Legaleeze

Alright, time to come clean I guess. A LOT has been going on here since we last talked, and I can't really be sure of where to start, being as how I have thoroughly neglected all four of my blogs, but I haven't forgotten you.

Actually, I think of you several times a week, not that you'd know by my absence here, however.

So here's the dish, short and sweet.

The reason I've been gone so long, and the reason my posting was so sparse before I up and disappeared. Or, at least the biggest reason, anyway.

The man I had been calling husband for four years was in the paper a couple of Saturdays ago, under a headline that read, simply, "WANTED" in two inch letters on the front page. He was there with three other criminals, who were wanted for either molesting children, murder, or armed robbery, depending of whom we speak.

He's now in jail awaiting trial, and Ladybug, who has now changed her name to Pirate, and I have been subpoenaed to attend his preliminary hearing, as wittnesses for the prosecution, since he was stupid enough to plead not guilty after confessing his crimes to no less than three separate government agencies. But I digress.

Yes, I'm being intentionally vague, but if you don't know of what I speak, then mayhaps it is better for you that you don't. If you really want to know, there are ways to fill in the details for yourself, which you can also figure out yourself.

An aside:
I the past year or so, I have had to sensor myself a bit, in order to prevent the wrong kind of people, mainly predators, sociopaths, and stalkers, from preying on my children and I as they have attempted to do in the past. If they are reading these words themselves, which I don't doubt in the least, they should remember that I still have all of the information collected previously, and all of the protective measures are still in place, including the information garnered from the repeated attacks and attempts at manipulation via MySpace and YouTube. My willingness to call the police and report the harassment has not wavered. I will not hesitate to press charges.

Amusing tales arise out of every tale, of course, no matter how bad the situation is, and this time is no different...

For example, I don't know of anyone else who has berated a U.S. Marshall and gotten away with it, much less twice, and received two apologies in the bargain.

It all started when I got a knock on my door the Tuesday after the article ran in the paper. I was rather surprised to see un-uniformed men at my door with badges hanging from their necks, but then I'd never seen a U.S. Marshall before either. When they asked me if I knew where that man was (after verifying my identity), I retorted by asking them if they were too lazy to open his file. Probably not the best possible reply, but after having learned not long before That he'd had a warrant since January, and the police hadn't bothered to open his file enough to actually call or write him at his contact address and ask him to come in for "some more questioning", I was pretty ticked. Especially since he...Maybe I should start a bit earlier in the story...

After he broke the law, he went in to the police department and confessed to his crime. They thanked him and sent him on his merry way. In the process of their investigation, to build a case against him, several other folks from government agencies interviewed him, and he confessed to his crimes each and every time. That's Social Services/CPS/DFS, The police, the prosecuting attorney for the state, and the district attorney. During all of that, he repeatedly told them, and verified extensively, his contact address and contact phone number. The police knew where to go to contact him, at ALL times, and simply didn't bother...

The paper published an article whining about how our poor police force was SO low on resources that they couldn't catch the hardened, dangerous criminals that were out on the street. There was another criminal, a murderer, that the police knew he was the entire time, and didn't bother to pick him up. After all of the people in the neighborhood calling the police repeatedly, and filling them in on where he was and when on his daily trek (same times, same places, every day, mind you), They still said that they didn't have the resources to "track down" the most dangerous criminals on our city's streets. This is despite the fact that out of the four criminals whined about in the paper, two of them were VERY easy to find, and would have been relatively simple to apprehend.

Of course, I'll be one of the first to agree that our police force is seriously lacking in resources. In the winter, spring, and fall, when our college-town's population explodes, we're at an extreme shortage of officers. When those few available officers spend their time stalking homeless people down the street and harassing harmless kids on the square, that's squandering the department's meager resources. But I digress.

Okay, enough with the flashback, we return to the U.S. Marshals.

After I asked them if they were too lazy to open his file, they looked taken aback for a moment, before telling me that they had not been given his file. "Does the idiocy of our city's police department never cease?", I wondered to myself. Seriously, send out professionals to do the job you were supposed to do, but don't give them any of the tools or information you have gathered. Make them start from scratch, and see how much longer it can take to get the job done.

