OLD AGE IS NOT FOR SISSIES

NOTHING IN LIFE IS TO BE FEARED

Confessions of a Granddaughter

by Filed Under: Family Life 4 Comments

By the time I was fourteen, I lost both of my grandfathers. Thankfully, God blessed me with two grandmother’s who lived long lives. Still, though, I felt jilted in the grandfather department.

On this Father’s Day, I wanted to write something about the Grandfather that I actually knew. He is the one that lived until I was fourteen.


My Granddaddy Hamrick was a sweet soul, though not an ambitious man. He was born near the Elizabeth community on what is now Gramling Road in Jefferson County, Florida, east of Monticello.  He attended school in Aucilla long before it became a private school. One of his first cousins Mary Jane Hartsfield Brown Lightsey told me that Granddaddy was older than she and drove her and several younger kids from Elizabeth to Aucilla for school each day. This was around 1918 or 1919.

Sometime between his sixteenth and twenty-first birthday, the entire family picked up and moved to Quay, Florida.

Never heard of Quay? Well, they changed its name sometime in the 1930s to Winter Beach, hoping to entice people to visit, though there wasn’t a beach in sight. Never heard of Winter Beach? The little town which has all but since disappeared was located just north of Vero Beach in Indian River County on US 1 about a mile from the Indian River/Intercoastal Waterway.

From the looks of photos taken at the time, my guess is that my teenaged grandfather liked his new home, though he would move back to Jefferson County by the time he was in his forties. The last little house his parents owned in Winter Beach is still standing, and his parents were laid to rest in the city cemetery nearby.

Sadly, I didn’t know a lot of this until after he passed when I was much older. I never took the time to ask him about his early life, but I guess that’s fairly common.

What I do know and now cherish is the memory of going fishing with him once. I was excited, and I guess overly excited because he kept telling me that I was scaring away all his fish. I also hooked him with my wild casting.

Another time I can also vaguely remember a frog gigging excursion one night with at least him and Daddy and maybe even Uncle Ferrell in the boat, probably in some swamp near our home.  Those were fun times.

Granddaddy worked for the Florida Department of Tourism at the Welcome Station just north of Monticello on the Georgia-Florida state line. We used to take him lunch, and sometimes I stayed with him a few hours afterwards.


I remember that one of his jobs was to count and record cars including what state from which they came as they crossed the state line coming and going. We sat on the side of the road with the car windows down, making tic marks on a form. Actually, he often napped, and I became quite good at doing the recording.

Each summer, the department gave their employees free passes to most of Florida’s attractions. There was no Disney World then, but there was Silver Springs with Ross Allen’s Reptile Institute and Sunken Gardens and Marineland and many more.

One summer Grandma and Granddaddy loaded up Pam and me; and we toured the state, stopping in to see all these sites. It was a great two-week vacation. I hope it was as great for them as it was for us.

I also remember Granddaddy being an auxiliary policeman from time to time, especially for the Friday night football games, which we never missed. I remember him letting me hold his giant metal flashlight and billy club. I can never imagine him using the latter as he was the most passive man I’ve ever known.

Granddaddy liked to collect junk, old plough blades, equipment, and all manner of implements. The woods behind his house was full of antiques as he called them, but Grandma only saw junk and he was hardly buried before she got the family members to come and drag every last piece off the property.

One of Grandaddy’s best skills was catching, cleaning, and cooking a mess of fish. I can still remember the wonderful smells of those fish fries, which were usually in their backyard using giant electric spools as tables to cook and serve upon. When not in use, we kids would stuff a little feller inside the middle of an electric spool for a roll around the yard.

Also, the only thing better than his fried fish and hush puppies was his cornbread. My Grandma was a great cook, but her cornbread didn’t begin to compare to his. I haven’t had cornbread that good since 1968.
Sadly, as all good things must eventually end, we lost Granddady one Sunday in March of ’68. He was only 64 years old, only one year older than I am now.

He and Grandma decided not to go to church that morning because he didn’t feel well. While watching the First Baptist Church of Tallahassee on TV, he told Grandmother that he couldn’t see and then he just pitched forward and fell out of his chair. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage before an ambulance arrived.

Next year I’ll be 64. If he were still alive, he would be 113. Grandma lived to be 99, and to her credit she was always explaining who I was kin to in the county. She was not from Monticello, so those were his kin.

I still miss him and can still see the sweat around his hat band.   Every once in a while in my mind I can hear him call my grandmother “Sugar”.  He had a kind face, and he was a good grandfather.

