Forum: Home and Garden

It's been pretty overcast in the am's. Seems like the sun doesn't come out till 1 pm. I know you want full sun for veggie gardens but at what time... does that mean all day? Or wherever you get the most sun in the am is best? Or is it the spot that has the most sun in the afternoon?

I dont' know why I didn't think of it. They are almost 11 and 6 and they just don't use the sandbox anymore. They like the beach in the summer time and that's fine. The sandbox has a plastic border that looks like stone so I have decided it will be my new veggie garden. Just trying to figure out...

Hello, I David Smith, a new member to this community, I found this forum very informative. Hope I can improve my knowledge by participating on discussion here and hope all members will be cooperative with me. Thanks David Smith

OMG! It is making me drool seeing all the beautiful flowers, veggies, and fruits!!! I want to plant some lavender on the side of our driveway but I want a variety that is fragrant and also that doesn't mind our humid wet weather. But the driveway soil stays drier since it isn't on a watering...

Oh.my.goodness. Absolutely hilarious!! One of my Barred Rocks is about 1/4 to 1/3 bare! Her tail is just about gone and she looks so skinny and scraggly. She has pin feathers in most of the bald patches, and in fact I'm impressed at how fast the lost feathers on her neck are growing back. I...

Dh wants to reclaim the areas the chickens have scratched up. Is that possible? What effect have your chickens had on your grass?

I put garden in quotes because it was such a tiny garden this year! I never did get any tomatoes off my two large plants. Some cherry tomatoes were finally forming after it cooled off, but nothing ever ripened. I guess tomatoes either don't grow here in my part of Arizona or they grow in some...

Yep, the eggs are from the chickens in their backyard! They are brown eggs. He just won't eat eggs that aren't in a carton from the grocery store. I am not sure if it's the color of the eggs or the fact that they aren't pasteurized. I think it's ridiculous.

When I chose the varieties of our chickens I took into account our really hot summer temperatures. I figured when the days got longer we'd get more eggs. Wrong. I think it got so hot for so long that the girls just didn't have it in them to lay many eggs. We don't keep track of the specific output...

I think they called it Rocket in Italy but it looked and tasted like Arugala. I love it! Just curious if it's as easy to grow as lettuce. Anyone here grown it?

It's hard for me to think about fall when it's 105 outside today, but I know it's coming sooner for lots of you. Here is a good article I came across today: Garden and Yard Clean Up

I bought a lavender plant today and planted it in a large pot that sits on the north side of our front patio wall. Even though it is dry and hot as blazes here in the summer, the plant is supposed to get 6 or more hours of direct sun each day and I don't think it will. The pot isn't really...

My Century Plant has bloomed again. Checked my old post and it seems to bloom in August and then again in March so really it is a bi-annual. I have 3 Century Plants now since there are "baby" offshoots. Anyone tranplant one of these? It is getting kind of big in the front garden bed!

I can't believe it!!! DH told me that he saw a LIME on our tree right before we left to go to NC for older DS camp. (tree is 5 years old and barren up till this point) So the tree is right by our saltwater pool and I figured not good. We have never seen blossoms on it. We have never fertilized it....

I thought with a bunch of us having grown tomatoes we could share some recipes using tomatoes? We have been in NC and just had the most wonderful heirloom tomatoes, and we bought a tomato pie from the same place we got the tomatoes from. Sounds delicious! I will have to dig up DH's Moms tomato...

Trying to get our electrical and gas bills down as it is several $K a year we have been paying. We have had 2 appointments so far to consider solar energy from panels we'd put on one of our roofs. If we decided to do it we'd get a 50% tax break from the state and a 30% tax break from the fed gov....

Ok so we got a thumbs down for the WAY EXPENSIVE solar panels that really didn't do much. Gosh I don't think we'd have even done it if the solar panels were less expensive. Just not worth the effort for providing such a minimal amount of electricty. So we did get the energy audit ($150) and they...

Instead of hijacking MAV's solar energy thread more than I already have, I thought I'd start a new one. This old blog post of mine shows the two products I use to dry my clothes in the Arizona heat. I'm still using both of them, although the octopus hanging thing has had three of the clothes pins...

and they are getting eating by WORMS! It's a black worm or caterpillar, one that eats tomatoe plants. I don't like to use chemicals. Should I just chop down the tomatoe planst? I mean every tomatoe on the plant has been eatein into by these caterpillars.

My century plant is about to bloom AGAIN! I just checked the old post and it was in August of 2010that it bloomed. So here we are in March 2011 and it is blooming again. Guess it is a BI-ANNUAL blooming plant-lol! I was just about to have it removed because it is so spiky and it's blocking the...

Hey, I think it was a year ago that I started it. I sort of quit midway with composting the veggie and fruit scraps. I planted some new flowers in the beds and I use the leafy soil from the compost bin to supplement.

I saw your post and wanted to welcome you. Won't you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about you? I'm the coordinator of this board and have always liked home arts. I like to read about what others are doing with their own homes.