Hi everyone ~

So....we put my two biggest stock pots (really, really big but not as big as my lobster pot) in his red wagon. He'd fill them with the hose and pull 'em to the garden site. When he had seed beds, he watered them with a large coffee can I'd poked holes into the bottom of so the beds would get a gentle sprinkle. When the plants were established, he would dip the regular watering can into the big pots. It took quite a bit of time, filling those pots again and again, going back and forth to the garden, but it worked and he had good harvests.

Eventually, the landlord bought a longer hose for us and set up a hose holder right beside the garden to make it all so much easier and faster. And Maxi thought it was worlds more fun to stand and squirt the hose up and down the rows getting himself wet all over in the process too, my little growing one.

I am still impressed by his diligence!

So who's next? What was your problem and how did you solve it, clever, clever you?

Merme

BRAG?
Dig the new swamp area DEEPER :rolleyes: and make like a "dry creek bed" thing happening there, with some rocks in it, blah, blah, blah...so when it rained, the water would be there in one place, then slowly seep into the ground, and there would be my dry creek bed, still looking decent either way.
WRONG! ! ! ! !

Here's what happened when it rained...

...and it would NOT drain out because of the 12" of packed gravel!


So.....
Me and Brennan got our shovels and wheelbarrows, and set out to dig a pond!

We worked for 3 days, in July, both with blue bandanas tied around our heads to keep the sweat out of our eyes. For the new ones here that don't know who Brennan is, he's my "child slave labor" grandson, 4 years old at the time!
All I have to do is give him a cup of coffee and a Hershey bar and he'll work like a dog!

Anyway.....we were worn out on the third day. We were having a rough time digging down through the packed gravel...then decided we'd better just get the backhoe!

It took two swipes with a backhoe bucket, and all of a sudden we had a pond!



It's come a LONG way since this picture was taken last summer. Now we have huge goldfish in it, with new babies, plants all around it, and little remote control racing boats!

Cindy

wow that looks beautiful cindy! I'm hoping to do make the side of the yard (if you wanna call it that...I prefer to call it the jungle with all those weeds!!) into a nice veggie and fruit garden...all there is right now are 2 cheap metal arbors from biglots and the weeds :rolleyes:

Cindy Jo-Faye-Lu-Marie...that is just brilliant! I have been so perplexed with what to do in my swampland yard. There is a "hard plate" about a foot underground so nothing drains. I would be a little hesitant about the pond because od all the BUGS I have to contend with! And..even MORE of them now that the new flagpole is lit all night! You & Brennon make a fine team!!!!

Hi Vanessa,

I know if it is moving water you lose some of the bugs, and if you put fish in the pond they take care of others, and if you added some picture plants where it still is sort of boggy that would take care of more bugs. Would that help?

While I have the grandson who loves to help granny, I would still have picture # 1 and not an idea what to do with it.

I'm still trying to figure out everything I want to do with the bog in the back yard!

Hi afgrey ~

When I started this thread, I so hoped you'd tell the story of your pond. I remembered hearing the part when you got buried in mud up to your knees during the redemption process and was hoping you'd share more details plus the final wonderful result. LOTS to brag about with that one, my friend.

Aren't kids the best gardening partners?!

Now I'm trying to remember if it was G-mom or someone else who got caught in a tree? Trying to prune the thing? Trying to catch a bird?

And what about the rest of you? Any antics to share?

Merme

antics? nahhh.. just the time last year I planted pansies, and got pumpkins!

Meg

And Meg, what was your inventive solution to that?! Remember this is your chance to be a Brag-A-Lot and dazzle us all. Can't wait to hear the end result of the pansies transformed into pumpkins of all things!

Merme

GUILTY!

I was trying to catch a parrot that showed up in my yard. I kept feeding it from my deck to try and catch it but it would call me "dirty names" and blow raspberries at me

Oh G-mom how I wish someone were there to snap the picture. That would be just great.

It was definately an "Americas Funniest Video" moment!

Cindy was ROFL as she relayed a play by play to everyone

G-Mom

I recall that story too G-mom.. pretty funny stuff!! Too bad no photos, or videos!!

Merme, the pansies into pumpkins.. well I think a lot of folks here know about it already.. but a short recap..