How to Harvest a Garden Like a Pro

by Filed Under: Home and Garden 1 Comment

First, let me explain that I’m no vegetable farmer.  Actually, I am a tree farmer along with my sisters, but I’ve never commercially grown vegetables.  But I have had vegetable gardens before along with a good harvest.

Around mid-March, I began a series of blog posts about a little vegetable garden that I planted. You can read about it here. I thought it might be time to give you an update because the little garden is now in its harvest phase.


Around the first of April, a large weather front came through here, and we had P-sized hail. The recently planted garden was down by the lake which is a nice walk down the hill. I watched the hail do its damage to my front flower beds and feared what was happening down there.

Fortunately, the garden did rather well. I was beginning to think that maybe no hail fell in that part of the yard at all, but then I noticed that all of the little grapes on the grape arbor next to it got knocked down.

I’m not sure why the garden did better, except that maybe it was because it hadn’t really begun to set its fruit yet. Thankfully, the grape vines were not finished. More tiny grapes formed later.

By mid-April, I was hoeing weeds. I also planted some okra which is why I was hoeing weeds. The okra needed to come up before I finished mulching the entire bed.  I also got lots of exercise walking back and forth up and down the hill, during this phase.

The Harvest Phase

By the end of April, I began to harvest the spinach but noticed that my lettuce was not going to make it. Everything else was doing well–all the different peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans and even the sweet peas that I planted just for something pretty.

The first week of May I was away for a week at a conference. I left Chuck in charge. When I came back, I noticed that cutworms ate up the cauliflower. I asked Chuck about it, and he said that he noticed but thought there was nothing we could do.  Wrong!!


Up until this point, I used organic means to handle weeds and pests, but now the gloves were off. There were hundreds of cutworms, and I got out the insecticide. I left the cauliflower as it was because I thought that maybe the worm-eaten leaves could still provide a little nutrition for new leaves to form.  I thought one cauliflower plant might make it because it didn’t get eaten up as bad. The good news, though, is that a lettuce came up while I was gone and now all the cauliflower plants are beginning to make new leaves.  Maybe, I’ll get some cauliflower after all.

By the second week of May, we were fully harvesting. The secret was to check the plants daily for harvest, bugs, and weather-related problems.  For example, one of the Better Boy tomatoes fell over during another storm.  I spent some time trying to set it back up to re -spike it.  Also, if you leave any vegetable on the plant too long, that plant quits producing.  Everything is producing right now–tomatoes, cucumbers, custard beans, three kinds of peppers, and spinach.  It takes almost a daily trip to keep up with the harvest.  Also, except for the cherry tomatoes, instead of picking I cut the vegetables. Cutting keeps from damaging the bush.

A Garden Adversary

One day last week I walked town to the garden and almost stepped on a five foot long white oak snake stretched out like a fallen limb with his head underneath my little grapefruit tree.  I amazed myself, having no idea that I could jump that high or that far.  I left Mr. No Shoulders alone, giving him a wide berth; but later I realized that maybe this one is too big to keep around.  When they are this big, they get real aggressive.  They’re rat snakes, and rat snakes are territorial.  They will chase you, and this Mr. No Shoulders strikes like a rattler.  His bite will hurt bad.

So after I finished harvesting and went back to the house, I looked for Chuck.  Later, I found out that he had been down at the lake, but when he came back up, he noticed a big white oak snake hanging out on my garden fence.  Probably, waiting for a bird to light.  Well, frankly that is all I had to hear.  There is now a hoe hanging on the fence.  If he gives me any trouble, he’s toast.  Mr. No Shoulders has to go.

The Fruit of Our Labor

Lately, I’m getting an almost daily supply of cucumbers, but that’s ok. I love vinegared cucumbers. Next week I plan to post my grandmother’s vinegared cucumbers recipe and also how she taught me that  a little vinegar can awaken the flavors in foods.


Best of all, though, is that I have a new favorite vegetable.


Monsanto sent me seeds for custard beans. I wasn’t even sure what I was getting, but these bush wax beans were easy to grow and I found a new way to cook beans. That’s another recipe I’ll share.  I will definitely grow this cream-colored variety of bush beans again. They’re the best I’ve ever had. A big thank you to Monsanto for sending me these seeds.


My tomatoes are prolific, but I plan to fertilize them again next week to keep them setting flowers for the next crop.  I’ll probably fertilize the entire garden for the same reason.  I know I can keep tomatoes producing sometimes even into the Fall, but I’m less sure about the other plants.  This will be an experiment for me.

A One-Day Harvest

So as you can see, we’re enjoying the fruits of our labor, or should I say the veggies of our toil. Speaking of fruit, though, the blueberries have been producing, too.  I’ve been getting about a pint every other day.  I’m thinking of adding some to either biscuits or scones. Yum!  Or maybe a new type of cocktail made with muddled blueberries?  The options are endless.

