Rosebud Living Large

It has been a little over a week that I cleaned the cucumber plants.  It looks like it will last a week.  I sprayed the plants and washed with castile soap/peppermint oil.  This morning the plants are again aphid free.  The garden is growing nicely.  We have tons of cherry tomatoes picked.  A lot of cucumbers growing.  Carrots and green beans growing.  The sugar peas are bouncing back and have a few growing.  The zucchini plants are flowing and the onions are thriving.  We have a nice little garden growing.  I cannot wait to find us the perfect land to call ours and get busy.  I have found the work to be very rewarding and a sense of satisfaction I have never had with my job.  One does not have to worry about satisfaction scores, employee  engagement scores, action plans, productivity and so many other things.  It is solely the fruit of my own labor and yes there are things like weather, bugs, and birds that may interfere with the garden but those things can be addressed. I only

What the heck are Aphids?  I had never heard of those tiny pests until now.  They are tiny bugs that love to live on plants and they look like tiny black spots on your stems, leaves and vegetable.  Or they can make your stems look fuzzy. This is what my cucumber plants looked like two days ago.  At first glance I thought it was just the dirt from the planter, we had a storm come through. I really thought the storm just blew the dirt up on them.  Then I saw one move.....eek 0.0.   Yes I can be a bit girly sometimes.  I got on the internet and YouTube to find out what to do.  As with many things on the world wide web, you have to decipher what to believe.  After a few hours of looking and find a consistent theme, I decided to go with what seemed to work for many.  Castile Soap and Peppermint Oil.  I washed my plants and the leaves with the soap that I also added one drop of peppermint oil to the water.  The soap dries out the bugs and the peppermint masks the smell of your plants s

If you plant it, it will grow. I am late in getting my blog up.  I have already started vlogging on YouTube.  I grew up in Indiana and my dad always had a garden.  He had tomatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers and green beans.  I never took an interest.  Now I have moved to Kentucky and started a garden as a method for me to relax.  There is a feeling of satisfaction from working with your hands to plant and care for a garden.  I work in a hospital as a nurse manager. I finished two years ago with my Masters degree in nursing leadership.  I have been a nurse for 19 years and in healthcare for over 25 years total.  I am not blogging about the healthcare system or politics that are involved.   I have been thinking a lot lately about retiring early and purchasing land of my own.  I currently rent a house with my husband and two children.  Because we rent, it is not possible for us to dig a garden in the large backyard we have.  Therefore I am growing my garden in planters and buckets.  I s