GMO's

I was really at a loss as to what to write about today. I had several ideas, but just didn’t feel like going into any of them! My funk has spread beyond just my creativity.

So I got to looking at this …

apparently the pic is gone & I dont recall what it was.

Learning more about GMO’s is on my list all the time. I don’t like what I read. It scares me. I really don’t want people messing with my food just to make it more resistant to pests or something. Leave it alone. I grew my garden this year without any help from pesticides or un-natural things. I used natural things to fertilize. I used organic seeds or plant starts. Everything grew fine when it was given the right growing conditions. Now, I understand in some areas there are more bugs, or whatever… but everything has built up a resistance… because we keep using all this poisonous crap.

When I shop, I try to buy organic as much as I can. The GMO issue is among the reasons for this. Knowing what is likely to be GMO & what isn’t, helps me to see what I need to buy organic & what I can get conventional if need be.

One of the things mentioned is soy. I don’t like it to begin with because of things I’ve read in the past, but if I buy it or see it as an ingredient in something, it will be organic.

There is a list out there that tells you what ingredients & companies you can trust to use non GMO stuff. I’ll have to find it. For today, take a look at this picture, & give some thought to what you eat ….

Feeling new life by taking life ...

I’ve been busy the past couple days & I’m kinda at a loss for what to write about for today. I think this short bit about time in the yard will do nicely tho…

We (my hubby & I) did a bit more yard work Saturday afternoon. Even tho we were taking down trees, it felt rewarding. The area of the yard we’re working on has been neglected for years by previous tenants. We’re now trying to fix that by bringing some life back to the hillside. It has overgrown & gotten full of weedy tree saplings. There are several juniper bushes that I imagine used to look beautiful. Now, they are more than half dead from bad cutting, lack of light & water & neglect. It’s like that with everything back there. It feels choked when you stand before the hillside.
Yesterday, when we took down another couple of the trees, I felt life come back. I felt less of that choking feeling. I felt like even tho we took the lives of those trees, the hillside said thank you.
I watched a robin dance from tree branch to tree branch as we clipped away the weedy ones. Even the robin seemed happy with our efforts.

All I know, is that it felt good to be outside. I felt like a small part of me was reconnecting with the Earth.

Making growing containers

So anyways, I mentioned recently I would share how we made the cool container for gardening. I first saw this on the wonderful Instructableswebsite a couple years ago. Showed it to my hubby & we agreed it would be a fun idea to try. It was fairly simple, & up here in Washington, it worked great. I mention that because the first try was when we were in Florida for a summer. It didn’t work out so well down there. Didn’t really explore the reasons why very much since we knew we’d be back here.

this is how it will all fit together

Obviously, to make this easy, I’m sharing a lot of pictures. You can see that we built a matching set. We got 2 deep totes (w/lids, needed, but I left em outa the pictures), 2 shallow totes, 2 pond plant baskets, 4 small metal rods (not pictured, oops) & a length of PVC pipe to be cut to size. Then all you need is something to cut holes in the lids & bottoms. It’s pretty easy to see how it goes together looking at the pictures.

The small hole about half way down on the one end is the drain hole. It should be located just as where the bottom of the shallow tote sits when nestled together. This is located on the same end as the PVC fill pipe. The fill pipe has a slanted bottom so it fills without backing up. The height is up to you really, as long as it comes thru the lid. We opted for 5 holes in each lid. You can do less if you like depending on what you plan to plant.

PVC pipe hole & basket cutout

To write out all the directions would make this so long. If the pictures don’t explain enough, feel free to email me (HerbsnChocolate@Gmail.com) & I’ll happily explain any part!

drain/overflow hole

Once you have all the cuts made & everything assembled, you want to fill the basket with dirt. Then keep filling until you are just below the top. Be sure you have the fill pipe in place!!! Now the website I got this from had several people saying to use only a specific blend of soil. I kinda followed that the first time, in FL. We did not have wonderful results. Up here in WA I used just good store bought soil along with some soil amendment mix stuff. It worked great. I think the key is keeping it watered, and sunlight!

So if you try this, I’d love to know what your results are like … Ours were great this year & we plan to use both containers next year along with maybe one or two more! 

 Basket in place, PVC fill pipe in place.

Rods get pushed thru the basket holes so the baskets stay in place better. Lip of the basket is on the inside, rest of basket & rods, underneath. Only cut the square big enough for the basket to fit thru, not the lip of the basket.

