Midway Point Update

The end of July marks what I call the half way point of the main gardening season here in my neck of the woods. It’s far enough along that you can reflect on what you did right will do differently next year, but there is still time to reap some of the lessons learned in the current year!

Last year I posted tomato advice. Oh, the tomatoes! Why didn’t I take my advice from last year?! We needed a better staking/caging system, and needed to trim the tomato plants to keep them within their boundaries. Also, I had been saving eggshells all winter, grinding them up in my mortar & pestleto use with some special tomato fertilizer I purchased to help prevent blossom end rot (nevermind inconsistent watering). When it came time to transplant my fledgling babies outside, I completely forgot about the items I had earmarked for tomato planting. Such is life.

This year, we’ve had a few winners and learned a few things:

*My Nasturtiums finally started mounding and flowering just the other day! They seem to like being in the shaded area of the garden that doesn’t seem to get as much sun as the other parts. We've had but one flower on 6 to 8 plants, but I like their mounding style nonetheless.

*The pumpkins and butternut squash are doing superbly – we planted them in the area we sheet mulched that had been amended with organic soil improvements, and they took off! I counted 30 pumpkins ripening the other day. Lots of pumpkin pie, pumpkin butter, roasted pumpkin, roasted pumpkin seeds, candied pumpkin…

*The “let it be” attitude towards bugs is actually working quite well. While I did take care of a large infestation of harlequin bugs via handheld vacuum earlier this summer, we simply let most bugs exist. We are having a little aphid problem right now – we had to take out the one Okra plant that was doing well because it became overwhelmed with aphids, and the water spraying didn’t take care of them. The gold finches eat the ants that milk the aphids, so I don’t want to use much else on them…

*The waspinator I purchased from Peaceful Valley Farm Supply was worth every penny. Wasps tended to stay out of the garden mostly, and their levels were tolerable.

*I learned what a cicada killer was, and saw them up close. My fear of them isn't 100% gone, but I understand them now, and we coexist.

*We had far fewer bug infestations this year vs. last year. I didn't go out at night at all and pick any caterpillars off plants! I consider that a good thing in that the garden is starting to tend to itself.

Advice for my future self:

*Compost compost compost. Add it to everything. Well, almost everything. Oh, and mulch everything too!

*Start some seeds outside, and earlier. Hope late frosts are something that happen in 2008 and not 2009.

*Use ¼" soaker hose for the drip system rather than the other types of drips – the tiny soaker hoses are more effective and deliver water deeper. In the case of the tomatoes, this would have certainly helped with the blossom end rot.

*Onions don't like wind, and would likely have done better in amended soil. Plant more closely together in the raised beds next year.

*Succession planting. Please succession plant next year! Better yet, start this weekend! I beg myself to do this every year and tend to forget, leading me to the next item:

*Use the calendar more effectively. I need to utilize my calendar to remember when I started certain seeds, when I planted things outside, when I mowed, I like the small leather bound calendar I purchased, but just need to use it more. It’s been fun to go back to January/February and see what I was writing (when I was using it).

*Plant more stuff. Our yard still seems really barren. With the Fair Oaks Harvest Day coming up on Saturday, that is definitely something I can improve upon. (Some vedors will be there, I'm sure). Part 2: Plant more stuff in pots.

*August is the "second spring" here in Northern California. Many seeds germinate well in warm temperatures and will last through the heat of our Fall.

*Don't let harvests go to waste. If all else fails, freeze the bounty.

*Half-strength fish emulsion works wonders. Continue this practice every other week for all plants that benefit.

*3 words - Floating row covers.

*Water the strawberries more when they are putting out flowers. You might actually get fruit that way.

I will add to this list over the next few months as is turns colder. I can't wait to see how far we can "season extend" our garden this year!

Cumulative Harvest Tally

We have been weighing everything coming out of our garden (that which we're eating, doesn't go to waste before we can eat it, and with exception to the early salads), since late April, kicking off our summer harvest.

We've tallied the results, and since April we have grown exactly:

33 lbs. of our own produce!

Sadly, I thought it would be more than this. There are a few things I should mention:

*We had some major blossom end rot on the tomatoes and about 1/2 of them were no good. However, the indeterminates are kicking into high gear and we're getting a fairly consistent harvest on an every-other-day basis now.

