dear readers, i know you are just bubbling with excitement at the prospect of a new mysetery melon.  behold!

what will she be?  a watermelon, perhaps?

mystery solved.  those are pumpkins growing from the compost pile!  more specifically, those are last thanksgiving’s floral arrangements.  i’m hoping they are at least the white pumpkins we used.  so, there’s still a little mystery left.

it’s a good thing that these are doing well, because all of the organic, heirloom varieties i planted in the garden-with-crappy-soil are floundering and being attacked by squash bugs.  i think i might try more hot pepper wax spray on those pests.

the neighbors are of course full of helpful chemical poison suggestions, but as you know, that’s not how we roll.  any non-toxic ideas?  and nothing involving soapy water buckets and early morning bug drowning, please.  that is definitely not how we roll.

i have a mystery melon growing from the geobin.  i’m guessing watermelon, but what do i know? it’s something we ate, that’s all i can be sure of. maybe a cantaloupe?  i’ve done zero research, but perhaps a kind reader will point me in the right direction. (i should post more photos of the developing fruit and flowers, huh?)

the trellis that is intended to hide our trash bin is home to a few heirloom tomatoes.  i’m really excited about the tomatoes. free tomatoes are a good thing.

yesterday afternoon, nugget and i picked wild blackberries in the backyard and counted the first of our bloody butcher tomatoes in the garden.  this memory alone could get me through chemo.

one of the greatest things about organic gardening + toddlers is that some nights you find a d’avignon radish in nuggetdaddy’s bathroom drawer.

today i set up our geobin compost system.  it does not look like this:

i suppose it could, with some serious wrangling, but for now it’s more of a lopsided oval shape.  and you know what, it works just fine that way because it gets the job done.  plus, it holds compost better than a cardboard box.

before the builder laid down the sod for our front lawn, nugget daddy spread out 450 crocus bulbs.  they’re a naturalizing variety, so they should become more dense over the years.  it sort of looks like we’ve stuck a bunch of artificial flowers in our lawn.  still, they’re fun to see poking up, and a nice way to welcome spring.

i also started my first tray of seedlings today.  it includes:

big rainbow tomatoes

radish d’avignon

chioggia beets

bloody butcher tomatoes

marglobe tomatoes

super italian paste tomatoes

vesuvius nasturtium

rainbow heirloom tomato mix
mix consists of equal parts omars lebanese (red), dutchman(pink), golden sunburst (yellow), black russian (purple), aunt ruby’s german green (green) and djena lee’s golden girl (orange)

yikes! i almost completely forgot to write about the gardensoxx! (i actually had to drag myself out of bed and go back to my desk after catching my mistake on my crackberry.) anyhow, once the seedlings are ready for transplant, they’ll pop right into these cute little tubes of landscape fabric that come prefilled with organic growing medium. we have really heavy clay soil here and tilling a temporary garden is such a pain. i hope these work out well. they look so promising!

here’s a look at a really cool stream bank restoration project using filtrexx products. it shows the gardensoxx being made on-site.

bleomycin toxicity appears to be the real culprit behind the fever.  the pneumonia they thought i might have had is actually pneumonitis.  it’s basically the same thing, pneumonia being caused by infection while pneumonitis is not.

the treatment is steroids, solumedrol in my case.  i’m getting it in my iv for now and will switch to pills once i go home.

i’m still on antibiotics, levaquin, as a precaution, though all of my blood cultures have been coming back negative.
 

right now i have to use extra oxygen to get up out of bed.  hopefully, i’ll be breathing easier once the steroids are in full effect.

i’m terribly sad to be missing trick-or-treating with the nugget.  nugget daddy will bring her here to get ready and maybe we’ll do a few laps around the nurses’ station before they head off to the halloween event at the mall.  it’s going to be a little too cold for nugget to go door-to-door in her tinker bell costume, so the mall it is.

we’re hoping i’ll be well enough to leave the hospital this weekend.  nugget’s grandmamie has been here taking care of her, and nugget daddy and i couldn’t be anymore grateful for all of her help.  i’ll still need a lot of help once i’m back home, but i’m sure we’ll manage to work something out.

we’re anxious to see the progress on the new house.  all the flooring is in, as are the cabinets, sinks, tubs, and granite counters.  toilets and faucets should be in soon, if not already and appliance installation has started. 

we’ve ordered all of the appliances that we chose not to buy from the builder and have almost all  of the lighting fixtures now, too.  we definitely weren’t spending our money with the builder on those selections.

we have crocus bulbs to throw down under the sod as it goes down.  i’m hoping to be well enough to do it myself.  they’ll make a spectaular addition to our lawn in winter as the first early sign of spring.

wordless wednesday

nugget has just discovered this plant.  see the tight, full tendrils near the top?  now see the barren, battered ones farther down?  they didn’t stand a chance against la nug, the cats or the dog.

it’s a burro’s tail, a sedum morganianum.  if you so much as glance sideways at it, a dozen or so of it’s plump little leaves jump off onto the floor.  i scoop them up and toss them back in the planter where they sprout into new plants.

i rescued this plant from the grocery store.  it was in the florist’s graveyard, a bargain at 99 cents, nestled amongst spent azaelas, bloomless orchids or withered mums, whatever the then past-peak seasonal plant was.  when exactly was burro’s tail seasonal?  cinco de mayo?  i think i actually brought home two, scraggly 4-inch hanging pots.  here they are now, i don’t know how many years later, 27 inches in all their glory.

after sending countless visitors home with leaves to start their own plants, i started keeping a supply of mini pots on hand.  i’ve always got an aloe, a burro’s tail or a jade plant to send home with someone.

i love this plant.  i hate that when we move i’ll likely chop off it’s long trailing stems before packing it up.  i hope it forgives me.