A Bundle of Seeds

         While trimming the plants of my viola plant, I had a very pleasant surprise.  I found a seed pod where the seeds are stored.  I found at least more than a two dozen seeds.  Right now the seeds haven't fully matured so I cannot plant them right now unfortunately.  Hopefully, the plants will grow up to be big, strong and healthy plants.  The seeds will grow up to be a viola ocean breeze blend.  The seeds will stored in the refrigerator where it will protects the seeds longevity.  After the seeds sprout and turn to a full matured plant, I will hopefully get more seed pods so I can produce even more plants.  So the seed pods look like this

If you look really closely, you can see a bundle of seeds in the picture above.  I have already take the seeds out of the pod and put them in for safe keeping.

Hopefully you guys can grow your own seeds and grow big strong and healthy plants!

Trimming Flowers

           So, a garden rumor I have been hearing is that if you cut the flowers of a flowering plant, the next year, even more flowers will produce.  This is because flowers take a lot of energy to produce so once the flowers are trimmed, they use their energy to help the plant grow larger and stronger, which allows the plant to produce more flowers.  Hopefully, this will work and not be a myth.  So earlier today, I cut the flowers with a pair of scissors and now there are no more colors but green.  So, the plant first looked like this

Now the plant without a single flower or sprouting flower it now looks like this.

The plant is now bare naked and is deprived of flowers.  Hopefully the plant will sprout next year with tens and thousands of flowers.

Home and Garden Show

Hey guys, sorry I haven't been posting as often as I should have. I forgot my camera at the home and garden show so I couldn't take any pictures unfortunately. So anyways, at the home and garden show, there were a lot of things, but mostly there were only home booths and like two or three garden booths. We bought a few things for our garden and for home. We bought these beautiful mugs with pictures of chickens on the sides. Even the box is beautiful!  I am definitely going to use these every day forever.  The chicken mugs were the best thing I got a the show.

 We saw some lawn decorations as well. We bought two for a cheap price of three dollars each, bringing our total to six dollars; which happened to be the only amount of money I paid at the show. We bought two bird lawn decorations, a duck and an owl. When the wind blows, the duck flaps it's wings and the owl bobs its head, its wings, legs and almost every part of its body.

We also got some free two free flower plants, thanks to my curiosity. We got them from a local nursery who had a stand and who helped me give me some gardening tips. The two flowers we got were white sorbet and a violet sorbet; which are both gorgeous plants. I am planning to plant them, near our other flowers so it could add a little pizazz to my flower area. Hopefully, the plants will survive in the funky weather we've been having lately.

So in all, the home and garden show was a blast! We had so much fun and went home happy!

Thanks For Reading!!

Plant Protection

   To keep your plants safe from chickens who just want to eat up all your plants, you must use bamboo.  If you have a bamboo plant close by like I do, this will help protect your plants.  I have tried many ways such as using chicken wire against a pot, but this doesn't work as well.  Believe me, bamboo works.

My chickens just love to go to where I planted the fig tree because it has such a big pot filled with dirt.  To break this habit, you have to stick the bamboo upright onto the pot, causing the chickens to have no way into the pot at all.  As much as I hate not letting my chickens roam freely, I really hate cleaning up the dirt after them.

     So all in all, if you want to save your plants from the troubles of chickens, bamboo is a plants best friend.
Good Luck!  And thanks to Jennifer for the post idea!

Tea Leaves

   I heard from a friend that tea leaves act as a great fertilizer. Because of this, I have started a "you must drink a cup of tea everyday."  The problem is though is that with every teabag, you must cut it open and get the remains from it.  I think that you do the same with tea bags as with coffee grounds; you sprinkle it over your plants.  This is supposed to help your plants produce more fruit and/or grow taller.  Using tea bags, probably doesn't hurt your plants so it doesn't hurt to try it.  I am going to incorporate my tea bags into my compost bin so the soil is richer.  Hopefully, this will work!

Wild Birds

           In our backyard, we hang up three bird feeders.  Two of them are a blend of different bird seeds and another one is humming bird nectar.  The birds that we normally attract are robins, fiches, mourning doves, humming birds, chickadees and of course chickens.  These birds come on a daily basis.  On the bird feeder,
the robins and chickadees, always peck at the sunflowers and millet seeds.  The birds nearly come every morning and with a group of their friends and start to peck the feeder until it's dry as can be.  Then, when the feeder runs out of seeds, then they go to the ground to look for any missed seeds.  That's when the chickens start running and scaring of the birds.

          We also had a suet feeder recently, but they ate all the suet in a snap.  The birds that come running for the suet are chickadees and finches.  We also use a humming bird feeder which of course attracts humming birds.  If you have young ones like I do, no doubt will your child start pointing out the window and saying "Humming bird!  Humming bird!"  Having a humming bird feeder is probably the best feeder around because of the majestic birds that go to the feeder.  Not only that, but they are just so adorable

A picture of Anna's Hummingbird.  This is the humming bird we normally see.

We really enjoy keeping the wild birds well fed as  you can tell.  I hope you guys have some ideas about attracting wild birds!  If you are already attracting birds I hope you learned a few things.

Our Evil Chickens

This is chicken number one.  Name: Almond.  Accused of: crushing and digging up plants.

This is chicken number two.  Name: Mango.  Accused of:  Stepping on garlic plants

This is chicken number three.  Name: Kung Pao.  Accused of:  Stealing mealworms

This is chicken number four.   Name Pebbles.  Accused of: Finding a way to get into our crops.