My WORST fear of living in SoFlo

October 24, 2008 at 6:51 am | In South Florida living | 2 Comments

Not thirty seconds after my husband left for work this morning, I opened up the windows and noticed a LIZARD on the windowsill. I HATE lizards. They creep me out so much. We’ve had lizards inside twice before, but my husband was home and he took care of it. I’ve been concerned all along that I’d be working one day–I work from home and am alone all day–and a lizard would get inside. Apparently today is that day.

I knew asking my husband to turn around and help me completely take care of it on his own was out of the question. I had to put on my big girl undies and do something myself. I found the courage to trap him under a glass. I put a spice jar on top of that. You know, just in case the glass isn’t heavy enough and topples over or something. Besides, it’s marjoram and I have no clue what to do with that.

My husband says he’ll come home over lunch and do the slide-index-card-under-glass thingy, which is good because while I’ve tried, I can’t muster up the courage to do that myself. Sure, I feel bad that the little guy might suffocate by the time lunch rolls around, but just not enough to do the index card thingy. Sorry.  Instead, I just constantly look over my shoulder to make sure the glass/spice jar contraption is still holding. Oh, and to make sure Peanut doesn’t get too close.

Ew, ew, ew.

Ew.

I tried my hand at pollination

October 23, 2008 at 7:58 am | In Pollination, Purple tomatillos | 1 Comment

I don’t think it went very well. This morning, I swirled a Q-tip around each open flower, but I took a really light hand and I didn’t see any pollen on the cotton.

I wonder if I didn’t choose the right time. I think it rained most of last night and I noticed the flowers weren’t quite as fully open as they usually are, say, in the middle of the day. Does this make a difference? I was also very careful; maybe I was too gentle?

pollination nerves

October 22, 2008 at 10:47 am | In Pollination, Purple tomatillos, Tomatoes | 1 Comment

I have several blooming flowers on my tomatillo. I’ve planned all along to hand pollinate the tomatillos and tomatoes. I’ve been a bit nervous about the process in general, though, so I did some more Googling. I came across several web sites that say tomatillos are not self-fertile. Ack! I only planted one! And the package says they do not cross-pollinate, so I thought I only needed one. I called up my trusty customer service at Seed Savers (I love them so much) and the lady looked something up and told me while there is a lot of confusion on the matter, tomatillos *are* self-fertile. So, I’m inclined to believe her but I’m still nervous I’m not going to get any tomatillos.

I’m still nervous about hand pollination in general. Any tips? I’m thinking about just taking a Q-tip (or should I really use a paintbrush?) and swirling it around each flower.

*sigh* Why does this have to be so hard? I just want my own tomatillos and tomatoes!

Pardon my drooling

October 18, 2008 at 6:44 am | In Sewing | Leave a Comment

I want!

Amy Butler designs. I want patterns. I want fabric. And I want all the cool things on the rest of the 17 pages of search results even though I haven’t seen them yet.

Ahhh, gardening

October 14, 2008 at 6:00 pm | In Gardening, Purple tomatillos, Tomatoes | Leave a Comment

Have I mentioned I love it? My garden is growing like crazy. I can’t believe it’s been less than month since I transplanted my tomatillo and Marglobe tomato plants. They’re huge already, and I discovered yesterday that the tomatillo has some flower buds developing. I can’t believe it! I dreamt of little tomatillos all night last night. :)

It was a gorgeous day today, but pretty windy, so I checked my garden carefully. One of the lower leaves on my tomatillo partially snapped off, so I just snapped it completely off. I happened to catch a whiff of the most delicious, fresh, tomato/peppery smell coming from the leaf. This description doesn’t do it justice, but the smell makes it so hard to wait patiently. I can’t wait to have grilled tomatillos and tomatillo salsa. I’ve never had a tomatillo, but based on the smell I smelled today, they’re going to be scrumptious!

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