A Mother’s Day Remembrance & Giveaway

by Filed Under: Family Life 6 Comments

When I was young, I remember my mother wearing a corsage of red carnations to church on Mother’s Day. She told me that she did this to honor her mother, but when I got to church my Grandmother Hamrick was wearing a white carnation corsage. I found out later that she wore white in remembrance of her mother, who died when Grandma was two years old. When we got older, my little sister Pam and I wore little red carnation corsages with little red ribbons to honor ours.

My Mother and Her Parents

The beautiful tradition which seems to have been lost with time was to wear red to honor and white to remember. It is a beautiful mother/daughter tradition lost to modernity.

In 2009 at Mother’s Day, I was out of town and did not go to church; but I remember thinking that I could no longer wear a red carnation on that day. My mother passed away the year before. My life had changed in yet another way.

How Mother’s Day Began

Mother’s Day began in 1908, exactly one hundred years before my mother died in 2008. The woman who started it in the US did so in response to her own mother’s death in 1905. This woman Anna Jarvis never married nor had children of her own. In May 1908 she organized the first official Mother’s Day celebration at a Methodist church in Grafton, West Virginia.

She continued to work to organize the day and pushed through a letter writing campaign to have it made into a national holiday. Her persistence paid off because in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson signed a measure officially establishing the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day, the first ever holiday honoring a woman in the US.

Its popularity, though, mushroomed during the 1930s when women all over the country started wearing corsages made from a flower picked from the bouquets of flowers given to them by their husbands–white to remember their descended mother and red to honor their mother still living.

By the 1960s women sometimes wore pink instead of red. My Grandmother.

I even found a little poem about the corsage tradition.

A Mother’s Day Corsage

A Mother’s Day corsage 
has a meaning of its own.
Red is to honor a living Mom…
But White means she is gone.
A Mom with a Yellow Corsage, 
says she is always in grief.
She lost the child she cherishes…
Her flowers make up a wreath.
But what about a Mom
 who has no corsage to wear?
Does it mean her arms are empty?
 Does it mean her life is bare?
If your Mother’s Day corsage
 is adorned with flowers of white,
Go find a Mom without a corsage…
And Make her Mother’s Day Right.

by Kaye DesOrmeaux, 2000
Charm of the Carolines

But who gives the corsage, because women stopped making their own by the time I was a young girl? Actually, the tradition later says that the father gives the corsage, but many women are widowed far too early. I remember my Mom handling the tradition for her mother after my grandfather died.

Plus life gets in the way, and I think at some point it didn’t matter. Someone just did it.

Mother’s Day Today

Here’s a little Mother’s Day trivia? Did you know that more phone calls are made on Mother’s Day than any other day of the year? It seems that a phone call has replaced the earlier tradition of the corsage.

I believe the tradition disappeared for two reasons. First, people don’t go to church like they used to do so. And second, the corsages got way too expensive. I can remember the large white orchid corsages that came about by the 1970s.  Maybe, the answer to the second reason is that women should pick a flower out of their bouquet and wear it to church.

I used to own a florist when my children were babies. I operated it out of my home. Here are some simple instructions on how to make a simple corsage.

Step by Step Instruction to Make A Simple Corsage

The secret is in the mechanics. If you have the right supplies, it is easy; and the supplies are cheap. You’ll need 4-5 very thin florist wires, floral tape for wrapping, a corsage stick pin, and thin ribbon.

Old Age Is Not for Sissies Blog (oldageisnotforsissiesblog.com) is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

Below is a amazon link where you can purchase all three for less than $11.  I actually keep these supplies on hand.  I can’t remember how many boutonnieres and small corsages I’ve made over the years saving me boocoodles.  You can use the directions below for making both.

 

When I was young, we wore a simple corsage made with 3-5 miniature carnations. So I’ll use this example to teach you how to make your own. Honestly, it will only take you about ten minutes.

By the way, these corsages then only cost about a dollar. By the time my girls were young they cost about $3. I’m not sure what they cost today.

Take a flower and cut off its stem leaving a little on. Run a wire through to create a new stem that bends into the shape you want.

Take the tape and wrap it, thus so, twirling the flower and its new stem as you feed the tape. Floral tape is self-sticking on both sides, and this makes it easy to work with.

Now repeat with the rest of the carnations.

Next, press them together in the design you wish, pressing their stems together to create one bigger stem at the bottom. Wrap these all together with the floral tape.

Now, take a piece of wire and wrap it with the tape. You will use this to hold the bow together after you make a bow.

