Deck Top Salad Garden

Where does the time go? The daffodils are all abloom and the tulips are starting to peak their heads out. I can't believe my hyacinths are pretty much done. This is why I think everyone should garden . Time is going to fly and if you don't have anything beautiful to look at while it is flying by you are missing out.

Right now we have an amazing assortment of BEAUTIFUL plants in our greenhouse. I am getting so antsy to get in the dirt and play but it is still so darn cold here. Even my cool season plants will need a good mulching on most nights. Ho Hum, but I can container garden since I can move it in and out. So I put together the funnest little salad garden.

I took pansies, red sails lettuce, butter crunch, romaine, dill and cilantro and planted them in a 20" Bloom Master planter box. If you haven't used these they are super cool! I am excited just writing about them. They are really sturdy, Made in the USA (gasp!) and come predrilled with all these little holes just begging for a plant to be put in them. I planted the bottom row in pansies and then alternated the lettuce plants for color. In the top of the box I planted my herbs and some more pansies for color.

The great thing about this is not only can I move it if it is going to be cold but as the season gets warmer I can move it to a shadier location as well. I am so excited to start making salads off my little garden. For those of you who have never grown lettuce it is really easy and the leaf lettuce is so great because you just cut what you need leaving about 1" of the plant so that it can grow more crunchy little leaves for you to eat.

The absolute best thing about this Deck Top Garden is everything in it is EDIBLE. How fun is that? I have two cautionary points for you though, 1) make sure if you buy your pansies from a nursery or garden center that they have not been sprayed with anything 2) sometimes people get freaked out at eating a pansy with a face :) so flip it upside down-hee hee! Anyway this makes fun a really fun and cheerful planter box.

Happy gardening and ENJOY!

Exciting new products-DriWater

I love this time of year! The world is starting to show signs of life again! My tulips and daffodils are opening up and making the garden a bright and cheerful spot. I am daydreaming about the new gardens I am going to create and about how I am going to change my existing ones.

The other thing I love about this time of year is receiving all the new products I have been researching. I get so excited when I see the delivery truck barreling down the driveway-and I mean BARRELING-why do those people drive so fast anyway?

My latest interest is something called DriWater. This is something a customer brought me this winter and I thought the little package was quite interesting. It comes in several ways but the cutest are these little SAUSAGES-for lack of a better word. The whole thing is an oxymoron, actually, as it is water encapsulated in vegetable gum. I figured I would try it out before I sold it since I want to be able to really know what I have. It can be used in a tube for deep watering or cut open and placed directly on the soil for regular watering needs.

I decided to try it out without the tube so I took hold of my peculiar little tube and poked my scissors into it to release the jelly inside. It came plopping out of the hole but was strangely dry to the touch-WEIRD! I placed it firmly on my lightly damp soil, and watched it for a few days. It is kinda like watching grass grow. I don't know what I was expecting, cartwheels maybe? I decided to root around in my planter and check things out. My plant looked happy but there was no noticeable wetness-maybe that is where the Dri comes in? My soil was moist, not over or under, but just right. Oh my gosh, this stuff is super cool. In the summer when the nursery is really plugging along my poor houseplants really take the brunt of it, but now...they will thrive. Each little tubular sausage lasts 30 days. It just kind of melts into the soil. You can also use it for shrubs and trees when you plant them, too. In fact, I am going to put them in all my hanging baskets I sell this year. If you want more info on this just ask I would be happy to talk to you about it.

Yippy-eye-ay We are officially open again! Our regular hours will be Thursday through Monday 9-6PM. Of course, we are 24 hours on the web :) Check us out next week for more exciting 'happenings' at the nursery!