The beginning of the end

Happy fall!

While my neighbors spent this afternoon mowing, edging, and blowing their lawns to impress the trick-or-treating neighbors (I just make sure there's nothing they can trip on, which usually means winding up the hose....and also -- doesn't anyone around here work??!), I spent today saying sayonara to the first tomato plants I ever planted from seed. Experiment officially over.

In August, I posted advice to myself for next year, specifically saying the following about tomatoes:

*Tomatoes can produce earlier in the season if started indoors before the Last Frost Date (LFD) of March 23rd. Same with peppers, squash, and other veggies. July 4th is my goal in 2008.
*To help prevent blossom end rot, amend finely crushed eggshells into the planting holes of tomatoes, squash, and pumpkins. "I will need a mortar and pestle for this," I keep telling Chris.
*Plant tomatoes ONE plant deep, leaving room for companion plantings such as basil and marigolds all around. It's too hard to harvest a messy tangle of tomato plants planted two deep.
*Cage tomatoes properly and early. VERY important!
*Prune suckers off tomato plants to help deter disease and pest problems.

I have a few more tidbits to add to my advice for next year's tomatoes:

*Be brutal with pruning tomato plants. No mercy!
*Thin fruit for best results.
*Clean up split and rotting fruit. Remember the swarming fruit flies? Yep. That's where they came from. And I need to wet down the compost bin.

Of course, I took before and after shots for comparison. Those are my favorite!

BEFORE + AFTER
Looking East







Looking WEST







The praying mantis in the peppers, last week and today. Same one - different colors! The second picture is blurry because it was doing the side-to-side swinging warning me of its disapproval of my proximity.

New Look + Blogger drives me up the wall

So I'm home today because I always take Halloween off of work. I don't feel like much gets done because adults are acting like children (and that's totally ok -- have I mentioned that I really love Halloween?! I really do!). Plus, it's fun to decorate at home and just take a "me" day to do whatever I want. Chris is really sweet about it too -- I don't have to do anything but enjoy myself he says.

So I spent this morning overhauling my blog's colors again, and trying to put a header picture in. It originally showed up in IE, but not Firefox, and now it's not showing up at all, and I can't even choose to have a picture instead of the crappy default header info! I hate Blogger sometimes, and I know this week has been particularly bad with uploads and such, or so I heard from other folks.

So here is what my header picture should look like. If you can see the TRUE header at the TOP OF THE SCREEN, please let comment and tell me what browser you're using.

Maybe it will fix itself. I hope so.

Have a safe and happy Halloween!

Life ..... zoom!

I can't believe it's been nearly 2 weeks since my last post. (Again, sounding like an AA meeting here).

I can't tell if I'm on or off of the wagon, but I plan to resume my frivolous postings again soon.

School + life have been like zoom zoom lately! All is well, see you tomorrow.

Katie

"Yeah, I'm kind of a big deal." aka. Junkmail superheroes!

So I subscribe to this service called GreenDimes. For my original investment of $15, they have stopped my junkmail flood to barely a trickle. It's unimaginable how much of our environmental resources are taken up by a the junkmail industry. Really, quite scary.

For example, per GreenDimes.com:

* 100 million trees are cut down each year to create the approximately 4.5 million tons of junk mail in the United States >> Oh my gosh. For real.

* 28 billion gallons of water go into the production of American junk mail annually. >> Even worse! Non-renewable (for the most part)

* Your name is typically worth 3- 20 cents each time it is sold for a direct mailing. >> Bastards.

Some of the best money I've spent in a long long time.

Anyhoo, so they too have a wonderful blog, http://blog.greendimes.com/, which I am a subscriber of/to (see link at side as well). The other day they posted a challenge -- post a comment on their blog about one of the following topics:

1. An eco tip
2. An environmental issue that affects your region
3. A junk mail horror story

...and they'd pick a winner from each category every week until the end of the year. So I posted. And I won a t-shirt! Woo hoo!

I'll obviously post a picture of my *beautiful* self wearing said shirt. Because my wedding day 4 years ago was when I last took a good picture.

See, really.

Read the whole story here, and post your own too. Who knows, you might end up with free garb.

What kind of fruit is this?