Then, make a bow from quarter inch ribbon and clasp it using the wire thus so.

Add this to the stem and then wrap the new stem thus so again with the tape. I placed my bow within the corsage, but you can place it at the bottom, too. Now curl the end of the stem.

Voila, you’re done! All you need is the stick pin to pin it on. Here, I show the corsage from the underside with the stick pin. You can see the corsage’s mechanics.

Finally, the corsage can be made a day in advance for flowers like carnations. Just seal it in a sandwich bag and refrigerate it. Make sure it is sealed well because the gasses from some fruits might make the flowers close or turn them yellow or brown.

You can also use flowers from your garden, just check them out, though. Some wilt quicker than others.  And gardenias bruise easily.

So there you are. Whatever you decide to do on Mother’s Day, wear a flower to remember her, wherever she is. I made this corsage in white to remember my mother, and I added a baby blue bow in remembrance of my mother-in-law, Dody. She loved baby blue.  I’ll wear it on Sunday to church and then to my sister-in-law’s home for Easter Dinner.

💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐

AMAZON GIFT CARD GIVEAWAY

This is also an Amazon Gift Card Giveaway. So are you going to be the lucky person who gets this special $50 Amazon Gift Card for Mother’s Day?


To enter is easy. All you have to do is SIGN UP below to subscribe to get Old Age Is Not For Sissies emails.  I only post about once a week, and I share my email list with no one nor will I ever.

Giveaway ends May 2nd at 11:59 pm ET.

Good luck and Happy Mother’s Day!!!

Check out more Mother’s Day tips from the giveaway hosts here!

A Letter for Mom by Life on Summerhill

Memaws Homemade BBQ Sauce Recipe by the UnCoordinated Mommy

Mother’s Day Tips by A Savings Wow

 

Do you remember this Mother’s Day tradition about corsages? Do you have any unique Mother’s Day traditions in your family? Please share in the comments below.

How to Place Your Transplants in the Ground

by Filed Under: Home and Garden 3 Comments

Disclosure: This post has been compensated by Monsanto Co. and the “Hey Let’s Grow Monsanto Home Garden Program”. All experiences and opinions are mine alone. #HeyLetsGrow

This week it was time to plant everything in the ground–my transplants, my seedlings, and any seeds to be planted directly into the garden.

Hey Let’s Grow sent me thirteen different packets of seeds. There were two types of tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, three types of hot peppers, bell peppers, lettuce, a type of beans, cucumbers, and spinach.

By the end of last week, I had tomato transplants, the beans and cucumbers still in seeds, and the rest in seedlings. All were ready to be placed in the garden.

How About the View from My Garden!

Which brings me to last Friday, when I was able to finish the job.

Tilling

Chuck tilled the ground for me with a tiller rented from Home Depot. We made sure not to over till, though.  It is important to not bust up all the clods of dirt.  My garden this year is about 7′ x 9′. I purposely try to keep my garden small. One plant can sometimes supply more than my family can eat.


Laying Out the Garden

Then I mapped out my garden. I decided to plant my four tomato bushes at the four corners. In between the two tomatoes at the west end I planted broccoli and some of the cauliflower. On the next row are lettuce and the rest of the cauliflower.

Frankly, the broccoli looks puny. I’m wondering if it will make it, but the cauliflower looks good.

Next row over is spinach and the bell peppers.

After that row is a row of the three varieties of hot peppers. I only had two of each variety to plant, though. My peppers were the last to germinate, and not all did.

Finally in the last row before the far eastern row, I planted seeds for cucumbers and beans. I placed the beans near the northern fence line so they would have something to climb. Jack might need a way back down someday.

Lastly, the other two tomato transplants were added to the eastern corners. There is still more room for other plants if I decide to add them later. I did hold back two transplants of each kind for later planting if needed.

Getting the Soil Content Correct

After Chuck tilled, we spread eight bags of mushroom compost and an equal amount of top soil. Then I hand tilled them together and raked them smooth. I usually use Black Cow, but we have a mushroom farm nearby, so I decided to try mushroom compost this year instead.  We knew what to add to the soil because of past years of gardening.  Remember, we let this ground take a break last year.

Making Rows

Next, I made rows, banking up little parallel hills.  Sadly, my rows aren’t straight; but I didn’t take the time to run a string line between two stakes.

Planting

All plants were spaced at least 1 foot apart. The tomato transplants were planted deep, all the way to their colydon leaves, their lowest set of leaves.

The rest, seedlings, were planted only as deep as they had been before.

Finally, the seeds were planted about a half inch deep.

Next, I put out some ant bait near one of the tomatoes. We disturbed an ant colony while planting, and they gave me a fit.