*Our yellow pattypan squash seems to go crazy if we don't tend to it for a day or so, pumping out HUGE specimens that we don't get around to eating (I've heard they're very seedy anyway). We've thrown a good number of these in the green waste bin. The green ones taste more succulent anyway.

*We have butternut squash and 30+ pumpkins ripening as we speak. There should be no shortage of poundage once these come ripe in a couple months!

July 30th is my self-deemed midway point for the gardening season, and I'll post a little more about our garden, what worked this year, and what I've planned for next year on July 30th. (This post always gets me ridiculously excited.)

I hope all of your gardens are coming alive and providing for you and your families.

Book Review: Food Not Lawns

Note: I read this book earlier this summer, and am now just getting around to writing a review. Good timing because it ends up this is the Crunchy Chicken Book Club book this month!

I can't tell you how many times I almost bought Food Not Lawns by H.C. Flores (Chelsea Green, 2007). I would pick it up in a bookstore expecting to find it to be a "how-to" book, and be confused when I saw no pictures of lawns and shovels but instead seemingly random information had had little do with gardening. I didn't realize that the title, Food Not Lawns, is a play on the group named Food Not Bombs, a community activist group that feeds people with donations and fallen fruit-esque practices. And this little fact makes a world of sense – the book is more of a book about activism, starting with the front lawn.

Chelsea Green sent me a copy to review, and I finally sat down with the book earlier this summer, and was somewhat surprised. I ended up having to read it end to end twice to get everything out of it - there is a lot of information to absorb and it tends to jump around quite a bit. My head is still spinning and I can’t really say I like the book, I just kind of like it. It’s good, but some of the information is a little hard for someone who works an 8-5 job to assimilate into their life. [For example: I can’t go out a get arrested (nor would I want to), as the chain of events that would occur from that simple act would leave me financially devastated. I can’t live on $8,000 per year, nor would I want to in this country].

Before I totally turn you off of the book, I did like the discussions around gray water, guerrilla gardening (this was excellent!), and community gardening (even if this was overly optimistic in a suburban neighborhood like mine).

Bottom line – this book is NOT for everyone, since it chronicles the life of an activist and her related gardening adventures, but is an interesting read none the less. The activism kind of turned me off of the book a little bit, and from the many reviews I’ve read people tend to feel similarly. I’m a huge proponent of cohousing, community gardening, and permaculture – however I do not feel the need to live on $8,000 per year or take my activism to another level and live that lifestyle.

While I may not agree with everything the author talks about, but I enjoy stretching my boundaries and opinions, and reading things that make me think.
This is one of those books.

Grade: B-

A shout out, movie review, and life update

3 for the price of one!

The other day Jason over at SCREAM to be GREEN posted about the SnagFilms.com website in which there are 250 full length documentaries available for FREE. The only snag is that the movie is interrupted at different points to play commercials like the Oreo 100 calorie snak pak, (just like NBC does when you watch their shows online) which in itself is kind of ironic…And we had to restart the movie a few times because it got stuck, and we had to plug in our laptop to the cable modem because it didn't like the wireless router, but I digress... I saw a free documentary movie that I've wanted to see for a while.

My sights were immediately set on watching What Would Jesus Buy? The story of Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, 2 chartered buses, a full choir and 7 piece band, and a cross country tour in the weeks before Christmas to get people to buy less stuff. I don’t want to say much here because I would give the movie away, but it’s worth an hour of your time to watch it. For us, it was like preaching to the choir.

On March 20 of this year, I declared that I would not set foot in a big box store again, and I have upheld my word. No Target, no Home Depot, no Lowe’s. [I’ve never spent a penny at Walmart, and for that I am immensely proud and feel as though I have the right to stand on a pedestal and scream to the rafters to all who will listen.]

Here’s my secret to giving up big box stores: IT’S EASY - JUST DO IT. Really!

And here is how our consumption breaks down:

FOOD
We visit our local BelAir grocery store chain, family-owned since 1935. They have a fairly decent organic/natural section, and it’s easy to find produce within a 100 mile radius. The even have bulk bins of organic flour from Giusto’s, a San Francisco-based flour company. That’s within 100 miles! We buy Strauss dairy products (you return the glass bottle for a deposit).
Weekly we visit our farmer’s market to purchase items from the local organic growers. There is also a stand that sells raw cheeses! ....Local olive oil, mushrooms, fruit, you name it.

