Did you know?

GUEST POST by Jennifer Iseli
Fall is probably one of my favorite times. The air is crisp and the deciduous trees are in the height of their splendor! How I love spring and the promise of new life, but it is this time that I feel the glory of God and all of His majesty.

Did you ever wonder why the leaves change colors?
Leaves are like little food factories for plants. Through a process called Photosynthesis, they take water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight to make Glucose, a sugar that the plant uses for food and energy to grow. A chemical called Chlorophyll helps photosynthesis to take place.
There are always three pigments present in a plant’s leaves; Carotene, Anthocyanin, and Chlorophyll (the photosynthetic pigment). Carotene appears as yellow and orange, Anthocyanin as red and burgundy and Chlorophyll as green.
As summer ends and autumn comes, the days get shorter and shorter. This is a signal to the trees that they need to begin getting ready for winter. During winter, there is not enough light for photosynthesis to take place efficiently, so deciduous trees will drop their leaves and rest as they live off of the food that they have stored during the summer.
As they begin to shut down their ‘food factories’ and less photosynthesis takes place, the green chlorophyll starts to fade away. As it fades away, we begin to see the yellow, orange, red and burgundy colors which were covered up by the chlorophyll during the spring and summer!
Isn’t God’s creation AMAZING!

Thrifty Tip:

Use “found” objects as containers. An old boot, a broken wheelbarrow, baskets, anything that will hold soil will work. Just be sure the water can drain out. If you can’t drill a hole in something, try fitting it with a plastic pot. If you find something that has large holes (so big they won’t hold the soil, or soil washes out when you water) line it with a pressed coco fiber mat, or for odd shaped things, line it with bird netting or screen, then sphagnum moss. Soak the moss in water for about an hour, and then you can form it to almost anything.

Garden in October (Part II)

GUEST POST by Jennifer Iseli

“May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us – yes, establish the work of our hands.” Psalm 90:17

• Once the vines die back, and before a hard freeze, harvest winter squash. You can cure winter squash for storage by placing in a cool, sheltered shady spot for about 1 month.

• Remove green tomatoes from the plants. You can ripen them in a brown paper bag!

• Enjoy harvesting your fall crops such as cabbage, cauliflower, kale, leeks and beets.

• Clean and put away empty ceramic containers or decorative items. A mild bleach solution should take care of any remaining diseases, etc.

• Clean and refill bird feeders. Also, keep bird baths washed and refilled – Bird migrations will be at their peak now. If you are in an area with frequent freezes, you may want to consider a de-icer or turn the birdbath over to avoid cracking.

• To minimize diseases and insects, after the first frost falls, rake up the leaves of roses and dispose of them (do not compost) Add fresh mulch to winterize.

• Start a winter herb garden – pot up a few plants of parsley, sage, thyme or chives and place them in a sunny window.

• Before herbaceous perennials are knocked down from the first frost, place markers by the pant so that they can be dug up and divided. BE CAREFUL… if plants have a hollow stem; do not cut them back until early spring. If water falls into these hollow stems and then freezes, it can kill the plant.

• Place Christmas cactus in an area that receives at least 13 hours of darkness a day.

Garden in October (Part I)

GUEST POST by Jennifer Iseli


“May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us – yes, establish the work of our hands.” Psalm 90:17

• Watch for frost warning and cover tender plants.

• Make sure all houseplants (or any tender plant you want to over winter) are brought back inside. Check for pests so that you don’t have any uninvited room mates!

• Dig and store tender bulbs like: dahlias, caladiums, cannas and tuberous begonias.

• Mow warm season grasses low and overseed with Rye (if wanted).

• Now is a good time to have your soil tested. If you wait too long, the ground will be hard (frozen) and you may not get the results of your test in time to add amendments or fertilizers before you plant your garden in the spring.

• Turn your compost pile. If you haven’t started one yet, use any old grass clippings, shrub trimmings, old annuals, and any other (disease free) debris to start one!