Fencing

We have a lot of problems with critters.  So, surrounding the garden is a fence made of rebar. I get this from Home Depot, and it is fencing that requires hardly any fence posts. It is actually used to reinforce concrete, but I learned a long time ago that it is rigid and will stand up like a fence with little effort. I connected the pieces with wire.

You see, most of us in our backyards are not trying to fence out cattle. We just want to deter deer and small animals. Rebar can be used to stop deer from walking into your garden, but it alone will not stop a rabbit. And that is my second possible problem.

So I purchased some bird netting and stretched it around the perimeter using the rebar as a form making sure I secured it at the bottom and top. If I later have trouble with animals coming in through the very top, such as squirrels or birds, I can stretch the bird netting up there, too. I’ll let you know how it works.

I’ll let you know how it works.  Like my rows, the fencing isn’t that straight either; but if it does the job, I’ll be happy.

So this is what the garden looks like now.

I planted on a very overcast day with rain expected overnight. I didn’t want to plant my 🌱 seedlings and transplants on a hot sunny day, so I had been watching my weather for a week looking for the perfect day to plant.

Also, I mulched with pine straw and banked the straw around the new delicate plants, using the straw for some added shade and protection.
Stay tuned. I’ll let you know how it’s going in another couple of weeks.

Do you have any special techniques you use to plant your vegetable garden? Do you use any other type of fencing that may be easier? Please share!

When You Should Transplant Your Seedlings

by Filed Under: Home and Garden Leave a Comment

Disclosure: This post has been compensated by Monsanto Co. and the “Hey Let’s Grow Monsanto Home Garden Program”. All experiences and opinions are mine alone. #HeyLetsGrow

 

It was time for transplanting this week. But when should one transplant?

Update on My Vegetable Garden

To reiterate, I planted about thirty tomato plants of two varieties in small jiffy pods a couple weeks ago, and now it is time to transplant them. These got a little leggy, due to a problem with the amount of light vs. dark that they got during the first week.

Why a Timer is Important

I cannot impress enough that a timer is essential, especially if you plan to take a short weekend trip away. While I was gone, I left a light on and best I can tell the tomatoes jumped out of the ground sometime during the weekend.

The light was a little too far above the plants; and after they sprouted, they stretched for the light, especially since it stayed on the entire weekend. Not good, as I later learned.

So I dug around my garage until I found an old timer I bought years ago. I set the timer to turn on at 8 am and turn off at midnight, giving the plants 16 hours of Grow light. They began this part of their growing journey a little leggy, but I think I can correct that when I transplant them.

Thinning the Herd

A few days ago, I snipped off all but one plant in each pod, a thinning which made for ten tomato plants. Then I waited for the ten to grow their second set of leaves.

So When Do You Transplant

So that brings me to today. This morning I noticed another set of leaves beginning to form. This is their third set. The first being the seed leaves also called colydon leaves, then the next set called the plants’ true leaves, and now another new set. This means it is time to transplant.

 

Transplanting

In the past, I collected and have quite a collection of various empty pots from when I earlier brought flowering transplants home from the store, but they needed to be sterilized. So I used the sink in my laundry room to spray Clorox on the little plastic pots, and then I rinsed them very well. This way I know that there can be no fungus or other problems for the delicate transplants.

Next, I mixed half and half of seed starter soil and potting soil. I do not use dirt from my yard.  Why add more problems to the process.  I mixed the starter soil and potting soil in a bucket.

Placing a thin layer of soil in the bottom of each small pot, I added the pod and plant being careful not to hold the plant by its stem. Its little stem is its spine, its lifeline. If you crush it, it cannot survive. Then I filled the soil all the way to the top of the pot, completely burying the stem of the tomato plant up to its first leaves.



A tomato plant will grow roots from its stem if the stem is covered in soil. Only a little of its stem and its leaves peek out from the soil. Hopefully, this solves the problem of my leggy tomato plants. I’m also careful not to hold the plant by its stem.

Fertilizer

Next, I used a water soluble fertilizer and added it to water in my laundry sink, using the package instructions. I bottom watered each of the pots, adding a little to the top to soak it.

Hardening

After waiting an hour for the plants to soak, I took the pots outside to sit on my potting bench for another hour. This last step begins the “hardening” period. This will get the plants ready for finally planting them in the ground. I made sure they got no direct sunlight, though, the first day.


After their hour outdoors, I took them back into the garage to bask under the Grow lights. I added two more lights finally using the $50 ‘Hey Let’s Grow’ gift certificate to buy more lights.

