Now Is a Good Time To Learn New Gardening Skills

I don't know about you, but I've done more reading since we have been locked down. Granted, I'm feeling better about getting out more lately, but I'm still not the gadabout I was before.

Take some time to hone your gardening skills and learn how to multiply your plant collection for free! My gardening book, Gardening Tips For Small Spaces (pictured on the right) has many tips and ideas for growing plants, propagating the ones you have, as well as money-saving tips too. The Kindle version is only $3.99! Click the title to find it on Amazon

If you want a good fiction book to help pass the time, check out Mary of Bethany, The Untold Story, it's also on Amazon. This one is Biblical fiction based on the life of Mary of Bethany.

In my book, Mary first met Jesus by accident when she was a young girl and in a place she should never have been. She would have been in terrible trouble if Jesus had not been there too. 

Travel the dusty streets of Israel to Mary’s home in Bethany, visit places and meet people you may have never known before. In my book, Mary is a gardener. Read Mary's story to find out what important crop she grows and how it impacts the lives of others. 

See Mary and her family in a whole new way, Come, experience the life of one of the most famous women in the Bible, and learn her untold story.

If you like my books please leave a review on Amazon 💖

My Ruby Slippers Hydrangea

 I think the pictures say it better than any text I could print. Ruby Slippers is a miniature Oak Leaf Hydrangea. Even miniature varieties are not tiny, my Ruby Slippers is planted in a huge tub. The plant is about six or seven years old and is probably 4 feet tall by 3 feet wide. The blooms are large and full every spring. They start out lime green, turn white and fade to deep pink. Finally, at summers end they are beige but still attractive.  Sometimes I pick them when they have first bloomed and they last for weeks in a vase. 

Baby plants come up from the roots around the plant and can be replanted elsewhere. These are not invasive, only one or two a year will sprout.  They are easy to root via cuttings. 

My Ruby Slippers gets morning sun and shade in the afternoon. I honestly think it would be fine in full sun. Butterflies love it too! 

Hydrangeas are easy to propagate. My plant propagation book (available on Amazon) has complete instructions. See the link on the right sidebar. 

I often have Ruby Slippers plants for sale at Mimi's Greenhouse in the spring. 

Ruby Slippers Mature Bloom

Pandemic, Miniature Egg Plants and Other Ways to Keep My Sanity...

OK, So I know the virus is a real thing but I only know one person who has had it. She was pretty sick and her whole family got it too. Thank God, my friends and family have remained well but I am so tired of being cooped up in the house and yard!

I have decided that I'm done with the sheltering in place! We have been to Walmart, Dollar Store, Cracker Barrel, and most importantly, Church! I wore my mask to Walmart, mostly with respect to the employees who are forced to wear them. Dollar Store didn't seem to care one way or the other and we were socially separated in church. Let's be real here, how can you eat in a restaurant with a mask on? So, no, I didn't wear the mask at Cracker Barrel. 

What would you be willing to bet that as soon as the election is over, we will find that the pandemic is over too? 

I will say, I've gotten a lot done in the Greenhouse and plant sale yard this summer. There have been lots of customers too. I guess I'm not the only one who is bored and working in the yard.  

I discovered miniature Egg Plants. The plant itself is about 2 feet tall. I put them in 2-gallon pots and they are very happy. The only problem is the Thrips that have recently gotten on them but it doesn't seem to have affected the fruit. The little fruit tastes just like the big ones. I cooked them with onions in a stir fry and they were really good. Who knew? I bought them at Lowe's in the markdown section of the garden center. I wonder if I can save seeds? I guess there is no harm in trying. 

The Hydrangeas have outdone themselves!  So have the Begonias and the Meyer lemon is loaded with fruit. I can't wait till October when they are ripe.

 

Butterflies are all over the Buddleia! It is right by the path from the house to the greenhouse. They don't mind if we pass by while they are sipping the nectar. No wonder it's nicknamed Butterfly Bush. 

I feel sorry for folks who don't have a yard to escape to. Maybe I should open mine just for visits. 😊

Things To Do During Pandemic Lock Down

   OK, so the first week wasn't so bad...we caught up on TV, read, weeded the yard, mowed the yard, watched more TV, I even cooked. Now I'm bored! So here are a few suggestions for keeping your sanity. 

Start veggie seeds inside to plant as soon as the weather stabilizes...I'm writing this on April 14 and it is snowing outside my window! I live in Middle Tennessee and it was nearly 80 degrees last week! This too shall pass! We will need our vegetable gardens more than ever this year. Look at my post about seed starting here. 