Hole drilled in lid for PVC pipe. Holes drilled for plants to grow thru. I dont suggest more than 5 unless you are growing something that is really small/compact, or trails off onto the ground.

with the lid on, we made indents to match the holes. take lid off, plant plants. carefully put lid back on, pulling plants thru holes as needed.

this was the FL planting. a varied crop.

The planted version, in Florida 2010. You can see the WA 2011 version  in the last post.

Talking about gardening ...

Today I want to talk about our garden. Well, what there was of it anyway. We began with the best of intentions, with the limited knowledge & money that we had. We figured planting in the ground, along our fence would be a great start & easy to keep up with since everything would be easily accessible. We waited until frost had passed & began to put organic & heirloom plants in the ground. Before the plants came lots of tilling by hand & a few added bags of help.Thru the whole season, we used only natural & organic things to help our efforts. No chemicals!<!-- more -->

We were excited. Took pictures of everything all newly planted & waited. And waited. Even with proper watering & fertilizing, things were beyond slow to grow. Come to find out later on, we were not the only ones having a lack of growth. The cooler spring weather made the Earth warm much slower. And even tho air temps were fine, ground temps were less than ideal for growth. Eventually, we did get growth for at least the tomato plants. All the peppers, carrots, radishes, lettuce & chives died. Go figure. 

So we learned that growing in either raised beds or containers would be the way to go. Not only could we ensure more sun for the plants in containers, but their root systems would get more warmth for sure! Along the edge of our patio area, we placed a couple of containers. In one we put 4 rescued, clearance priced tomato plants. In the other we put 5 clearance priced pepper plants. What’s the worst that could happen? We get green but no fruit? Well, far from it! Both containers have shown awesome growth & lots of fruit!

Our ground tomatoes did provide a decent harvest as well, just not nearly what could have been. We’re already so excited about next season, when we’ll have multiple containers along the patio edge.

The one thing that seemed to do fin in the ground was all the herbs we planted. And since they are all perennial, they will stay & hopefully come back next year even bigger. I’m looking at snipping a bunch here shortly to dry.

I think I’ll share how we made the Rubbermaid container for the peppers. All the images today are of the awesome progress of the container plants. Look for that one the 8^th!

Just when you think life is good ...

Funny how life can change in an instant. Just when you think life is going along just fine, wham.

I should elaborate.

Life has been going along the past few weeks on fairly positive notes, with a few kinks here & there. It seemed the kinks were nothing any of us couldn’t handle.

I’ve mentioned how I feel like the red headed step child when it comes to the market. Well, Saturday things went rather well on a personal note at the market. No, I didn’t have anything cool like record sales. I did get some of my new bookmarks made. I even sold one. Got many compliments on them as well. My day was good for a few reasons. I saw the cold shoulder I was getting from “them” but it didn’t matter. I was in a fantastic mood for no particular reason. To start the day, I located my assigned spot, which was on the opposite side of the row from normal. Wow. I wanna be on this side always. The energy on this side felt so much better. A record number of people came into my space. People noticed, commented on & asked questions about my coasters. I sold 2 smaller sale prints, one new book mark and 8 of the other ones! It only amounted to $36, but I was happy. Along with the sales, came some nice conversation, visiting with my market neighbor who turns out we have allot in common, some friends came to hang out, the sun was shining… a good day. Money wise it still wasn’t worth my time, but all the rest more than made up for things.

One of the things I got to talking about with my neighbor there was the idea of having our own store at the mall for the holidays. All Etsy crafters. She loved the idea. Mention was made to another fellow Etsy crafter who also sells at the market. She loved the idea too. Both are ready to take part, give the time required and the money. Things were ready for me to move forward with. This felt great since Connie & I had sat & brain stormed about the thought of this last week. We talked about details, big things, options, everything.

After the market, we (me, Tim & Connie) went to a newly discovered, small, hippie vintage clothing store. We brought along 2 of the friends who had spent time with us at the market. It was fun. I didn’t buy anything, but Connie & one of the girls we brought did.

So … I had a wonderful weekend. Saturday evening was … Oh My Goddess good.

I spent allot of time recently thinking about how things have been going. I was looking forward to talking to the people at the mall. I was happy to have such a positive response to my new book marks. I was making new connections in various things. Life was good. We’ve even been thinking about truly checking into the house next to our friend that has been empty & for sale for quite some time. He seems to feel he has some connections that may help us out.

