Putting the gardens to bed.

We haven't gotten our first frost this year, but things are pretty much asleep, outside. Leaves are coming off the trees, a few tomatoes are lingering on, and my bulbs haven't completely gone dormant, so I'm just itching to do a major cleaning. I haven't had a lot of time or energy to do the regular maintenance stuff this year, so I really need to get on top of that.

It looks like my glads are finally starting to shrivel up. I need to lift them, divide them, and figure out what to do with the corms this year. They've started to overpopulate the area that they are in and struggled a bit this year before it started raining like crazy. I may list some of the corms in my shop, but I'm not sure yet. Gotta see if anyone wants them, before I do that!

Nothing terribly new and exciting, though. I think this is going to be a nice day in front of the fire with my knitting and books.

Insanity still reigns.

I don't think we've had a rest since August! Home improvement projects, storm cleanup, family stuff, life, putting the gardens to bed for the winter, etc. have occupied every spare moment of time. I'm loving it! It's so nice to feel well enough to be on top of projects and being able to cross of items that have been on the list for a long time.

I really need to get caught up on my etsy stuff, though. I've got a few things that I really need to list, but I haven't had the focus recently. I also need to get back on top of putting listings up here as I update etsy.

I should have some pictures to post soon...hopefully I'll remember! :)

posted from fluffnflowers.com.

When it rains, it pours...

Literally! The past couple of weeks have been wet, wet, wet, as you may have heard on the news. We were out of town for the middle of the Great Rains, which was more than a bit worrying. There are some washed out spots, a few soft spots in lower areas of the yard, and a tiny bit of water damage from roof leaks, but I was very thankful to return home to such minimal damage.

One thing that really irked me, upon our homecoming, was a missing tomato. A beautiful White Wonder tomato was ripening shortly before we left, and I couldn't wait to come home and pluck it from the vine. When we got home, it was nowhere to be seen. I looked everywhere, and there's no sign of it. I've been shaking my fist at whatever critter decided to snatch it, and I hope it was mealy, grubby, and unsavory for the beast. Oh, how I wanted that tomato!

I'll be updating the shopping sections over the next few days and may have a tutorial or two to post, if I get a chance. Here's to productivity!

Shopping cart - check! Glass - check!

I have perfected the set up of my paypal shopping cart and checkout, and things are glorious. After figuring out a couple of the quirks, I can set up new listings quickly and without hassle. For that, I must hurray!

As promised a few weeks ago, I thought I'd go ahead and share the magic machine that helps me create some of the fun new planters I have listed in my shop.

I am such a powertool junkie, and this makes me kick my foot with happiness! Love, love, love it. Up until now, I've been cutting my bottles old school, using tons of electricity to heat water or to run a small cutter, and possibly compromising my health a little.

With this machine, I'm able to cut a bazillion times more bottles in one sitting and use a LOT (I can't emphasize that one enough!) less energy to produce them. It's invigorating, and the interesting bottles and containers that have been sitting in the garage are finally being chopped up and used. (That's a good thing, because anyone who went out into the garage before would think we were total drunkards!)

I waste a lot less glass with this guy, and rarely have to touch up the edges so that they're safe to handle. Another benefit that also lops off a ton of energy expenditure!

I've only got two 'boat' listings currently in my shop, but will be introducing more of them, along with more traditional cuts, over the next couple of weeks.

Shopping cart advancement!

I've been playing with adding a shopping cart to my website, and it looks like I've figured out the paypal shopping cart stuff pretty well. I do need to adjust the shipping costs in paypal, but I'm afraid that'll mess up checkouts done through etsy. I'll save that experimentation for another day, when I'm braver and have more patience.

I've only got three things in the shop on this site, but I plan on adding things as I add them to my etsy shop or renew listings. It might take awhile, but I'm not in a hurry.

