Category Archives: Gardening

May8

The Agony of Bee-feet

Posted on May 8, 2016 by heretherebespiders

There isn’t any agony. I just couldn’t resist the pun!

I was sitting outside reading, and felt something on my bare foot. First instinct was to fling whatever it was off, but something made me look first.

A little friend!

And you wouldn’t be seeing these pictures if I hadn’t done my nails yesterday for a wedding. It’s officially spring when the rainbow toenail polish is on!

I think she needed a warm place to rest. I’m always warm!

I’m also not very ticklish, so those little light feet traversing up my foot didn’t bother me a bit.

She stayed about 10 minutes on my toe. I went back to my book. The next time I looked…

What the…is that bee-pee???

Yeppers. I had a bee pee on me. That’s what I get for being nice!

Apr26

Projects Done and in the Works

Posted on April 26, 2016 by heretherebespiders

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Please forgive photo quality – these were taken with my iPad.

We had some glorious weather last week. It inspired iDJ into garden-helper mode. Not that I couldn’t have done this myself, but to be honest: I obtained the materials and had ideas of what to use them for, then stalled out.

They might not look like much yet, but he made trellises out of wood laths for us. These laths were packing material for something that came in to us at work, and I grabbed them whenever I could. Thought I’d use them for the fire, but they don’t burn well with the fire-door open (spit and spark so not safe for cats trying to bask). Then I wanted to make trellises out of them, but my attempt at using recycled twine failed last year. The cheapo staple gun we bought wasn’t up to the job either. So nails it was, and I’ve little patience with nails. Thankfully he does! One of the many ways we make a good partnership.

The mostly-assembled trellises, along the wall we intend to screw em into. Three will be two-high, with an extra lath in between, and then a high one inbetween for plant-spread.

Once he had made them, we remembered that we had also bought garden-specific paint. We had ideas of painting other things, not trellises. The paint was 3 for the price of 2…we only needed one but couldn’t resist the fun colours. So! I’ve now painted them in yellow and green. No pictures yet. Next time I’ll paint before assembly; laths are way easier than grids. We still have to cut the larger bits of wood (also recycled: in-box supports for the oven we bought in 2006 and finally installed last year) that will space them nicely out from the wall (these laths are less than a centimetre thick). Then I paint the cut ends, and we drill and whatnot. His job.

Then we plant! He already bought three new clematis. They were on sale…he loves clematis.

I just have to pressure-wash the wall (and the shed, and the house). It’s okay, I love love love pressure-washing. So satisfying!

We also did this:

My new, and substantially smaller, strawberry patch. One of the first things we did when we bought the house was to plant strawberries at the base of this shed-wall. I never upgraded them and they became elderly and no longer produced. My fault, I hate killing plants. Then he got me raspberries. I like them a hell of a lot more than strawberries! So last year I dug out and murdered all my old strawberries. I also stuck some bearded iris in there, because I was running out of room and ideas for where else to put them (left of pic: we will get blooms this year and I’m so excited).

I was strawberry-less. Then…we went to a garden centre we’d not been to before. In October. I asked about the three little lonely leftover pots of strawberries, and surprisingly found myself gifted with them along with our purchases. Don’t know about you, but I have to love a place that hates to waste or kill plants as much as I do. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a good place for them anymore! This is the sunniest place in the garden so they had to go here, but how?

I wanted terracotta strawberry pots, but cut in half for wall-mounting. No such thing could we find. These planters hopefully will do the trick. Out of reach of most slugs (and I dosed them with pellets), liberally topped up with more old Christmas tree needles, and screwed into the wall! I hope they are happy there. And that the corvids don’t figure out it they are a nice and safe buffet.

Apr17

I Did Garden Stuff Today!

Posted on April 17, 2016 by heretherebespiders

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Some of my country was frosty today. I even heard rumours of snow. But not here! Today (between hail showers) we had lovely sun and not too much wind.

Of course, I was out in the garden as much as possible. We even had the grass mowed; first go of the year, thanks to iDJ’s wonderful uncles and their gas mower. They even took away the clippings, which was very welcome to me, as my compost bin is full to the top.

Digging out some of that black gold is a job for another day. Maybe tomorrow, if it stays nice.

I used the hail-shower time today to start some seeds, finally. More gazania, more rudbeckia, and trying yet again with the coleus and zinnia that have failed to germinate year after year. Just for the hell of it, I am also trying lilac seed I collected off of a friend’s tree, ancient broad beans, and pumpkin seeds that I saved from the past Halloween. These are in homemade mini-greenhouses on the best windowsill (sorry, cats). More Gerbera daisies, and some funny fuzzy sunflowers called ‘teddy bear’ that hubby found, liked, and bought for me. He does love his sunflowers. Also something called ‘honesty’ which I don’t have high hopes for, but hey; you never know.

