General Discussion & Chat: Garden Talk: Your Garden Mistakes, 1 by soulgardenlove

soulgardenlove wrote:
There are a few... the one I just learned I am making is growing black eyed susan's and.. Get this... I didn't even put it in the ground since DH put down a pre-emergent, for all the manure I used, but I started them in flats.. Hmm, maybe I will be sorry, but I like the way it looks..

Okay, the garlic reminded me.. I had a tick problem and my poor dog was covered in them unbeknownst to me when she went in for her grooming. Of course we treated her, but then I found one on my 2 year old son and another one climbing toward me in my bed, I freaked out. I went online and did a search for products and found out that both ticks and mosquitoes hate the smell of garlic and the products out there contain garlic. Well, being the Martha Stewart type that I am, I decided to make my own. I got out my stand alone pressure cooker and filled the pot with water and threw in 2 entire heads of garlic and let in go at high pressure for 30 minutes. My home didn't even have that nice "Italian" cooking smell.. I really like garlic, but it was AWFUL!! One of my friends said she could smell it pulling into my driveway, and the windows were closed. Another said it reminded her of this gross garlic tea her mom use to make her drink when she was sick. My pressure cooker still reeks of garlic, as well as the cabinet were it is kept. Also, since I didn't strain the yucky garlic juice, my sprayer soon got clogged with tiny garlic pieces. I didn't have a strainer handy so I got so fed up with it, I just poured it down an embankment where nothing was growing, and I don't think anything will anytime soon. My husband had to use the air compressor to free all the garlic out of my sprayer. Yuck! I haven't seen any ticks though!! I may do it again, but I'll put the pressure cooker outside and strain the water. :)

Okay, here's a good one I just remembered.....

I wanted a "cheap" greenhouse so I begged my husband to build me the hoop house from plans at [HYPERLINK@www.littlegreenhouse.com] I figured that since my husband gets PVC through our family business, that it would be very economical..

Well, the clamps are special fittings and had to be special ordered. There were not counted when received and the invoice wasn't kept.. Long story short, it took lots of time and cutting to get the PVC up. We finished putting up three walls of plastic only to realize we were short 20 fittings and we weren't sure if it was our fault or the companies so we had to reorder. I don't know exactly how much my husband paid, but they aren't real cheap.

Well, like the novices we were, we left the three walls of plastic up and the front door side was wide open and uncovered. One day we had a particularly terrible wind storm and the entire thing picked up and flipped over like a parachute and went flying down the yard. We did have it staked, but not well enough for the wind resistance. I watched the whole thing from my kitchen window and I didn't know if I should laugh or cry. I had just planted some arborvitae trees real near and I was afraid they would get crushed. I could not right the greenhouse alone with the weight and the wind and I had to leave it rocking in the wind upside down and all the plastic was destroyed. My baby trees thankfully were untouched.

We did get the fittings in, but DH lost steam on the project after all that, and asked if we could please tear it down and he would pay for one that I order online :) So we did, and I will. :)

I am also guilty of letting things in pots die :( But I continue on...

Susan


This message was edited May 28, 2007 2:51 PM