Tea/coffee: Chris drinks chai tea, I drink black tea and coffee every so often. While we understand these items aren’t local, we’ve found a great tea company (Rishi Tea) that offers fair trade, organic teas. Yes, they are expensive, but we feel as though we’re actually paying the fair price for them. Once the coffee stores I have are gone, we plan on purchasing fair trade shade grown coffee from our local company Java City. When we eat out we tend to go to Chipotle, which is a fairly sustainable eatery, and all of their chicken, beef, and pork products are sustainably-raised.

HOME IMPROVEMENT
For those of you not lucky enough to live in California (snicker!), we have this great little hardware store chain called OSH – Orchard Supply Hardware. I just found out last week it is a California company with 85 stores. They carry everything we’ve ever needed (except that one bolt Chris needed for his car, and we went to ACE Hardware over the river). The people who work there are friendly, and very helpful. I can walk through the store and have 3 people ask me if I need help finding something. And one of the guys that works there knows that store inside and out. I love it when he asks if I need help. And I love my local OSH.

ENTERTAINMENT
Library, used book stores, batting cages, local zoo, local state park, biking, collecting plums, camping… We tend to stay locally for our fun!

NOT PERFECT
Before I go on and on about this and how well we’ve done, there are some things I would like to do better on, such as:

Taiko Sushi is our favorite restaurant, but it isn’t sustainable (even if it is local). Limit visits to the restaurant.

There is no locally-owned camera store in my area, so we ended up going to Ritz Camera (national chain) to look at some new lenses, only to find them a couple HUNDRED dollars cheaper through Amazon. So we went with Amazon. We used to buy an incredible amount of stuff through Amazon, but not as much anymore. We look for locally-available options first.

I haven’t been to Goodwill for a few months. I need to go back. Need a random kitchen appliance? Goodwill probably has that quesadilla maker you’ve been looking for. Chris and I are shedding our plastic cups and would like to replace them with glass ones. I think Goodwill is a good place to do this. We’ll keep you posted.

What about you? Have you looked into shopping more locally or for used items? How does your local area fare?

Wow, lots of link love in this post!

Happy

I've seen this on a bunch of sites, but finally watched it tonight. And it totally made me smile, and I actually watched the whole thing.

Happy. That's all I can say.


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

For more videos, visit WhereTheHellIsMatt.com

The Orange Cat

Travis says hello. You can tell he is crazy by that look in his eyes.

Even Jake is sad...

No more mom and dad to pay attention to him all day long.

Poor dog.

Green Taco Sauce

Another recipe in my never-ending quest to use up as many tomatoes as possible.

After having tostadas last night with our friends Joe and Taryn with green taco sauce, I decided to try and make some of my own taco sauce.

The taco sauce below came out very good in my opinion. And while I wasn't able to fry up the taco shells quite as well as Taryn, the tostadas we had for lunch today were really tasty.

No pics though. :(

Ingredients -

• 5 Green Zebra Tomatoes
• 2 Jalapeños - seeds removed
  
• 1 Serrano Pepper - seeds removed
  
• 2 Cloves of Garlic - finely chopped
  
• 1/3 cup Red Onion - finely chopped
  
• 1 tblspn Arrowroot Starch (Corn Starch would work too) - Mixed with a bit of water
  
• 1 tsp Salt
  
• Splash White Wine Vinegar
• Pinch of Sugar
• Couple grinds of Black Pepper
  
• Dash of Coriander - ground
  
• 1 tbs Canola Oil

Total Prep/Cooking time: ~30 minutes
Roughly chop the tomatoes and peppers, place in food processor. Add vinegar. Process them until smooth.

Sauté onions in 2 qt sauce pan with oil until soft over medium heat. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add tomato/pepper mixture. With a stick blender, puree until smooth. Add Sugar, Salt, Pepper and Coriander. Bring to simmer, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Add Arrowroot Starch to thicken. Let simmer with Arrowroot Starch for 1-2 minutes, and remove from heat.

Staycationing rules!

Staycation [stey-key-shuh n], noun - A vacation that is spent at one's home enjoying all that home and one's home environs have to offer.

Chris and I have been staycationing for the last week and a half, where we've had a wonderful time doing all the things we've wanted to do in our town, and all around just taking it easy. Time went slowly, lots of iced tea and beer was consumed, and we were tourists in our own town. It was great!

We could so get used to this life.

Early one morning last week we took Jake to a local park and threw his favorite toy for him. This was after Mom & Dad went to Great Harvest Bread Company and got two cinnamon pull-apart rolls. Mmmm. We have no room in the backyard to do this, and we aren't a fan of dog parks.