• Fall is a great time to plant trees and shrubs. It gives them time to recover from transplant shock and start to establish their root systems while the heat and drought aren’t as stressful. You can continue planting as long as the plants are used to outdoor conditions and the ground is not frozen.

• It’s time to plant cool season annuals such as pansies, snapdragons, ornamental cabbage and ornamental kale. If you cover mums and asters on nights when a frost is expected, they will bloom longer.

• Apply pre-emerge herbicide to control winter annual weeds.

• Collect any remaining seed that you may want for next year. Dry and save them in a cool, dark place.

• Consider planting a cover crop in your vegetable garden.

• Dig all sweet potatoes before the first frost.

• Wait for a hard frost before harvesting Brussels sprouts.

Garden Lessons

My garden is gone and I look forward to start planting seeds at home next year early…maybe February. I have learned quite a few valuable lessons thus far from gardening.

- If I can make veggies grow, then anyone can plant a garden. As I have previously shared with you all, I tend to kill any living flower by over watering it. So I was very nervous about planting a garden from seeds this summer. But when a friend from church taught a lesson about gardening, I decided to give a shot. Now I look forward to plant our little bucket garden next year.

- Even if you do not have space for garden, you can still find room to grow a few tomato and squash plants. Our home is surrounded by forest, thus the land lacks access to sunshine. So when my friend introduced the concept of bucket garden, I jumped on the band wagon. And have enjoyed the joyous ride of enjoying my own veggies. The idea is that you use a bucket, drill holes on the bottom, fill up the bucket with dirt and plant your seeds. Simple as 1, 2, 3!

- Your garden can be as expensive as you make it out to be. Let me explain! I decided to shop at Lowe’s for garden supplies and about have a heart attack when my total came to be around $70. Yes, I know…it would have been cheaper for me to buy veggies from a local farmer than to plant them myself. But along the way I learned that instead of buying expensive buckets, I could just stop by our grocery store and ask ladies at the bakery department to give me 5 gallon buckets. The buckets are used for icing and once the icing is gone, our bakery department throws the buckets away…so I stopped by a few times and accumulated a dozen of buckets for free! Also instead of purchasing mature plants, you can save money by growing plants from seeds. I had a great success with growing tomatoes, squash and green beans from seeds. Once again, if I can do it, you can do it.

- The garden is in need of your TLC (tender loving care). I was about to give up on one squash plant that looked too tiny to produce anything. Because I accidentally forgot to punch holes on the button of the bucket, I almost drowned the squash plant when we had rain. But instead of throwing it away, I decided to love on it and take care of it. To my surprise weeks later I noticed a beautiful yellow flower on the plant, which later turned into squash.

- You don’t have spent a fortune on expensive organic bug sprays. A friend of mine recommended a simple solution to get rid of small, red, aggravating bugs by mixing oil and water together. The result was the same as if I had spent $10 on a bottle of organic bug killer…the pests were gone.

- It takes time for you to see the fruits of your labor. For some odd reason I thought that my tomatoes would grow over night. Hmmm…what I wrong or what?! It took months and I mean months before I picked my very first red tomato. However, I learned that green beans grow and produce very quickly, while squash was growing neither too slow nor too fast. So lesson learned, I must plant my tomato plants inside before April.

I would like to hear from you…how did you garden turn out this year?

Garden in September

GUEST POST by Jennifer Iseli

“Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.” Matthew 13:32


• Stop most heavy pruning and fertilizing; however, you will want to lightly fertilize any perennial mums or fall blooming flowers and shrubs.

• Apply a time release fertilizer to Hellebores for a better flower display in late winter.

• Fertilize any stressed plants with a low nitrogen fertilizer.

• Apply lime (if needed)

• Prune hedges.

• Plant cool season veggies such as kale, kohlrabi, leaf lettuce, onions, mustard, and radishes at the beginning of the month

• Before you move any houseplants back inside, repot those that have overgrown their pots and check carefully for insects and their eggs.

