having dinner too.

Listen to the SMEs.

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So THIS is why people just save lemongrass stalks from year to year and no one grows from seed.

I cut those stalks clean not 48 hours ago. This is only the second time I’ve watered them. I cut all the leaves off so they’d focus on root growth. All 8 stalks have new shoots like a centimeter long! Even the one that had like no roots and just a bulb nub.

Y’all, my seedlings have been under 2 inches for like a month. I’ve got them out there with a grow light and a fan on a timer. Gave them miracle grow under watered for three days now. NO DIFFERENCE.

The experts know what they’re doing. Wish I’d done more research months ago and learned how they propagate them before I jumped in with seeds. These stalks were way more expensive than seed, but far cheaper than a lemongrass plant. From now on, we doing this every year.

No pumpkin sprouts yet.

Gardening and Back Aches

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The Squirrel Dilemma

So where were we? Ah yes, I was complaining about the frogs that tried to kill me when I watered my overwintered plants outside for the first time. Yes. I now have three sun ferns and some mandevillas out back plus the same porch plants from last year.

Problem is… squirrels. I love squirrels, don’t get me wrong. But they start digging up all my plants. Every single pot. Look at this motherfucker on my Ring camera:

I couldn’t figure it out. I thought they might be burying the peanuts I feed them. I dug around in the pots and found no nuts. I went to the internet. Apparently, they dig around for stuff that might have been buried last Fall? What the fuck? I just potted these. There’s nothing there, dumbass. Why haven’t I ever seen them dig elsewhere? I hate to jinx myself, but they don’t dig up my flower beds. I don’t see little holes all around my yard.

They weren’t just looking once either. They were digging them up multiple times a day. One day, my Mandevillas had their damn roots exposed! So something had to be done. For what I had out already, I just used the bastard pool rocks. I just put rocks all around the plant in the pot. I’m not sure about this for the ferns though, because they will want to expand. Maybe I can remove them later. We’ll see about those. For the others, it’s a great solution. They haven’t bothered them since.

But what about my lemongrass and pumpkins? Those will be seedlings. I can put rocks around those. So I decided on critter mesh to keep… well… critters away. So I proposed an errand day to my friends. We went to Cat Bird Seat and Lowe’s.

I needed to replace a dying succulent in my table center piece. I needed dirt for my pumpkins and lemongrass. And, of course, critter netting. So I set out with K, K2, and K’s SO.

Don’t shop for plants with friends (AKA “Enablers”)

We went to Cat Bird Seat first. Just a local plant place. They’re super close and also on the way to the big box stores. K2 proposed that they would have a better succulent collection. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a nice colorful one like the one I was replacing. They did, however, have a large selection. I narrowed it down to two little guys. One I chose for the color pop of pink edges. The other for the quirkiness. I presented my two options to my friends to ask which I should go for. They insisted I get both. I told them I only had room for one. They suggested I get another tiny pot and go for “levels.”

Goddammit they were right. I got them both plus a super tiny pot from Lowe’s. A few weeks ago I already added river rocks to this centerpiece because the bottom of the terrarium was showing rust. Now it’s like major upgrade. I already had the main pot on the riser. I just slid it to the side a bit for the little guy. LOOK AT THE LEVELS. It’s so dynamic. And the rocks look great.

PUMPKINS!

So then we headed to Lowe’s. Why Lowe’s? Because Lowe’s and Home Depot are very close together and K was in the left lane which went towards Lowe’s. Highly complex decision making, clearly. It worked out great though. They had a sweet deal on dirt! One cubic foot of fertilized top soil for $2. That’s a steal! I got regular top soil that wasn’t fertilized for $2.99 and thought THAT was a good deal. I need a lot for my 5 pumpkin pots.

Well, they’re aren’t pots, per se. They’re actually nursery bags inside nursery fabric pots. The bags, which won’t break down, are ugly and just for growing, not showing. The fabric pots are nicer, but they are biodegradable. So I combined the two so I can reuse them. Fabric pot on the outside, lined with a bag on the inside. Yes, the bottom of the fabric pot will still be wet, but I hope to get a few seasons out of them. Also, the fabric pots would drain from all areas. With the bag, only the drainage holes will drain.

Anyway, I needed to get these pumpkins out ASAP. I knew they needed to go out in May. After the clusterfuck of lemongrass seeds that wouldn’t sprout, I need to get them out on time. That way if I have bad seeds, I can buy new seeds and still get pumpkins. So I spent the weekend filling my pots. I did NOT buy enough dirt. I figured one bag would be plenty per pot. I was wrong. Each pot took two bags. So yeah, I had to go BACK to Lowe’s on Sunday for even more dirt. (Also, I did look up how big a pot I would need for a pumpkin. 20 gallons. That’s why I couldn’t afford to buy actual pots.)

Now these pots are heavy. Thank god for my garden wagon! I managed to get them all out. I used broken umbrella pieces (not a hoarder) and tennis balls to hold up the critter netting. I used it doubled over and tucked it under the pots on the front and sides. Then I used 3 packs of binder clips to secure the back so I can have access as needed.

Once the vines grow long enough, I will lay out a sunshade over the rocks to keep the weeds out and allow the vines to stay neatly on top. I chose a sunshade because mesh tarps are crazy expensive. I don’t need anything strong, I need something that blocks light but is water permeable. So sunshade! I’ll buy some more critter netting to go over the vines too. Not sure how I’ll hold the netting up as I’m out of umbrella parts.

So may I introduce you to the very first day of my very first pumpkin patch!

But wait, there’s more.

I was researching caring for pumpkins so I can nail this. And everyone kept mentioning planting in July. Why July? I need 120 days to mature on the big ones and 90 on the small — that’s 4 months! Oh… fuck me. October is the TENTH month. So I need to plant them… in the SIXTH month… which is June.

Fuck me.

So if these grow, I’m going to get my small pumpkins in 90 days which is… early August. Yeah… that’s not gonna last till Halloween.

Fuck me.

So I guess this is a tester batch to see if these seeds sprout. Yeah. That’s it. I’ll pluck them when they do and replant at the correct date. Ignore the stupid person.

The Lemongrass Experiment

On to the lemongrass. Well, I fear I planted this one too late. The seedlings are so very tiny. I needed to get the domes off so I moved them to the garage. I’m going to stop top watering and switch to bottom watering with a bit of miracle grow. I also set up a fan to start hardening them up. It will run on its lowest setting for 4 hours on, 4 hours off, rinse and repeat.

Also, I’ve done so much lemongrass research. The reason I had difficulty finding seeds was that no one grows from seed. They grow from last years harvest. At the end of the season, you dig up the stalk and peel away all the leaves. Wash it really good so that there’s no dirt and a little bit of roots. Put all your stalks in a vase with cold water that you change out every week. Then next year, plop the stalk in the ground and your plant comes back. Obviously, I will do this from here on out if my lemongrass is successful.

To give my tiny baby lemongrass a boost, I did buy 8 stalks of wintered lemongrass. I got those planted up today in smaller, more colorful fabric pots. When my seedlings are ready to go, I can put those in there too. Since I want a lot of grass blades, I can plant a lot close together. Each plant will only put out between 10 and 20 blades. I’m growing them for the oils and scent, not for cooking. So I’m not trying to get thick juicy stalks.

They are currently in the garage because I need more critter mesh to cover them before they go outside. Hopefully, I will get them out tomorrow as I do not have another grow light. I should have had enough critter mesh, but I doubled up over the pumpkin patch. So tomorrow, I can add critter mesh and get those out in the sun.

I’ll continue rotating my seedings and hardening them up in the garage until they’re a bit more ready to go outside.