I trimmed a lot of tiny bits of dead wood from my three blueberry bushes, and put a layer of needles from last year’s Christmas tree on top of the soil. Supposedly they are good for acid-loving plants. I still have most of a bucket of needles left over, too. Want some? They are premium: mostly dog-hair & random-strands-of-tinsel free.

Glad to see the best of my three blueberry bushes is making flowers, too – by next weekend I should have some happy bees sampling them.

I also gave some needles to the azalea my mother-in-law got me two (?) years ago. It’s not been a very happy plant, and tries to flower in November for some damn reason, but this spring it seems to be settling in and realising that it has to live here.

Not the healthiest looking thing, is it? Weird furry leaves, too – can’t blame that on the dog. At least is it blooming at the right time, finally.

The clematis is going gangbusters. I’ve not given them any attention whatsoever. I’d say some of this is at least 12ft (3.66meters) high.

I think I am going to (try to) kill the grey willow they climb on, and use its corpse as a trellis for way cooler plants. The birds love this tree as there aren’t many other trees nearby. I had plans…but my lilac from seed is now six or seven years old and still only a foot tall. It won’t do. Then again, if it wasn’t in a pot…

Raspberries are making flower buds, too! And spreading out into the grass like weeds. Dammit.

The tallest one there is six foot (nearly two meters). It is entirely new growth from last year, so all of this will make fruit. I’m going to be up to my eyes (literally) in raspberries.

New lilies from last year are coming up fast!

As are the old red-and-black ones that have been in this pot way too long now. Going to have to do some heavy culling and sharing this winter.

Dammed slugs have eaten the entire tops off of my yellow lilies. Hence all the blue pellets you see in all these pictures. Sorry but not sorry – I do poison the little sumbitches. I have thousands in my garden, and no chickens or hedgehogs to help.

Another thing the slugs have been at: the nicotiana I grew from seed last year. They did fuck-all in 2015, but overwintered well and are now getting big.

But. There was an awful lot of leaf-litter gathered under those big leaves: from the sweet pea that you can see on the far right (it’s not any variety that makes sense), and random plant-rubbish blowing into the drive. So it was slug-heaven under those nics until today. I cut off most of the raggedy leaves before taking this pic, and obviously was liberal with the slug pellets.

And don’t you love the ivy? I love the ivy. I didn’t plant it. I didn’t have to: its Ireland. My neighbor, however, hates it. It’s technically his wall, too. Oops. All I know is that I don’t have to paint that part because leaves.

Something the slugs don’t eat: garlic. I really thought I’d gotten it all last year – I harvested about a kilo. Clearly, I missed these. Still: slug pellets because they are eating the hell out of the two native primrose I stuck in this planter (which aren’t doing much but getting eaten, at the moment).

Lavender is coming into bloom! Had a bumblebee around today seeing if these were ripe.

My columbine (aquilegia) went from basic leaves to this in a week. Caught me off-guard. I haven’t even been around with the peter’s special yet. Tomorrow…

Last-meet Katy! She’s a flamer, but don’t hold it against her. Been an indoor plant for about a year now, and so top-heavy it isn’t funny. She’s a kalanchoe that I think I got for about 30 cents when she was done blooming. Shame that people just don’t have the patience to care for a living thing when it isn’t ‘pretty’. I’m glad I do – repotted once, needs it again, and she is quite the stunner.

Apr5

Ex-Flowers

Posted on April 5, 2016 by heretherebespiders

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I need a kick in the pants to get me into this year’s gardening! Part of getting started is talking about it here, which I haven’t done yet this year. Yikes.

Himself and I have only just now realised neither of us took one single picture of the snowdrops. I could swear I did! He could swear I did, too. Maybe I did with the ‘real camera’? I’m sorry, but I can’t be bothered to go get the memory card right now. Damn thing is filled with a billion pictures (that neither of us have looked at) of our town’s Paddy’s Day parade. So; no 2016 snowdrops.

Next up was the crocus, which I kinda half-arsedly stuck in the grass patch out front a few years back. They come up half-arsedly, too.

End of February, these are. Kinda almost past the time they were blooming, too.

Next were my miniature daffs.

I also have tiny purple iris in this pot – so at least it keeps going for a while with blooms!

Whoops – this was in December! Forget what the hell this is. Got it super cheap, along with the beautiful black grass. Tulips are planted (transplanted) below these, and coming up now.

