Good Karma, Good Luck, Good Mojo....or What?

This past couple weeks have been pretty incredible.  You may have noticed a few give-aways on some blogs lately.  It appears as though I have the magic touch.
The first one I won was from John's blog An Obsessive Neurotic Gardener  where I won a $100 gift certificate to Santa Rosa Gardens.  What a treat!!  I like Santa Rosa Gardens, use them quite often.  I already had a wishlist going on their website, so filling the order didn't take too long.  I now have to wait for my plants to be delivered.  Will share a posting when they arrive.
 

The ladies at Garden Rant had  'Worms --a love affair',....Amy Stewart's book, The Earth Moved, On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms and a stacking worm bin were being offered.  Yes, out of almost 200 people, I was chosen!!  Today my Worm Factory arrived from Nature's Footprint.  This is a serious worm bin!
I was excited to open it and get my worms shifted over to their new home.   Upon opening the box I found a booklet and a CD with information about setting up your bin.

I will have to take some time to get the new bin set up.  This is great, my bin is full and they need to move to a new container.  This one has a spout at the bottom to harvest the liquids.

This is the single level bin, you add more levels (which are included in the box) as the worms eat up what they have in the lower levels.  After more levels are added, you harvest the castings from the lowest tier.  I will work on setting this up tomorrow.  I am not sure all my worms will fit.  Think I may be a two bin home for a while.










I started feeling pretty good about all these winnings.  I had a bit of a dry spell and this was a flood of great winnings.   We had a concert in Newberry, SC at the Opera House and I wanted to check the availability of an extra ticket for our next concert, Nanci Griffith.  Our youngest is coming home for Spring Break and since Charlie and I had tickets for the show, I was hoping we could get another one for her.  Our tickets are front row, center and I wasn't going to give up THOSE  tickets.  Well, my Mojo must still be working!  I was able to buy one ticket, RIGHT NEXT TO OUR SEATS for her!!  Sweet!   The next morning I went and bought a lottery ticket for the Mega Millions drawing...you know the one, the BIG ONE.  Well, yes, I won......$3.  I spent $5.  haahahaaa oh well.  Figured I had already reached the trifecta  plants, bin and book, and a great ticket.

Imagine my surprise when I get a message from Julie at Growing Days, you guessed it!  I won Julie's blog give away.  What a great bunch of goodies from her!  Since we live close by and use the same local farmer market, we arranged for me to pick up my plants, seeds, book (the other is on order), and tub this afternoon.  What great looking plants!!!  I was able to get tomatoes and a pepper and a Snail plant, Vigna caracalla.  We will be watching the sun for the next few days to see where the best spot will be for these beauties to get 6 -8 hours of sunlight.

 And here is the tub full of seeds and one of the great books!

 
I promise to stay away from the next few contests, giving all of you a chance to win.



©Copyright 2012 Janet. All rights reserved. Content created by Janet for The Queen of Seaford. words and photos by Janet,The Queen of Seaford.

Finally Back!!

Hello friends and fellow blogging buddies,

You know you have been away from blogging for a long time when one of your kids asks if you still blog. Well, I am back!!!!

Retirement has kept us busy, busier than I thought. Besides getting settled in the house, we have been busy in the garden. To date we have put more than 200 plants in the yard. Many of the plants have been gallon sized pots....which means gallon sized holes. My hole digger is wonderful!



Our first BIG project was to dress the side of the driveway. We had one of those storms that dropped about 2 inches of rain in 30 minutes. There was a lot of washout. As you can see we have rip rap along the edge of the driveway. The plan was to put some native grasses along the drive to slow the water. In addition to the grasses we added some junipers on the slope and a Crape Myrtle at the end nearest the house. Our trip to Lakelands Nursery made this garden possible.

The backyard is the largest garden area. Much of what I thought was shade turned out to be sunny and vice-versa

.

To make better decisions about where to plant what I took multiple photos of garden areas over the course of the day. I then compared them to some older photos I had from earlier in the summer –to take into account for the angle of the sun.

Plant choices in mind, I made my purchases. Living in this part of South Carolina made for some great shopping for fall plantings. I spread the shopping all over the area. Wyatt Farms, the place that did our landscaping was one of my stops. Layman Wholesale Nurseries were having their fall sale, as was Park Seed. I did buy a few things online that I couldn't find otherwise. I will post more of the backyard garden in weeks to come.

When we first moved in the night air was filled with the sounds of cicadas and tree frogs. We have birds I have never seen before and lots of little lizards (or skinks or geckos or whatever they are). I have been enjoying all the nature that surrounds us.

In addition to our gardening I have been attending Master Gardener classes in Greenwood. One thing this group does that I appreciate is pairing up MG interns with MG's. My mentor is super! She and I took a trip (about an hour) up to Clemson to the South Carolina Botanical Garden Fall plant sale....perfect!!!! I got to meet one of our fellow bloggers on this trip. What fun to see Lisa from Natural Gardening. She was busy with the sale, so we only chatted briefly. Hoping to get up to Clemson again soon. The SCBG is really large and I look forward to exploring it.



I am not sure how frequently I will get to blog, I hope be here regularly. I have read some of your postings on my Google reader, but promise to get back to visit and comment.

This little guy is a Hooded Warbler.  He hit my window and rested there a little while, then flew off.




words and photos by Janet,The Queen of Seaford.