It's extremely nice to have this all coming together. I hope I'll be able to build up traffic to this site, rather than relying on etsy to provide all of my sales. Since the reseller invasion over there, it's been tough to compete and stand out. My hope is that directing traffic here will provide lots of focus on me, me, me! :)

I think summer's almost over!

Not a hurray for most people, but I'm glad things are cooling off. We've had a lot more rain than we have the past two years (thank goodness!), but we've started getting afternoon thunderstorms. I dearly love them, but the cat runs under the nearest couch or bed and the dog sticks to me like glue during them.

In preparation for the fall garden adventure, I've cleared a nice spot in the garden, and have started spreading guinea pig bedding. My fall seeds are in order, and I'll probably get those out in the next few days...if I manage to get my butt in gear and overcome the sapping exhaustion and aches and pains.

I also order 16 cu ft of perlite, joy of joys, and am mixing potting mix like crazy. We invested in a lovely machine for redoing the flooring in a few locations, and this magical machine cuts glass like a knife through butter. I'll post some pictures of the new, green planters I'll be posting in my shop soon.

I've got a couple new varieties of tomatoes that just went off for germ testing, so keep your eyes peeled for those!

x-posted to fluffnflowers' website blog.

Meet the new EOT!

The EtsyOrganicTeam, after a short break and revitalization, is back! Things are much tidier, and we now have an all-in-one website with forums, a team shop, the blog, directories, slideshows, and the whole nine yards. Applications and reapplications have started trickling in, the twitter feed is up and running, and we're off to a great start.

The reorganization has been a great thing and I think the team will be able to have a much more involved membership, move forward with marketing projects, and generally be able to grow as a team. It's been a project, but it was worth the effort.

Check out the website and see what you think! :)

Bad blogger syndrome

Things have been very busy here. It's the green season and things are really picking up speed. Of course, in the middle of it all, we had three trips to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville.

I made my first pumpkin custard last week from this lovely. It's a Rouge Vif d'Etamps -- or the Cindarella pumpkin. I must say, it's delightful orange exterior is nothing compared to the delightful orange insides!

The potato blight is BACK!

Yeek. The late blight is taking no prisoners this year. It's not here yet, but I'll definitely take the rain over the drought!

Green things

By now, word has probably leaked around that the EtsyOrganicTeam is temporary closed for redirection, recentering, rebuilding, and a bunch of other re's. I've been working with Brenda, of NaturalStar, and Maura, of GreenWorks, and we've been making leaps towards a new, fresh start. Make sure to check back soon for an announcement that we're open and ready to roll!

Now for a few garden shots.

This is a flower on my asparagus pea vine. Look at the flower closely. Think. Giggle to yourself. Move on. :)


Here are some greenies. I believe this plant is a Black Zebra tomato, but I can't recall for sure. The hail didn't keep these guys too down, and they're putting out flowers and little tomatoes like crazy. With my luck this year, a hornworm will come along and gnaw them down.


This is a spontaneously occurring pumpkin. The vine put out this 10 lb (and growing!) beauty in a week. It's actually the variety of pumpkin that the Cindarella coach was modeled after, which is kinda neat. Can't wait for pumpkin custards!

Bounce back!

We just got back yesterday after a week at the Mayo Clinic, and oh my how the gardens have changed!

In a week's time:

• grass has done some damage in my flower beds
• my asparagus peas are podding
• my pumpkin vines spontaneously produced a 10 lb beauty (still needs a few more days on the vine, but it's lookin' good!)
• little green tomatoes are showing their faces
• my compost caught on fire
• my lone hydrangea is in full bloom
• the first fig of the year was picked

Tomorrow, I'll take some pictures of the upcoming bounty. It rained like the dickens today, so I just took a quick run through the raindrops to check things out.

I may also see about getting my butt in gear and putting together some new kits for my shop. I've been dragging my heels on that, but I have some plans and some inspiration fresh and ready to go!

Recovery

After the hail storm, I took a bunch of cuttings of my tomatoes and thought I'd share a down and dirty how-to.