I made my feelings clear about the incompetence of my local department, and the Marshals apologized for how long it was taking, and promised me that they would be able to actually do the job right, and quickly.

So I gave them the information that he had so often provided, that same information that was in his file, and after a bit of further discussion, they went on their way.

About that further discussion though, that's were the funny happened...

So these armed men and I are talking outside of my front door, and one of them spits into one of my potted plants that I had just recently brought outside to get some sun. Spits his nasty tobacco-juice in my plant! I looked back and forth from him to my plant a couple of times, then said "That's my plant.". He looked down at the plant and back up at me, with a guileless look on is face, and replied "Yes, I'm helping it, see how dry it is?", but I told him that he wasn't helping it, in fact, if it were a tomato plant, he'd be killing it. I asked him if he'd ever heard of Tobacco Mosaic Virus, and when he repeated the name, looking confused, I went on to educate him in what it was, and what it did, as well as how tomatoes contract the disease. Realizing that he had committed a serious faux pas, he apologized rather profusely (for an agent of the law, anyway), and proceeded to spit in the parking lot from then on out, until they both left.

About 20 minutes later, I got a call from Clifton's mother, saying that the police just left with him, having just picked him up. He didn't put up any fight, and was very cooperative when they came for him, having discovered them in his mother's house when he returned from having purchased a beer for her. I guess they had meant it when they said they would get him into custody quickly.

About 10 minutes after I got off the phone with Flo, the U.S. Marshall calls me to let me know that they have picked him up, and to thank me for my help. Not that I did anything that the police couldn't have done by providing even a part of the case file on the crime, but if they want to give me credit, fine, I'll take it.

So now you know.

Autmn Gardening

It's that time again, time to plant your cold-weather crops for the fall season and start thinking about bringing in the planters from outside in the hopes of an all-year crop, or at least extending the harvest.

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Outdoors, plant your greens leafy vegetables again, and don't forget your quick-growing root crops like radishes. If protected from frosts with a floating row cover or other such thermal happiness, they can be convinced to produce throughout the winter.

We're seeding winter wheatberries in our yard this fall to see if we can produce a crop over the winter season, or at least keep a little green in the area. It will be worth a try, and if it doesn't work as well as we'd like, at least the soil will reap some pleasant benefits from the planting. *smile*

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All containers can be brought in, and if placed in a sunny window or supplemented with a timed grow-light (if in a shady spot), can grow and produce fresh food happily well into planting season next spring. Just do yourself a favor, and make sure your planters all have saucers under them, or someone may just end up watering the floor too. Those saucers really are important!

If you don't have room to bring it all inside, that's okay!

Most plants, grow and produce really well in micro-hydroponics, which take up a lot less room than planters, and require about the same amount of work.

Some plants, like tomatoes, root really easily if a cutting is simply dropped in a cup of water for about a week. They'll root even faster if you use willow water, which is full of natural rooting hormones. If you want to save your tomatoes indoors this winter, but don't have room for the containers, or if they're firmly in the ground, and still happily producing, just snip off a limb or three and set them to root. In about a week, you will have a good root system developing, and you can plant them inside however you wish, for a year-round harvest of deliciousity!

We'll be building a microponics system inside sometime in the next few weeks. Plans are to forgo the usual route of chemical fertilizers commonly used in hydro systems, and try out a few methods of natural fertilization, but with the same type of system. We'll see how it works out. The project would be underway now, except that we are so broke that we have to wait for a gift card I earned online to come in so we can buy the supplies. That's the only reason we're waiting, as I'm raring to get started. I'll be sure to post photos and instructions for building your own as soon as we get it done.

Spiderwort After The Rain

One of our most distinctive native Missouri wildflowers, with it's beautiful purple-blue petals, bright golden stamens, and long slender leaves, Spiderwort was the first wild plant I ever learned to identify on sight.

Spiderwort blooms in late spring and early summer, producing vivid blooms throughout the season. Each plant can produce over 20 short-lived flowers per stem. While each individual flower only blooms for a single day, the blossoms and buds are so heavy and numerous that they often weigh down the usually knee-high plant, causing some stalks to lean sideways instead of standing upright.

