Nasty Little critters

I was so excited to see tomatoes on my little tomato vine forming about a month ago. It was an "Aunt Ginny's German Green" an hierloom seed I planted in a small pot last year . It somehow overwintered and I noticed it had survived but since I had never done anything other than notice that the seed had germinated and leave it alone to fend for itself, it barely did anything but look chlorotic last year. We moved to a new house over the winter and I put the pot with my other potted plants in the herb garden area and thought I would replant it with something new this year. Of course with my ADD gardening skills I did nothing but leave it sitting there. About a month ago I noticed it had begun to grow nicely all on its own ( probably rooted into the ground through the drainage hole to be honest) so I left it alone again seeing that it seemed to be ok with that arrangement. It had even formed 8 or 10 nice looking tomatoes that I was looking forward to tasting. I am always a sucker for hierloom tomatoes. They are all so different, they have a unique flavor and unique looking tomatoes. Just a world of different from what you get at the grocery store. Anyway...The drought finally broke here and we have gotten rain several times. I noticed that a few of the tomatoes looked ready to pick so I went to get them, but it was raining again. A few days latefr my mother in law was visiting and she was looking at my new garden inthe back yard to see what I had done with the new house. She happens to love eating ripe raw tomatoes as much as I did so I told her about ny little tomatoe that didnt die and took her to see it remembering it had tomatoes ripe for the taking a few days earlier. And I'm afraid that some nasty little slugs had decided that the tomatoes looked too good to resist as well! The rain had coused the tomatoes to swell and crack at the tops and there was a nasty slimy little slug on every good tomato nestled happily in the cracks! That was it, the deal was off, no more leaving the tomatoe plant to itself! From now on it was tomatoes as usual, constantly checking leaves and checking for little hornworms or anything else that likes to rob me of my tomatoes. Some people consider it "loving" and diligently "caring" for their tomatoes, I have even heard one author that thinks he has cofee with his tomatoe plants every morning for a checkup or just to chat with it, lant srespond well to affection you know. But my tomatoe relationship has never been quite so freindly, I am more like the tomatoe gaurd dog, a Rottwieler chained to the stake with a sign on the fence that sais I can get to the tomatoes in 6 seconds can you? Anyways at that point there was only one thing left to do...get rid of the tomatoes... oh I picked them alright and put them right into the rabbits cage! I dont even know if rabbits like tomateos and I really didnt care! I am not so good with slimy bugs, any bugs really, I quite hate them unless I happen to know they are good for your plants like worms or lady bugs or mantids or dragonflies, or if they don't really bother plants like milkweed bugs or raintree beetles, I don't even mind caterpillars as long as they turn into a butterfly not an ugly little moth. I have 4 children and my youngest is 3 so I don't use chemical insecticides. I manage to share my parsley with the butterflies and I even grow collard greens and cabbages for my rabbit. And so I loose a few leaves of my chard to some chewing little worm, I am not going to eat that stuff anyway I just think its pretty. And I admit I've never grown a stalk of corn that didn't have one of those stupid bugs in it at the top. I have only grown corn once just to see what it was like and I only did a few ears, no major loss. And most of my little baby blueberries go to the birds. I have never harvested the grapes on my vine. Mostly because its not really a grape I like so much, its one I had left over at the nursery one year and planted."Blanc du Boise" or being translated..."White grape of the woods" (its French thank you) Every year they ripen and the birds eat every last one of them. Well if I happen to notice they are ripe the kids eat a few. I grow dill every year and have never used it I don't even like it I just grow it because the butterflies do happen to like it, well they are supposed to but I must say I don't think I have ever noticed the dill being eaten by anything. I don't even like to trim it because I thingk its rather stinky putrid smelling. Some things I even grow specifically for things to eat, like sunflowers for the birds and catnip for the occaisonal stray, I don't have a cat anymore but I see them in my garden every now and again, I like them they kill rats and moles. Like most gardeners I consider my gardening self peaceful and in tune with nature, an honest love of the outdoors and th little critters that live there. (mostly a fairy tale we all have in our heads) Its all rathe rho hum really, whatever will be will be, untill it comes to my tomatoes... my tomatoes I DO NOT SHARE WITH WILDLIFE! Never have, and certainly never intended to. That is the last time I leave a tomato alone because I think it seems to "like that arrangement"! What was I thinking? Tomatoes need me to constantly fiddle with them, to obsessively check on them, they love me! I am their biggest fan, their loyal servant, their first line of defence againr the invading armies! I have NEVER had slugs all over my tomatoes! GROSS! In fact I have never had slugs on anything but my hostas. Maybe thats it, I have no hostas in this garden, I have always had easier targets for the slugs! Hmm maybe its the marigolds I always plant around my tomatoes. Probably not, just a thought. Maybe the people who lived here before had a slug farm. Maybe its because I thought the story in the last isssue of "Green Prints" (my favorite garden magazine) about the lady who went outside at night with a flashlight to pick and drown slugs in salty water was so funny till it got to the end and she had counted some ungodly number like 12000 slugs! It was mortifying! I thought it was crazy, how could there possibly be that mant slugs in one garden? Had to be fiction right? maybe a joke? Now I am terrified at knowing because I have never seen but 2 or three slugs tops even on my hostas, 10 or 20 in a beer trap. But 12000 uhhh, the thought of it is keeping me up at night!