First thing is to identify a prime bit of broken tomato that you'd like to salvage. Branches work just as well as main stems, so pick a bit that has most of its leaves intact and minimal bruising on the stem. The piece I chose was a sucker from the main tomato plant.

You can see how the stem was broken and pretty much destroyed. Above all of the breaks, though, was a fairly sturdy vine. This is where I chose to cut.


Now that all of the decision making has been done and you've committed to a cut, the easy part comes. Plop that puppy into a pot. Since tomatoes root along the stems, I like to put a couple of inches (depending on the size of the cutting) under ground. This'll give you a pretty solid root mass in a shorter period of time.


I laid the bottom of the cutting across the potting soil in a 1 gallon pot. I bent the top of the vine upwards and packed potting mix around the stem. I watered thoroughly and gave the little puppy a squirt of Superthrive for added punch.

And this is what it looks like a week later!

Several of the cuttings are flowering and showing signs of greenies again. What a relief!

Oh hail.

You heard right! HAIL.

About a week ago, we had a normal, everyday thunderstorm that dropped a nice bucket of hail all over my growing plantation. I'd just gotten the Florida weave rocking, and everything was beaten down quite nicely. Entertainingly, our roof, two miles away, survived without a dent. Drat!

We went over to survey the damage, and I took long cuttings from about half of the plants and have them going at home. They're doing pretty well, so I hope we'll be back in gear (albeit extremely behind schedule!) shortly.

Talk about taking the wind outta someone's sale. Mother nature, sometimes you royally stink. I wish they had home growers' crop insurance!!

Tutorial on how to take tomato cuttings should be up soon. ;)

I've been a bad, bad blogger

My little world has been pretty wild for the past couple of weeks. My health and now my man-thing's have been keeping us on the run from doctor to doctor and hospital to hospital. I hope things will settle down in another two weeks and programming will return to normal.

Things are green here and the Tomato Plantation is up and rolling!

Some pictures from my back gardens:

Modish interviews greenthing

My last post mentioned resellers in the plants and edibles section on etsy, and Modish published an interview partially describing the situation.

Check it out here.

And now for something completely different! Flowers. Here's an amaryllis that I got from my mother. They're everywhere around her home, and her beds are always overflowing with the lovelies. Sadly, I have to dig them up every fall, but I wouldn't be without them! This prized specimen was 8.75" across! I was impressed.

Selling Elsewhere

The recent influx of seed and plant resellers to Etsy and complete dismissal of the issue by the Etsy CEO has encouraged me to find other outlets for my plant sales. While I won't be closing house entirely on Etsy, I feel that the situation has severely compromised the integrity of the Plants category and don't wish to be lumped in with blatant resellers and people lying about the origins of their seeds.

By the recommendation of greenthing, I will shortly be setting up shop on winkelf. I like the layout and general look and feel of the site, and I think it may end up being a good home.

I've had a couple of listings up on ArtFire, but I feel that the look and feel of the site is too cluttered, messy, and difficult to navigate. Supposedly, there are going to be changes made, but I'll be waiting for those before I decide whether to invest any more time in my shop there.

The second place that I will be opening up shop is Zibbet. It's still very small and developing, but the layout and listing process is very clean, tidy, and easy to navigate. They also have a strict 'no resellers' policy, which greatly, greatly appeals to me. I hope that means that, as the site grows, it will maintain its integrity in a way that Etsy seems unwilling or unable to do. My shop on Zibbet is located here.

We'll see how they do and what happens. I'll probably be checking into other selling outlets, but that's all the news that is news, for now.

Rain, iris, and snakes.

The past couple of days have been a great break from the rain. We had one day of high winds that took down part of a dying Bradford pear, so I'll have plenty of mulch this year for my beds. My flowers are blooming and I've had a lot of visitors.

