Thursday, January 19, 2012

Snow Day...again.

There was a young man long ago (I'm paraphrasing here from memory of years ago) who being tired for one reason or another went to sleep. The warmth of his body caused an acorn residing in the ground he slept on to germinate and grow. When the young man woke he found himself 60' in the air in the branches on a tall oak. Seeing that he couldn't descend he said, "I cannot adapt my circumstances to myself, so I must adapt myself to my circumstances." He then enjoyed the view. The reason I tell you this story, is that it was me this morning. Since I cannot adjust the snow to my will, I'll enjoy the snow - well, not so much snow as icy, snowy stuff.
The result is a morning ramble with the dogs and another short video. I hope you enjoy it.








I did do some constructive gardening today. As part of an early start to a year around garden, I ordered and received two heating mats with thermostats and two 4' grow lamps. I also purchased two benches from Costco. Putting them altogether, they look like this.



So the point is that at certain intervals, you can look at my previous post,Gardening by the book..., to find out what the intervals are, I will plant each plant and then transplant into the garden for early and sustained crops. I am supposed to wait until January 27th for the first planting of asparagus and broccoli, but time was heavy upon my restless shoulders, and I jumped the gun. I will just plant them in the cold frame when they are ready a bit early. The dirt squares are made by that silver gadget on the left and all you have to do is to plant the square when it comes time. Sweet...and yes that is a re purposed wine bottle. White wine is just water, red wine is water with some type of fertilizer.









So, I hope you pac northwesterners enjoy or at least survive the snow and the rest have a jolly day.

4 comments:

  1. could you please let me know from where you ordered the lights and the heat mat? Everywhere I look, they are way too expensive.

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    1. I bought the lights and heat mats from Johnny's Seeds. I agree that they all are way too expensive, but my (wrong or right) logic on this is if I have it for 5-10 years, dividing the cost over those years isn't quite as bad. My original plan, but then my wife bought me the lights for my birthday, was to buy nice mats. Appx $100 dollars. My mom said that she has over heated some of her squash plants so I bought the thermostat for one, $40, to keep the temp sensitive plants on. Buy a 4' two bulb light fixture from home depot and install one grow bulb and one full spectrum light bulb. It was going to be around $35. The little trays can be bought for 5 for $5 from walmart. I also got the block maker from Johnny's seeds. This as $30, but I won't have to buy new peat or cow pots every year, so this will pay for itself. If you have any more questions, please don't hesitate to ask. I am definetly making investments this year, but plan on them paying off with organic veggies all year for the next 5 years... but I could be totally wrong?!!?

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  2. How did you like the block maker? I absolutely will use nothing else. The plants are so healthy and there seems to be less transplant shock.

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    1. It is great! I still haven't mixed the eliot coleman magic dirt recipe, (all of the compost and dirt was frozen) but I have the ingredients and will be using that. Transplanting will be a breeze!

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