LOTB Community Container Garden Update 1

I have been wanting to post about my green children participating in the LOTB Community Container Garden project. Fern came up with the idea of selecting a small variety of plants that can be grown in containers in many climates for her readers to give a try. She figured it'd be cool for many people to be able to give input on the same plants to help each other. She also set up a forum for participants to have one central place to post about it.

So out of the five varieties chosen I am growing 3 because I already had seeds for two and I was excited to hear about the other. I already had my tomatoes and cucs picked out for the year.

Here's how my green babies were doing on April 12, about a month after sowing:

 sunflower Sunspot

This was doing so well I had already potted it in a plastic 12" pot I found somewhere

 basil Purple Petra

 garlic chives

On April 22 I planted another of the Sunspots in one of my tompots from last year with some lettuce Marvel of Four Seasons for contrast. I also tucked in a cambridge blue lobelia that had volunteered in another pot.

On April 29 I stopped by home for lunch and to my horror...

 I have no idea what happened

My best guess is it just got so hot that day it cooked :;(

At least it's two sisters have been flourishing. Here's the tompot one on May 2:

Incidentally, somehow during the month of April I managed to grow a very nice set of nails despite all my mucking about without garden gloves... They've since been broken, cracked, snagged, ragged, clipped & etc.

May 8th I was finally able to transplant the garlic chives into the Utility Rack Planter and I put a basil in with my tomato Mexico Midget.

 

Clint Eastwood is bending to greet them hehehe...

 btw, that 13" pot was $6.99 at Ikea..*hinthint*

 the tompotted sunflower and it's lettuce entourage seem happy

the fudog to the bottom right was a Goodwill find :)

  

it spends its days taunting me with the promise of flowers to come...

There is another sunflower I've left in a 1 gal pot because I can't decide another spot to put it right now. I will also probably grow some more the rest of spring through fall.

Oh, and instead of thinning the basil seedlings I managed to carefully separate them so I now have 5 more transplants. I am going to pot a couple of them and if anyone in the LA area would like the others lemme know...

So as of today the sunflowers have still not yet bloomed :( The anticipation is making me antsy :/ I'm hoping by this weekend the chives will be doing well enough I can snip some to put in a meal. I don't think I'll glean anything off the basil for a few more weeks.

And that's it, we're all caught up on my Community Container Garden :) Good luck to everyone else participating too!

More Bouquets

I have so many flowers blooming in my parent's yard that I may have started going over-board in picking bouquets.... There are currently 4 at home, 2 on my desk, and 1 each on a couple of coworker's desks...and the occasional one to a friend's house... At least I can find nice little vases at the 99 Cent Store :) hehehehe enjoy:

just a wittle big for my office...

but perfect for the dining room!

sunflower 'Autumn Beauty' and Meus abbas 'Grumpy'

Lots of Statice (lasts forever! almost), zinnia Cut and Come Again and larkspur Shades of Blue (which are actually royal purple and lavender? o.O). Also a few random calendula and ranunculus.

See other buoquets and flowers: Mother's Day, June Bloom Day, Flickr

Once 3 Sisters, now only 2...

I was so disappointed to come home yesterday afternoon and find one of my sunflowers knocked over by the severe winds :( I knew as soon as I saw it that it was done for. The huge sturdy stem never gave but the roots did, broken just below the grade.

I couldn't even bear to take a picture of it or the two remaining ones after John helped me take it down.

The other two are still fine, but with the winds not dying down that evening I didn't take any chances either. I tied both to the fence behind them to keep them from swaying to far and breaking from their roots. Three ties for each - one directly back to the fence and one about 12-18 inches to either side of the first. I thought that would minimize the sway in most directions and it the was the best I could do. Those monsters are already 8 feet tall and haven't fully developed the main heads yet. I don't have any staking material strong enough to handle them.

Hope that works.

Green Babies up for Adoption

About two months ago I started planning to have a big yardsale. In the process I thought it would be great to sell some seedlings - there was a bowl full of seeds from last year's "Autumn" variety that would never all be used in my yard. About of about 30 paper cups I ended up with a couple dozen with babies. And on the day of the yardsale...I was so occupied with so many things that I forgot to set out the seedlings!

So there are a couple dozen baby "Autumn" sunflowers in need of good home 'cause I can't keep and grow them all. Let me know if you're in the Southbay area and you'd like one (or several). Last year their mothers grew to 5'-8' feet tall and had multiple flower heads. The bees were in love with them, can't remember any time between sunrise and sunset that they didn't have several bees hovering around. Below is a picture of them, for comparisson the fence is 42" high.

Wow, we always had the cats fixed so we wouldn't have this type of problem and it's happened anyway!