Not our garden. But hubby took this and I love it. I’m sure he did some photo-whatever-magic, too – the colours are just a bit to bright, aren’t they?

Lastly – our wee daffodil patch in the darkest, wettest corner of the garden. I’ve never bought a daffodil bulb – these all came from our lovely next door neighbors who know I’m a sucker for anything green and will plant anything! Over the years they have spread quite a bit, and they do make us happy this time of year.

For an awkward corner I sure have managed to fill it. Three rose bushes are under this tree: the white one is an ugly huge beast but I love it and have trouble convincing myself to cut it back. The crocosimia live here, too, and you can see a bit of clematis coming up through the truly awful grey willow I allowed to move in. (Confession- I accidentally grew it from wild seed, didn’t know what it was, and moved it there) It’s massive, the other neighbor hates it, and lawsy me but it makes a mess in Autumn! The little birds and the clematis love it, however, so I haven’t had the heart to try to murder it. I wanted a lilac there! Oh well. Any tips on how to kill it, but leave the structure behind so I can put my new wisteria there? Yes, I do know I’m asking for major trouble with the wisteria.

Mar22

Not So Prim and Proper

Posted on March 22, 2016 by heretherebespiders

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I got a present! And it was totally unexpected. A lot of times people say they will do something, and you don’t actually expect them to follow through.

Well! On the ol’ FB, I admired a friend’s photo of a flower I’d never seen before. It was gorgeous and I had to know what it was.

She told me it was a primula zebra blue. She said she’d drop one around to me – and the very next day I found this lovely sitting by my front door!

Isn’t it stunning? I admit I had to play with the colours – it looked purple in the original picture and it is NOT purple at all.

I’ve never seen a primrose that wasn’t growing wild, and they are never this colour. Sure doesn’t look anything like the ones I dug up from beside the abandoned railroad tracks last year. I wasn’t even sure that it was a primrose, but made a good guess.

Here is her photo, that got me so excited.

I’m in love!

Jan30

Spiders Makes Firelighters!

Posted on January 30, 2016 by heretherebespiders

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I first talked about making firelighters wayyyyy back in my second month of blogging. I hadn’t tried to make them at that time, but in the four years since I have made them often. They work a treat, and cost me absolutely nothing but the time (and electricity) it takes to make them. These firelighters are made entirely out of things most people would throw away without a second thought.

What things?

Dryer lint!

This is a small shoebox full of lint. I save it everytime I clean the dryer filter. There is a lot of hair and fur in our lint, of course. No matter, we all know hair burns nicely. Unless the trap is full of fur from washing the dog bed, in which case it is 100% hair and not worth keeping.

Next? Paper egg cartons!

I cut the pointy bits off, to make separation of the individual cells easier once the lighters are finished. The great thing is that all those little points – other than being great fun to put on your fingertips and make creepy noises and theatrically scary movements at the other (human or not) occupants of the house – is that they are compostable. Being the plant fanatic that I am, of course I have a big compost bin for making my own good soil. In they go!

Lastly, used wax!

You can use the stubs of candles, if you aren’t nutso like me and save those for making new candles. In our case, we eat a lot of cheese. Cheese that is coated in wax! So hubby and I save the wax coatings and after a few months, you have a lot of wax! Baby Bell is so yummy. It’s my breakfast five days a week.

After cutting the pointy bits from the cartons, I stuffed the cells with lint. I do try to keep each one separate, for ease of tearing apart when finished.

You kind of get a feel for how much lint to use after a few goes at it. I did try to use less, but then it took two to get a fire lit. More lint=more heat. I use about this much per cell: but my hands aren’t small and this is a quite dense lump of lint. So kind of a pointless picture, actually. Meh.

I will say that this process is messy. Dusty. I’ve had to clean lint dust out of my nose afterward. Purple or grey nose goo! Says a lot about the colour of fabric we wear, or own.

I had way more egg-cartons than lint, so when I was done lint-stuffing, I moved to wax-melting. I have a small, €1 pot that is just used for wax. It really isn’t worth doing this if you have to wash out the wax after – wax smells strongly, sticks to everything, and requires a lot of hot water and towels to remove. I also have a crappy little teaspoon just for this job. It could be bigger, but it is what I have.

Melting wax! Once it is liquid, spoon a bit over each lump of lint. For my tiny spoon, it takes three spoonfuls. I use the spoon to poke the lint down, too. Sometimes if the wax is really hot, and the lint sizzles a bit as it settles. But it won’t catch on fire.

Half-waxed. Wax-on, wax-off?

Wow, look at all the hair. Eww. Two cats, one thick-furred dog, and two humans with super long hair. This is why I love a dryer, despite the electricity used. It does take a lot of the fur off our clothing. Not all. Never all!

