WFMW- Watering Hanging Plants

Oooh!!!! I have a WFMW tip!!!! That actually WORKS!!!! I'm so excited!!!!

Last week, I was determined to morph myself into a mom who can grow stuff, so I bought a basil plant for my kitchen and a tomato plant for outside. A spider nearly derailed my plans, but I persevered, overcame, rose above and got that tomato planted! I also added a pepper plant for good measure.

The basil is hanging in my kitchen right in front of my face, where hopefully I can't forget to water it and turn it into an amazing dried vestige of its former self. So there I was, dutifully watering my baby basil when my husband pointed out that there was a hole in the bottom of the pot. I knew that- I put it there for drainage, and I was prepared to put a small bucket under the pot to catch the run off. We did that, and it worked fine, but a few days later I was dumping a cup into the sink. A cup with ice cubes... and then a light bulb went off... if I just threw a couple of ice cubes into the plant each day, they would melt slowly, watering the plant without causing all that run off through the bottom of the pot. So that's what I did. I now throw a couple of cubes to the basil each night. The soil is moist but I've yet to have any water run out of the bottom of the pot. That works for me!

For more great tips, visit We Are THAT Family. Thanks for reading!

Kudos to Publix and Kraft!

Do you remember a few weeks ago when my Kraft Full Plate rebate submission went to the wrong address due to the bar coding on the recycled envelope I used? I was really upset at the thought that I missed out on $30 in gift cards due to my own silliness, trying to be frugal and green all at the same time? I went ahead and resubmitted my submission with a note letting the Kraft people know what happened. I used a clean envelope this time, and I hoped that they would take pity on me and send the gift cards even though my submission didn't make it by the cut off date on the rebate form. Guess what? They did! I received my gift cards in the mail today!

I'm already a pretty loyal Publix shopper, even when the cashiers get huffy with me about my coupons. I also feel pretty positive about the Kraft family of products, though I wish that they would stop using high fructose corn syrup. I can tell you though, the fact that these companies honored my rebate request even though I didn't quite meet the guidelines goes a long, long way towards building brand loyalty.

Thanks to whomever made the decision to honor my rebate!

This is why I don't garden.

So I went to Lowes yesterday and very optimistically bought a lovely basil plant and a grape tomato plant. We live in Florida, land of the HOT stickiness, so apparently planting things this time of year is not as strange as it sounds. My husband gives me crap about my "gardening" skills because I managed to dry my lovely lavender and other herbs before I even harvested them. (In other words, I left them out in the hot Florida sun with no water and they shriveled up and died. The lavender smelled amazing though, even all dried and dead.) Anywho, I bought a basil plant yesterday and a lovely INDOOR hanging planter for it. We already had the plant hook there and I figured that hanging the basil would keep it away from baby hands and doggie noses. It also keeps the plant right in front of my face and increases the likelihood that I will not kill it. The basil seems pretty happy in its new home.

Today was for the tomato. I would love to grow the tomato indoors too, away from pesky bugs and lizards and frogs and the other Outside Things, but apparently this is not an option with vegetables. I repurposed a lovely patio pot for my little tomato plant and was all about planting it this afternoon while the baby slept. I even braved my way all the way down to the edge of the yard to grab a bag of potting soil left back there from the last gardening adventure. There appeared to be a large spider at the top of the soil, but I shook the bag around a bit and he didn't move, so I went ahead and dumped the soil into the pot. The spider got lost in the shuffle and I didn't give him too much thought since he was dead. Uh huh. Until he wasn't dead anymore and came to the top of the pot! YIKES! This guy is HUGE and he moves FAST. I generally think that spiders are pretty cool and they eat other bugs, so that's a plus. I would go out of my way to save a spider and its web if I could. But this guy, he is a little harder to love... he's BIG... and scary... I think that he could maybe kill me... and now I've brought him from the tippy back of the yard right up next to the house. Great. I'm gonna have nightmares...

I think that I maybe need to accept that I am not a gardener and resign myself to paying for overpriced, lesser quality tomatoes... stay tuned for the next episode of Jamie vs. the spider.