4/21/11
I bought three roses last weekend. One is a red Mr. Lincoln rose, an old favorite of mine. Another is the beautiful coral-colored Tropicana, and the third is a white rose called Honor. Although I am not a rosarian, roses are one of my favorite flowers. They are quite beautiful to me, and I love their shape and their fragrance. I have wanted to plant roses since moving to the desert, but there are very few places that carry them around here, and the places that do, carry a very limited supply. I don't know why, because roses should do well here without any spraying (I don't spray roses or anything else in my gardens). No black spot or mold or mildew to bother them here, I understand. Maybe they don't do well in the extreme summer heat unless they are shaded from some of the afternoon sun. I have no shade at all in my yard, so we will see how they do.
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| Burpee Big Boy tomato |
I received my tomato and pepper plants from Burpee the first week of April. Burpee's Big Boy tomato is my all-time favorite tomato. I have grown them from seed many times, but there's no place in the house I am living in now to grow seedlings. I kept them in the garage for a day or two because it was so windy the entire week they arrived. On the third day I put them out in a protected place so they could get some sun. But the wind was blowing so furiously from all directions it seemed, and they ended up getting windburned. I kept them in for two more days. They were not looking good, and their leaves were dying off. I figured I had to plant them if they were going to survive. And it was going to be hot in a few days. So into my garden they went. They still did not look great after four days. So I fertilized them with my favorite natural fertilizer. Fish emulsion. After two days they perked up, and now all are growing new green leaves. They have some catching up to do, and hopefully will produce tomatoes before the real heat arrives.
