Plant Sale

 So, yesterday, I went to a plant sale!  Almost nothing was over 5 dollars!  Being the gardener I am I bought some plants.  It was an outdoor plant sale with plant donations from nurseries around where I live.  So the plants that we bought were all from nurseries so all of the plants we got good deals on.  So the plants we got were:

Lamb's Ear.  One of my personal favorites because of its super soft leaves which of course feel like prickly cacti.  Just kidding, it feels like a lamb's ear which is where it gets it's name.  Lambs ear are a perennial and extremely easy to grow.  This I bought for a cheap price of three dollars.

Another plant I bought was lemon balm.  I got this plant due to it's medicinal values and it's uses for tea.  If you read Tea Leaves   you should know I am a tea addict.

I also bought spearmint plant for it's medicinal values and tea uses.

The last plant I bought is one of my favorites.  Its Aloe Vera!  I bought the Vera plant for a cheap price of 3 dollars!  I bought it for it's uses for skin and the drink.  This is one of my favorites!

If you have any plant sales around your area, I highly recommend going so you could get some plants for a low price!  GO NOW!!

Harvesting Tomato Seeds

Harvesting tomato seeds sounds super easy right,  just cut open the tomato, get the seeds, let it dry and there you have it, seeds ready for germination.  If you thought that's what you were supposed to do, I don't blame you that's what I thought you were supposed to do as well, but in fact it is it is much more complicated.   If you didn't know how to harvest tomato seeds, that's what this blog is for!  To learn!

  To harvest tomato seeds, half to, first, get a knife and a spoon and of course, the tomatoes.  So first you want to cut the tomato like this

  

  Then with all your tomatoes cut in half, use a spoon and use it and take the insides out and put it in some container.  With the seed pulp do a 1:3 ratio of seeds:water.  The shake it up so it looks something like this.

You want to let it sit for a couple of days to get some mold.  The mold helps prevent the seeds from getting diseases and getting a low germination rate.  Then, you want to strain the seeds from the water and mold.  Then, put it on a piece of wax paper to let it dry.  Wax paper because it doesn't allow the seeds to stick.  Let it sit there for a few days and viola tomato seeds!  If you like to harvest your own seeds, I hope you guys that like saving you seeds found this post useful.  Happy Gardening!

Succulent Leaf Planting

As you may know from my last post,  I am a trying to add more succulents to my garden and I have found some leafs that were rooting and starting to leaf.  Anyways, today I am going to plant them and hopefully they will root and soon I will have an area dedicated to succulents, and succulents only.  So, because my succulent leaves are doing so well I was going to plant them.  So before it looked like this before I planted it.

So with it being planted it looks like this now.

  I am so happy that none of them turned black and died.  And also that I am so happy that it grew up to be a strong plant!  Hopefully you guys can do this as well and have more succulent plants!  Happy Gardening!

Allergy Season

  As you all know, it's spring, the flowers are blooming and that comes with pollen, and lots of it.  You try to smell a flower but with a flower, comes with pollen and then...With the pollen it  gets in your nose and in your eyes you have runny noses, sniffy noses, watery eyes, itchy eyes and other allergies.

  Supposedly, when you have all those symptoms, you are supposed to eat a tablespoon of honey per day.  BUT not any kind of honey, honey that is local.  It also has to be wildflower honey.  You might be saying, now this is just crazy, eating honey to cure allergies.  Actually though, this works, it is supposed to be because the bees pollinate the wildflowers and make honey and when you ingest the honey it builds up your immune system.

  Hopefully you guys get the same results as I do and have barely any allergies!  Try to see if it works for you!  This is also the more healthier way than taking drugs and getting allergies and ingesting who knows what.  I highly recommend the honey.

Winner! Wooden Duck Statue

 

Thanks to all of you who joined our giveaway!  By using random.com I came to a person to send the giveaway to!  It was such a fun giveaway to host!  Hope you guys have a good time searching around on this blog!

Congrats to:

GardenyFiend!

I hope you enjoy the beautiful wooden statue.  Please email me at yaksarebeautiful@gmail.com

Thanks again for all of you that entered this giveaway!

