Articles by Janet Brien

Despite the attacks from insects and ground squirrels, my raised bed garden has flourished and is an Eden-oasis in the middle of our bone-dry property!

Maybe the only way to get rid of these ants is to blow up the house...

Steve and I have wanted to grow pumpkins and gourds ever since we moved to southern Oregon, but something always got in the way. This year I finally got started at the right time and with Steve's help, we have a pumpkin patch!

The bugs and critters have discovered my seedlings and they are laying waste to many of my precious little ones!

This adorable but detrimental ground squirrel is drinking water out of one of the dishes we put out for the birds. Raised Bed Garden, 1 Month Update: The Bad (and the sad) When I was preparing my raised bed, I discovered that many ground squirrel tunnels had been dug through the soft dirt. Although I danced merrily up and down on all the tunnels I found, I knew that sooner or later, I'd be dealing with these adorable menaces that end up being heart-aches. About a w…

There are new kids showing their faces, and the seedlings that popped up first are getting a lot bigger!

My husband is an amazing cook and he loves to have fresh herbs when possible. I thought to myself, "How hard could it be to make some room for an herb garden?"

This beautiful seedling is a King Henry Hollyhock! There are 6 other seedlings and since I took this picture, each is showing off their second set of leaves. (I also have a section of Black Hollyhocks. Only one has sprouted so I will be planting more seeds in the hopes that more will germinate.) There's a Party Goin' On Round Here! I planted my garden two weeks ago last Monday, and a lot's been happening out there! It's really exciting to see seedlings push their way up and out of the g…

This is my master list of the flowers and bulbs I planted this year. I may add a sorted version below this one to identify which are annuals, biennials and perennials. I need to keep track of what species germinated (and how many?), which seem to be dead, and other notes. I may add pictures as they bloom or maybe I'll do that a different way. For now, this is my list. If you have experience with any of these flowers, I'd really be interested to know that you have to say! (Easy to grow, bugs eat…

One of the most exciting parts of a new flower garden is selecting and planting all of the different bulbs and seeds. As you'll see, I went completely bonkers with all of the choices available!

Even though I'd pulled all the weeds out, I still had a lot of work to do before I could plant seeds, but I was now a juggernaut of excitement because my dream was going to come true!

With the success of my front garden and metal feed trough planter, I began thinking about how nice it would be to have a large garden where I could plant many kinds of flowers. I realized that we already had the perfect spot, it just needed some work to prepare: our abandoned raised bed, originally built years ago for a one-time vegetable garden.

For the first time in my life, I'm going to have a big flower garden! I'm really excited and would like to share my adventure, so I'm going to write about my experience as it unfolds, beginning with a bit of history in this article—let's just say I I haven't always been a fan of gardening!

How many times has it happened to you that you've uploaded some pictures but they're not in the order you wanted? And then you can't figure out how to change the position, and you don't even know if it's possible to do? HOW FRUSTRATING!! ARGH!!! Trust me, I've been there...it's totally annoying! The good news is that you can change the order of your pictures easily once you understand how it works. This is how to do it: 1. Choose "Organize" at the top of the screen to the right of the…

Aperture Sets and Focus Stacking without Rails or Tripod (Prerequisite: You must now how to use Photoshop or another editing tool with the same capabilities)

Janet and Steve Brien diving off the coast of Cozumel, Mexico One of the many wonderful people I've met here on ipernity is my friend Jim Boynton (WJB1861) . He shares cool tidbits with each of his images, and he took a picture of a jellyfish which brought to mind a story about scuba diving. Here's the tale and his picture is below … ENJOY! There was a time when I was learning to dive off the coast of California, near Monterey. My husband was an…

My apologies for the long wait on this article! This is the next part to my Helpful Guide for Flickr Refugees. My aim is to get people up and running over here and in a happy place so you can make this your new home. Please read this article first!! Ninja Commenting vs. Thoughtful Commenting #1 Rule For Getting Comments and Visits: Reply to Your Comments!* We all love attention. But more than that, we want our pictures to be seen and appreciated. However, this is a tw…