The scientific name of Spiderwort is Tradescantia sp., and another common name for it is Cow Slobber, likely both common names came about due to the highly-stretchy nature of the sap, reminiscent of both spider silk and bovine drool. It is related in class to grasses, as well as the Iris, Lilly, and Orchid families.

One of our many wild edibles, the leaves, and stalks may be eaten raw as a salad green, steamed as a vegetable, or added to stews. The flowers make an unusual garnish to salads and summer drinks, and if candied, look delightful as cake decorations.

Popular in English gardens, Spiderwort is easily propagated from seeds and cuttings, and is one of the wildflowers that has made it into the nursery business. If you can't find it at your local nursery, it is sometimes available for purchase at the Department of Conservation's spring seed and plant sale, and makes a vibrant addition to any native flower garden.

Building Community

There was a concert and a playgroup at The Radish last week, and both were a lot of fun. Nora & Gnoll were even better than I remembered them, and I tried to take video, but, alas, I have children who just HAD to come up to me and chat while I was filming, so that didn't work out quite as I had planned.

The new garden beds are coming along quite nicely, and we're scheduled to deliver more used coffee grounds to the urban gardening project on Friday, when we will likely be able to finish and plant the newest bed and finish weeding the urban garden patch. The Radish could really use some clean, rock-free soil, so if you have some you want rid of, please let me know. If you can't deliver it to the garden, I bet I could find a way to get it picked up if you're in Springfield. *smile*

Other than that, things are going well on the home front, our personal garden is growing rather nicely, albeit slowly, and I should soon have some free time to spend on getting a proposal written up for buying the property for the educational farm and community center we want to create.

Houseless Home-Mates & More

These last couple of weeks have been a doosey to say the least.

A friend of mine became homeless and is now sleeping on our living room floor with her husband while they await his next paycheck so they can move into an apartment of their own, and it's been a lot of fun staying up late at night after he gets off of work chatting, telling stories, and playing games, but it has cut my productivity down to nill.

Ladybug's birthday party went well, and we all had a lot of fun, even if the invitations to our homeschool groups didn't go through for some odd reason. Of course, this means that there are a LOT of party bags left over, but we'll be taking them to the free homeschool clothes, toys, & food exchange this weekend and they will all find nice new homes there, while we will hopefully find some new-to-them clothes and shoes for the girls.

The garden is growing well, and the cuttings we've taken are rooting nicely. As usual around this time of year, we are at a loss for planters, and have need of many more than we currently own. We've trimmed back some of the trees lining the parking area so that we can plant something there, and already begun beautifying the neighborhood with flowering edible plants. I'm sure the neighbors won't mind.

We still haven't gotten an answer from the landlord as to whether we can garden the back lot, but we decided we didn't need permission to put up a small retractable clothesline, so we went on ahead, and that's helping to save us a lot of money on at least drying the laundry, since my mother still refuses to give up our washing machine.

If we don't get an answer on the gardening thing by next week, we're going to set up a load of planters back there and garden that way. Nobody has ever said no to a container garden, only to digging up their precious (yet poorly-tended) grass. At least there are edibles in the yard. *grin*

One of the local coffee shops has agreed to save their used coffee grounds for us if we provide the container, so the pickle buckets will soon be on parade yet again, and our wait for garden soil, both for our own garden, and The Radish's many projects, will soon be over, or at least significantly reduced. Today, I deliver their first empty pickle bucket.

The Radish's community garden is coming along nicely, and we've donated a few plants over there, as well as continued to contribute to their compost heap with our un-wormable compostables.

I've taken lots and lots of photos of pretty much everything, but as the battery on the camera is now dead, and with me not knowing the charger's location, showing them off is kind of on hold for now.

The house continues to pull into shape, and we've decided that we need a lot of shelving all over the walls of the house to be able to have enough storage space. This place doesn't have nearly enough closets to store the things we need. Looks like it was made for college students, with three small closets, and only enough kitchen cabinets to store a couple of pots, some spices, random boxed foods, and a set of dishes. We really miss our old house.

