garden fresh cocktails, YESSS!!!

sunset never seems to miss the chance to ease my mind and relax me in thoughts of garden/backyard/balcony oasis possibilities...so we take a time out from my aphid nightmares and dream of cocktails! but not just any ole summer cocktails, ones infused with the fruit of our labors, fresh from our garden ingredients! WOOOOT! now only if my babies make it this far! =/

enjoy! 

Your backyard paradise

Sip a garden-fresh cocktail 

it starts with a peach martini with chiles and goes on....yum! =p

 

lemon cucumber confusion?? =s

well when my first cukes (bush) started flowering i went google crazy with searches on self pollinating, how to tell a male from female flower, etc. now that i finally have that down, a day or two before we went away for the long weekend the lemon cucumber starts to bloom! like a bunch!!! great, mommy's gonna be a few hundred miles away from home, and my baby is just starting to go CRAZY!

i did a quick once over (which around here equals 3 long hard questioning glances, lol), but i could not tell the male flowers from the female?! maybe it was just that the males bloom first??? when i came home and took a little time to oggle and molest my darling, you guessed it, i STILL could not tell the difference =/

sooo, let's go to the tape (internet). I found this quick, sweet, and to the point thread over at Marin Homestead on how to tell the difference between a male and female lemon cucumber flower, SCORE!

check it out, pretty much the same as other cukes, female has a fruit at the base of the flower, blah, blah. i'll take another survey tomorrow, but i think it's just male flowers currently in bloom.
we'll see...

To Bee or Not to Bee

if you jump at the sign of anything buzzy and yellow, fear not fellow scardy-cats, they're not all angry lil stinging guys, some are FLIES?!?!?! 

check out this gret blog post over at beautiful wildlife garden:

To Bee or Not to Bee

...would totally lose my shizz if i saw this wasp like guy, turns out he's a fly!

great article for allergic bee-phobes like me!

Make a Succulent Wreath

i was browsing around the internet doing a few garden searches, and came across this cool lil project on hone and garden.

if you're a fan of succulents you must take a look!

the coolest part, once you've created the art, you only have to water it evey 3-10 weeks, the cuttings will TOTALLY take root!!

once i get a handle on the garden and complete my other garden craft project (deets soon to come!), i'm ALL OVER THIS!

Make a Succulent Wreath

Free Fertilizers Within Reach - Vegetable Gardener

i was hanging out over on Vegetable Gardener came across this article with great advice about turning kitchen waste into fertilizer!

Free Fertilizers Within Reach - Vegetable Gardener

a lil garden OCD

yep, i'm a wee bit obsessed! everything at the forefront of my thoughts is garden related, and being under the weather unable to workout has not helped to distract me from my green itch =/ so been reading all the blog post possible and joining all the FB pages about gardening, balcony gardening, container gardening, urban gardening, even punk rock gardening!! yes, i know, lol!

well, for the most part my seedlings are doing there thing. i suppose? how do i know? i need a week by week picture guide of what they should look like...tomorrow will be one week since i've planted them and everything is sprouting up except for my spearmint and rosemary, what the heck?! basil - up. supposed to be 7-14 days.check. thyme - up. should be 14 - 21 days, woot! check. dill - up, should be 10-21 days, so yay! spearmint should germinate in 7-14 days and....NADA ={ rosemary germs in 14-21, so, i'm not too worried about that.

on another note, my balcony/garden makeover is coming along...

this is only a week of focus/work, can't wait to see what's to come!
go me!!! =p