The Folsom Power House was built in 1895 and first brought electricity to Sacramento. from the California State Park's website:

The Folsom Powerhouse is part of a colorful chapter of Sacramento history and is also an example of the tremendous advance in the commercial application of electricity. H.P. Livermore realized that the water of the American River could turn generators for electricity in Sacramento, 22 miles downstream. With his partners, Livermore built the powerhouse, which still looks much as it did in 1895.

And now, Livermore has a park in Folsom named in his honor. How nice.




We made the trip to the Folsom Zoo Sanctuary, and I have to admit we were pleasantly surprised! It was a very well-maintained zoo, and the size was larger than the eye originally thought.

By the pictures below, many people will ask, "This is a zoo? With cats and dogs??" The answer is yes. The zoo operates as a sanctuary - many of the animals were once pets, harmed in the wild unable to be released again, or deemed nuisances to themselves by their interactions with humans (the bears).

Peacocks and chickens roam the zoo - it was actually quite interesting. We had to laugh because right inside the gate is a feral cat exhibit. No joke - feral CATS. The message was spay and neuter. Additionally, they have a couple wolf hybrids that people kept as pets, but found out that hybrid wolf-dogs are likely not the best suburban pets. My favorite were the ravens...I have a thing for them as well as crows. Just as Chris.




Also crossed off our list:

• Fixed the back leaking sprinkler/drip system
• Removed the enormous volunteer sunflower
• Harvested the onions
• Sun dryed tomatoes
• Hooked up the icemaker in our fridge (...that we've had for 5 years)
• Went Sake tasting at Gekkeikan Sake (pictures sometime in the future after I go back with better camera lens(es))
• Went to the batting cages

We had such a great time, and hope you all have wonderful vacations/staycations.

I can't wait until our next one!

*Individual (and clearer) pictures at my Flickr page

Is there a problem officer?

sycamore leaf, originally uploaded by gardenpunk.

Last week Weeder posted about the leaf drop from her California Sycamore, and seeing that it was only July, the tree certainly was acting as if it was autumn.

She wondered if her tree was diseased, but it looks nice and lush to me from the pictures she posted.

Our sycamores also do the summer leaf drop, and I never worried about it until Angela answered weeder with the dreaded "anthracnose" noun.

Hasty Googling ensued, and now I fear that every darn California Sycamore in Folsom is diseased (not necessarily with the dreaded A noun), because most of them look like mine, and the leaves are covered with these little spots, and leaf drop is continuous.

What do you think? Sick trees? Or Anthracnose?

Nothin' but socks

socks on clothesline, originally uploaded by gardenpunk.

After drying all of our white shirts which left no room for anything else, the second round on the clothesline ended up being nothing but white socks.

For the record, like 5 of them were mine, the rest were Chris'.

I cannot believe that every white sock he owns was dirty as of this morning.

Boys...

Tis the Season: Sundried Tomatoes

Last year we made some wicked sundried tomatoes - they were good, and lasted until about December, when my snacking had rendered them all gone.

Last year we grew a cherry tomato 'Super Sweet 100', a grape tomato 'Napa Grape Hybrid', and a slicing tomato which never really produced until October, and I can't remember its name.

Since we had a boatload of tiny tomatoes (too many to eat all the time), we sundried them with absolutely fabulous results! We also noted that we wanted to grow meatier tomatoes this year, with the specific idea to have tomatoes that would sun dry beautifully, and would be better for canning.

This year we grew 'Green Zebra' (aka. The Oakland A's tomato), 'Roma', and 'San Marzano'. The Romas and SM's aren't doing all that well - I think the soil we put them in is not all that great and our drip system drips constantly (a broken valve that is on my list of things to fix this week while staycationing), so we are getting a lot of blossom end rot. (Nevermind that I had saved countless eggshells and ground them up just to use when transplanting my tomatoes into the ground!! But I think this end rot is due to inconsistent watering... Drats.)

And let me tell you, slicing large tomatoes in half to sun dry is a hell of a lot easier than all of those tiny tomatoes! The whole project took about 15 minutes.

Steps for Sundried Tomatoes
1. Slice tomatoes in half lengthwise
2. Put them on drying rack (we use a baker's cooling rack situated on a cookie sheet, fits perfectly)
3. Sprinkle with salt.
4. Cover with cheesecloth
5. Set in sun and wait


1. tomatoes, 2. tomatoes, 3. tomatoes, 4. tomatoes

I wonder how long they'll take to dry this year?