Kiddo got a little pumpkin from a farm, left it to decompose on the ground over the winter. In the spring, we made flowerbeds in front of the house.. and tilled the whole area in which we were to plant our flowers. I spread an entire box of pansy seeds. They grew.. and grew, and GREW.. into freakishly huge things, that thought for sure had been taken over by aliens. Huge leaves, no flowers.. I was baffled. I had pansies before, and they never got *this* big. Friend asks what I planted in the front yard.. I said with some uncertianty.. "pansies?" and she laughs. Being from a farm in IL, she says.. "looks a little like squash, or pumpkin to me!" Realization hit, I knew what happened. I allowed them to grow anyways, and they creeped across the front of the house, and 1/2 way down the front yard. I had about 20 baby pumpkins that in the end were sadly killed by buggies.







Meg

Well I have been looking for days ever since you posted this thread for my pics to show you all. And DANG IT!!!I can only find this one. This was in the beginning stage of my Fountain bed as I called it. I put sod all around it afterwards because there was absolutely NO GRASS whatsoever growing there. If I can find the finished photo I will come back and post it too...

Tricia,

Can you make the photo a little larger please? My eyes just are not good enough to get an idea of what you did. I can see the three rings of "masonary" but more than that is pretty much all fuzzy for me.

What I can make out I like. I hope you can find the other pictures.

Here ya go TK; I hope I idin't make it TOO big!!
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y217/pcgrav/4e01d3d0.bmp[/img]

Well that was I hope you can see it seems as though the file on my pc isn't that large either... I'll redo it and pm it to you in a little while... Be sure to look at my others in what's blooming...

originally posted by Meg:
Meg, we must be kindred spirits! I think we are the only ones brave enough to have pumpkins in the front yard! Although...I didn't plant mine..they planted theirselves..yes, from the pumpkins that decorated the porch in the fall. When they began to sprout (I was in shock)they started taking over...my poor hosta was doomed. So, after being told I shouldn't transplant them...I just didn't know what else to do! So, with the front yard not being landscaped...I moved them from the front bed to the corner of the house...I had people stopping (laughing of course)and telling me that pretty soon they would be able to pick pumpkins from their cars!
But, I just gotta tell ya...I was as proud as a peacock when I got to pick that first punkin! That was actually my "first" garden Helper crisis!!!

[img]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y162/4ruddy/Garden/frontbed.bmp[/img] [img]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y162/4ruddy/Garden/Pumpkins.bmp[/img] [img]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y162/4ruddy/Garden/firstpunkin2004.bmp[/img]

I went to that free Home Depot workshop and won a container.



It is one of those foam containers that look like terra cotta. It has been raining off and on for the past couple weeks and the container has no drainage. The plants are starting to get root rot. I took a nail and hammered in most the way into the bottom of the foam planter in about 8 different spots. All the excess water is now gone and I didn't harm the planter at all. Hope the plants manage to make it!!!

COOL Lucky You!

What did you plant in it?

G-Mom

The container I won, issn't the one I worked on. This one has ivy geraniums, pink stock, million bells, coleus, snapdragons and a sort of strawberry viney looking little plant that I think is call boicca or something like that?

It sure is pretty!

G-Mom

We do have some clever heads on this forum then, don't we.

I like Fernie's nail holes in the foam planter that saved the plants; afgrey's swamp digging turned backhoed fish pond; and pcgrav's fountains transformed into gardens.

And Meg, I'm sure you were wondering if aliens had invaded your pansy patch when the leaves started getting so big. I would have been reading and re-reading the bag of fertilizer I'd used, thinking WHAT'S in this stuff, anyway?!

G-mom, although I'm glad you are not still stuck up in the tree on The Great Bird Catch, um...how did ya get back down?

Merme

As I recall, the G-Mom was under the influence of Zinfinsomething the evening she climbed the tree to get cussed out by the parrot.
I'm sure she didn't feel a thing when she landed!


Cindy Mae

Why afgreyparrot! I'm shocked and scandalized! Are you saying our very own G-mom was already insensate when the fall to the ground knocked her insensate????! Talk about your weird trip....sounds like something I would do.

Merme

Well...she never actually admitted it on the forum...
...but after reading her post in the archives I feel quite sure she had partaken!

G-Mom and the Parrot...

yeh, and it was such a hoot I can remember we were going to try to get a cell phone conference call w/video going so we could hear the bird....or maybe it was so we could hear G~MOM

Yeah...I read over that topic awhile ago in the archives!
Lola was gonna talk the parrot down!

One from the vault.....

G-Mom And The Parrot

ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks Guys I really needed a good laugh this afternoon...