I've ordered my Heirloom Tomato seeds!

I posted the other day about a new blogger I found, Mimi, and how she's starting some winter sowing for the first time.  She also (and I subsequently) shared a linke to WinterSown.org where, for a small donation of $5 and a SASE, you get to choose 6 plus 4 default tomato breed seeds (you'll receive at least 6 seeds, maybe a few more, depends on their stock) of 10 types of tomato seeds.  OH, I had such a hard time choosing!  I finally settled on these (hopefully they have them in stock...if not, they'll substitute with something to be a surprise!):

1. Green Zebra - 3 oz fruit ripen to light green with dark green streaks
2. Louisiana Pink - loads of round pink fruits, flavorful
3. Legend - up to 1 lb frutis, Developed by Oregan St. University to be resistent to Blight, sweet, red
4. Mister Stripey - 2-3 oz fruits ripen to red with yell stripes, tangy flavor
5. Sunray - 3" fruits ripen to a golden orange
6. Tomatilla Purple - ripens to purple, harvest with husks begin to break
7. Tiny Tim - abundant, red cherries on dwarf plants, good to grow in containers
8. Super Marmande - 6-7 oz fruits ripen to red, French heirloom seeds
9. Sausage - extra long, 6" tapered fruits, meaty and fast producer
10. Wild Card - this is left at their choice to be a surprise, will either be an heirloom or rare tomato seeds NOT listed for choice on their list

Don't these sound FUN????  my only problem?  I have NEVER had any luck beginning my plants indoors...I always forget the poor buggers,  :(   I'll will try  my best to treat them better this time around, lol

Lavender Cove has received it's FIRST blogger award!

I was super excited to read the comment down below from Misty, over at Misty's Thoughts Too, saying that she was passing the Stylish Blogger Award to Lavender Cove!!  OMG, super cool!  Thank you so much, Misty.  I hereby happily and enthusiastically ACCEPT, lol!!  She also gave the Stylish Blogger Award to my other blog, Thrift and Frugal by Debbie, and I want to thank her for that, as well.  Stay tuned to my full award acceptance post, along with the 15 blogs I'll pass it on to.  THANKS AGAIN, Misty!!

Lavender Cove has visited their FIRST blog hop! yays!

I've linked Lavender Cove up to a few blog hops, finally decided to build a following, YAYS!  and just in time to prepare for Spring and gardening, double YAYS! lol  followers, I ALWAYS follow back!! just make sure to leave a comment with your link-back so I can return the favor...thanks! and enjoy hopping!



A GREAT resource with a Cause!!

I want to thank my new friend, Mimi, over at Gardening in the Buroughs of NYC, for turning me onto this great new resource!  It's not NEW, per se, but it's new to me!  It's called Wintersown.Org!  This great organization shares their seeds, many variety if seeds, for a small donation and an SASE!  They are a non-profit organization, that is making growing your own veggies, herbs, and flowers more readily accessed and available to people, urban and rural.  Mimi had ordered oodles of seeds that she wanted to try her hand at sowing...she recently got her order in and WOW, for $5 she got aLOT of varieties of tomatoes, and a few other types of seeds.  This is a GREAT way to grow new varieties, either not readily available to you, or to use as a new online growing resource.  Thank you, Mimi!  Read Mimi's post where she shares her Wintersown.Org story and see the pics of all the great seeds she received!  I'm totally going to do this!! totally!  as in, gonna send my SASE and $5 within the day, lol. 

Another thing I'm gonna try is Wintersown's type of cataloging of their seeds.  Right now, I have a box w/dividers and such, and this is a good system, but I think I like this catalog type of system better.  Here's a pic of one of the catalog systems used by Witnersown:

Wintersown.Org also shows you various ways of growing seeds, shares ideas and such on how to do so by recycling and using the products that you have on-hand instead of purchasing expensive seed growing items and such.  They even share their treasured heirloom tomatoe seeds.  Larger orders can be requested.  Go here to see what varieties they carry, and how to place your order.  I sincerely suggest you do the $5 donation (or more) type of order...you're getting a LOT of seeds for just $5, and heirloom seeds, at that...they're TOtally worth that amount and more, even.  By dontating, you help them to continue to provide the seeds and help other gardeners, either old hands or newbies!
 

We sincerely appreciate your generous donation.

First six varieties ~ Free
-
$5 donation for
 a gift of 10 Varieties
(6 choices & 4 defaults)

(as stated on the Wintersown.Org site)

thanks again to Mimi for sharing this great resource in her home state, NY!!  Head over and check out her awesome gardening blog, 'Gardening in the Burroughs of NYC'!  I happened to stumble across it the other day and can't seem to pull myself away from it ever since!!  Especially if you're tired of this winter crap and in the mood for gardening, she'll definitely get your mind going and get you antsy for Spring!!

now, all I have to do is decide what seeds I want...ughh...gonna be a tough one!!

WOW! Solar lights at Dollar Tree...which means they're $1!!