My iris are blooming for the first time this year. I've got a couple of yellows and possibly a couple of peaches that are budding out, and I'm very excited! Here's one of the purples:


And here's a little guy that visited last week. He was only about 12" long, but he gave me a start when I saw him sunning himself on the patio. I think we positively identified him as an East Midland Water Snake. He was completely non aggressive (but very slippery!), so we picked him up and carried him back across the street to the pond.

Sowing small seeds

Seeds come in all shapes and sizes, and I've noticed, recently, that many people tend to shy away from small seeds. When I say 'small', you might think of tomato seeds, but I think of tiny seeds. Seeds that are so small that they can easily be balanced on the tip of a ball point pen.

You've never seen a seed this small, perhaps, because many times, these tiny tiny seeds are treated before you get them. Sometimes they're imbedded in paper or strips or coated in clay to make them easier to handle. For those of us who are small growers, these treatments are often costly and impractical for the batches we collect.

I've been told time and time again how difficult it is to start these plants from their tiny seeds, so I thought I'd provide a short list on how to successfully germinate your newest addition.

First, find your container. I know a few people who are able to sow these tiny seeds outdoors, but I always have the best luck starting them under shelter. Your container can be just about anything from a seed tray to a plastic cup.

Second, mix a soilless potting mixture with water until moist and pack it into your container. You don't want it soupy, but it should be noticeably damp, if you stick a finger into it.

Third, the moment of truth. Take a pinch of seeds and sprinkle them over the surface. If you like to see where your seeds are going, take a piece of damp paper towel and lay it over the surface of the soil before sprinkling.

Fourth, DO NOT cover these tiny seeds. Some small seeds are fine with being covered, but I've found that my germination rates are much higher when surface sown. If you are starting your seeds in a dry environment, cover your container with plastic wrap or a clear plastic cover. This will retain moisture and allow light in to your seeds. Make sure to keep the containers warm to speed up the germination process.

Knitting Paraphenalia and Geekery

Last night, I expressed my inner geek and made these.


Up until last night, my double pointed knitting needles were tied or rubber banded together, which was extremely inconvenient. Add to it that, every time I needed to clarify the needle size, I had to look up which color was which set (great until you buy two sets in the same color!) or pull out my sometimes unreliable and unfindable needle sizer.

So I sealed together little needle cases. I love the look of the rolled cases, but I don't find them overly practical. Maybe I'm just a messy, careless knitter, but I was never careful enough to keep the roll just at the right angle to prevent needles from escaping or sliding around. With these, I just velcro them shut and throw them in my little knitting tool box. Handy!

I would like to use snaps instead of velcro on these, but I will probably not be getting a snap press in the near future.

Plant Profile - Mazus reptans

My gardens are waking up for spring, and I've been captured, again, by this lovely groundcover.

First, the down and dirty. This little plant is hardy from zn 5-8, and does well in most conditions. I've got some growing in full sun, but I have a couple of plants in shaded areas. The full sun plants grow faster, but the ones in the shade do pretty well, too. It likes it wet, but it's taken the recent drought years like a man and made significant progress.

The leaves are small, usually less than 1" long, tear shaped with scalloped edges. The leaves grow in little clumps and send out runners in all directions. The foliage, here, in our warmer climate is actually evergreen, which is very nice when my perennial beds have quieted down for the winter. Due to its 'running' nature, the plant is very easily propagated. Cuttings take readily, and it naturally layers itself as it crawls and spreads. Even better, it can take light foot traffic, making it a great choice for area where you've got stepping stones or occasionally have to trek.

From early spring to late summer, the plant blooms with small (~1" long), unusual little flowers. The plant pictured is the white variety, but I also have a purple variety. A small amount of greenery can produce a huge number of flowers, and pollinators flock to this little lovely all year.

Now, we all know that a lot of groundcovers tend towards the invasive, but this little guy is very friendly. It grows dense enough to act as a living mulch, but it doesn't choke out plants, which makes it a great companion for areas where my bulbs are. It spreads readily, but it's not so fast that it's difficult to control.