Chris and I took Jake for a walk last night, and came upon our neighbors shrubs which littered these little fruits all about.

Chris thinks it's some kind of kiwi, but I don't feel like spending a lot of time on Google trying to find out. Smells yummy and a little taste was equally appealing. (Chris doesn't want me to eat it though...something about me not having enough life insurance or something....)

Any guesses?

Blog Links

Hi all,

I've finally had some time (and when I say I, I mean my husband Chris) to export the blogs I subscribe to in Google Reader, fix 'em all up into links, and post them on the side of my blog.

Yes, I read peruse this many blogs (113 at last count). I'm always adding and changing them too. Got a blog I might be interested in? Leave a comment or send an email:

katie 'at' gardenpunks 'dot' com

I realized this is how I found many of my favorites, so I wanted to return the favor. Thanks to everyone who's recently added me to their links as well. I sincerely appreciate it!

It's fun to feel loved.

-Katie

Product Review: Swheat Scoop Cat Litter

I’m usually all about positivity on my blog, but I had to share a terribly negative product review that anyone who has a litter box could benefit from.

Being environmentally-minded people, we switched from clay cat litter to swheat scoop wheat cat litter about 3 weeks ago. And I just threw it all away.

DO NOT PURCHASE THIS PRODUCT.

First, this cat litter is expensive. I mean $22 for 40 lbs. expensive. In comparison, we only spent $12 for 42 lbs. of Arm & Hammer baking soda cat litter last night. And the wheat cat litter only comes in large cumbersome bags, not plastic tubs or cardboard boxes that can be recycled.

Second, the manufacturer touts this as an odor-less cat litter. I call BS. This cat litter reeked so bad that we had to relocate the box in the bathroom and open the window. The smell of ammonia is so overpowering that I almost passed out one night when I cleaned the box. Tell me how ammonia produced from your product is environmentally friendly??! Hello?! Ever heard of indoor air quality...?!

Third, this litter doesn’t clump as advertised. Yes, it zaps the moisture out of poo so that’s easy to clean up, but cat urine breaks up and sticks to the bottom of the box to the point where it is very difficult to clean the box properly. I dumped the box last night and it looked like there were Dr. Seuss-like plateaus covering the bottom of the box.

Fourth, because of the horrible odor and sticky clumpy mess, we ended up having to spend more time cleaning the box than with previous litters. Which was one of my pet peeves about cat litter boxes to begin with.

Fifth, the manufacturer advertises that this litter doesn’t track at all compared to other litters. Then tell me why I keep finding it all over my house and now have to sweep everyday whereas I never had to before with previous cat litters?

Overall, this product is beyond disgusting. It did nothing to absorb odors, I found it’s “non-tracking” claim to be absolute BS, and I was spending MORE TIME on the box than previously.
Grade: F
(And I’d give it one lower if it existed).

Save your time, money, and lungs and buy regular cat litter. Yes, it’s not the most environmentally friendly, but as some folks say – “do what you can 80% of the time, and give yourself a break on the other 20%”. (I’d say we practice the 90/10 rule in this respect.) You can’t be environmentally perfect all the time, but you can certainly strive to be as environmentally friendly as possible.

Ammonia in my house and poor indoor air quality is worse than clay cat litter in my book. Long live clean air!

More dirt

So the pictures I took of the mound of dirt yesterday were really bright and looked washed out.

Here are some more + some of today's blooms to enjoy.

Blog Action Day

Chris and I are trying to reduce our carbon footprint, and feel that we have made great headway with our electricity usage, which I share with you below.

:::I should note here that we do not receive our electricity and gas from the same company. The gas we have in the house is our hot water heater, range top, oven, and in the winter, heater and fireplace. The electricity powers the lights, most appliances, and the AC. I will not compare our gas bills here because most of the items that use gas are necessities, however we do practice conservation; we wash all of our clothes in cold water, take short showers and shower at the gym whenever possible, and do our best to wear warm clothes in the winter. Unfortunately (and YES, I say unfortunately), our water is not metered, so I really have no idea how much water we are using, and conversely, how much water we can save.:::

It has been a sort of game for us to see how low we can get our electricity bill.

