Pinteresting Tuesday: Favorite Jewelry Pieces for Inspiration and DIY

Pinteresting Tuesday: Favorite Family Tried and True Recipes

Growing Lettuce in Winter - Part 2

We spaded the ground in our unheated greenhouse, removing weeds and debris. To spade, push your shovel in the ground and lift a shovel full of dirt out of the ground. Turn your whole shovel over and let the dirt fall back into the hole you just made. The point of doing this is to bring relatively untouched soil from under the ground to the surface, bury the organic material that was on the surface, and to break up the compacted soil.

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Pinteresting Tuesday: My Flowers for 2013

Blessed Virgin Garden Outdoor Statue Restoration

I've been wanting to show you the restoration process of my family's Mary statue and thought today was a good as time as any. Perhaps you'll be inspired to restore one of your own garden statues. If you have any questions about the process just drop me a line. I'd love to see the before and after photos and post them on the blog for others to see.

This is the before shot of our statue. My parents bought it in 1989 after a large hail storm hit the orchard a year earlier. They placed the statue in the middle of the fruit orchard and built a garden around it. The statue has seen a lot of weather since then and it was time for a makeover. My sister Catherine and I took on the restoration project and we began by chipping away at the old paint with a steel brush.

Online Vegetable and Flower Seed Companies Reviewed

Growing up in a fruit and vegetable farming family, seed catalogs were plentiful. Some of those companies have closed down or have been bought up by other companies that are . . . how should I put this . . . not so reputable. Yet, there are still some great ones out there and through searching and experience I have found more companies to add to my list. I wanted to review some of the online seed companies my family purchases fruit and vegetable seed from; as well as review the companies where I purchase (or obtain) flower seed for my nursery and garden.

Blooming Amaryllis Time Lapse Video captured by Bushnell Trophy Trail Camera

This beautiful, bright red flower brightens the dreary winter scene from our bay window. In a span of almost two weeks I let our Bushnell Trophy Trail Camera capture a photo of our budding Amaryllis every five minutes during daylight hours. January 27 at 10 o'clock in the morning the first photo was taken; and on February 6 at 5 P.M the last photo was taken.  

Camera Info: 8mp Bushnell Trophy Cam Trail Camera with Night Vision. Model: 119436C

This video sparked my interest to do a little research about this flower. See related post about what I "dug up." :)

Pinteresting Tuesday: Ribbon Scraps DIY Crafts and Ideas

Profile of a Plant: Hippeastrum or Amaryllis

 

• Common Name(s): Amaryllis is actually the common name even though it is the generic name for another plant that looks similar, but is a hardier specimen from South Africa.
• Scientific Name: Hippeastrum (hip-ee-AS-trum) from the Amaryllidaceae family. Hippeastrum is Greek for knights star. The common name, Amaryllis, is taken from the Greek word amarysso, which means "to sparkle," but there is no concrete story behind the name of this plant. Still, I do enjoy the shepherdess story that is circulating across the Internet. In Greek mythology, Amaryllis was the name of a shepherdess who shed her own blood to prove her true love, and in so doing inspired the naming of this bright red flower.

Guess the Photo Revealed

 

 The cropped photo from last week is actually an Amaryllis bud, just beginning to open! Want to learn more about Amaryllis plants? I'll be posting a plant profile tomorrow so take note of that and stop by sometime tomorrow. Have a great weekend everybody!

DIY Gourd Project: How to make a woodburned Gourd Clock