There have been some pleasant dumpster scores as of late as well. Not that we've been out hunting, really, but when a shelving unit looms up out of the trash as you drive by, you just have to go pick it up, no matter if you have no place to put it back at the house. *chuckle* Of course, shelving is one of those things that not having space for isn't a problem, what with the average shelving unit itself being able to provide at least twice the space it takes up.

We've been requested to teach a class on sushi preparation, and two people want to come over and have me either create or upkeep their dreadlocks for them.

Now, I know where the time goes, but why the heck can't I somehow barter time from those that have extra lying around that they're not using?

The Radish Sprouts Anew

The Radish Infoshop has found a new location!

Where:

818 College Street

A Couple of blocks west of Grant Street on College

(Look for the familiar Radish sandwich board open sign)

When:

The Radish Infoshop will officially re-open at their new location on April 1st, 2008.

Yes, it's true! A cute little pale-green house on College street is soon to free the best radical lending library in this area from storage, and our big 'ole activist hearts from their slumber.

Everything we loved about the old radish, and nothing we didn't, with lots of new ideas and projects. A place to not only organize, but also to activate, and be active. Improving the community, one yard and one heart at a time, to make a better world, the new Radish currently has the following things in the works;

Provide free food, at least once week, along the lines of Food Not Bombs or the Burrito Project, hopefully in alliance with Project Brown Bag.

Produce organically grown heirloom food, that we have grown ourselves with the most effective methods of limited space urban gardening, and share it with the community.

Provide free clothing and fabric, 24/7, a more efficient Radish Free Store and sewing station for fashion altering and re-creation.

Create a “safe space” for children, so rad families can network, create, learn, and grow as a community with the help of structured (and de-structured) children's activities and family fun time.

Stop by and bring your creativity and willingness to pitch in. There are a lot of opportunities to help, and ideas are always welcome. The plans are evolving as the word is being passed about the reopening, and the art gallery and kids' areas already look fabulous.

We'll be glad to see you on or after the first of April. Share the vision, some ideas, and find out how you can help, if you're anything like me, you'll love what's being done so much, that you’ll feel compelled to leave a dollar (or two) in the donation box. *wink*

Map: Here [where: 818 W College, Springfield MO 65806-1804]

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Just Start

Our dreams are all we've got no matter who we are, and I'm dead serious about making ours come true. So serious that I've listed our dreams on websites, told literally hundreds of people, and worked my tush off towards what we really want.

I've told you of our dream of creating a working self-sustaining mini farm and community educational center for green living in the middle of the city, and about wanting to own and live in an RV. The hows, whys, logistics, and benefits of living our dreams have been explained multiple times in the history of my sharing here with you, so I won't go into it all again now.

But I've gone and done it again, forever running my mouth off towards fulfilling our dreams.

QuickBooks is having a contest called Just Start for small businesspeople or those who want to be. All you have to do is let them know what you would do to create or further your own business. The prize is $40,000 cash, and $10,000 in goods and services to help you on your way. You can enter via video or letter, but things being as they are, I don't have the time to make and edit a video, so mine was submitted in writing.

Since living in an RV isn't exactly what most would consider a business dream, and my plans for how we would do it and how it would further the family business aren't easily explained in 250 words or less, I instead shared with them my dream of running an inner city eco-educational facility and miniature Certified Naturally Grown (organic) farm.

The contest is partially based on popularity and votes, so I would be much obliged if you could take an extra moment out of your day to take a look at my entry and rate our dream and business plan. If you like it, please tell your friends. I can use all the help I can get.

The widget with the link is giant and green, and living on the left sidebar. It may take a few seconds to load our business dream once you click the link, even on high speed, as the page is entirely flash.

Everyone is welcome to join the contest and declare their goals, and all participants automatically get a free copy of some helpful business software.

Feel free to also check out our wishes and dreams by following the text link in the left sidebar. They are directly underneath the big green widget.

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Need More Advertising

Today's event went great. We need to advertise better for next month so we can have more people show up. I will work on signage, planting the second crops, and resting on the morrow.

I'm so pooped I was trying to pass out in my chair at 7pm.

