May 25, 2008

A lot of threads have started up lately about the economy, inflation, gas prices, etc.  And they're all right.  We should be concerned.  We should be driving less, consuming locally and above all, growing what I guess is called Kitchen Gardens.  I just called a garden, but if you really want to be technical, it's a garage garden because it's closer to the garage than my kitchen, hehe.  All I can say is other than going out of my way to consume locally, I'm doing everthing I can to do my part. I have been taking mass transit to work for five years, I insulated my attic this winter to use less natural gas to heat my home.  And smart or lucky, I became an avid veggetable gardener right BEFORE the economy tanked.  Now what I can be thankful of is that with that one decision I can save my family thousands of dollars in the costs of fresh veggies this year alone!  More if I produce enough to freeze.  Now I just need to convince 200 million others to join me and we'll beat this thing.  No problem. hehe.

Well, today was another hot and sunny day.  It didn't start out that way, so I thankfully got most of the branches shredded before it heated up.  We didn't prune any more bushes today, but we did clean up the yard nicely.  With a nice clear yard I took the opportunity to pull out the sand box (now I need to fill it so they can dig someplace safe), and the kiddy pool.  They insisted on me adding water to it so they splashed around a bit. 

So all of the branches went into the chipper and then into my compost bin, except for the big stuff that couldn't fit into the household chipper we've got.  Frankly I think with the mixture of browns and greens I've got in the compost I'm not worried about it.  I just bucked up the big stuff and am sending it off to let Cedar Grove have a crack at it.  Then I watered it down a bit to keep it moist (the temp was just over 160 in a few spots today so I wanted to cool it down a bit, but not stop the process). 

Today was more about family than garden, but I did get out and pick up something I've been wanting for a while. It's an Oregon Scientific wireless weather forecaster and multi-station temperature gage.  I'll have one outside in my garden area, one in my kids room and one at my computer.  I've got an ancient thermometer outside that is broken because it constantly under-reads the highs and over-reads the lows.  Not that I'm complaining since it came with the house we bought over a decade ago.  This is taking temperature into the 20th century at least.  It's one step down from the folks on Weather Underground where they have normal folks like me install mini-weather stations in their backyards with the real-time information sent back over the internet to people that want to know about it in their area. I use it all the time, but now I'll know what the weather's doing, and even have a good idea what it's going to do in the near future.

As for my garden, I've got some decisions to make. I've got five to ten SF of open space to figure out what to plant. I'd planned on 8 SF of bush beans, but I don't think I want that many at 9/SF, and besides they don't seem to be doing very well. Even germinating them inside isn't sprouting a good rate, and the sprouts are looking a tad sickly. So I've cut my spacing down to 4 SF, so I've got 4 SF in bed #2 behind the broccoli. The 2 SF next to the carrots in bed #1 will definitely get more carrots since they're like radishes in that you pick and they're gone, hehe. But I've still got 3 SF in front of my pole beans that I don't know what do do with. They were going to be extra space for the tomatoes to grow, but now I've got to figure out what to plant there. Finally, I don't want more lettuce so the 4 ish SF I didn't plant of lettuce in the front of bed #2 are open.  The reason I don't want more lettuce is that we're having difficulty keeping up with the growth as it is. Hehe tonight we had a huge salad to go with corn dogs and french fries... yeah we're forcing salad. hehe

The only pic I've got today is one of my peas.  They love the new trellis. I used their tendrils to latch on to the trellis and they grabbed on for dear life!



Oh, and see what I meean by the bush beans in the middle there?  I germinated them inside and planted only the ones that had little sprouts!  What gives?!?

Anyway, at this point my to-do list isn't done, but other than mowing tomorrow I don't think it will get done. I'm not sure I want a second compost bin, it would take up too much space, and unless I move the current bin, putting a door on it will be difficult because it will hit the swingset stand and not open enough.  Besides, these days when I mention a to-do list to my wife she just rolls her eyes...

Finally, I've been seeing bumble bees all season, but with the blooming of my rhodies, I've finally started seeing honey bees. YAY!  Let's hope they stick around for when they need to polinate my fruits and veggies.

Enjoy your garden!