Handome and Handy, Part Deux

Here's Handsome and Handy Dan, beginning the process of putting together our new gas grill. Look -- he's reading the instructions! I told you he was smart.

This thing came in a large box with 14,569 little pieces, all neatly shrink-wrapped, along with a 49,046 page book of instructions. Engineering degree not included.

The first thing Dan did was put a tarp down on the deck so that all of the precious little bits of hardware didn't disappear between the deck boards. See, I told you he was smart.

I was standing by, serving as "Lovely Assistant." Our conversation would go something like this:

Dan: Will you hand me that screwdriver with the yellow handle?

Me: What do you say?

Dan: Please, Lovely Assistant, will you hand me that screwdriver with the yellow handle?

Me: No.

But of course, I kid. I am a very good Lovely Assistant. I am especially good at standing by, wringing my hands and looking worried when things aren't going well. But with Handsome, Handy Dan in charge, things usually go very well.

It's starting to look like a grill!

I'm very happy to say that we had delicious grilled chicken breasts on this baby several hours after this picture was taken. Life is grand!

Handsome and Handy

Red Green says "If women don't find you handsome, they can always find you handy." With Dan, I have the best of both worlds! Here he is, using odds and ends found in our basement constructing some nifty supports for my Earthbox tomatoes. If we don't have a tornado or gale-force winds, they should support the thousands of tomatoes the Earthbox folks have promised me! :)

My vegetable seedlings are thriving in the Earthboxes. So far, so good.

In other garden news, my violet clematis is blooming. It is so beautiful it just about brings tears to my eyes! I have had this little clematis for over 15 years. It only gets partial sun, so it never gets very big. Some years it looks pretty pathetic, with only one or two blooms. But with our record-breaking rainy Spring, everything is putting on a show this year.

Earthbox Setup Day

Last Sunday was Earthbox day in my backyard. It was perfect weather for gardening, 60 degrees and sunny. I set up 2 Earthboxes -- 1 box with 2 tomato plants and 1 box with 6 peppers -- 4 sweet peppers, 1 jalapeno and 1 Thai dragon. I like to make dried red pepper flakes out of the Thai dragon peppers. Here's the empty Earthbox. It has a screen in the bottom, and a tube for watering.

It was very easy to set up, but the huge bags of Bacto potting medium were heavy!

First I filled a bucket with the potting medium. Moistening that potting soil took more water than I could ever have imagined! I thought I would be able to moisten it with the green watering can, but I soon resorted to the hose.

I filled up the Earthbox until the soil was level, then added 2 cups of fertilizer in a strip.

Then I mounded soil until it was 2 inches above the level of the box. Then I put on its little "shower cap".

The seedlings are planted by cutting an "X" through the plastic cover and stuffing the plant into the soil. Note to self for next year: use smaller seedlings! The tomato plants that I started from seed in my basement were fine, it was easy to stuff them through the little hole. But the pepper seedlings I bought at the farmer's market had a much larger rootball. It was a violent episode to stuff them through and get them planted! Here are the peppers, awaiting their fate:

Here are the two little tomato seedlings nestled in their Earthbox house.

And here are the 6 pepper plants, all tucked in and enjoying some sunshine. They seemed to have survived their unmerciful lynching! Three days later, they still look fine.

Now, according to the Earthbox folks, all I have to do is keep the water reservoir full by adding water down the tube. Easy peasey!

I'm looking forward to a bountiful harvest of tomatoes and peppers. Now I have to figure out a way to stake the tomatoes without paying a million dollars for Earthbox's fancy-schmancy staking system. I have a few ideas rolling around in my brain, and plenty of junk rolling around my basement that I'm sure I can put to good use.

The Babies are Getting Big!

On this Mother's Day, I am celebrating my little seedlings. In this picture are tomatoes, zinnias, stocks and sunflowers. I figure I am their surrogate mother! They are almost ready to be planted outside, I just have to harden them off. Instructions always say to place the plants outside for an hour or two the first day, and to increase the time by an hour or two every day for at least a week. Well that's hard to accomplish when you are away from home from 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. every weekday. I wish I could train them to get themselves from the backyard back into the basement by themselves. Every year I do some half-ass hardening off, and the seedlings always seem to thrive. I guess they just want to grow up and be beautiful!

The sweet peas that I started from seed have already graduated to the border in a pot with an obelisk. They seem to be doing fine, and even held up to the very windy day we had yesterday. Every so often I check on them and try to train them to climb up the obelisk. This is the first time I have planted sweet peas like this, and I hope I have success. Sweet peas are so adorable.

Reseeding Hell!!

Last season I started a packet of Amaranthus caudatus "Love Lies Bleeding" under lights in my basement. I had always wanted these large, beautiful annuals in my garden -- and at last I was going to have them. Boy howdy, was I!! Every seed in the packet sprouted, and I couldn't bear to part with any. My garden was covered with the beautiful, large green plants with long red dredlocks draping down. They were gorgeous, and they were everywhere. I think I planted 15 or 20 of 'em. When the season was over, I chopped the plants down, but draped the beautiful red tresses all over the ground. I used them like little blankets to cover perennials for the winter. My garden went to sleep, cozy under a layer of red.

Some time during that winter, I was reading an article in a garden magazine. The article mentioned the beautiful 'Love Lies Bleeding,' and these two words struck terror in my soul...."reseeds readily". Yikes!! I had no idea! I thought to myself, how bad can it be? I always want for more poppy reseeds and nigella reseeds, I never have enough. I'm sure it will be the same with the Amaranthus. Every seedling that I get will be welcome. Ha!

As I walked down my back sidewalk the other morning, I thought to myself "what is that patch of reddish-looking stuff on the dirt over there?" Amaranthus seedlings. By the millions. I have truly never seen anything like it!