I figured out today that the unused extra cartons make a good platform for cooling off the finished product. One dozen-sized carton can cool three dozen lighters, with no worry about getting wax on your countertop or table.
A few common-sense tips. Put paper or cardboard down before dishing out the hot wax. It gets everywhere, no matter how careful you are. I use an expired credit card to scrape up any messes that hit the stovetop or counter. Make sure to clean any drips off your pot before putting it back on to the heat. Don’t use plastic or styrene egg cartons, just paper ones. And if your hob is gas, make these well away from the flame, or turn it off while working with such inflammable materials. Am I covered? I hope so – but I am going to have to state that I am not responsible for any accidents or injuries incurred by following my advice.

That is it – once cool, one cell of the carton should be enough to light your house fireplace, or even your charcoal BBQ grill (but it’s wise to let the firelighters burn up completely before you get food near it – you will have no idea what chemicals are in fabric lint, after all! And who wants to eat food that smells of burnt hair, yuk).

Dec19

Climate Change

Posted on December 19, 2015 by heretherebespiders

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Climate change is evident in my garden this year.

Earlier in the week, I saw a report of blooming daffodils in Co. Clare, Ireland, and in Cheshire, UK.

So, I went out to where mine are planted…

This can’t be good!

What will happen to these tender shoots when a frost comes? If a frost comes. Am I going to have to learn to crochet and make them little jackets?

For comparison, this photo was taken February 1 this year:

Tonight it is 9C, or 48F. Yesterday, at 3 am (according to hubby, I was asleep), it was 14.6C or 58F! Crazy altogether, and worrying for the health of my garden next year.

Anyone else having unseasonable weather for late December?

Dec16

December Blooms

Posted on December 16, 2015 by heretherebespiders

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Take two

Well! I still have flowers. The pics below are just the ones from out back of the house. I meant to get pics from out front when the light hit there, but by then it was raining again.

The lilies are all gone, and the tigridia too of course. I’m still waiting on the tiggies to open their seed pods so I can collect this year’s bounty! The yellow iris already ‘popped,’ so if you want seed for those, let me know.

It’s been very wet – the whole country is flooded (we are okay) – but warm. We’ve had morning frost once, afternoon snow once; and last Saturday, I awoke to an unexpected snowfall:

It was funny to me that I opened the blinds and said, out loud, ‘Where the hell did that come from?’

An hour or so later I heard hubby get up, open the blinds upstairs, and say: ‘Where the hell did that come from?’ Ah, we do think alike on occasion!

So, back to the flowers. I still have a weather-worn white rose:

The new chocolate orange rudbeckia (from seed this year) is happy enough, if bedraggled and twisty.

The other, older rudbeckia are smaller this year. But still I like them.

Yes, there are stray dog hairs attached to most of my flowers. The back garden is also her toilet, so … unavoidable!

This is one of my cyclamen, which are meant to bloom in the winter. I kept this one inside all last year, but it got cyclamen mites so out it went, and away from the rest which are out front. I did tone down the pink in this, it was blindingly vivid.

I always forget what this is. I have two now….

I’ve saved the best for last – there are gazania still in bloom!

As the gazania are new to me this year, I’ve been wondering the whole time if they can over winter in our super-wet, windy, but not terribly cold climate. So far so good!

Oct10

Gerbera Update!

Posted on October 10, 2015 by heretherebespiders

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They have been in bloom for weeks now, but holy shit it is hard to take a good photo of them!

Only three have bloomed – one is still thinking about it, and two died. Dammit. I won’t leave them outside ever again!

The youngest, and smallest, of the brood.

The second one to open. Gorgeous!

This is my favourite. I want so much for you to see how the underside of the petals are a different colour. Can you? It’s impossible, I think, to capture what we see.

Sometimes a picture isn’t enough -these flowers have made me realise that not everything can be expressed or shared to the full extent of reality.

Grow these – buy these – whatever you need to do, but please try to get this flower into your life. Mine are hidden away (from cats) on the windowsill of our toilet! Have to say every time we visit the room, we both talk about the daisies.

Sep18

Tigridia Post. I Have To, The Photos Are Piling Up.

Posted on September 18, 2015 by heretherebespiders

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I think I’ll do all pink ones.

I’m beginning to think that wasps are the main pollinators of my tigridia – unless it is just the wind doing the job?

Did you notice? Most are pink and white, but some are pink and yellow!

I had a hard time deciding if this was red or pink… So much for the stereotype that women know all the colours. I think it’s more red, now – comparing to the other pictures. Oh well!