• Start fall clean-up in the flower beds, cutting back anything that has finished blooming or is diseased

• Separate, divide and move perennials such as lily of the valley or perennial phlox

• Harvest remaining summer vegetables, including green tomatoes. (Ripen by wrapping each in a sheet of newspaper and storing in a cool (55 - 60 degrees F.) dark spot

• If there are fruit trees in your yard, clean up fallen fruit. They can harbor diseases and mold spores

• It’s time to plant peonies! And also Trees and shrubs. Keep well watered, if there isn’t sufficient rain.

• Dispose of any diseased or infested plant debris that you may find, to avoid over wintering the problem (but do not compost this stuff)

Did you know?
Complete Fertilizers contain 3 main nutrients:
• Nitrogen (N) which helps developing leaves
• Phosphorus (P) which aids in root and flower development
• Potassium (K) which aids in fruit development
You will always find them in this order too (N_P_K)
It’s called a “Guaranteed Analysis” which guarantees that the nutrients are found in this exact per portion.
• A “balanced” fertilizer contains equal amounts of each element. For example: 10-10-10 is a balanced fertilizer.
• When you are told to apply a fertilizer that is specific for one element it means that you need to look for a fertilizer where that number is much higher than the others. For example, a 20-5-5 fertilizer would be called a Nitrogen fertilizer.

Thrifty Tips
• Over-winter ferns (and other tropicals) inside your house. They may start to look “ratty” towards the end of the winter, but as long as they are still alive (you can lightly scratch the stem to see), it won’t take long for them to flush out in the spring.

Compost anyone?!

GUEST POST by Jennifer Iseli

Compost is like GOLD to gardeners! It’s like free fertilizer and soil amendments all rolled into one! (no pun intended, lol)
Plus, when you’re not putting all of that stuff in your trash bag, think of how many fewer trash bags you’ll use!
Composting can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be.
I have just recently started my composting adventure so I don’t exactly have a complex system set up yet. I simply dump all of my “scraps” into a pile in the corner of the yard. I have a few different piles and plan to spread them out on my garden spot as they decompose.
Ideally, you could build or buy a compost bin where you ‘turn’ your compost. You will get results much quicker this way!

What can be composted?
For the most part, anything that was ever alive or came from a living body can be composted. Here are some ideas:

- Any fruit and vegetable scraps
- Paper napkins & Paper towels
- Old Bread
- Old spices
- Tea Bags
- Egg Shells
- Old Pasta
- Q-tips (only the ones w/ cardboard sticks)
- Coffee Filters
- Liquid from canned vegetables & fruit

What can NOT be composted?
- Chemically treated wood products: some of these may contain arsenic, chromium and copper
- Diseased plants: you don’t want to re-infect next year’s garden
- Meat, Bones and Fatty food wastes: Very attractive to pests & can be quite slow to break down
- Weeds: some can re-sprout from seeds, roots & stems in the compost pile
- Pet Waste / Animal Manure: May carry diseases that can infect humans.

If you’re interested in composting, here are some websites that will help:
www.mastercomposter.com
www.composting101.com
http://vegweb.com/composting/

Do you have any experience with composting?

August Garden

GUEST POST by Jennifer Iseli

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under Heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1

For many of us, the thought of gardening in the month of August does not bring pleasant thoughts. Truth be told, it’s hot, sticky and there are bugs… But for those who will be faithful, you will be able to enjoy beautiful flowers and tasty veggies right up until frost.

• Start to order spring bulbs and bulbs for indoor forcing.

• Plant fall blooming bulbs

• Clip Spent Blooms off of roses so that the plant won’t waste energy producing rose hips.

• Make sure that your mulch hasn't decomposed too much. If you have any plants that are borderline cold hardy, you will want to make sure they are well mulched.

• Keep deadheading and harvesting, but make sure to leave some annual seeds to self-sow.