Thanks for nothing, Comcast

Original post text:

I don't pay Comcast $50+ per month to have dial-up speed internet.

With that said, my speeds have been closer to dial-up for the last day or so.

Annoying!

I have a post ready to go, but I can't upload my pictures to Flickr. So I will wait...

Update:

I received an email from Melissa at Comcast in regards to working with us to get our internet speeds up to what they should be. When I was telling Chris about the email, he said:

Chris: "I was downloading the movie yesterday (we watched a movie last night, and no, not that kind of movie). I've heard there can be some latency when you do that, and is probably the reason you had slowness yesterday."
Me: "Did you download it when you left and I was here?"
Chris: "Yes."

So I apologize to Comcast for looking like an idiot and dragging their name through the mud. Other that this, our service has been fairly good, and is why we switched back to them after having DirecTV.

Comcast's customer service gets a A from me.

Thanks!

Green Garden Salsa

So I went to my parents to pick up my old baseball bats (old school Easton Black Magic and a Red TPX), and decided to steal some jalapeños off of my dad's pepper plants. That, and the numerous ripe tomatoes at home, were all the inspiration I needed to make some salsa.

I love salsa verde, but we aren't growing tomatillos this year, and it will probably take some convincing for Katie to let me try them again. However...we have our new favorite green zebra tomatoes for my salsa verde! Also my favorite tomato because they are green and gold like the Oakland A's lol.

• 2 jalapeño peppers, seeds removed
• 5-6 Green Zebra tomatoes, seeds removed
  
• 2-4 Roma (or whatever red tomato is ripe) tomatoes, depending upon size, seeds removed
  
• 1/3 cup of red onion
• 3 large garlic cloves
• 1-2 tbsp of olive oil
• juice of 1 lime
  
• salt / pepper to taste

Roughly chop everything. Add to food processor and blend to your desired consistency. I'd recommend tasting it after a few pulses, and getting the seasoning right before you get it too watery.

The finished salsa will have a nice tanginess to it, and shouldn't be too hot. Katie was able to eat this, and her ability to stand heat is fairly low. Next time I may grab a habanero too and add some heat to it.

Almost of the ingredients in the salsa were locally grown - the tomatoes were from our backyard, the jalapeños from my parents, the onion and garlic from the local farmers market, and even the olive oil is from a local producer (Bariani). The only things not local are the lime and the salt and pepper. Next round of salsa should have limes off of our tree, and garlic and onions from our garden.

Video: Buzzing Part 2

A short short video showing the bees buzzing around my flowering mint. Colony collapse disorder? The bees in my neighborhood are doing well!

Buzzing from Katie Hobson on Vimeo.

**Thanks to Joe for pointing out that Vimeo.com does HD way better than YouTube. I updated the video to reflect this.

FreeCycle

I've posted before that I like FreeCycle - the place where you can give away items to other people instead of throwing them away. It definitely works on the "one man's trash is another man's treasure" principle.

Recently, the admin for our local group posted the following:

As I've been moderating over the past few days, I've been rejecting
a lot of things for the same reasons. Here's yet another reminder
based on what I'm seeing:

1) "Wanted" is an acceptable subject line. "Needed" is not. Every
post that says "Needed" will now be sent back for editing.

2) "Wanteds" should be used sparingly - this isn't a gift registry.

3) Zip Codes MUST be in the subject line of all "Offers" or they
will be rejected.

4) Borrowing is NOT allowed here, so please don't ask in your post!

5) When posting (especially for a Wanted), please stick to just the
facts! I really don't need to know if your gerbil needs new clothes
because he gained sympathy weight when his wife was pregant. Just
knowing that your gerbil needs clothes and that he's a size XXL will
suffice.

This totally had me laughing, but she's right. For every post that is an OFFER, there is at least a dozen if not more where something is WANTED. I fear that my local FreeCycle chapter is not being used as intended, and I am THISCLOSE to canceling the daily emails I get.

To me, it feels like people get getting greedy.

Do you have the same issue with your local FreeCycle chapter?

Buzzing

Chris and I inherited a landscape that was in the throes of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Yes, everything was green, but there was no life in the soil, and the weeds loved being overwatered with the automatic sprinkler system.

