More Container Plantings and a Surprise Gift

It was a beautiful sunny day here in Metuchen, New Jersey, so I decided to plant my herb barrel.  I picked up the barrel a few days ago and have been very eager to get some herbs into it.  I had originally purchased one from Amazon but it was badly packed, so it arrived broken.  I returned it but did not want to wait for a replacement to be delivered, so just bought a new one at the local Home Depot.  I usually have great experiences with Amazon and have never had to return anything, so I was extremely impressed with how easy the return process was.  I just printed out the label, repacked the barrel, slapped the label on and my mail carrier picked it up.  A couple of days later, I had my refund.  I didn't even have to talk to anyone to complain or ask for a refund.  Amazon is pretty awesome, I have to say.

Anyway, some of the herbs came from the Rutger's University garden day (which we attended last weekend), but I grew some of them myself from seed.  I started by putting some plastic bottles in the bottom of the barrel and filled it with potting mix, peat moss and some dry fertilizer.  Supposedly the plastic bottles make the pot lighter because you use less potting mix and improve drainage.  Also, it's great for us because the MOTH drinks tons of bottled water (which I hardly ever drink) and I always feel so guilty about throwing those little bottles into the recycling bins.  Who knows if they don't just end up in some landfill somewhere anyway?  So, now I can actually use them for something productive and positive.  Then I transplanted herbs, watered them and added a layer of mulch.  And Voila!

Clockwise from the top, we have:  tarragon, flat parsley, oregano, curly parsley, sweet basil, thyme, sage and (in the center) lemon verbena.

I also planted a container of succulents.  Again, most of these are from Rutgers, but I picked up a couple more from Home Depot to fill out the pot.  I planted these in regular potting mix but I added some extra perlite to make it lighter and improve drainage.  Here is the finished product:

Finally, I got a nice surprise gift from one of the landscapers who is bidding for the job on my property.  He initially came by on Thursday (he's the one who noticed the bird's nest).  Then, he came by again today to take photos of the property, and gave me a Lily that he said was left over from another landscaping job.  It was a bit sad looking and dry with a bunch of yellow fronds, so I cut off the dead fronds and gave her some water.  Now I just have to figure out where to put her:

According to her tag, she is a Black Eyed Stella Daylily who should be planted in sun to partial sun.

We Have a Nest

Over the past week, we've been meeting with various landscapers and tree people to try to come up with a plan for our backyard.  We have a number of large trees that hang over the yard (and in some cases quite close to the house).  So, in almost every case, the landscapers and tree people have advised us to cut back various tree limbs both to open up the canopy and to protect against limbs hitting the house during storms, etc.  Interestingly, the last landscaper who met with us today was the only one who noticed this:

Excuse the poor quality - I don't have a telephoto lens

We have a little bird's nest (with a little mommy bird in it) in one of the tree limbs that everyone has been telling us to cut down.  Obviously, that tree limb ain't going nowhere until mama bird finishes her business.  I'm not saying the other guys wouldn't have noticed it at some point before it was too late - I'm sure they would have.  But it was interesting that only one person was observant enough to catch it right then during the initial consult.

Seedlings, and Closets and Trees, Oh My

This week, I'm taking a "staycation" from work, to try to get a bunch of stuff down around the house and garden.  Our schedule is chock full of appointments with landscapers, tree trimmers, and closet designers.

Yes, I have decided to get a custom closet in the master bedroom closet.  I will finally have built-in shoe racks!  It's quite fun - although a little overwhelming because you have to choose how you want the closet configured.  And once you decide, you're pretty much stuck with the outcome, so you have to choose wisely!  I know I need a lot of shoe space and the MOTH needs tons of drawer and shelf space for his enormous and continually expanding collection of T-shirts, many dating all the way back to the early '80s (have I mentioned he's all mine, ladies!).

We have between 4 and 6 appointments scheduled throughout each day.  We've received several estimates from tree trimmers, with suggestions on how to tame the hideous overgrowth in my backyard:

And a couple of landscapers who have promised to provide us with design plans and estimates.  Interestingly, they all tell me that the plantings the builder put in at the front of the house are all wrong for that space.  Most of them will have to be moved elsewhere, or just eliminated altogether.

The good news is, I shouldn't be too sad about the death of my poor tree:

Because, evidently, it was all wrong for that space too, and now we can just take it out and replace it with something more appropriate.  Oh, another piece of great news?  Evidently, there is a huge cluster of poison ivy growing in my backyard like a ground cover, and like a vine up the gigantic oak tree at the bottom of the yard.  That will have to go!

Any free moments in between appointments are spent on garden-related tasks.  Today, I planted some new seeds:

I also picked several clusters of disgusting tiny green insects off my Lettuce (Rosalita) and Swiss Chard:

I don't know anything about insects, but I think they were Aphids.  They did sort of look like this:

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Today and yesterday, I transplanted some of my seedlings into bigger pots.  Here are some different varieties of tomato, an ornamental black pepper, which I planted along with some parsley, and another parsley seedling that I've planted in a pot with some chives seeds.

Tomato Sweet 100 (Cherry tomatoes), which I grew from seed

Tomato Akers West Virgina, purchased at the Rutgers Garden day on Saturday

Ornamental black pepper (from Rutgers) with a couple of parsley plants grown from seed

A type of black tomato I can't remember the name of right now - purchased at Rutgers

Parsley from seed.  I planted some Chives seeds around the edge of the pot

Here is a long view of all the new pots lined up next to each other:

I added bamboo stakes to the tomato plants, so they can be tied up as they grow

These are all transplanted into organic potting mix with a little fish emulsion fertilizer.

Then, I snapped a shot of this little Arugula seedling, which I direct sowed in one of the garden beds in front of the house about two weeks ago.  I sowed about 6 seeds at the time and around 4 of them are coming up.  I previously started some Arugula seeds inside, but they did not do well -  I think they "bolted" because they were on heat mats and were probably too warm.  So, after that I started several more Arugula seeds inside (without heat mats) and these ones outside.  It will be interesting to see which turn out better.  However, since it looks as though my plant beds are all going to be disrupted in the landscaping process, I won't be direct sowing any more seeds in those beds for now. 

Finally, I planted this guy on the corner of my house.  I have no idea what or who he is.  I went to a  meeting of my local town garden club a couple of months ago and several people brought in plants from their gardens to exchange.  I ended up taking home this guy - the person who brought him could not remember his name, but said it is a flowering plant and grows well.  He has been sitting in his little pot for that whole time while I tried to decide where to put him.  Again, he will probably have to be moved in the landscaping process, but according to his original owner, he transplants very well, so I'm hoping he'll be fine.  If not ... well ... easy come, easy go?

Unknown plant from a stranger

 Tomorrow, we make another trip to home depot for more  pots and potting mix.