Thanks, Monsanto! Until now I already had everything I needed, but the bigger pots required more lights. All four are on the timer now.
For the rest of the week, I’ll take the pots outside to sit in the dappled shade underneath a tree lengthening the time each day. An hour at a time at first and increasing daily.

Next week we’ll place everything in the ground! I’m also hardening off the rest of the seedlings as they produce their second set of true leaves. Two varieties of my peppers, though, still have not completely sprouted.

Why You Should Start Your Vegetable Garden from Seeds

by Filed Under: Home and Garden 4 Comments

Disclosure: This post has been compensated by Monsanto Co. and the “Hey Let’s Grow Monsanto Home Garden Program”. All experiences and opinions are mine alone. #HeyLetsGrow

 

For years I’ve had less than great results when starting my garden from seeds. I’ve tried to do it under the regular lights in my kitchen. I tried it on my potting bench in the shade. And I even tried it under a tree with dappled shade.

Sometimes the seedlings get really leggy like when I tried to start them in my kitchen. On my potting bench, I forgot them; and they thirsted for water and died. So I tried starting them in the dappled shade where the irrigation took care of the water problem, but they were less than healthy. I even gave up and did several gardens from transplants.

But with transplants, you don’t get exactly what you want, and this is why you should start your vegetable garden from seed.   There is so much more variety.

Years ago I was on a quest for great tasting tomatoes, but I found that the ones I planted from transplants tasted about the same as the ones I got in my grocery store. Which is to say they tasted grainy and not sweet.

I knew better ones existed. When my daughter lived in Romania, I had fabulous tasting tomatoes there. I even thought about smuggling some seeds back to Florida. I knew that better ones were available but only from seeds.

Now, of course, the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, also known as IFAS, developed a commercial tomato that actually tastes sweet. It is called the Tasti-Lee tomato, and I buy them at Publix. You can read more about them here. … But I digress.

So it was time for me to invest in a grow light system.  It is vital to starting your garden from seeds.

This year Monsanto asked me to do a little field test for them; and subsequently, they sent me some seeds.  I wrote about it here.  In the post, I explained how I keep the deer out of my garden and how my gardening isn’t always successful.

Now, though,  I didn’t want to experiment with these Monsanto seeds, so I started researching for a detailed step-by-step guide for how to plant the seeds. I found a very good one at the website for the National Gardening Association. You can find it at this link on my Pinterest board Gardening for Grannies. If you do not have a Pinterest account you can also find it here.

My biggest problem was lighting for my seeds, and I’m cheap so I didn’t want to buy an expensive light growing system. With a little research, I discovered that I didn’t have to do so. I ended up making mine, using information found on Pinterest. You can see it here.

I used their idea and made up my own grow light system using lights I already had, the proper light bulb as explained in a pin I also found on Pinterest (you can see it here,) and existing shelving in my garage.

I arranged it, and this is how it worked for me. It cost me nothing, and it worked like a charm. I used a timer that I already had for the Christmas tree to turn the lights on each morning at 8 am and off each evening at midnight.

My tomato, spinach, broccoli and cauliflower seedlings are now getting their second leaves so I’m getting close to transplanting. My tomatoes are a little leggy, but nowhere near as bad as in the past.  Their legginess wasn’t the fault of the lamps, but my own fault.  I left to go off over the weekend, and they weren’t to the stage yet where I needed the lights.  It is amazing how fast they grow all of a sudden.  I’ll update you then.

I’ll update you when I get to the next steps.

My Garden–Not Always a Success

by Filed Under: Home and Garden, Uncategorized 1 Comment

Disclosure: This post has been compensated by Monsanto Co. and the “Hey Let’s Grow Monsanto Home Garden Program”. All opinions are mine alone. #HeyLetsGrow


‘Hey Let’s Grow’, a home gardening program of Monsanto just sent me a box of garden goodies. Every year I have a vegetable garden, except for last year. I decided not to grow one because we were gone so much of the summer. We were out of town almost two months.  

Still though a volunteer cherry tomato plant came up, and I staked it and added some fertilizer to keep it producing until almost the end of July.  It would have continued but there was no one to harvest it after we left to go on vacation. 

Every year I try to talk family members and even the housekeeper into harvesting and taking home the veggies, but no one seems to take the time.  Or they just forget.  Two years ago I got a bumper crop of okra, but when I got back I had a lot of giant tough inedible okra.  Of course, it stopped producing, too. 

Let’s See Whats in the Box

In the box from ‘Hey Let’s Grow’ there’s almost everything I need for this year. There are all kinds of seeds, medium to plant them in, a couple of cute coffee mugs, some honey to go in my coffee, a new gardening apron, and several gardening implements.  There are even markers so I’ll know what I planted and where.  I can’t wait to get started.