I'm still awake.

wow

There's too much to do and every time I get up to go to bed someone calls on the phone. *tired sigh* It's what I get for not ever going to bed until after 1am most nights. Durn those expectations! *chuckle* All is well, and despite how tired I am, I have had an amazing day, and I'm thankful for each and every one of the calls I got that kept me up later. *hugs*

I am SO coma kitty!

Nightey-night!

No Way

It is already WAY too late for me to be up the day before an event, and I have a million things to do before noon tomorrow.

Since I have completely neglected to mention it here, Tomorrow is the first of 4 seasonal urban farm tour days here at Buckets of Yum. From noon to 6pm, I will be welcoming everyone who wishes to visit our little CNG farmlette here in the center of town. We'll be feeding the pond fish around 2pm, so be sure to come join us at any time between noon and six. *smile*

We will have the farm stand open, and products will be available for purchase during the event.

Heck, if you want to, you can learn all about Certified Naturally Grown by inspecting our farmlette! How fun. If we forget to offer, just ask. *smile*

Like I was saying, there is no time to blog tonight, I need sleep for the busy day tomorrow. :)

For more info on our open house/tour, visit our page on LocalHarvest.org

Flesh Eating Aphids!

I have aphids!

No, not the plants, me!

And the kids!

WE have aphids.

Somehow these aphids are attracted to the people in my household, and every day or so, we find a tiny winged creature walking leisurely along our arm. Yellow or green, that is still an aphid.

Which brings us to the questions;

Why are the aphids attracted to us?
Do we smell like tomatoes?
Are these a new, deadly species of exotic flesh-eating aphids?

The world may never know...

No, Really!

I've been really busy with the yarden and Gather, and reading the new Gregor book to the family, and I simply haven't had any time left for you.

Can you ever forgive me for my negligence?

Two Gallons of Hose Water and a Flash Flood Later

Serious flash flooding this afternoon.

Thankfully we were able to use it to our advantage.

I had just planted some new seedlings and plant babies in their permanent homes, and we were getting ready to water everything when the clouds rolled in.

We had already washed the pond liner and patched the holes in it with hot glue. As we heard the first thunder, we dropped it into it's permanent position, and started to fill it with the hose, but then the downpour began, so we turned of the hose, set up the water catchment pool temporarily, and let the rain do all the work. Now it is a full pond just waiting for a warm day to make final the set up of the catchment pool and clean storm debris out and we can put the fish where they belong.

It was really fun being able to rely on nature to save us the money we would have spent watering the plantlings and filling it with hose water, and we have the added bonus of not having any chlorine in it as well. *chuckle*

I just love serendipity. *grin*

Seed Starting

The first harvest. Fresh Certified Naturally Grown radishes from our rooftop garden.

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This just in: Hydrogen peroxide decreases sprouting time in nearly all types of seeds.

I heard about it on an organic gardening group I'm on, and decided that it was well worth a try. There's not a lot about it online from what I saw in a quick search, and I've heard of an 8% solution being ideal, but the store-bought 3% is fine as well as far as I can tell in my experiments.

I have pre-soaked seeds as well as "watered" directly planted seeds with dilute peroxide to surprising result. All of the seeds have sprouted faster than expected, less than a week after only two treatments. Even the corn (avg sprout time: 18-21 days) came up in less than a week. I am now attempting the same technique with rooting plant cuttings, and I'll keep you posted on how that turns out.

From what I understand, Peroxide used to be used for nearly everything, but it fell into disuse mainly due to easier (chemical) products. It could be that the lack of information is due to it finally beginning to re-emerge as a popular household tool.

Here are a few of the links I found in a quick search;
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ista/sst/2003/00000031/00000001/art00008

http://www.agron.missouri.edu/mnl/60/191greenblatt.html

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentoring/project_ideas/PlantBio_p001.shtml

Give it a try and let me know how your experiments pan out!

What a Day

Ladybug finished the dishes! It took her a full 5 hours to get two sinks full done, but she was SO happy when she had finally completed the job that she ran around the house whooping and hugging people, then proceeded to skip back towards her room humming, whereupon she promptly kicked the wall and hopped around on one foot alternately yowling and laughing at herself. *chuckle*

It rained on and off all day, but we still got a lot done in the yarden. More planters have been sprayed, drilled, filled, planted, and arranged on the roof.