My favorite new primative device

I just looked out the window and realized I need to mow the lawn again. Somehow its always been my job, probably becouse I really dont mind it, in fact I come close to enjoying it. If it werent for the fact that I am constantly reminded of my need for anger managment therapy every time I face the on going fude between me and the lawnmower. I could just ask for help but you see I am a bit on the stubborn side. I rarely admit I need anyones help. I paint walls, put up crown moulding, use skill saws and table saws and tile cutters and replace sinks and tile floors and walls and counter tops, by myself. Surely I need no assistance with gardening, Im a professional nurserymen for crying out loud! So the battle begins as I attempt to crank the lawnmower. I spend at least 10 minutes out in the front yard pulling on a stupid string,checking to see if it has gas, then bent over the side looking at the little bubble your supposed to push "3 times" to make sure that there really is gas in that little bubble and trying to see if it actually gets pushed into somewhere else when you mash it or its just part of some manufacturers sense of humor frustrating wemen all across the globe. Somebody somewhere thinks it's really stinking funny when they drive by a house and see somebody on there knees bent over the lawnmower studying the little useless button, I just know it! Anyway after I mash the button repeatadly again while I watch to make sure it functions I pull on the string for 5 more minutes while the stupid thing refuses to crank. At that point I can literally feel my face beginning to turn red like they do in the cartoons before steam comes rising up and the whistle blows. And then the inevitable happens, I yell a really not nice 4 letter word loud enough for every body in the neighborhood to hear. Then I march to the front door and stick my head in, "JOHNYY, I NEED YOU!" And Johnny magically appears with a smile, knowing it eats away at me to say that, he just smiles and sais "cant start the lawn mower huh." Then he shakes his head and goes to get his shoes. Its the same routine every time, then he comes out the door looks at the lawn mower for a minute and talks to me like I'm the stupid one not the lawnmower.(the nerve) He reaches over and pulls the string and my eyes widen as it comes close to starting then shuts off...." Whew that was a close one, I just know it has to be the lawnmower this time not my inability to start a simple device. "Babe how many times did you push the button?"he sais "the first time only three!" thats my best defense, becouse by the time I finally give up, curse and go admit I need my husbands help I have probably mashed that thing 100 times. Then he expalains to me that your only supposed to push it three times and that he will have to wait a minute before cranking it. Then we spend the next few minutes while I despaerately try to explain that I already did the 3 time thing several times and pulled the string at least 10 times after each mashing of the little orange button and factoring in my time spent tugging on a string, examining the button, checking the gas and cursing, I wait much longer than two minutes between my button mashing attempts to start the lawnmower. He doesnt believe any of it becouse sure enough it cranks right up and blows black smoke everywhere on his next try.Then he sais now see Babe you flooded it. Then I not so nicely snatch the lawn mower and explain to him it was not my fault, I did not make all the black smoke, the lawnmower just hates me. Then I mow the lawn and he goes back inside, I dont even have to look anymore I know he stands there watching me for a minute then goes back into the house with that stupid grin on his face. "She needs me" But you see this year for my birthday I changed all that, my Dad gave me money for my birthday, so of course I went to Lowes to see what I could spend it on and there it was, my saving grace a nice new shiny lawnmower. Not just any lawn mower but a lawnmower that you dont have to crank. Could there e such a device and I had not known. They seriously wouldnt be selling this thing if it did not work? After all, when we moved into our house John removed all the St Augustine grass and we replaced it with Centipede. My lawn is not typical Florida 4 inch thick carpet of weeds you can't even walk threw, I have soft thin bladed grass, golf course looking grass. This must be what Northerners use that don't have crabgrass lawns. That thing was in my buggy being ran to the nearest checkout isle befor I knew what I was doing. I love that thing!