I our old house was built in 1978, and we “enjoyed” the original AC unit until 6/2006, so our summer bills would regularly reach $150+ for electricity (cheap by some standards) and reach the 1200+ KWh range. Our new house was built in 1998, and the envelope is sealed much tighter, minimizing drafts and keeping temperatures relatively constant inside the shell. Our highest KWh usage at the new house is 585 KWh. We use the cool air of summer nights to cool the house by opening windows at night and closing them in the morning. Surprisingly, the house stays cool to the point where the AC usually doesn’t kick on unless it reaches 98^o+. This has definitely helped with the electricity bill since we probably only used our AC a dozen days this summer.

In April 2007 we replaced 85% of the light bulbs in our house with CFLs (compact fluorescent bulbs), put most phantom energy loads on power strips where we could shut them off (do I really need to leave my coffee maker plugged in all the time?), and made a concerted effort to use only one light in the room we were in at any given time after it was dark.

And boy, have these changes made a world of difference.

Since we have lived in our current house for a year, I now have 12+ months of electricity bills in which I can share to show how much energy we are using. In researching this post, I assumed I still had access to the last 12 months of usage data from our old house, but this is not the case. And at one point I had a sheet of paper with the previous owner’s usage of our current house, but that somehow was thrown away also. That would have certainly made for fun comparison.

Our Electricity use in our new house, 1875 square feet built in 1998
9/2006 – 8/2007

In the table, I include kilowatt hours (KWh) as the measure of electricity used. The cost of our electricity, although relatively low, continues to climb yearly, and price is not a fair measure of energy use and is not listed here. I noted the years above, but only show the months in the graph for illustration purposes.

KHw---Month
380* September
563 October
451 November
585 December
586 January
483 February
488 March
456 April
427 May
385 June
553 July
492 August
499 September
392 October

*Partial month

The changes we made have not lessened our quality of life, and in fact using candles and not lights has improved our quality of life (nudge nudge, wink wink). But really, I’m excited to see these results and look forward to seeing how much farther we can take this. I urge you all to do the same.

I call it the carbon footprint shrinking game! …And every little bit helps!

Let the fun begin!

Our current story begins on Friday night. There is this rototiller that has made it's way being borrowed through many of Chris' coworkers, and we've had it now on two separate occasions at two separate houses. And the crazy thing is this thing has probably only seen a few hours of work.

So Friday night we went to go pick it up from our friends Jeff + Taryn who used it recently on their yard.

(Aside: They have the biggest backyard I have ever seen. I am so jealous. I can't even explain what they could do with all of that room -- put a Little League baseball stadium in maybe. And the best part - it's a totally blank slate. I told them they should start a blog about all the work they've been doing on their house and yard, just to make people like me jealous. They even have plans professionally drawn up! I can't wait to see the progress they make, and even help them along with sod and such...)

So Saturday Chris and I finally tackled rototilling and flattening the one of the ugly lumps in our backyard. We were going at it for about 10 minutes or less when the rototiller died and wouldn't start back up. So Chris' dad came over and looked at it this morning, diagnosed the problem as a off-track belt, helped us fix it, and we were on our way.

Today we spent much of the morning rototilling and moving the dirt into a mound in the middle of the grass, right where the dead and live grass meet. We broke for lunch around 2pm, and when we went back outside, there were these little bugs swarming everywhere. it was so gross that we decided to give it a rest until they disappear (if they disappear). So here we sit, coverred in dust, dirt between the toes, (I actually just killed one of those bugs on my neck as I was writing this), dried-sweaty skin, waiting for these bugs to go bye bye. (Click picture to enlarge and see swarms of nasty bugs)

This morning we were met by a lizard protest when we tried to rototill. The biggest lizard of the bunch didn't like that we were a little close to his house. He stood his ground while the rototiller made it's way a few feet from him, and didn't flinch. Then as we were shoveling dirt into the wheelbarrow to move it out of the way, he'd come on to the grass like he was going to do something, protesting our work. It was really quite funny because he kept doing it as long as we were out there. As Chris put it, "He was beefin' with us and the rototiller."

We knocked down the ugly hill by at least 6-10" today, and hope that we can continue somewhat flattening it out over the next week or so. Then we'll plant a cover crop on it, and once that's mature in a couple months, rototill it in. Speaking of cover crops, the plot I put down last week has already sprouted! Cool!