Flo accidentally busted our hose throwing rocks in it's general direction, while digging the catchment pond area that is now is almost finished being dug.

More carrots and lettuces have been planted in the rooftop planters.

We put up the green wire fencing we found on the side of the road the other day and planted edible flowers around it's base.

I set up the rickety wooden children's table & chair set that we found next to a different trash can in a different yard on the same day in our front yard and planted pole beans next to the legs in the hopes that they will become edible sculptures instead of wooden garbage.

Keebler cleaned out some of our gutters while sitting on the slanted roof of our house, harvesting quite a bit of lovely compost, which I used to mulch around the peonies I planted in the neighbor's front yard while I was planting the daffodils over there that we got from a friend last week, so the neighbor can have more spring color next year.

Oh! I almost forgot that we also planted about 50 native garlics, Keebler got the bunny cages hung, and we finally bred the rabbits again.

We also went to the library and had a bit of fun while picking up some books we had on hold after all the work was done and we'd had our showers (we were really muddy).

Ladybug did eventually end up going with her grandmother to stay for a couple of days to help her out with a few things around the house (for pay) again.

I am sore and tired, but it's a good thing today, because I earned my sore and tired, fair and square! *grin*

Photos coming soon!

Anxiety Attack

Wow, after the last week, who woulda thunk?

I woke up this morning with severe pain in my neck, back, and left arm, and a slight difficulty breathing. I honestly thought I might have been having a heart attack. So I took some aspirin and my vitamins and laid down for a while. This of course made me extremely late (as in several hours) for the opening of Artsfest, which resulted in the booth to be set up in a way that was not optimal for the viewing of their informational display and literature because I wasn't there to help. I will be there bright and early Sunday morning to set up and take care of things properly however, even if I am having a real heart attack. It's just not fair to them otherwise.

The kids hand-tilled the yarden the other day gently rescuing each and every worm, Keebler laid the stepping stones for the yarden paths, I planted even more seeds, and started others to soaking for a quicker sprout. Decorative fencing for the rooftop garden has been purchased, new planters have been sprayed white, and we have acquired even more lovely containers to put on the roof from IA.

I finally figured out what was wrong with my trying to set up the website, rectified the error in my thinking, and have located all of the necessary modification files to enable me (or Keebler, to be more accurate, as I have no time for it right now) to create what I truly desire, at least in functionality. Some day I will have beauty as well, but for now, I will happily tolerate the darned thing simply working the way I want it to. If only coding a website were as easy as making a fancy business card. *wistful sigh*

As usual, there are all sorts of cool things that I have not blogged about yet, and I am forcing you to wait in suspense. I know it is bad of me, but I simply don't have the time for it all right now.

Freezing Over?

The seedlings on the rooftop are still going strong thanks to some great friends with quick reflexes and generous hearts. *smile* Weather is starting to look better, seedlings inside are getting a bit more vigorous, and despite having things already in the ground, it looks like we may end up with two gardens this summer, with a likely move this coming fall. Everything's coming up dandelions! (and you know how much I adore dandelions *grin*)

More news as things develop.

Guerrillas Attack!

What lovely spring weather we have been having lately. Perfect for a bit of late-night Guerrilla Gardening!

A nearby apartment complex was saved a bit of their clean up cost from the ice storm when we dropped in for a bit of wood chip removal. We used the walnut shavings for levelling the ground under our might-be-a-swimming-pool-hot-tub-tilapia-pond-thing and help to make sure nothing grows there while we are here. We got to it just in time as well, as the very next morning, the crew was sweeping up what little we had left behind.

For our next trick, we plan to relieve a local homeowner of some obviously unwanted leaf debris! We have already started the seedlings for our customary guerrilla planting projects.

Making Organic Dirt & Natural Gardening Tips

Seems nearly everyone is having a shortage of good, organic dirt these days.

I have been hearing from a lot of my gardening friends about how this spring they will be needing to purchase quite a bit of organic dirt, but I have found a solution!