Enter Katie & Chris, August 2006

We use organic gardening methods and are constantly looking for ways to close the loop with raw materials here on our property - brush, leaves, and spent foliage becomes mulch, and water from our sinks and showers helps water those plants in need of a little more TLC. Our food becomes compost and food for other creatures, and even our paper and cardboard becomes soil during the sheet mulching process.

We usually let bugs live because I've heard beneficial insects usually show up at the height of an infestation to take care of the problem, and the harmful insects have something like a population that's 10x that of the beneficials - it's easy to get freaked out and apply something before letting nature take her course.

Take ants for instance. They have their role in the garden as detriment cleaner-uppers, and we leave them be. Unless they show up in my house, I consider them a beneficial insect. You can tell if you're not watering something enough just by the presence of ants in the soil (or you can tell if your compost is too dry just by the presence of ants). Recently I found a dead lizard carcass on one of our paths swarmed by ants, and I let it be. Jake The Dog didn't have access to that area of the yard, and 24 hours later the carcass was gone. The ants had recycled the lizard back into our ecosystem.

It's been fun to see the natural relationship among the creatures here on our suburban lot. We have a whole brood of lizards, tons of bees, hummingbirds, bumble bees, birds, rolie polies, worms, hover flies, wasps, and ants (and an occasional turkey). There's a ton more creatures we never see that work tirelessly doing their job here too.

Our backyard is in full bloom right now, and vegetable production is in full swing. The backyard is always buzzing. Whenever I go out to pick produce or take pictures, there is buzzing all around me, yet I am not scared. All of these creatures are doing their jobs, helping me grow the food we eat on a daily basis.

I've never felt so connected in my entire life.

It amazes me what organic gardening methods can do. My backyard is teeming with life after only 2 years with us at the helm. The soil is coming to life, and all creatures are benefiting. I would have never guessed that organic gardening makes all the difference, but our backyard is living proof.

Has anyone noticed a change like we have when switching to organic gardening?

I've had a Guiness...

...and that is always the start of trouble, or a good weekend. It's a 50/50 shot.

Thanks to my good friend Jason at Scream to be Green for this video.

To my republican readers, please don't think any less of me. Come back another day!



Oh wait, it's totally not Friday!

I love words

Thanks to Gina at My Skinny Garden for this idea. I love text clouds!

Writer's Block

Sounds kinda funny huh? I never shut up and now I can't think of anything to write.

I started going back through my archives from last year to see what I was doing. I never realized how funny I was! Have I lost that ability? I certainly feel like it. Posts from last year seem so much more pulled together, perhaps it's because I was in super-learning mode for gardening, transferring my ridiculous book knowledge on the subject into the physical dimension.

"I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet."

I have 4 posts drafted that all sound awful, and a ton of ideas in my head that are clamoring to get out, but I can't seem to formulate a sentence, and I have no desire to go take pictures in the 111^o heat. And now that we've found the charger for the video camera, I'm getting sheepish about a video post. Believe it or not, I am not an attention whore (you're only an attention whore if you go to meetings).

So there you have it. I'm going to sit here and formulate a dozen posts, hoping to get a decent one out tonight.

Stay tuned.

The picture is of the daylilies I planted at our old house. They were the first plant I actually bought via mail order, and the first plant I actually wanted to buy by name. How far I've come! Extra points if you can see the bumblebee coming out of one of the blooms!

crazy pumpkin

crazy pumpkin, originally uploaded by gardenpunk.

Just 2 days later and you can see the pumpkin has now just about swallowed the path. We will have to do something about this today!

Happy 4th of July for all our US readers!

Plurk vs. Twitter

Ok, so I've said before. I am a technoboob. I never really got the hang of StumbleUpon (but I still add sites to it), and I was late to the whole Web 2.0 thing. But I have something to share that is so good, it'll knock your socks off.

You want to be part of this club.

Lots of people use Twitter, the quick burst here-is-what-I-am-doing-right-now one liner microblogging that continuously makes me laugh (I'm "GardenPunk" on Twitter). Now imagine those notes, but on a timeline, and with all comments linked under the same entry? And crazy smileys you earn through karma? Now that's Plurk.

I've seen a couple posts about how cool Plurk is (including this one from Anthony at CompostBin), and I have ignored them, scared of yet another thing I would have to manage on the web. (There seems to be an ever growing list of sites I have to maintain/log into/check. Do you feel this way too?)

