Learning to Grow
Our journey growing our own food and designing solutions to support a more sustainable life.
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Fire Ant Pile And Diatomite
There was a fairly large pile of fire ants at the base of a pine tree in the yard. This pile could easily be seen and therefore ignored since Fire Ants don’t tend to attack unless a person disrupts them. However if you have children running around the yard and using the tree as “base” it…
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Lemon tree dropping leaves after freeze
This may be a good sign. Next step, sing it with me: Let it be, Let it be, whisper hope for citrus, let it be. As readers of this blog know, a freeze can be a traumatic event for the southern gardener. I have four citrus trees. Two Meyer Lemons we planted when we bought…
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Water after a freeze
We had a freeze here last week, and it was below 32 degrees for a number of hours. Some things died immediately. The weak begonia collapsed to the ground. However, many plants didn’t show their damage right away so the past few days I have been observing leaves turning brown a sad indication. The…
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Does a Fire Ant Sting or Bite?
Sting! The fire ant grabs onto your skin with the pinchers by its mouth and then stings you with a stinger located on the end of its body. Ouch! The best remedy is to just leave it alone and let it heal. The sting will turn red and then a little puss pimple will form.…
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EBay!
Okra Garden Supply is selling on EBay! Yes!! Here is the listing: *Check It Out* I was also able to find the product with a quick search so that is a good sign. The price is $20 for one pound. But the next product I sell will be in grams. Okra Garden Supply is metric. …
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Fire Ant and Gardening – An Introduction
Why is the tag line for this blog, “The Gardener’s First Stop”? Because when you start gardening in the south the first reason you will want to quit is fire ant sting. I want my blog to be the first website that you check when looking for information, suggestions, entertainment, encouragement, and camaraderie. Gardening is…
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Sunny again – but the damage is done
Freezing one minute, balmy the next. Sometimes a freeze will reveal something about your garden that you didn’t know before. In this case a collard plant was hiding in the Bidens alba. Bidens can’t take a freeze so it all went dark green and limp but the ever resilient Collard greens survived. Like the sun peaking…
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Burrrrrr – It Is Freezing
Us southern gardeners can get a little smug regarding our ability to plant and harvest year round. Why would you can green beans when you can just pick fresh beans for Christmas dinner? No, we don’t have to sit on pins and needles for 1/2 a year waiting for that first bite of ripe tomato.…
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E-commerce Journey
Start at the beginning This isn’t just a gardening blog. Well maybe someday it will be just about gardening. But today I will share a bit about my journey into understanding the internet and E-commerce. This is what I know today regarding E-commerce : open safari, or Firefox, or chrome, type ‘google.com‘, type what…
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Saved Seeds – Conquered Fears
The thought of planting 10 okra plants didn’t seem like a very big deal. And it isn’t. Except for one thing… ROACHES Ahh, the American Red Cockroach, the companion of the southern gardener. Yes, we must face the truth if we want to garden in the sun belt. The roaches are with you. I…