Day 3 No TV!

If you've checked out my pages you'll see I've got a new one - "Just an Hour July!".  My goal is to watch no more than an hour a day or a total of 7 hours of TV a week.  Today is day three and it is definitely an adjustment.  This is the first day that I'm not sure what I want to do with my time.  Sunday was super productive cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping and the like.  I had plenty to do.  Yesterday was the same.  After work I spent some time in the yard and then did some sanding on our front deck ... until Hubby came home and wasn't too pleased that I'd taken on 'his' project.   Um - you mean the one you started 3 weeks ago and then haven't gotten to since?  ... No I didn't actually say that to him but I sure thought it!  Eh - if he wants it all to himself more power to him so I went inside and ended up cooking the rest of the night.  (Recipes & pics to come shortly!)

Today I'm not quite sure how I'm going to spend my evening.  It is humid & HOT outside to the point where doing anything out there would be awful.  Plus I don't have much to do right now.  It is all weeded and planted and mulched.  I did try a gardening tip that I found on-line ... I took all the food scraps from cooking yesterday - the veggies & fruits, not meat! - and boiled them in a pot of water and then saved the water ... refilled and boiled / simmered / soaked & saved again.  After it cooled off I used it to water my veggies - the site said that helps give the plants nutrients ... like an organic form of fertilizer.  I also sprinkled coffee grounds - they are supposed to help too.  I'm watering the back yard with the sprinkler now so it will help it soak in and spread out.  But basically all I have to do now is move the sprinkler now and again ... so not much more to do.  Curling up in our ice cold basement and watching TV sounds damn good right now.  I only watched 1/2 hour yesterday so I can indulge a little tonight but on day 3 I'm not going to do the whole "I'll watch tonight and then not watch later in the week" - that's a slippery slope I've fallen down with other things ... I'll have the pizza tonight and then eat really well the rest of the week.   Can't bullshit yourself!

My plants are doing pretty well.  I swear I can see my sunflowers growing daily!  It's like they've figured out that they have all that room and are catching up for lost time.  They are all at least twice as tall as when I planted them.

The cucumbers are growing too but not enough yet to need to grow up anything - which is good because the sunflowers are definitely not that tall or sturdy yet!  Not only do the sunflowers provide support but planting together supposedly creates sweeter cucumbers.  You can see the coffee grounds I sprinkled since I haven't gotten this area yet with the sprinkler.  Doing this is supposed to 'slow release' nitrogen for the plants.  

The site said that you can do the vegetable scrap 'brew' with any plant based scraps that haven't been seasoned or salted and also with things like grass clippings, leaves, etc.  as long as they aren't treated with pesticides. 

I think that it will eventually provide a nice bit of privacy from the alley for when we are sitting under the gazebo.

I got a lavender plant the other day at Whole Foods and put it next to the sage.  Both smell SO good and I love the shades of green and purple.

Things are growing in the other garden too.  I pruned the tomatoes - another thing I found through research on-line.  You take the "suckers" off:

Photo Credit & Full Article: http://alternative-energy-gardning.blogspot.com/2013/03/how-to-prune-tomatoes.html

This is supposed to help the plant focus on producing the fruits, not on growing more leaves. That helps make the tomatoes more flavorful ... we'll see!  Honestly I'll just be happy that I keep them alive and they actually give me tomatoes!  (After my seedling fiasco I've been humbled & have set low expectations.)