Another reason I did not plant last year was because my little bed needed to lie fallow for a year.  I broadcast some rye and let it go.  So yesterday I walked down the hill towards the lake and checked out my little plot. I pulled down the fence and started preparing it. 

Gardening is Risky

Speaking of the fence. I had to fence off several of my citrus trees and my garden down the hill.  Two years ago I planted a new grapefruit tree that was about 4 feet tall. Sometime within the next month, a deer had a run-in with that tree, because one morning I walked down there and all that was left was a stub. It looked like it had a fight with a deer, and the deer won.

All that was left of my grapefruit tree.


Parts of the grapefruit tree were snatched about all over the place.  I thought the tree was surely dead, but my nurseryman Uncle Ferrell suggested that I simply let it regrow. I did, and this past winter I got 9 grapefruit off of it. 

Two years ago I planted some lettuce and spinach in my little garden, and I think the deer ate all of that too.  So I learned over the years that cheap pieces of rebar can be used to make a fairly tall fence to protect whatever it is that needs protecting.  Here’s how I use it around several of the smaller citrus trees.  You can cheaply fasten it together with some wire.

Using rebar for fencing


And Then There are the Weeds

It has been an unusually warm winter this year in north Florida. Our temperatures only dropped into the 20s about twice.  It has also been a rainy winter, and this means that the weeds are going to be harder to control this coming year.  My azaleas are already blooming.

Gardening in Florida

I do a lot of flower gardening in my four and a half-acre yard and spend a lot of time weeding it. It is so bad that I nicknamed it “the Garden of Weeden”.  All we can hope for down here in damp sunny Florida is a good hard winter.

The yard was a lot easier to take care of when I had teenagers who were always getting into trouble–all three of them.  There was frequently someone back there working off their punishment, but now they are all grown up and have ‘weeders’ of their own.

My Flower Garden

My garden includes knockout roses, antique roses, azaleas, several varieties of camellias, sago palms, elephant ears, several kinds of gardenias, and volunteer impatiens, to name a few.  We also have an orchard of blueberries, satsumas, mayhaws, grapefruit, kumquats, a Key lime, and a Myers lemon.  

Gardening in Florida

I planted several sweet potato vines for aesthetics a few years ago, and last year I noticed that I have sweet potatoes underground.  This will be the third year they’ve over-wintered.  They are growing in one of my flowerbeds.

Success Or Not, I still Love it!

I wished I could say that I am always successful with my gardening; but certainly, it is not so.  The Satsuma some years gives us a bumper crop and then other years nothing.  Also, the flower beds get away from me by August, and it’s a jungle out there.

Satsumas


One year I decided to try my luck with container tomatoes.  I got a grand total of about 2 to 3 on each very nice-sized lush bush.  My husband the comedian started passing information around Tallahassee that friends needed to make sure they asked me about my bumper crop of tomatoes.  Several people stopped me on the streets to ask me if they could have some.  I could’ve killed him.

There’s a variety of lettuce in the kit, but I have no idea if I can grow lettuce.  The deer ate my one and only try.  Plus my Mayhaw to this day has produced zero Mayhaws, and I even got it a mate.  So stay tuned!

It Makes Me Respect Someone Who Does This for a Living

By the way having your own vegetable garden gives one a newfound respect for farmers.  Raising one’s own food is such a risky undertaking that we’re all very lucky that there are those who will do it for us.  I wish to shout out a big ‘Thank You’ to America’s farming community.


 I used to can and freeze a lot of produce especially when I was younger, but hardly do it anymore.  Now I spend my time extra time writing, traveling, and visiting grandbabies. I’ll keep you up to date on the successes and failures of my vegetable garden inspired by ‘Hey Let’s Grow’. 

Our Descent to a Victim Mentality

by Filed Under: Family Life 4 Comments

I had a problem with teaching each of my daughters to a mental victim. But I’m jumping ahead of myself. Let me explain what has led me to my latest tirade.

But First

I am sick and tired of people insinuating that I am less than my male counterparts. So in case you are left of left, you might want to stop right here, because I come at this from the right. I guess you might say I’m about to kick the hornets’ nest.

The Audi Commercial

I’ll begin with the Audi commercial aired during the Super Bowl. I’ve been mulling on their message for over a week now.  How dare they imply that I am less or that my daughters are less than our male counterparts. I guess you can tell that I hated this commercial.

Audi Commercial

https://mobile.twitter.com/Audi/status/826811795117465601/video/1

I was raised a little differently than most of my friends. I come from a very conservative small town in north Florida, an agricultural town. My father did not have any sons but did have three daughters, and I am the oldest of the three. I hunted with him, my sisters and I camped all over America with our parents, and all three of us were so encouraged to reach beyond ourselves that I believed I could be anything I wanted to be.