• If you haven’t already, start saving seeds from any vegetables or flowers you would like to plant next year. Keep in mind that if you are saving seeds from a hybridized plant you may not get that exact same plant from seeds.

• Continue to prune summer flowering shrubs as the flowers fade. (don’t prune spring flowering shrubs at this time, you may cut off next spring’s flower buds)

• If the rains don’t come, Make sure Camellias and Rhododendrons are high on the watering list – they are setting buds for next years flower show. Hollies and Pyracantha could also benefit, as extremely dry weather could cause berry drop.

• If your hanging baskets are looking a little sad, cut them back and fertilize them to keep them looking beautiful until frost.

• Take a picture of any annual plantings that you want to repeat next year. If you saved the tags, make notes about varieties and specific plant names

• Begin dividing perennials. Bearded Iris is a good place to start.

• Clean out and refill bird feeders often, especially after rains.


Thrifty Tips

• Perennials, and sometimes trees and shrubs are often discounted this time of year so take advantage of the sales! Make sure to plant them right away so that they can take root before the winter, Make sure to keep them well watered!

• Collect Seeds! Throughout the season, deadhead your annual flowers (remove the spent blooms) to promote flowering. Towards the end of the season, let some of the flowers go to seed and collect the seeds. Store them in paper bags, in a cool, dry place. The freezer works great. Also, some annuals will reseed themselves (Vinca, Impatiens and sometimes Petunias) so plant them in a place where you don’t mind them coming back next year - you may be surprised.

I am turning country

I am turning country. Perhaps to you it doesn’t mean anything, so let me explain. During my college years I was certain that I was going to live in a big city, drink Starbucks and wear high heels. And to be perfectly honest with you, I hate the latter two. So instead of glamorous New York City, I ended up in the middle of nowhere, where my neighbor is a deer and a bear. Go ahead…laugh a little…but it is true.

When we first moved to the mountains, I wondered if I was going to survive without watching the Lifetime movies and browsing the facebook. But before too long, I was perfectly fine enjoying God’s creation by spending time outside. And about a year ago the Lord began to mold my desire of becoming “I can do it myself” kind of gal. Instead of buying a pizza, I want to make pizza myself, instead of buying a jar of jelly, I want to can my own. I want my house to feel like a home filled with comfort, laugher and joy.

And very recently I began to desire a farm. For those of you who have known me of the past 5 years, I give you permission to laugh out loud. But I can’t help that I want a cow, lots of chickens and even contemplating the though of have my own pig. That’s right a city girl turned country. When I shared my dream with my mom she asked, “And who is going to get up at 3 am to milk the cow?” Without hesitation I answered, “You, of course!” She didn’t think my joke was too funny.

Funny or not, but after I have been watching my garden grow and produce beautify veggies, my wants and desires began to change. I want a land with apple trees, peach trees and cherry trees. I want blueberry, blackberry and raspberry bushes to feed my family and most importantly to be able to bless other. And this is coming from a gal who killed her own flower last year, also known as cactus.

Yep, that same gal who brutally over watered her cactus was able to grow tomatoes, beans and squash from seeds. And watching the seeds turn to beautiful plants is a blessing in itself. So here what we have thus far.

Did you plant a garden this year? I would love to hear about it.

I like digging in dirt

Several days ago I was watching our little garden from our kitchen window and decided that it was time to replant the tomato plants in the buckets. I knew that I would be busy during the next several days studying for a test, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity to play gardener that day.


Daniel drilled holes in the first bucket and then handed the drill to me. After breaking the drill twice, I was ready to give up. However, my hubby believed that I could do it and in about 5 minutes I learned the art of drilling holes.


Washing out the buckets was next on my agenda. After rinsing the buckets I filled them up with dirt.



I added Osmocote, which is a slow release fertilizer, to the dirt and mixed well. My friend, Jennifer, shared with me that when you plant garden in the buckets, it is better to use slow release fertilizer to avoid burning the roots of the plant.


