Finding Inspiration

Around this time of the year gardening can get to be a bit of a drag. The weeds seem to be winning, watering is constant, and yesterdays almost perfect zucchini is the size of your leg today. It all begins to cast doubt on your gardening prowess. Especially when you ponder Martha's perfectly manicured and bug free cabbage heads. Well friends, I am here to tell you that if we could hire staff and gardening was our full time job, we too could boast a weed free garden worthy of awards! Regardless I am going to guess that despite the weeds, bugs and unstaked tomato's you still have more squash than you can handle and the tomato's are to die for! So reward yourself. Spend the heat of the day looking through garden books for ideas and not a reason to criticize yourself. Another option: your local botanical garden. Look for ideas, plant combinations, artistic placement and something to remind you why you like to garden.

Rain

There is something really sublime about watching mother nature do your chores. A fabulous rain brings lots of nutrients and growth! Thank you, I needed a break from my chores! Maybe now I can spend some time on preservation of garden crops. I wish you all a very full rain barrel!

Plants on Sale

One of my favorite frugal outings is to scan the clearance rack at the big box stores for plants. This is really nothing to be afraid of if you know what you are doing. 1) Know your plant material. Never buy something that you are not sure will survive your climate in the first place. 2) Take a look at the roots.

Often the plant material can look pretty sad up on top due to irregular watering or just being past its seasonal prime. I always recommend you pop the plant out of its pot and take a look at the root ball. Healthy plants will show some white root growth and will never smell rotten. Today I picked up three sedum for $1.00 each and 1 basket geranium for $2.75. The sedum were a steal. The only reason they look bad is because they are just past their flowering season and look rangy as a result. The geranium just needs a little dead heading to replace one of my peat baskets that got too dry and died. The geranium will also over winter nicely in the greenhouse! Go forth and save!

Old School Cucumber Salad

Just like my mom made it.

Slice up about 6 lg cucumbers not too thick
Slice up a small onion real thin
Add some ground pepper
Approximately 3/4 to one cup sugar
White Vinegar to cover

Put in fridge to "cure" a day or two (that is of course if you can wait that long!)

Plumbing

I spent quite a bit of time at home last week with a sick little one. As a result I decided to tackle a few nagging projects. Often I put things off because I think I don't know what I am doing. Its a lot easier to just drown yourself in research and thought then actually tackle the project. My week of action resulted in the replacement of the outer door trim where it had rotted away. It took all of about 30 minutes to remove, replace and caulk. I probably spent more time painting it to look nice which then resulted in painting of the door to make it look nice too. Now the side entry is back to looking like something besides a ramshackle shack! I also replaced the faucet in the kitchen sink. Another item that had taken to dripping. If you have paid a plumber to do this you would be embarrassed at how easy it was. Turn off water. Remove everything in pretty much logical order and then replace. The new faucet comes with instructions in case you need them. I only had a little bit of mystery surrounding the plumbers putty. In the end. I probably didn't even need it. I'll have some for next time! Now I have no excuses for not tackling the bathroom faucet! I also spent quite a bit of time painting the trim from the window replacements that were done over two years ago. I don't think we realize how all these unfinished things cause stress in our lives. My door is beautiful. My faucet is awesome. My windows are worthy of opening the drapes. Life is good and I am empowered! What's the longest you have left something unfinished?

Compost Demystified

Composting seems to be somewhat of a confusing topic/task for a lot of people.
I am hear to tell you that it is nothing to burn internet hours over! Basically if you throw a banana peel on the ground, it will become compost. The amount of time it will take will depend greatly on the environmental conditions where you leave it but none the less, it will eventually compost or decompose. Same thing. My set up is of course, cheap. I used seven pallets and some old 2x6's to create a three bay set up.

Why three bays? That is the amount of space I was willing to lend to the project and seemed like it might make a decent contribution to the garden. I'll give you that it is not pretty but, it draws little attention, is easy to work with, cheap and can look prettier if vines are grown over it. I prefer morning glories. There are many recipes out there for layering, turning, temperatures and timing etc. I am hear to tell you that it really doesn't matter. The more effort you put in, the faster things will go and the more compost you will get. On the other hand, if you just pile it all in the bin and do absolutely nothing, you will still get compost. I will give you just a few basic rules to remember: 1)Stay away from meat and dinner scraps. The only thing this will do is add smell and stray animals. 2) The pile does need moisture to decompose. You can wait on mother nature or add some. Its up to you. 3)Turn the pile. Air will help speed the process. You decide if you want to go with biweekly, monthly, yearly etc. 4)Composting can be done with a shovel. You don't need to contain it if you don't want to, just make a pile. 5)All plant material is fair game. If you have copious amounts of seeded weeds you may want to send those to the trash. No branches larger than your ipod cord. That is about it. It can be as easy or as intensive as you choose to let it get. But don't let the excuse of hard work get in your way.

Progress

When we first purchased this home it needed a lot of landscaping. We spent the first year removing trash, debris, half dead, dead and
unwanted plant material. Every summer about this time I whine a bit about how it seems like things have not come very far. My husband always reminds me of the physical tasks we have done for the season. When the computer went down we had to reload all of our photos and came across the one above. Compared to today. We really have come a long way! I am reminded that real progress takes time and that a tree is not grown in a day.

There is certainly still a lot of work to be done and it is easy to get discouraged when the progress must be measured in years instead of weeks. I suppose what I really want to say is, stick with it!