Kendrick Family Life and Adventures

Enjoying studying outside. Good Morning All, I have really enjoyed being in my backyard this week. I have been enjoying the flowers in hanging baskets, the roses blooming (were already here when we moved in), and the birds in the feeder. It has been a nice week. The garden is sprouting and everything but my peppers have seedlings. Even the pumpkin and potatoes are sprouting. The bush beans are thriving amazingly well. This container is Cukes, Squash, Bush Beans, and Sunflowers Potatoes Pumpkin I noticed two day ago though that something was eating my sunflower leaves. Some of them were eaten all the way down and I could not find the culprit. Poor sunflowers So, I researched a few organic homemade pesticides to try in the garden. Here are a few I found: Mineral Oil Mix 10-30 ml of high-grade oil with one liter of water. Stir and add to a spray bottle. This pesticide works by dehydrating insects and their eggs. ...

Hello All, I hope you are having a great week. We start a four day weekend today and are looking forward to the family time this weekend. We have been busy here in the Kendrick house the last few days. I finally got my big desk up and put together so once I get the computer set up at it, I will be able to work comfortably :) Oh, look what I found yesterday morning when the kids were waiting for the bus. It is a whole bird's nest; there were two eggs. Robin's nest? One was cracked and the other was on the ground. I do not believe this one is viable and I do not have an incubator, but it is interesting to look at. The nest is very intricately made. It is surprisingly heavy and the grass is patched and woven together with mud to make it very solid. I believe it is a Robin's nest since we have plenty of them in this area. They like the feeder in our backyard. Most of the work this week has been in the garden, though. We finally laid out the grid for the square-foot...

Good Morning All, I hope you all had a great weekend. This weekend we had a relaxing day at home Saturday and did absoultely nothing and then Sunday we went to church in the morning, did some shopping, and worked in the yard the rest of the afternoon and ended the day with dinner at The Feedlot (those in the Wichita Falls area should definitely check them out!) I am so excited to get the gardening under way and I wanted to talk about the method that I have chosen for my gardening. I like using the square-foot gardening method. You should google it. Essentially you make a 4x4 raised bed about 6" high and use a good soil mix. You can piece together your own or use the mix sold by the creator of the square-foot gardening method. I, of course, use my own. I made 3- 4x4 boxes this past week with landscape timbers that I found for less than $2 a piece at Home Depot and then lashed them together to make my boxes. I am doing 2- 3 timber high and 2- 2 timber high. The first thing I...

How many of us hate throwing away a holey pair of jeans? I know I do. It seems that with the money we spent on them they should last forever and I hate throwing them away. I saw a very cute idea on how to turn your old jeans into a gardening apron and since it is gardening season I thought this was an appropriate recycle use of them. All you need to do this project is 5 minutes, your old jeans, and a pair of good scissors. 1. Once you have all of that lay our your jeans back side up and cut off the legs of the pants leaving the seat (butt) of the jeans intact. 2. Turn jeans over to front side and start cutting just under the waistband... cutting above the zipper but below the button...cut all the way to the side seam and repeat on the other side. When done you should have two "straps" that consist of the waistband with button and button hole. 3. Next, cut down along the side seam, essentially removing the rest of t...

Hello All, As most of you know, by now, I am starting worm composting for several reasons. Reason #1 - Compost! Worm compost is GREAT for your garden! Worm compost, also called worm castings, is a great additive for your garden. Reason #2 - Minimizing what my family adds to the landfills That's a lot of "crap" hahaha get it!  Worms are great at taking many things and turning it into rich compost. I have learned through researching that worms will eat almost anything! Fruits and Veggies, newspaper (not comics, no colors), cardboard, even coffee grinds (filter and all) but add eggshells to balance out PH in bin, and tea bags (remove staple). I have even heard that they will turn dryer lint into compost! What!?! Who would have thought that? Reason #3 - Its cool! Love playing in the dirt! I don't know about you but I know I loved playing in the dirt when I was a kid. Even now, why do you think gardening is so enjoyable? Adults love playing in th...