Strawberry Lariat Necklace

In addition to gardening, I also make jewelry and other fun things. Here is the strawberry lariat necklace I recently finished!



I have more jewelry in my store, Light the Darkness. Cheers!

Spring is here again

Well it appears I have been doing this Garden Parade blog for two years now, wow! The time sure does fly. I have learned so much about gardening in the past two years though, and this year finally (I think) have a good hold on the pre-season gardening prep. We bought this house in 2006 and the yard was crazy overgrown and it was post Katrina and the shrubberies still had fungus, and all sorts of crazy problems. So we tried to fix and save what we could, yet here we are three years into it all and we have gotten rid of tons of growing things. And lots more need to be removed. Nevertheless, I do have my garden plot smack in the middle of the backyard and that is all I need. :)

Therefore I present to you, Sprouts '09:



We have three types of basil, roma tomatoes, health kick tomatoes, jalapenos, cayenne peppers, and cucumbers. This year I took it easy on the sprouts, they get bigger!

Morning Glory Flowers

I went outside today just before it started to rain a little and snapped this picture of my morning glory flowers. The weather is starting to cool off as October continues and it looks like they will be around only for a short time... so I wanted to share a picture of some of my favorite flowers.



I don't know why, but some of my most favorite flowers are actually wild growing ones that I have not planted in my yard or garden. These purple morning glory flowers are a perfect example, these things have been growing wild in this area for a long time and I have not planted them, but I love seeing the hummingbirds and bumblebees fly swiftly from flower to flower in the morning.

The Salmonella FDA Tomato Recall List

If you haven't heard, the FDA has recalled some types of tomatoes due to salmonella contamination. Hundreds of people across the nation have gotten ill from these tainted tomatoes. Good thing we are growing our own tomatoes this year!

Are you looking for the list of tomatoes recalled? I found the FDA page with all of the information about the tomato outbreak.

Tomato Salmonella Outbreak Recall List

2008 Gardening

So this is our official first year gardening, because last year we started in the summertime and although we learned a lot, it was a disaster! Never try to grow delicate, heirloom tomatoes in the deep south during the peak of summer. The poor things just would not fruit, it was blossom rot city. This year we were so busy coming out of the gate in January, that it was not until about mid April that we started to first clean up last year's mess and save what we could, and then start the real gardening that we missed last year. Moving from Southern California to the deep South Louisiana, I am learning how to garden on the edge of the swamps.

I decided to garden smart and go with native plants (duh), and heat resistant varieties. We are growing about a dozen creole tomato plants. I am so excited about the tomatoes, expecially in light of the tomato salmonella outbreak recall! We have a lovely tomato garden. We are also growing green beans, cucumbers, corn, jalapeno peppers, cayenne peppers, habanero peppers, tons of herbs, and lots more. I will be creating pages for these plants so I can document as much as possible, and learn in the process. If there is one thing I am realizing so far, its that this is all a lot of work! I am outside everyday; mulching, weeding, feeding, fertilizing, repotting, watering, picking off hungry insects, and non stop cleaning up. I am having a great time reusing household things, and feel good recycling containers. Gardening is definitely something I plan on doing for the rest of my life, regularly.

And I have yet to get to my growing collection of house plants. From coleus to fittomias, I have a few lovely indoor plants as well. I have tons of pictures! Lots of content on the way. :)

Better Boy Tomato

When I posted the picture of my Green Tomato, I did not state what type of tomato it was. Well, it is turning red as I type this blog entry, and I can't wait to eat it!

You can see in the latest photo - the Better Boy Tomato is coming along well and so far is the only tomato on the plant...

I have other types of tomatoes growing and will post more images soon as I get them going. Various hybrids such as Cherry Tomatoes, some Creoles and more. At this time this tomato is the only "full-size" tomato that I will have harvested and grown myself, so I am excited and anxious to pick it and eat it!

Green Tomato

When I got up this morning, I grabbed the camera and went outside and grabbed a couple of pictures of my cute little green tomatoes!

I only have a few right now and they are small, but I am excited and can't wait to have grown my own tomatoes!

Here is a picture of the biggest one I have in the garden right now...

I eat lots of salads and love tomatoes, so I hope these little guys grow up to be big healthy juicy and red! I will post more pics of them as they grow here in the Garden Parade Blog.

Keep checking back for more images from my personal garden.