Later I transferred tomato plants into the buckets. In the article that I read a few weeks ago, it suggested to plant tomato plants pretty deep into the dirt. I hope I planted them correctly. I guess only time will tell.

On a side note, I purchased green beans seeds and will start planting them soon. Maybe they will be ready to harvest by fall time!

Bugs...oh how I do not like them

It has been fun watching our little garden grow. I anxiously check our squash plants for blooms every day, but thus far I have only seen big leaves. But it is ok; I must be patient and in time we will pick up the harvest. I can’t wait to make oven fried squash and I found a recipe for squash bread!!!


On the other hand, our tomato plants have been looking kind of puny.


I finally made the decision to take them outside for them to soak up the sun while giving them a good water bath. By the way I read in the article this week that you should water the plant’s base and not sprinkle it with water from the top like rain. Ooops…well noted, I will stop playing rain with our plants using sprinkler.


By the way in a day or so after I transferred the tomato plants outside, I noticed that our plants were back to normal… yay! Happy plant = happy me!!!


Now let me tell you about our strawberries. Hmm….where shall I begin. I am not a happy camper when it comes to birds that have been thoroughly enjoying the fruits of MY labor. Every time I would spot a big juicy strawberry I would get excited until I let it ripe. When I am ready to pick up my juicy strawberry, I find that something has eaten half of the berry. Really?! I mean, if you are going to eat my strawberry, might as well eat it all. Birds’ consideration of leaving half eaten berry on the plant has irritated me all week long. Finally I moved our hanging baskets, in which strawberries are planted, on the porch and was able to harvest 5 juicy strawberries. To be honest with you, I was disappointed because my strawberries didn’t taste as juicy as I was hoping they would taste…oh well.

Oh, by the way, birds were not the only ones enjoying my strawberries this week. Nasty red pests have also been eating the life out of the strawberries leaves. When I called our local nursery they told me that I can buy organic spray for $8 and be done with the bugs. However, I didn’t want to spend $8, so I turned to my friend, Jennifer, for help. She shared a bug killing recipe with me that did the trick. This is what you do:

3 parts vegetable oil
1 part water
several drops of liquid dish detergent
Add all the ingredients in to the spray bottle and start spraying the bugs away!

Now I just watch our garden grow and hope that soon we will be enjoying yummy veggies.

Juicy Strawberry

This week I harvested my very first strawberry!!! I don’t think any words can describe the joy that I have experienced. The strawberry was sweet and juicy and was 100 times better than grocery store bought strawberries. I may be bias in my opinion and that’s ok. There are at least a dozen more green strawberries in my hanging baskets that I hope will be ripe in a week or so.

My squash plants are growing rapidly. Every day I stop by the buckets to see how much the plants have grown since I’ve been at work. I notice that my plants grow much faster when it rains rather than when I water them with H2O from the sink.

And of course my tomato plants… they are growing fairly fast but the steam is still pretty weak. My loving husband decided to take my tomato plants outside because nets have been admiring the plants all week as well. When I looked through the window and all tomato plants looked pretty weak, so I had to bring them back to the house. I don’t think they are quite ready to be replanted. In fact, one plant had to be doctored. I took a straw and stuck it in the dirt right next to the plant that looked like it was going to die any second. I then took a string of dental floss and tied the base of the plant to the straw allowing the plant to have support. In about 30 minutes the plant was back to normal. I think it was just a high maintenance plant.

As my garden continues to grow I realize how impatient I am with the whole process. Instead of waiting for the proper time when the plants are ready to produce on their own, I desire for the plants to produce on my timing. In that the Lord has reminded me how impatient I am in my prayer life. When I submit my requests to God, I expect for Him to acknowledge them right away and answer them on in my time and according to my ways. Thankfully Isaiah 55:8 reminds us, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My way.”

And the rain came down....

