Gone Feral In Idaho

The wildfire smoke has been horrible this year, the worst in my 10+ years in Boise. The heat has been pretty bad as well. At least its a dry heat? Walter Pagels  First multiple bloom on the pink lily  Multi-colored tomatoes Tomato pergola in full swing

This is the first bloom of my new Walter Pagels mini white water lily. It was named after a aquatic plant guru Walter Pagels . This is a fitting new plant for me because I had a turning point in water gardening this year. I no longer was shopping for plants to fill in for the plant department of the tanks that hold my fish, I became really interested in the different types of plants and perhaps overwintering more and keeping them year after year. This year I ordered several types of plants online. I have flowing green strap-like, red leafy, and furry looking green underwater plants. I have two hardy lilies, the generic yet bountiful pink water lily and this new one. I've got tiny little floating plants that the fish like to eat that used to provide shade until the younger plants grew in. I also have a huge canna lily, a horsetail rush, and a dwarf cattail. I hope to make a major expansion next year if we find a house this fall. 

I love this guys stuff.

The tomato pergola is coming along nicely. All 14 plants are being pruned to 1-2 vines only for each. The horizontal aspect is now under way, we'll se how they tolerate it. We did the upside down tomato before and it did well, so I'm hoping this method is a good solution for the plants growing taller than their stakes. We will cut off the growing tips later in the season to promote the ripening of the fruit that is already established before the first cold snap. 

We got our first tomato harvest on Sunday. These are (not quite ripe) White Queens, Honey Bunch, and an Egg Yolk. Since then we've gotten a few Pearly Pinks and a Black Cherry, but I ate them before getting pictures. I turned them into a little salad by cutting them up, lightly salting in a colander to get extra moisture out, then tossed them with oregano, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. This is one of my favorite ways to eat tomatoes. My other fave is with a few drops of truffle oil, basil, and fresh mozzarella. To me cucumber salad and tomato salad are the epitome of the taste of summer. Forget hamburgers, home grown tomatoes with a few simple ingredients are the best on a hot day. I also had the bright idea of building a tomato pergola. We knew the plants would reach far above their 6' stakes, so we made a trellis for them to grow across before we cut off the growing tips in about a month. So far I am keeping all my tomatoes pruned to only two vines per plant and ...

I loved the original . I hope this is good. Lets Kickstart this project!

DIY LED Light Show First I have so many people to thank for their help with this project. Homey Da Clown, Fritz42, Pshort, Gorak, and many more helped me figure out how to make the project work.  For information on Arduino, look it up on the web, Vixen Lights is free software that you can download. DIY Christmas is a great forum to use as a resource. They have forums on Vixen and even some on using Arduino with Vixen. As you will see, I am no electrician, but want to explain how I did this project for others that might be a bit intimidated. I say that if you don’t know what to fear about failure helps you charge headstrong into the unknown. You might even learn something. My goal last year was to have several discreet channels of led spotlights that I could dim and turn on and off with some spooky sounds. I had no idea where to start. I basically wanted a Light-O-Rama setup on the cheap and DIY. If you didn’t know LOR setups can cost thousands of dollars. I also wanted to po...