Unfortunately, we have to lose a couple large trees in our backyard, because their final height and width was not considered when they were planted (not by us), and are now pushing up a rock wall and ruining a fence. (people, please don't make me get on a soapbox about planning for a plant's final mature size when planting....a pet peeve of mine because I see it EVERYWHERE!!) So two trees will need to be removed right now, and then we can plant the fruit trees we ordered from PCFGS when they arrive in late December.

It's going to be a busy couple months!

Ants Lizard in my pants

Don't take the title the wrong way. I actually had a lizard in my pants today.

Chris was watching football, so I went out back and was daydreaming as I laid on the concrete basking in my long-sleeved clothing in the sun. (The grass is full of dog poo, and the concrete was warm. Perhaps I was a cat in a previous life. Chris says I sleep as much as a cat...) Because it's the weekend, I was wearing my comfy jeans -- everyone has a pair like this -- the large jeans that you use when you work outside that are oh-so-comfortable.

I was laying flat on my back next to the grass when Chris joined me during a commercial break. As I sat up to greet him, I noticed a little baby lizard run underneath my shoe.

"A baby lizard skittled underneath my shoe!" I exclaimed with glee.
"Carefully lift up your shoe!" he whispered.
I obliged. No lizard.
"Lift up your other shoe."
I obliged. Again no lizard. Quizzical looks from both of us.
"Hmm. Maybe he skittled into the grass."
"Doubtful. We would have seen him and we'd be able to see him now."
He helped me up carefully, and then said,

"Take off your pants."

"What? Right here in the backyard?" I was laughing hysterically as I began to take off my shoes, then undid my belt, and stripped down to my skivvies right there in the backyard.

But as I looked down through my pants to the ground, there was the lizard clinging to the inside of my jeans. Chris and I helped him find the planting beds and I put my pants back on.

Chris and I were laughing so hard when he said, "Now that is only something that would happen to you."

And that's why our house is named "Lizard Hollow."

Sunday Blooms

This is my first crack at Sunday Bloom Day. I usually think there is nothing blooming, but as I walked around my yard taking pictures yesterday I realized there are a ton of plants blooming right now.

The blue Salvia with dark burgundy foliage out front.










1 of the 3 lavender bushes out front in bloom









Purple verbena. I was going to rip this out when we moved in, but I fell in love with the bright color it provides in fall.








Another Salvia. This one is in the raised bed to attract pollinators. I've seen lots of little hover flies near it recently.

















Society garlic out front. Points for the bug on it.









Yet ANOTHER Salvia. A red one out front.









Foxglove out front.










Marigolds.

















Purple potato bush. It's growth has taken off rather recently, so I hope it's hardy to our weather here.








Zinnas.









More zinnias.









Even more zinnias.


















Crocosmia. I bought this a couple years ago and was going to throw it away after this season. I'd never seen it bloom, and the foliage always looks half-dead. I might actually save the stalks that are blooming, because they seem to be doing well.






Lantana. Old reliable.










Aster. I pulled all of the blooms/buds off this one when I purchased it and hoped for the best. I'm being rewarded now. (But the blue aster I planted in the mound is just foliage. Don't think that one will bloom)...





The side of the yard where this coneflower is located is not doing to well. I'd like to think that it's because we turned the sprinklers that used to overspray into this bed from the lawn off, but I have a feeling the dog has something to do with this..... This little coneflower, like the daylilies, black eyed susans, and other plants over there, is struggling.




'Hot Lips' Salvia. I took a cutting of this one from Chris' grandma's plant, and it took off like a rocket here. Bumble bees love this stuff, so I'll have to locate it somewhere to attract them away from me! Like most all the plants I own, these are in pots (2).

Weather

Dude I totally forgot I took pictures to post a blog about yesterday's weather.

I got home a little late because we're having some issues at work recently, and Chris had already hightailed it to the gym. I used that as an excuse not to go, and sat down with my Backyard Living Magazine.

All of a sudden I hear the house groan as a gust of wind rips straight through the backyard.

