Gardening rambling

Well, we've laid out an area that is about 12x15 feet for our garden. We've had tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, potato, and jalapeno's growing for a while (with some casualties) but we decided a bigger area was needed. So we have our new area with some new tomatoes and eggplant as well as some potato, carrots, onion, cantaloupe and cilantro seeds. Eek. Sometimes it feels crappy being so new to this because I can't troubleshoot very quickly or easily($) so I'm left to my books and online resources which is probably cheaper than buying book after book. I mean,I feel like I need 20 different books/people to say the same thing before I try it. I guess I'm going to have to let that go. This is a learning experience for me but sometimes I find that I'm way too impatient to figure out what works and what doesn't.

So I guess honing my gardening skills would teach me some life lessons as well. That's cool.

Suprises never cease to exist

I found these two videos the other day and they really made me giggle. The first one is a small Colbert clip regarding Texas secession and the Mid America CropLife Association's urge for pesticide use in the White House garden:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Tip/Wag - Texas Secession & MACA
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Gay Marriage Commercial

And our next video shows House Minority Leader John Boehner giving some unclear answers on the Republican stance on combating climate change. Enjoy.

Your very own garden oasis

Check out this very sweet garden oasis that a husband and wife gardening team put together. I think it's both simple and fabulous looking. Head over to their blog to find out more...

Happy belated Earth Day

Like the title says, happy belated Earth day! Yesterday was a great day for me. I was busy the entire day. As my Earth day celebration I finally put out some seedlings in our newly dug garden. I wish I had some pictures to post but my camera isn't cooperating. I spent nearly the whole day outside with the lovely Florida sun. It was great =D Remember though, everyday, is earth day. Do your part.

On a separate note, I've made a twitter account, nessahernandez, if anyone is interested in following =)

Peace.

Spiders are your friends...sometimes

This is probably not-so-new information for seasoned gardeners but I just got my first experience with a helpful little spider. A few days ago I went to check on my black bean plants and found the leaves mauled. I thought maybe our cats had started chewing on the leaves but the evidence didn't look like something they could manage. So I figured it was some type of insect but which? I'd never seen any caterpillars in our yard...which definitely doesn't mean they're not there but I hadn't seen any on those leaves or any others leaves for that matter.

So today I was turning the compost and decided to take a look at the plants and alas there he was, a little spider on my half-devoured plant. I almost flicked him off thinking he was the culprit...what kind of spider eats leaves?! But as I looked closer I saw he was eating something else. A tiny caterpillar! That's when I noticed a bunch of them under the folded leaves. Evil little things. So now our little spider, who Derek named Spike, is now our little hero. Click on the picture for a better view.

Here he's eating one under the fold. There's another caterpillar to the right of him with a black head. Maybe they're exacting revenge on me since my cat Orie has been killing butterfly after butterfly in our yard. Hopefully Spike can take them all :)

Until next time. Peace.