You can make your own healthy soil pretty easily by tossing some cardboard in the bottom of a container (or straight on the ground where you plan to plant), Then add manure, top with leaves, then sand or vermiculite, some kitchen waste, straw, more manure, more sand or vermiculite, more leaves, and repeating until full. It takes a bit to get great soil out of it (more of a start-in-the-fall type project), but I've done this with dirt in place of about half the manure & leaves in spring with good results. For regular ground instead of containers, forgoe the cardboard in spring projects and instead opt for two layers of newspaper as the first layer.

If you don't have a lot of kitchen scraps (we don't), you can contact your local grocer, and they will likely save their out-of-date produce for you if they know you are going to use it for compost or feeding animals, as it saves them on their trash bill while helping the enviornment. Most stores will jump at the opportunity.

Manure can be acheived free at most horse stables and cattle ranches, Leaves are free by the pre-packaged bag-full at area yard waste drop-off facilities, Shredded newspaper or peat moss can be used in place of leaves if necessary, and dirty straw can be found by contacting stables and animal shelters.

I still have to buy sand or vermiculite, but that is only because I am in the Ozarks, and there aren't a lot of great resources around here for those.

Warning: This soil will be high in nitrogen if created in the spring, and you may need to add some rock-based mineral ammendments to create the precise mix you want and lower the nitrogen content if desired. Then again, you might want some other ammendments anyway, depending on your prefrences.

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As an added soil bonus, some people like to sprinkle water absorbing polymers to their manure layer to increase water absorptopn and decrease the need for extra wateringin containers and during the hottest months.

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Newspaper spread over the top of your ground or container dirt after planting acts as a water-preserving mulch and also keeps most weeds from disturbing your gardening joy.

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Last year's holey hose works great (enlist the kids to poke lots more holes) as a drip irrigation system when strewn around the base of your plants.

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Get your repellants ready now!

Mix baking soda, cornmeal, roughly ground eggshells, and grits in equal parts, and keep it in a dry spot for sprinkling lightly under your plants to deter most fungi, cutworms, slugs, snails, and ants. Should require only 1-3 applications all season.

Make a gallon of spray by making a tea of 20 teaspoons ground red pepper and a gallon of water. After straining, add 10 teaspoons of organic natural castille soap and mix thoroughly. Pour your mix into a spray container and mist your plants weekly or after each rain (tomatos may require more frequent spraying). Be sure to get underneath the leaves with each application. The hot pepper repells most plant eating animals and some insects, while the soap eats away the protective oils from other insects like ants & aphids.

For extra light in low-light areas and additional bug deterrant under your plant's leaves, place some aluminum foil, shiny side up around the base of the plant.

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If your neighborhood has a problem with Japanese Beetles, don't buy a trap for your yard, buy one for each of the neighbors down the street on either end from you. The traps send out a pheremone that attracts the beetles from as much as 5 miles away. Wouldn't you rather your neighbor had them going over there instead of coming to your yard? Bonus: The neighbor will think you are awefully nice to buy traps for them to help them fight the battle, and it really does help in controlling the neighborhood population. *grin*

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Image above is "Totally Impromptu", a painting I created at a local drinking establishment, and my entry for this week's Illustration Friday.

Seed Starting

As of today, we have over 200 seed starter pots and cardboard egg cartons of seeds and/or seedlings. The plant lights are going full blast and preperations are in the works to put things in the ground and set up the girls' roadside stand for the excess that we will eventually end up with no room for planting. (There are several areas in the house that look like the one pictured above)

Keebler finished cutting and washing the containers we got from the roadside, then filled the potato containers with their dirt in preperation for the upcoming planting.

We also chalked "Reserved Parking" in the center of our carport area and Keeb nailed our house number to the top of the spot as well to prevent folks from the complex next door from parking in our spot.
It rained a lot this morning, and we are literally creating dirt in several of our planters that we had emptied earlier

Spring is nigh!

The Best Plans

Are the ones that are easily modifiable. Many changes will be made to this sketch before danger of last frost has passed.
The date doesn't say it, and equinox is still yet to arrive, but the grass is risen, and that's spring enough for me. *grin* Well, at least where the yarden is concerned.