I have admired our little basket garden all week long. Every day I would find a new flower on the strawberry plant. Tomato plants were getting bigger by the hour, while our squash plants were becoming stronger. I never imagined that I would really care so much about our garden. Each morning before work, I would faithfully water the plants with hopes that when I come home they have grown an inch. Believe it or not I even worry about our plants and I am not kidding about it.

One Saturday morning on my way out to run errands the sky looked grey and gloomy. Any minute the storm would break loose and my garden would have plenty of free water to enjoy. I wondered how long should my plants stay out in the rain, but quickly dismissed the thought. When I returned home, it was raining so hard that I was very tempted to move all the baskets on our porch. After rationing for a few minutes I made a very difficult decision to leave the plants out in the rain. I figured that if I have planted them in the ground I wouldn’t have been able to just pull them out and take them home in order to protect them from the rain. Plus they needed to toughen up a little bit anyways.

I am sure my plants thought that my decision to let them toughen up was cruel, but they didn’t have much say so. The rain continued through the night and as soon as I got up in the morning I went to check on our garden. I felt horrible when I saw one bucket of squash overflowing with water and my squash plants were drowning in it. I had to get ready for church, but figured that I have some time to fix my drowning bucket. As I poured the dirt out, I couldn’t figure out why the bucket that I spent $7 on was not drowning properly. “I should not have rushed to buy this expensive bucket and instead I should have gotten one from the bakery department at the grocery store for free. Obviously they work much better than the store bought one”. As I lifted the bucket and looked under it, I realized that I forgot to punch the holes in it as the picture suggested. Ooops! I quickly grabbed scissors, refilled the bucket with fresh soil and doctored the squash plants for a few minutes. However, I was very proud of my other buckets that survived the storm and the squash plants looked healthy and tough.

Healthy and tough plants should equal plentiful crop, hopefully very soon. I can’t wait to harvest our first tomato. It will make the best tomato sandwich in the whole wide world. Oh, and the thought of baking oven fried squash is making my mouth water, not to mention my stomach growl. I am still trying to figure out what I am going to do with our first ripe strawberry. I will continue to share with you my success and failure of planting a basket garden. Stay tuned…

Bucket Stealing Dogs

I was able to snag 5 buckets for my tomato plants from our local grocery store. Before I could start my planting process, I first had to scrub the buckets that were full of leftover sticky icing. One by one I took the buckets in to our kitchen sink, fill them up with soap and hot water and let them soak. I then would use a sponge to scrub, scrub, and scrub. My favorite bucket was full of leftover chocolate icing, but I was not the only one who thought that. Our neighbors’ dogs for some odd reason found the bucket with chocolate icing appealing as well. I noticed when the dogs came in and let them have leftover chicken. Usually they lie down on our porch for several hours before going back home. I guess they fill obligation to protect our house for at least several hours, since we are feeding them.

After eating their food, the dogs decided to take a nap. I took the bucket with green icing inside to wash. When I went outside the chocolate bucket was MIA (missing in action). As I looked around I saw two mischievous dogs looking at me with a chocolate icing bucket standing in front of them. The big dog must have dragged the bucket off our porch into our yard. They are famous for taking items off our porch and taking it to another neighbor’s yard. Thankfully they were caught before the chocolate bucket ended up in our neighbor’s property, who I am sure would not care for the bucket as much as the dogs and I care for it. Their stealing act made me laugh and sure enough made my evening.

Do You See What I See?

I started to give up hope on my planting the garden skills. My expectations were high and for some reason I though that all the seeds that I planted would grow overnight. I faithfully watered all the plants daily, but did not see any signs of life. I was certain that my squash would never show up, the roots of my tomatoes would rot and my strawberries would simply protest producing berries. Thankfully I was wrong! When I watered my tomatoes one morning, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I saw tiny green leafs coming out from the dirt. In a few days, I saw my squash forcing itself out and my strawberries had pretty white flowers. I was so thrilled that I must have told my husband to look at the progress of our bucket garden twenty five times in one day!