So, I'd not gone into Dollar Tree in awhile, and the girls like the vanilla ice cream and cookie dough, plus they usually have Red Baron mini pizzas...and all for a buck each!  Plus, I'm in the garden and SPRING mood, in case you haven't been able to tell, lol and I noticed that they have some of their garden stuff out.  I grab about six of the coconut liners, they had some of the longer windowbox-style pots, grabbed a few of those.  Then, I noticed these:

nooooooo, not the spray bottles...the lights lined up toward the bottom!!  These are the same lights that Walmart sells for $3!!  And Dollar Tree has them for just a BUCK!  They're black plastic, but they're the thicker more durable plastic, and the little orange tags are the battery tabs (I made sure to grab ones that still had them).  I can't wait to figure out what I'm gonna do with these, lol.  Since the garden will be bigger, I believe I'll install them along the main walk way.  Now, the spray bottles are Bayer Complete Pest sprays that Lowes had on clearance for just $2.08, originally like $12!!  they're still within exp date.  I don't normally use sprays, I usually make my own, because they're so much better on my roses and veggies, but we live next to this creek, and sometimes the hubs likes to spray the manufactured, more harsher sprays around the edge of the property line, so I thought this was a GREAT deal (don't fret, it doesn't leach into the creek, we don't spray it that close to it).

If you live near a Dollar Tree, BOLO for $1 solar lights!!  they're always good to have on-hand, I think anyway!

STILL in search of a good Gardening Program

I saw a tweet from (who knows) about a newspaper article in the Columbus Dispatch talking about how gardening has 'gone' high tech...which made me think that the person writing the article must NOT be a gardener.  If they were, they'd have known that this was a revolution, as well as a revelation, that began several years ago.  We gardeners have used computer programs to help us map our gardens for years..granted, we usually had to use a basic CAD or paint-type program, and the programs are much more advanced than that now, but it's not something that has just happened overnight, as this article makes it sound.




a pot of my Lemon and Thai Basil in 2010...aren't they beautiful??
mmmmand smell divine!


I, for one, am still on the hunt.  I dug up a program (well, 3 different programs actually) that I use to have, one I'd never opened before.  But they're all old, one is a Landscaping prrogram, and two are CAD programs, all of which are too old for my 2011 computer, and there were no updates available for them. ughhh!  luckily, on my other blog, Thrifty and Frugal, a company has asked me to review THEIR garden program.  It has an annual fee, to which they're waiving for me for the duration of the review...we'll see if it's something I like.  Stay tuned for my review of it, I'll post it on both sites for all to see.  I should be able to access the version tonight or tomorrow...I'm optimistic with my fingers crossed, lol.

Making plans...WINTER, GO AWAY!!

I'm sooooooooooo tired of this winter crap...cold....blah.....ice....blah.....snow.....double BLAH!!  I'm OVER it already, I was over it the first day of winter, yuck...HATE winter.  I want to move somewhere that's always warm, or at least warmer than the midwest, ughh...and then the hubs goes off and thinks about moving to a job in Idaho in the MOUNTAINS??? um, exCUSE me, but that's going 'backwards'...they may be beautiful, but their winters are harder and longer, so why the heck would I want to live there?  besides the altitude being HEAVEN on my arthritis and fibromyalgia, I just don't know if I could pull off living in a location that has a longer winter...I want aWAY from winters, not MORE of it, lol.  enough on that....

So, I told the hubs he'll be building me a custom designed potting bench for inside my garden this year...custom designed by ME!  It WILL meet my specs, it MUST or else it won't be what I want.  I know what I want and that's what I want, why would I want to use or have something that I don't want?  If I do, I wouldn't use it and it would've been wasteful on time, product, timber and hard work.  I also informed him that the composter needs to be replanned.  We currently use a fiberglass compost bin that I purchased on sale at Home Depot.  But that was last year and it's time to have a second compost area for this summer, or else I won't be able to access the good dirt that was made last year in the first composter...get the idea? lol  We'll see if I get this one this year, though...I may have to pick my battles, knowing my husband  ;)  AND, he needs to get my water barrel hooked up this year, cuz he promised he'd hook it up before winter hit and IT DIDN'T HAPPEN! by golly, I WILLLLL have my water barrel hooked up the 1st week of SPRING...bet me!

There's a couple of frogs in my frozen garden pond....see the pic (the white specks are snow flakes that were falling when I took the pic).  See the white one?  well, yeah, he's no longer with us in spirit...idiot frogs!  They just don't get that they will die trying to winter over in a small tub buried in the ground.  They need at least a slight current to help their metabolic systems along to remain alive, and in a garden pond like this where the pump is turned off and there is no heater, they will not survive.  However, with a few of the warmer days we had a couple weeks ago, a new frog moved in...how?  I have NO idea.  But when winter started, we had 5 gold fish in there.  We now have 3 and have only found 1 frozen body.  What happened to the other gold fish?  well, I got to looking and lo-and-behold, there he was...another frog.  He was laying on the bottom stretched out about an inch away from the dead frog, blending in, and the fish were trying to stay as far away from that side of the pond as possible (poor things, lol).  But then we got the ice and the pond froze over to the point that I couldn't get in there and fish the booger out.  He'll probably be dead by the time the ice thaws to get him, so nature will take care of him, I 'spose...sad though.