"Downdraft!" I exclaimed and ran to the computer to check Doppler radar.<sup>1

1</sup> I am a total weather nerd. It's beyond bad, and to the embarrassing threshold now. I was terrified of thunderstorms as a child. I was constantly scanning the horizon and looking at the clouds above to see if they were "thunderstorm" clouds. If I heard a rumble, I always assumed it was a storm. As I've gotten older, I have a very strong respect for thunderstorms, and have gotten to the point where I can tolerate them because of their beauty, even if I am still a wee bit afraid of them. This launched my all-out fascination with all things weather. We have a clock/2 temperature weather station in our bathroom, and I always check the temp in the morning and when I get home. I constantly check radar to see the cloud cover and rain. When my coworkers and I go for our morning walk, I check the temperature (they totally got me the other day when they said, "Hey weather girl. What's Doppler like? Can we go for our walk?") Chris also teases me. So yeah, it's baaaaad. And I just found out yesterday that we get The Weather Channel in HD now. My life is complete.

So I grabbed my camera and shot these pictures as the storm literally rolled less and a mile north of here. Dang! No rain for us, but great shots.

Milestone + Oh Clementine

So this is my 100th entry in www.gardenpunks.com. Time flies when you're having fun.

We received our 'Clementine' Mandarin trees today from Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply.

Mandarins are like small, sweet, easily peeled citrus fruits (think oranges ) that are usually available around Northern California beginning around Mid-November. To me they signify the holiday season, and we can't get enough of them in their little red mesh bags. We usually pay $5.99 for a dozen (if I'm remembering correctly), and since we eat them like the world is going to end, we decided to grow our own. It will be a few years before our trees are productive, but they are so beautiful until then.




The trees arrived in 4' narrow cardboard boxes, and the trees were in really great shape, thanks to PVFGS. We planted them in large pots for now, because next weekend we will have access to a rototiller which we can use to level the hill in our backyard, and loosen the soil so we can plant all those trees as they arrive via mail.

Hopefully I won't have to work next Saturday!

Bragging Rights

Bow to the coolest quilt in the world.

My Aunt Joan made this in honor of our wedding nearly 4 years ago.

Definitely worth the wait! It's so beautiful, I can't even explain it. Likely the coolest gift we've ever received.

It is a twisted bargello quilt, for those inquiring minds.

And of course the first thing Travis did when I sat it down was sit on top of it. Such a cat.

Thanks and cheers to Aunt Joan and her amazing quilting abilities!

Fall Updates + More Randomness

Hi my name is Katie and it's been 10 days since I've posted on my blog. (haha)

Not a whole lot is happening around here, in fact, seeing as it is fall and the weather is finally cooling down one would think that flowers would abound. Not so. The only things blooming are one of my 5 'Stella de Oro' daylilies, 3 sages, and a foxglove. Yeah, it was 80^o today, and tonight will be a low of 57^o, but cooling down none the less.

The carrots, spinach, lettuce, peas, and radishes I planted are doing great and loving the cool weather. they were pummelled on Friday night when we had a short burst of heavy rain, but overall seemed to have faired well.

Chris turns to me the other day and said, "You know, I really don't want that composite lumber near plants I'm going to eat." I was crushed. He went on to say he didn't think they were environmentally safe and that the plastic-y ness would leach into the soil. This is all I need to prove him wrong and get what I want.

It was cloudy here a few days ago and we walked Jake the dog, so I was able to get some really nice Fall shots.


























We went to Capital Nursery on Saturday to look for a mandarin tree. We were notified from PVFGS that the 'Dancy' mandarin tree had a crop failure (as did my original thought of the 'Pixie' mandarin), so we had to get a pollinator. We purchased the 'Seedless Kishu' variety, which is supposed to have small bite-sized fruit and not grow much larger than 6-8'. Guess that means we'll just have to get ANOTHER mandarin tree for more fruit!

It's really a gorgeous tree and very vigorous.










I also fulfilled my lifelong goal of owning a clump of black mondo grass. It's so beautiful and Halloween-like! I planted it with creeping Jenny so the colors of the plants set each other off.

Totally worth $15! I wanted 2, but I couldn't justify $30 on teeny tiny plants. Plus mondo grass spreads rather quickly.

I hope the trick-or-treaters like it!