Go online and dream about all the cool plants out there that you might want to add to your landscape. Check out Burpee Seeds, Search eBay for "plants" you'll be amazed by what you might find. Here are a few of my favorites: https://www.johnnyseeds.com/,  Park Seeds and plants,  Gardeners Supply Company  even ETSY

Get my Gardening book on Amazon for more tips and lessons on gardening 

Step By Step Guide To Plant Propagation Revised Edition

  Share with us here in the comments about what you are doing to keep from being bored out of your mind.

                                                                                                                                                                       

Follow Up on Last Post: Coronavirus

Let's get specific! If you haven't read last week's post do so now...just scroll down. Now here is the followup:

I posted this on Facebook today:

Many of us have been praying every Sunday at 3:00 PM for God to heal our land. Now the request is for us to pray every day at 3:00 PM Central time. I totally agree with this, but before you pray you may want to read this and ask for God's forgiveness before you ask him to heal us. There is a condition for the healing ...read on: 

Folks, we have all been passing this scripture around and asking for prayer…this is a very good thing, but we have ignored what the Lord is actually saying. There is a condition in this verse, “turn from your wicked ways”. He is talking to His people here “My people”. Who were God’s people and why were they seeking God? In Israel at that time there was a terrible drought, locusts and pestilence (illness). The study notes in my Modern Life Study Bible say this: “God’s pledge to heal the land was not unconditional. In order for the Lord to fulfill His part of this agreement with the Israelites, there were certain stipulations: The conditions: Humility, prayer and seeking God’s face, Turning from wickedness”

Friends, we have sat by quietly and by our complacency (I’m guilty of this for sure), allowed these very laws to become the law of our own land. We made legal the thing that is an abomination to God. Here is just one of many I found: Romans 1:26-27 “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.” Enough said!

We voted to allow babies to be aborted for our convenience.

The following quote is from  a Christian website: Ratio Christi https://ratiochristi.org/

In the Old Testament

“Several passages in both the Old and New Testaments could be cited to support the idea that God recognizes that human life begins in the womb.  Isiah 44:24 we read, “This is what the LORD says— your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the LORD, the Maker of all things, who stretches out the heavens, who spreads out the earth by myself, “ Note that the Lord clearly says He formed us “in the womb”.

Then there is Exodus 21:22 “If men fight and hit a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no serious injury, he will surely be punished in accordance with what the woman’s husband demands of him, and he will pay what the court decides.”   Here we note that it is a “child” that is born prematurely Psalms 139:13 says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”  Again, the image of being formed as a human being in the womb.

New Testament support for abortion?

One final example will really drive home the point.  In Luke:41-44 we see the meeting of Mary, who is pregnant with Jesus, and her cousin Mary, who is also pregnant with John the Baptist.  “when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant leapt in her womb.” Then in verses 42 to 44, Elizabeth “cried out with a loud voice, and said: ‘… For behold as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my womb leapt for joy.’”  So much for trying to establish Biblically that life begins with the first breath.”

 

Many of us as Christians have turned our backs on our neighbors, co-workers, and others who don’t know Jesus as Savior. Believe it or not, in this day of immediate access to information, there are people, probably in our own neighborhoods, who don’t know Jesus. We are sitting around our home and in our churches and letting the world quietly go to hell!  

We need to ask God for forgiveness and get up out of our pews, our comfy den in front of the TV, and go out into the marketplace, the highways, and byways and talk about Jesus. We need to get down on our knees and ask God to forgive us! Then Maybe God will forgive our sin and heal our land!

 

 

 

 

 

More Important Than Plants & Gardening!

I don't think I've ever written about anything other than things related to the garden but I'm going to deviate from that this one time. Next week we will get back into the dirt. 😉

Many of you, like Bill and I, are sheltered in place right now. We are healthy and hope to stay that way. We loaded up on groceries and had them delivered to our home. Other than checking on my homebound mom, I don't plan to leave the house and yard.

I have asked my women's home prayer group to join me this Saturday from 8:30 - 10:00 (anytime you can pray will work) and let's seek God's help for our world, our country, our communities and our families. Please use this powerful promise is 2nd Chronicles as a starting place:

2 Chronicles 7:14 King James Version (KJV)

14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

I would love for you to post a comment here as God begins to answer our prayers.