Its official I've had a breakdown

Jason calls me today to find out why I haven't returned his phone calls. Am I mad at him or something? No then he happened to go by the nursery and learn I haven't been there and realizes that IM not mad at him I just don't answer my phone (whets new about that one I hate phones) And he sags to me, "I didn't know what was up (about me not calling him back) I thought maybe you'd had a breakdown or something....Then I talked to your Dad and realized you really had had a breakdown." A "BREAKDOWN" are you freakin kidding me. Ohh that's what this is....Im having a mental lapse in brain function. Well who new? I guess that's the impression he was given when talking to my family,a breakdown. That is interesting.

Tahts what you get when you look at old pictures at 2 oclock in the morning!

Sorry about my little mental lapse there....I really was looking for pictures of the boys I took at the nursery when they were really little. My father seems to think I wasnt there for some reason. He has convenient memory loss when it suits him like most men I know. He really refuses to admit that I dont want to work anymore. Mostly becouse I really do love plants and I like wotking with them. But He just doesnt get that it was my nursery to me, not his nursery. I knew I couldnt work with him. I knew it would be trouble when he wasnt at work anymore after he retired. We do things very differently and its always been a fight to do the nursery the way I wanted to. It took me YEARS jsut to get the front of the nursery fixed where every customer didnt make a comment about how nasty the front of the nursery was and youd never know that this was so nice from the street blaha blah blah. Everything is a fight. having a toilet that flushes was a fight, every plant area was a fight,just getting the same plants in the same place, basic common sence retail and it was a fight! Flowers lost you money, he couldnt afford to pay people to clean mat areas....Everything is a fight, giving a customer composted cow manure instead of top soil when they ask repeatedly for cow manyure and repeatedly get top soil on their orders...A simple mater of ordering what your customer requests....a fight? Surely not... Yep. This list would be so long it would never publish if I kept typing. I just dont see how anyone could not see why I cant take it anymore!!!!

Hunter working hard at S & J

My little nurseryman. This is Hunter puttingplants in rows on what we call mat 1. Its the first mat area of plants we had. Actually at this time it was about the only mat area we had!It didnt take Hunter long to figure out that all you do is take the plants and line them up in rows. If this picture was larger on the screen you would see that typical Hunter face with his eye brows squinted down as he was studying the plant. Its the same look he still gets on his face when he is reading about something he doesnt already know about!

Hunter Pulling flowers into rows 

hUNTER ON HIS TRACTOR 

View from the back ...Ya Dad havent been working at the nursery for over 8 years hmm lets see Hunter is 9 (10 in a few months)and Tyler is 8. I actually remember cleaning mat 1 and Keith rode by and told Jason to get me some water and not let me work that hard, I was one month from having Tyler! DO THE MATH! Hmmm...Jason left us when Tyler had just turned 6 months old....so me and mom were out there now by ourselveswith the two babies! I have customers that still tell me they remember my tiny newborn babies out there under the tent! DO THE MATH! Both Hunter and Tyler stayed in a carrier under the tent! Whos walker was that with a 3 month old in it? Oh wait mine. Whos baby is in the back of the truck? Oh wait mine?$ 5 to answer the phone with the boys up there that was the original deal. I remember I decided to sell my house that we had when Jason left and live with you and mom becouse when I sat down to figure it out I could barely afford the Mortage payment much less food and electricity on my own. ( by the way my house payment was right at $400.00!)

One of our attempts of what to do with the boys while we tried to work, My mom bought a sandbox turtle, you can see the playpen in the front right of the photo. Every once in a while I stll have a customer say you know I remember when you had your little babys in th play pen under the tent.....Both Hunter and Tyler had their share of that place. My Mom eventually couldnt take it anymore and quit, then she watched them at her house. But that was when Tyler was more like a year old.

The office after a storm 

Hunter in the truck at the nursery with my dog rocky 

Tyler and me at my birthday dinner with Wendee and Cindy in Orlando 

Pictures tara made me when she watched the boys on Saturdays for me 

Kim fully recovered 

Kim at S & J.

Kim and me sitting at the lake house my parents used to rent in the summer ....This is my before S & J picture of Kim!

06-06-06

There is just not much need to explain, the title has impliactions. A day destined for bad things! This day will forever go down in history in the life of me as the day it all went to hell. And I didnt even care!