Today was a good day too. I was again in a good mood for no particular reason. Things were going well. Life was good for the most part. Connie & I went & ran some errands this morning before heading to the mall to meet with Stacey. We got to go in & see the space, walk thru it, & ask questions. It looked like everything was falling into place & going to work out well.

We came home, relaxed a bit & I headed out to water the plants. Moved a few from the too sunny back deck area back to the side & front where the rest of the potted plants were. Cleaned up some that were dying, in hopes that they are salvageable. Got the hose out & watered the heck out of everything. Connie came out & helped to get the huge hollyhocks cut back. We have a bunch of seeds saved for next year when hopefully we have our own yard to plant them in. We have plenty to even share with friends. This is the only way our big ass trash receptacle ever gets full. We put bunches of stalks in there. So in cleaning everything up, we found that there are new shoots coming up!! YAY!! What a fun surprise. We cleaned things up so that some of the self seeded sunflowers could have room to grow.

Then as we were cleaning up … Tim came home. Our lives were about to change. Fast.

After the typical Hi honey I’m home stuff… he asks me how I’d feel about him working a swing shift. Possibly from like 2 to 10. Sounded good to me. But … what about all the overtime?? No more. No more overtime. Gone. 3 months before we were ready. We knew that come late fall, the overtime would pretty much disappear until spring. But we had plans in place for that. By the time the OT went away, the mall money would cover it. Then income tax time comes to help us thru till the OT kicks back in. Well. Guess not.

I’m kind of in shock. I haven’t spoken more than a few words all evening. To anyone. I know it’s not his fault. Whether he went to swing shift or not, the overtime was going away. Now, they are trying this out to see how it works. Neither of us can see any reason why it won’t work. They have some huge jobs that need to be done so they are hiring 3 new guys and splitting everyone up into 2 shifts. I asked if he asked for a raise since he was the one out of the group who was turning his life upside down with the shift change. He said he hadn’t asked. I said he should. So he says he will. He even felt it was worth a shot to ask. Even a $2 an hour raise won’t make up for the OT he’s been getting but it would help make the transition a bit easier. We’ll see.

Right now I’m ever so thankful we have Connie here to help. Without her help, within a month we’d be up shit creek, without any paddles.

I know something has to change. I just have to figure out what & how. How do I find work that’s temporary … since the beginning of November we are supposed to go on vacation to Florida, and then I’m supposed to do the mall? So I look for something and say I just need something from now till the end of October.

One thought is to actively pursue the Leavenworth Art in the Park. But I don’t have enough stock to get started right now. And obviously, don’t have the money this moment to make more stock. This rock & hard place crap is getting old.

Somehow, this has happened for a reason. Somehow, we’ll make it thru this too. I’m just not sure how right now.

Rambling

Well, it hasn’t been quite a week this time. Wow. I feel better writing about my dad. It doesn’t change anything or fix anything, but I can move on & think about other stuff.

So what the heck am I doing sitting in front of the computer on a beautiful Sunday afternoon? I don’t know exactly. We’re hoping to be able to finally see the inside of the house we’re supposed to rent soon, today. She was supposed to call about noon. Nothing. Not surprising, as she is rarely punctual. I called her at home about 1230. Left a voicemail. Called just after 1pm, on her cell phone. Left voicemail. About 130, I sent her an email. That about covers the bases with her. I don’t really wanna plan anything because you know we’d be out somewhere & she’d call. So, Tim went to visit with Joe for a bit. Before that, we watered all the plants inside & out together. Then we weeded around the hollyhocks, which are taller than either of us now! One bloom has actually finally come out. Looks like another will be soon too. There are tons of buds, about 95% of them still closed tight. I cant wait for them to really start blooming. Before the plant watering … we took a nice shower together. Kinda the only way to get some when the unwanted visitor is here.

Not too much to talk about this week. It just kind of went by. We launched our big Green Bag program at the market yesterday. That was cool. You can read about it here if you want. The day in general sucked ass. It was windy all morning. Lovely gusts came thru randomly all morning long. It was not fun for several of us this time, not just me. My display in general held up rather well. Much better than lasts years would have. People came by ooh-ing & ahh-ing all day. I sold one bookmark. Yup. Cost us $5 to be there again. I don’t think it’s anything I’m doing or not doing. I think it’s a little of the supply & demand bug. It doesn’t explain why other people sell, but I don’t know what else to tell myself. I’m hoping the tourists will come down & find me soon.

Oh, I went & got my hair redone on Thursday. I feel so much better. Tim likes it better too. And Connie says it looks nicer this time too. I washed it for the first time today so we’ll see how it holds up now.