But I promise, Plurk is way more fun. it takes a few minutes to get used to it, but I love it. I even tempt fate and sometimes use it at work. I just like to think it is making me more productive...

Anyway, hop on over to Plurk to see what us garden bloggers are up to. We're having a heck of a time! You should join us.

Oh yeah, and I'm "GardenPunk"...imagine that!

EDIT: Effective 2/21/09, I have decided to stop Plurking. I feel overwhelmed with trying to keep up with Plurk AND Twitter AND Flickr AND Google Reader AND blogging...so something had to give. As much fun as I've had over there, I'm glad to be able to refocus on those other areas I've been neglecting.

Me on Flickr
Me on Twitter
Chris on Twitter

The pumpkin threatens to swallow the backyard

Alternate post title: Garden update

This is the time of year I absolutely love when it comes to gardening – before it is too hot to breathe, but when all of the plants put on a ton of growth all of a sudden, and your garden actually seems like a … garden.

(Info ABOVE each picture)

I have had to move these stepping stones farther and farther away from the pumpkin (right) on a daily basis. As of yesterday, the pumpkin was threatening to swallow them entirely. We rearrange the vines so they are going parallel to the walkway, but it seems to have a mind of its own. Pattypan squash to the left.




And the pumpkin is pumping out babies right now!




I am adoring this volunteer sunflower. It’s attracting more wildlife to my yard than anything else.




The raised beds are actually not overgrown this year, and make me smile whenever I walk over to this side of the house. It is as if we planned them this way! I just planted a ton more flower seeds over the last week, so there should be lots more color in a month or so. Looking at this picture makes me really proud of what Chris and I have accomplished.




This picture is a little overexposed, but you get the idea. This is the backyard – click here for BEFORE pictures! Such a crazy change. I love to see the difference between now and then.




This is such a cheery picture. I will always have purple coneflowers in my garden (I’m using the raised beds as a nursery for them too!)




I planted sunflowers to act as a cover for my bathroom window that faces the garden, and these beauties came up. Now how come they all face the stucco instead of the outside world? Silly sunflowers.




Thanks for coming on a garden tour with me! I hope all of my US readers have a safe and Happy 4th of July!

Playing with my food

potato face, originally uploaded by gardenpunk.

We had Chris' famous potatoes for dinner last night, and I couldn't stop laughing at this one. It totally has a face as reminds me of Quasimodo for some reason.

If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention!

...says my favorite bumper sticker.

Today I was in line at my local coffee shop to grab a scone to take to work for breakfast when a headline in the Sacramento Bee caught my eye.

"Water Savers Soaked"

Huh?

I then pulled up the article here at work, and I am outraged! The City of Sacramento sent a warning to a homeowner who let their front lawn die after our Governor declared a drought on 6/5/08, when they planning to do something different than just maintain a high-water-use lawn!

Our region is so eff'd up when it comes to water use, I can't even see straight.

RANT:
And this is PRECISELY the reason Chris and I have not let our front lawn simply die - we are too afriad of becoming a target for angry and stupid neighbors, I'd rather help along our half-alive lawn until this fall when we sheet mulch it. In our society we have been so conditioned by our law enforcement agencies and government officials to tell on one another, turning citizen against citizen...there is no sense of community anymore. You simply know me as that neighbor with the barking dogs, or that neighbor with the unmowed lawn, not as Bill, Cindy, Burma, Jackson...(insert your name here). We spend more time going after people talking on their cell phones while driving (now against the law effective 7/1/08 here in California...and the fine is a whopping $10) rather than spend time working cold cases or really going after the small number of people that truly are bad/evil.

Can you see what has happened? YOU ARE SHEEPLE!!! Following blindly a leader with skewed priorities.

I almost want to let my lawn die in solidarity with these folks.

//angry//

Wasteful Product: Toilet Seat Covers

HONG KONG: July 18, originally uploaded by jieling.

So I know many women will totally disagree with me here. I rarely use toilet seat covers. I'm still alive to tell the tale.

Think about it, I'm using a disposable product to cover something that someone else sat on (skin contact, ok I guess).

Toilet seat cover use does however rise in direct relation to sketchyness of the bathroom in question.

I was just in the bathroom here at work and it dawned on me how silly they are here. As long as folks don't dribble on the seat (I always check first), it's a go!

Please, proceed to tell me how gross I am. (I should warn you, you should see my sink at home right now).