Tomato Hornworm

I was about to tie a top heavy tomato branch to the cage when I saw this thing and almost had a heart attack.  The Boyfriend picked it off, branch and all.  It ate an entire row of cherry tomatoes.  Well, not an entire one, you can still see a part of the last one on that row in this pic.

Look at its mouth!  I think it has big jaws and teeth!  Argh!

We didn't have the heart to kill it, so he relocated it across the street in the woods.  A little google-ing led me to discover it's called a Tomato Hornworm and would eventually turn into a huge moth.  Additionally, they leave behind poop droppings similar to rodents and can be found amidst your garden via black light at night.  There is also a man on gardenweb (I think) who will pay for the shipping if you mail him them.

IKEAfans Video of New IKEA Kitchen Products

If you've never checked out IKEAfans site and you're doing anything w/ IKEA products, you're crazy. They are awesome and helpful and have tons of info on their site. They recently posted a link to a youtube video they did about the new kitchen products. Check it out!

IKEA NYC Fan Event

We almost didn't go because of the torrential downpour, but we parked in Hoboken, hopped the PATH and hoped for the best. We were early and being a mommy blogger didn't get me into the media viewing time slot, so we walked around the city for a while, then got in line. Yes there was a line. I wasn't expecting one...duh.

Let me say that I wish the people that worked at the IKEA in Elizabeth could be half as happy and friendly as the people working this event. Everyone was super nice.

Yes, that's us "in a drawer." When in Rome...

A lot of stuff makes it into my house. Not much makes it out.

Everyone writing about the new 2011 IKEA Catalog shows pics of these salt and pepper shakers. Their pics are better. I don't care. I'm posting my pic anyway.

Apparently kids like their own dining options. I like the pastel kid sized dining stuff, but I know, they're not new.

I liked these magnetic circles. Pretty pics. Great option if you like to print your photos but you don't necessarily want to stick them in an album.

I was sure these were picture frames. Now I'm not so sure...

New bathroom stuff for people with very small bathrooms.

I thought this was cute. My kid could hang her five million bead necklaces instead of leaving them on the floor.

There were drinks and hor d'oeuvres. Huge AC units working very hard to not let us die from heat stroke. A woman from Better Homes & Gardens spoke, as well as some IKEA people. Someone from IKEAfans was there, but we ducked out. It was getting too hot for me.

They even gave us some pretty awesome gift bags.

All in all a fun afternoon. But I have to say, I kinda underwhelmed by the new stuff. There wasn't a lot of new or innovative items. I struggled to figure out what to take pics of that you guys wouldn't have already seen in an old catalog.

They did give us advance copies of the new catalog. Again...okay. I think it's all that anticiaption for the new catalog that makes you expect a lot. A handful of new things just isn't enough.

Anyway, we ended out evening with a walk through Hoboken and dinner at Bangkok City Thai Restaurant....very good food btw.

Our Garden in July

When we drove down to pick up the baby, I was worried about how the drought would affect the garden. Well, it didn't...I came home to this jungle. It was pretty awesome.

(BTW if there's a big weird white box around the pics, I didn't do that. Idk what's up with Blogger but uploading pics is taking forever, so I had to do it through Picassa and the white boxes won't go away.)

The best part was finally finding out what I planted since I forgot to label the new batches of seedlings and it was all going to a surprise until stuff grew. I wouldn't recommend this method, but I got lucky that it all worked out.

Bell peppers. Great, but they seem to be getting brown splotches...

One summer squash and one zucchini.

I thought these two were cucumbers. Apparently, I know nothing.

I thought this was a zucchini but it turned out to be a acorn squash.

I have three pole bean plants, but two big ones have no beans and are being surrounded by spaghetti squash vines, while this little one won't stop growing beans.

Can you spot the two bean plants amidst the squash?

There's quite a few spaghetti squash but I noticed some squash bugs in there today. I should probably do something about that...

And man do we have tomatoes. Lots and lots of tomatoes. I don't know what kinds, but I guess we'll find out. So far the only red ones are the cherries.

It was so sad the beginning of the season when everything was so small. But now that it's all lush and full, I'm so loving it.

What's Growing in Our Garden

After we left to drop the Peanut off w/ the family in AL, many of my seedlings didn't do well. So I stuck a bunch of seeds in two ten gallon fish tanks. Worked great! Unfortunately my lazy ass didn't label anything so I have no real clue what's what. Here are my guesses...

Obviously tomatoes. I either have a bunch of varieties or...well, who knows.

I love these tiny bell peppers! Too cute.

I think we started with six cantaloupe plants. Four survived. They are slowly taking over.

Amidst this bunch is a cantaloupe, some kind of zucchini, I think and possibly watermelon.

The spaghetti squash is competing with the cantaloupe. I think they're going to wind up having a turf war. Or they're just going to scale the fences and make a break for it.

Peas. I should've planted more than the ten or twenty I did. Next year for sure.

Pole beans...string beans...french beans...I'm not sure...

It's hard to tell, but I have five? cucumber plants there...a couple of regular cucumbers and a couple of pickling cukes. Definitely going to pickle stuff this year.

If you were around last year, you know my garden was much smaller. The Boyfriend dug it out...it's about 20x25. Give or take. I didn't plan it out as well as I usually do, but I figured this is a learning year. Once I get a better idea of the plants sizes, it'll be easier to create a more efficient layout next year. Regardless, I'm happy to have so much space!

Wanna Be Weed Free? Get an Action Hoe!

I kinda suck at weeding. All that squatting, hand picking nonsense. Blah But this year...look at my garden! Weed free, baby.

The Boyfriend came up with a pretend holiday...because I'm super cheap but he knows he can spend whatever on something for me if it's a holiday, yes, I'm aware I have issues...

So I told him about stirrup hoes, which I never heard of before. And he found this Ames Action Hoe at Home Depot. You basically just run it along the ground and it cuts the first inch of soil killing weeds that are there and preventing new ones from growing.

Stop by and I'll give you an infomercial-type demonstration of it! It's kinda lame how much I love this thing. Garden pics coming soon.