Here and Now: Garden

I have been doing lots of new things this year in my garden. I posted earlier about doing my own milk jug mini greenhouses. Those were a success and I loved growing my own vegetables and flowers from seed.

I irrigate my garden with dripper hoses down each row. I have been gardening now for over 10 years and have had the same set of dripper hoses. After springing multiple large leaks in many of my hoses last year, I realized that all my old hoses were getting brittle. I decided that for my next project, I needed to replace my hoses.

I headed to the hardware store to replace them. I was looking for 1/2" hose, and I was frustrated to find that all they had was 3/8". Normally, I'm sure that would've been just fine, but I knew I had to alter the hoses to fit my garden space. They were sold in 50' lengths and I needed 12.5' lengths for my garden. The only hose fittings I had were for 1/2" hoses. I looked at the 3/8" hose a few times and knew that I really needed to do this. I figured with a little dish soap and elbow grease, I would be able to make this work. So I bought the hoses.

I cut the hoses down with a razor knife, lined the fitting and hose with drops of dawn dish soap, and set in twisting, turning, and pushing.

After wearing blisters into my hands, most of the hoses looked like this:

I had barely made it past the first of two threads on the fitting (I don't know the real terminology for any of this stuff.) :) I figured if it was at least past that first thread, if I screwed the clamp on really tight, I would be just fine.

I felt so happy once I was done converting two 50' hoses into 8 12.5' hoses.

I planted the garden, hooked everything up, and turned the water on low for a slow, easy watering...I thought.

I couldn't have orchestrated it better myself. Within just a minute or two of turning the water on, the end shot off one of my hoses. Trying to stay optimistic, I hurried and turned the valve off for that particular row, and thought to myself, "just one fitting gone bad...I can handle that." Then within seconds, hoses began bursting from one end of the garden to the other and I had water spraying in all directions. I couldn't run fast enough to get the water turned off.

I felt completely defeated. I didn't want to go buy more hoses. And I didn't know how to fix my mess.

Luckily, I live with an amazing man who has a perfect solution to everything.

He suggested heat...more specifically, boiling water.

I removed the clamp and the fittings,

and dipped the hose into a pot of boiling water.

The fitting slid on with ease.

I put the clamps back on.

The project was finished. The hoses didn't crack, my hands didn't blister from the constant pressure, and when I turned the water on, all I heard was the soft sound of water bubbling through the black hoses and into the ground. Success!

Project #2: G's kind of gardening.

I ran by a friend's house the other day. She has beautiful flowers in her yard. I noticed that she had some of the same kind that I do. After researching, I think they are called Allium--big tall purple flowers that come from a bulb. Once they flower, they actually dry and harden but hold their shape. My flowers went from purple to green and then I'm sure the next color is brown.

Well, when I passed by her house, I couldn't believe it. Her purple flowers hadn't gone down the green-brown path like mine had. They were blue. Bright, beautiful blue. I was shocked. After feeling a little jealous of her green-thumb, I asked her what her secret was: spray paint. What? Yep. Spray paint.

So G came home and made ours pretty too. He said this was his kind of gardening. :)

I also finally have raspberries this year. I have had many small starts, but they just haven't wanted to do anything. Luckily, I asked the right people at the right time this year. I didn't start with tiny shoots this time. These were full grown, healthy, mature plants. They have been in for a couple of months now and are doing well. We just picked our first berries a few days ago and they tasted so yummy. So fun!

And last but not least, my tomato cages. I went to a friends house last year and picked tomatoes. My tomatoes have always been in the nasty wire cages that get mangled, bend, and tip over. They frustrate me, but I haven't found a solution. Until I saw my friends cages. So this spring, I went to her house, borrowed one of them to use as a guide, and went to work.

I built 16 of them.