We continued to see progress daily. I must confess I was upset when I noticed that the flower peddles on our strawberries were falling off. “I must have over watered them”, I thought to myself. However, the next morning I noticed that the reason the flower peddles were falling was because the center of the flower is what produces a strawberry! My tomatoes were also growing like crazy, but I think I planted way too many seeds in one cup. As I was pulling some of the tomato plants out, my husband asked me what I was doing.

Me: “I am going to throw some away, because I only have 1 pot to plant them in and we have a gazillion tomato plants growing. “

Daniel: “No you are not!”

Me: “I am not planning to spend another $70 on buckets, plus you don’t even like tomatoes.”

Daniel: “Well, be creative and figure out where to plant them, but you will not throw them away.”



So perhaps throwing my plants was not the best tightwad idea, but I really didn’t want to spend anymore money on the garden. I talked to my friend Jennifer, who is very knowledgeable about gardening. She suggested that I stop by the bakery department at our local grocery store and ask for empty 5 gallons buckets that they throw away. What a brilliant idea! I must have missed that part of her lesson a few months ago. On a beautiful Saturday morning I stopped by our local grocery store and a very nice lady handed me over two buckets. They had to be cleaned because sticky icing was all over them. When I came home I was very tempted to stick my finger in the leftover icing, only to find out that it was all melted due to the buckets seating in my car for several hours. I soaked my buckets to get all the sticky icing out and then let them air dry on the sun. My plan is to stop by the bakery department several more times to pick up more buckets. Stay tuned and hopefully soon I will show case the fruits of my labor!

It’s Time to get my Hands Dirty

Last year when I visited my in-laws I was very impressed with their bountiful garden. I would leave their house wishing that I could plant a garden too. Unfortunately unlike other gardeners I have a black thumb and I am not joking about it. When I was in college I bought a cactus because it did not require much care. After graduation my American dad looked after my cactus and it grew nicely under his care. During one of my visits home I brought my cactus with me and faithfully watered it every week. I was deeply saddened when one day my cactus was no longer standing straight, instead it was pitifully lying down. To make a long story short I killed by cactus by overwatering it.

I guess my thought process is that when I water a plant it should grow, however I learned the hard way that this principle does not apply to cactus. So moving on with my gardening plans. The tightwad that I am I decided that this year I will plant a garden. Although we do not really have a space for a garden, since we live in a wooded area, my friend Jennifer shared with us during our Wednesday night Bible study that we can plant garden in pots and hanging basket. Oh boy, I was so excited to try it that I could not stand still. I told myself that right now I am too busy with school and work that I wouldn’t have time for a full garden anyways. I was very content with the idea of planting garden in a pot and hanging baskets.

The idea of planting a garden was easy, but acting upon it not so much. I decided to go to Lowes to buy all the gardening tools. As I was walking through the store’s garden section I was shocked how expensive everything was. I thought that people who invented selling dirt in a bag must be super rich, since people like me are willing to buy it. My mission was to find strawberry plants, tomato and squash seeds, handing baskets and standing pots and some slow release good for your plants stuff (I can’t remember what it really call). Because I no nothing about gardening I asked the same sales lady a billion questions and I know she must have thought that I was wasting her time and my money.

As I was checking out my total was around $70 and I too wondered if I was wasting my money because I will probably kill all this plants by overwatering them. However I am not a quitter and decided to go with the flow. My husband hung my baskets and I started to get my hands dirty by digging through the dirt. Questions were running through my mind on what I was suppose to do with all the tools that were in front of me, but I stuck some seeds in dirt and watered them with hopes that they will grow. I know you can laugh at me, because that is what I will be doing in two months when my pretty hanging baskets will be hanging with no strawberries in them. But all I can tell myself then is at least I tried.

Stay tuned… Jennifer is writing a post on how to garden. I promise you would really want to read it. In a mean time if you have gardening tips, please share with us.