Succulent Propagation

  So, I found some succulent leaves on the ground and I noticed that they were starting to root and develop roots.  I thought that it might be able to turn into a whole succulent plant so I took it back home with me.  I put it on my windowsill with a moist paper towel.  When I first saw the succulent leaf it looked like this:

    So far, it is nearly ready for planting and starting a whole new plant.  This is one of the easiest and fastest ways to start a succulent instead of buying or saving seeds and risking having a 50% germination rate. On the other hand, leaf succulent propagation has like a 75% chance of germination rate!  I only had one that was dormant.  I have two other ones that look just like this.  Tomorrow, I am going to put it in the soil and hopefully it starts a new plant!  Hopefully you guys found this useful!  Like I said this is one of the easiest ways to propagate succulents.  

Back From Vacation + Giveaway

Hey guys, sorry for the lack of posts.  Unfortunately, because of my vacation I got a little lazy and nearly stopped posting.  Anyways, I have gotten some cool wooden statues resembling a duck and a seal.  I will be giving the duck away today..  These are both BEAUTIFUL pieces.  They are both made by a great and nice craftsman.  They are made of iron wood a very sturdy wood that does not chip.  (unless you smash it on the ground)

   The trip overall was pretty good.  We went to Mexico and we had a blast.  We got lots of souvenirs and no we did not get chiclets.  Anyways now for the giveaway!

How to Enter.

1. Follow me!  Link on the side (one entry)

2.  Leave a comment! (another entry)                          

Good luck to you all!   Contest ends April 20th

Gone on Vacation 3...

           Hey guys, I am going to be on vacation for about a week so I am going to post some old posts and call them "new" this is for you all that are new to my blog. Thanks for understanding! Hopefully you guys willl enjoy! Thanks!

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!

Gone on Vacation 2...

Hey guys, I am going to be on vacation for about a week so I am going to post some old posts and call them "new" this is for you all that are new to my blog. Thanks for understanding! Hopefully you guys willl enjoy! Thanks!

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.

Gone on Vacation...

Hey guys, I am going to be on vacation for about a week so I am going to post some old posts and call them "new" this is for you all that are new to my blog.  Thanks for understanding!  Hopefully you guys willl enjoy!  Thanks!

Chamomile Seedling!

So, lately, I found a small little chamomile plant. I used to raise these flowers when I was younger. So, I came across this plant when I was walking around a little trail near my neighborhood. I found a big plant, of this flower and a small little plant like this one. I decided, to uproot the plant because I remembered growing the same plant a while back. With the small plant I uprooted it and planted it in a little pot. Hopefully, it will grow to be a big plant and I will be able to plant it outside.

I just want this to show that, you don't need any seeds or anything. If there is a small plant that isn't supposed to be there, like from seeds that grew that were from flying seeds or from critters that dug them there. All you have to do is uproot the plant, make sure that you don't destroy the roots of the plant or, of course it won't grow.

So far, the plant is growing really well as you can see. If you would like to grow a plant, this is so much easier than growing a seed or using a cutting! I find this way easier than planting seeds, If you don't well that's okay, I just recommend that you try this method. Honestly it really works and you don't have to be worried about the germination rate, because of course it is already grown. Hopefully, you find this way easy and you will use this method as well.

Clovers

  So, as you might know, being a gardener, also comes with lots and lots and LOTS of weeds.  Pulling these weeds is like a pain in the butt and when you go to sleep  your back is feeling bad and you sleep like a baby.  Right now, (even though it's past St. Patrick's Day) my garden is green and yellow, but mostly green with weeds, but mostly clovers.  The problem with these weeds is that the bees just swarm around them and don't care at all about my apple tree and my other plants that need pollinating.  Anyways, once the flowers are pollinated, they decide to make seeds and start reproducing.  Making a endless back-breaking pain for me.  I told my son about this, and his idea was to whack the flowers from the clovers which is not a bad idea, since they won't be able to reproduce without the flower.  This sort of has been working and has been reliving me from all the work, but still, this is hard work.  You have to uproot the whole plant or else the plant will grow before you say "Attached to Gardening is my favorite blog!"  If you don't believe me, just go out in your street and say it and almost instantly, your clover will grow.  (just kidding, hopefully you didn't do it! OTL)  If you don't know what OTL is click me!  Anyways, I hope you don't have the same problem as me, or else you will be pulling weeds for YEARS!  This is just all of being part of a gardener, even if you grow plants you don't want.  Have fun growing weeds growing plants that you want.