After the expenses on the house the past couple of months (windows and basement work), not to mention a rather large Missouri Star Quilt order that just showed up (I needed a backing for my Hallowe’en quilt and apparently I have no self-control in the face of sale fabric)… I decided it would be a good idea to do a No-Buy July.

Now… past experience would tell you that I’m generally not good a spend-free months in general. But July??? Its a really bad time because it’s when ALLLLL the garden stuff goes on clearance.

I was doing pretty good – until last week. Dave wanted to go to Canadian Tire to get some weather stripping or some such for the doors. (We have the energy audit coming up for our rebate on the windows and basement and he wants to make the house as tight as possible). I did very good and bypassed allllll the clearance plants they had at the entrance.

But Canadian Tire didn’t have what he was looking for, so off we went to Peavey Mart (It’s a farm supply store mostly, but they have some general hardware and such). And all their garden stuff was on clearance. I was very good. I didn’t come home with any more plants… but I might have bought a small green house.

And when I say small… I mean it. It’s advertised as a “portable” greenhouse. It’s basically just a shelf with a plastic raincoat.

It was originally $120, and was marked down to $40. As soon as we got home, I started putting it together. And let me tell you – if I’d paid full price for it, I would have been one unhappy shopper. It’s so cheaply made, it’s barely worth the $40 I paid for it!

But… it should serve my purposes for a year or two.

As you know, I’ve experimented growing from seed with very mixed results. My lupins and daisies were all started from seed at the townhouse.

My success with growing sunflowers from seed has been about 50/50.

The last couple of years, most of the perrenials I started from seed didn’t make it past seedlings. And all the veg I started inside this year – total fail. I ended up re-planting everything out there directly.

I’m hoping this little greenhouse will give me a bit of a leg up. It should help with one of my major problems, which is the squirrels! As soon as I move my seedlings outside, the squirrels start digging and making a mess.

This tray, and another on the shelf below it, are all that remains of the seeds I started in May. And you can see from the uneven soil levels in the trays that the squirrels had quite a go at these ones. I’m amazed anything is growing at all! (These are Black-eyed Susans, Lupins, Chinese Lanterns, Delphinium and Columbine). The squirrels absolutely decimated the ALL the sunflowers I planted.

I will start some more sunflowers. I think there’s enough time to get some grown and blooming before fall. And I’m going to go through my seed collection and see what else I can get started.

Despite the squirrels, things are going well in Edible Alley. Dave’s gotten to snack on another bowl of peas, and a couple beans.

The second sowing of carrots is starting to sprout, as are the chives and catnip! Certainly took them long enough!

And I’ve got baby cucumbers!!!!

Aren’t they just the cutest things??? I just love wee-baby veg!

And as great as that is… something weird was happening in the tomatoes. You will recall that I planted two grape tomato plants.

They came from the same nursery pack, they are planted in the same raised box, side by side, growing in the exact same conditions…but…..

For some reason the one on the left has all curled up, while the one on the right is growing perfectly happily. I looked it up and didn’t get many good answers…. too much water, not enough water, too little magnesium… But again… they are side by side!!!!

I gave up trying to figure it out and just pulled the curly one. The tomatoes came in a pack of three, and I have the third one (which was kind of a runt) growing in a pot. I’m going to transplant it into the open space now.

Gardening… it can be a real roller-coaster ride sometimes!