I was so convinced of this, that it appalled me when two kids down the street said that there was no way I could be like the prima ballerina we had seen the night before on The Ed Sullivan Show. I told them that they were wrong, that all I had to do was work very hard to be just like her.

They said that I couldn’t do it, because what she had was real talent.  I argued that she learned by repetition and hard work.

I might have done it, because I thought I could. They could have never done it, because they thought they couldn’t. See, I am still convinced.

I was raised with the opposite of victimology. In no way was I raised to think I couldn’t do anything. I even remember arguing with those two, that if I wanted to be President of the United States enough and if I worked hard enough, I could do it. Looking back, I realize now how fortunate I was to have had the parents I had.

Today, I realize that some of this relates to the American Exceptionalism doctrine that I was fed. It is a doctrine that is under fire, and I’m not so sure this is a good thing. And I’m not talking about supremacy, which I think has nothing to do with American Exceptionslism. It is a doctrine that made us reach beyond ourselves to achieve.

My parent’s teachings held me well.

Today, I am an elderly woman looking back on my years of education and career. In over twenty years I obtained a Ph.D. in Communication; worked in Florida’s legislative process for almost forty years, and now spend my time writing books and this blog. I made good money, more annually than many of my male counterparts. I busted my ass, and I represented my clients well.

I also raised two daughters, and I actually remember other women suggesting that maybe I was setting them up for disappointment. Outsiders were concerned that I didn’t tell my daughters what they should expect in the marketplace.

Frankly, I never wanted my daughters to feel like victims, so I held back on teaching them what I thought would turn around by the time they reached the marketplace anyway. I wanted them to enter the marketplace not looking for a slight at every turn  or just waiting for someone to knock that chip off their shoulder. I wanted them to enter the marketplace the same way I did.

In case you think I had it easy, I’ll explain. In one job, I resigned and set my date of resignation to take advantage of a pending vacation. My boss’s boss who had made several passes at me, changed my date so I couldn’t take a vacation between the two jobs.

I sued the company in small claims court and won. There was no claim of sexual harassment, just a claim upon the money I believe I was owed. My boss, also a male, at great risk to himself made sure I had the information needed to litigate the case. I represented myself against their corporation’s local lawyer. I refused to be a victim.

Thank God, my Dad never had the attitude of the Dad in that Audi commercial. He sent me forward with an attitude that I could do what I wanted to do. All I had to do was be truthful and work hard.

By the way, my Dad never graduated from high school; but he raised three strong-willed women who have seven college degrees between us. And all of us had good careers. And in case you think my Mom was a doormat, think again. Anyone who truly knew her knew that she was the strongest willed of all of us.

Role Models

And since I am on the subject, there is someone else who I could never identify with. That someone was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. From day one, I questioned why she remained the wife of someone who obviously did not have respect for women, let alone for her. Why did she stay with him, other than to pad her own future.  Why did she remain a victim.

Frankly, I have little respect for a woman that is only herself through her husband. I did not want my daughters, who were growing up while she was First Lady, to think that men had the right to treat them the way her husband treated her.  And I also didn’t want them to think that they had to hitch their star to a man in order to achieve.  I hated that all of the sordid affair was on our televisions every night.  I also resented that the Republicans made it so public.

While I was working in my first job as a secretary, they let me do some of the buyer responsibilities.  I quickly realized that I was more successful with the latter if I never let the seller know I was female. I did my business by teletype and by snail mail. There was no internet then.

I signed my correspondence as C. E. Raker, my married name at the time. It was a man’s world, but I found a way to achieve in it. I found a way to not be the victim.  Later when I had my daughters, I chose for them androgynous names so they would never have to deal with this problem.  I didn’t want them to be victims either.

So Audi, this is why I hated your commercial. You basically tried to relegate me to a second class citizen if only in thought. I understand that you were trying to make a point, but for me you missed the mark.  You targeted me and all women as victims.

The Audi commercial was there for everyone to hear, including my six-year old grandson. I don’t want him to be raised with that attitude either, that girls are less than boys; but I’m afraid Audi may have started that terrible thought in his mind.  And this perpetuates the victim ization of women.

To the rest of America? Raise your daughters passionately optimistic and protect them from ever feeling like a victim. All this feminist talk I believe is making the wrong impression on very impressionable minds. And it wouldn’t hurt to remember the old adage, that you draw more bees with honey than with vinegar anyway.

Besides I didn’t raise my daughters to be advocates, I raised them to work in the marketplace and to be good American citizens.

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