In a weeks time, we have been the recipents of two awesome surprises – who says snail mail isn’t cool anymore?  Pffft.

On Saturday, Shala called me while I was at work and said a package just showed up from Fiskars.  Anyone who knows gardening and gardening tools… knows the name fiskars.  Well I couldn’t wait to come home and check it out.  Being a Fiskars fan is something that is hard not to be.

Well when I came home I found this…

Ok… not the grass shears – but the card & Big Grip Trowel.  As if that wasn’t enough… the trowel was engraved with my name.  Check the close up below…

We can’t thank Fiskars enough, we love their products and honestly… we wouldn’t stand behind a product if we didn’t feel it was worth the money.  So if you are looking for gardening tools with high quality, try Fiskars.

And those shears you saw in the first picture… better get you some.  They are THAT good.  Just sayin’…

So after a hard week at work, Fiskars came through… but then yesterday – at lunch I checked the mail.  And look what we got from Carri from Read Between The Limes…

(click here for a bigger picture)

Carri is our friend on Twitter, and we got into a convo about tomatillo – and how we had never grown them.  Next thing we know she was sending us seeds… then next thing we know there is almost a seed type for each month of the year!  It was so nice, and check the goods…

Grande Rio Verde Tomatillo Seeds

Pineapple Tomatillo Seeds

Tomatillo Seeds

Purple Dragon Carrot Seeds

Early Scarlet Radish Seeds

Bright Lights Swiss Chard Seeds

Fava Beans

Lupini Beans

Yard Long Beans

Purple Top Turnip Seeds

Seriously.  Too cool.  Shala is about to plant a bunch of beans anyhow… but we are worried about the heat – so we are going to save a bunch for later on in the year.  Thanks Carri!  We owe ya.  Can’t wait to try them out.

So all of that is to show you something… not everyone is a spammer.  The entire internet isn’t a cesspool of nastiness.  It is no different than the real world.  There are good folks.  There are some bad ones.  And a few crazies.   We are thankful to have met so many good ones.

Tags: Container Gardening, Crafty Crap, DIY, Design, Flowers, Gadgets, Gardening, Living Green, Nerdy Stuff, Organic Gardening, Personal, Recession Gardening, Springy by James
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Even with our two raised beds we still have a lot of plants in pots and barrels.  Some of the pots have found a home on the plant stand that James found by the dumpster last year.  We like the green of all of the plants, but I decided that I would add some color with some potted vinca.  This morning as we were fertilizing and watering before work these few blooms were just starting to open.

In other very good news we are starting to see a lot of blooms on the tomato plant.  The plants have taken awhile to start blooming, but they are big and healthy so I guess they were just taking their time.  Yay! TOMATOES!

Tags: Container Gardening, Flowers, Gardening, Growing Tomatoes, Nerdy Stuff, Organic Gardening, Pictures, Recession Gardening, Springy by Shala
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We’ve been bad blog, dog & plant parents. 

We have finally made it through the month of May.  There were a few days in there that I didn’t think we would ever make it.  James went out of town three weekends in a row and I went out of town two.  The other weekends were spent at family functions in other towns 30 or 45 minutes away.  We. Are. Tired.

Our yard and plants have suffered.  Most things are still living they just aren’t doing as well as they could be, but this weekend we are HOME.  In fact there are no out of town trips planned for this whole month and we hope to keep it that way.  There is grass to cut, potatoes to harvest, plants to prune and empty barrels to fill.

At this point I would have to say that the tomatoes in the Aerogarden are looking the best and feeling the least amount of stress.

(Yes, we do realize that the name tag says cilantro.  It’s a liar. LIAR!  We used our own seeds for this and it was the only tag that we had.)

This picture was taken a week ago and these plants have grow a lot since then.  The Aerogarden will never take the place of our garden outside, but we do enjoy trying to grow different things and watching how fast they grow.

We will take some pictures this weekend of the other things going on.  It’s been a tough year to keep things documented but maybe things are slowing down and we will get better.

P.S. – WE ACTUALLY GOT SOME RAIN THIS PAST WEEK!  Real live rain!

Tags: AeroGardening, Aerogarden, Container Gardening, Eating At Home, Gardening, Growing Potatoes, Growing Tomatoes, James Is Wrong Too, Organic Gardening, Recession Gardening, Springy by Shala
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