3 R's and some G love

"We've got to learn to
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

 . . .Because three it's a magic number

Yes it is, it's a magic number

3, 3, 3

3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36

33, 30, 27, 24, 21, 18, 15, 12, 9, 6, and

3"
-- Jack Johnson

One of my very favorite 3 R's projects in the whole wide world is making seed starting trays.  It saves me so much money! 


In August, I began starting to save our cardboard toilet paper rolls -- I really wasn't sure what for; neither was the hubby.  It didn't make him very happy.  I've been known to do dumb things; junking up our small kitchen with toilet paper rolls in every nook and cranny had all of the makings of "a dumb thing that is borderline gross that my wife is doing," at least in his mind.

But now I can gloat a little.  I stumbled across a website that explained how to turn those rolls into biodegradable seed pots; just like the peat pots I was itching to buy. 

http://chickensintheroad.com/garden/how-to-make-biodegradable-seed-starter-pots/

I cut them in half; folded them and creased them, cut one inch slits on the four sides that were made by the creases, tucked the sides down, and voila!  Pots.  Then I filled them with potting soil.  I sterilized an organic baby spinach box that was housing our kitchen compost on the back deck, placed my pots in the box, tucked my blue fescue into little divots in the soil, and put the lid on top, and now have a free -- mini-greenhouse.  As easy as 1-2-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3.  Now, all I have to do is be patient and wait for my blue fescue grass to germinate, which for me is magic!

Man Who Stares at Goat

Hedgebrook Farm:  Winchester, VA

Looks like we are going to get a goat! 

There are a lot of benefits to having a goat.  The foremost being he will satisfy our desire for a pet.  Last year we lost both of our dogs.  It was heartbreaking, and we're just not ready for another one, but we do want some cute smallish animal to dote on.  A cat is out; I tried enticing our neighbor's into our house, but my husband's allergic and choleric reaction put an end to that.  He wants a goat.  He's been talking about goats for two years.  It was neither George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, nor Jeff Bridges fault -- he wanted a goat before he knew men stared at them; I swear.  He's been patient; I think he deserves one.

I know a lot of bad things can happen if the goat gets loose in my garden, very bad things.  But I'm choosing cognitive dissonance. 

The goat will not destroy my gardens; in fact, he will nourish them and reduce at least one area of fossil fuel consumption -- the weed eater.  According to Nikki Phipps, author of the fabulously titled Bulb-o-liciuos Garden, goat manure because of its natural neatness and pellet size is an ideal compost additive.  It will create greater air flow and speed up the composting process.  It also can be added directly to garden beds without burning plants -- sounds great!  http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/composting-basics/goat-manure-fertilizer.htm

Beyond that, the goat will literally be our weed eater.  For all his gifts and talents, the hubby is not perfect.  He's allergic (highly allergic) to poison ivy.  If our goat does his job right, he will reduce the fossil fuels consumed by a weed eater and save us at least one trip to the emergency room for  prednisone. 

The Virginia Carolina Livestock Market is right down the road, and next Saturday at noon -- we'll be there staring at and possibly buying a goat.

High on a Mountain Top

"Where I come from the mountain flowers grow wild
The blue grass sways like it's goin out of style
God fearin' people simple and real
'Cause up on the ridge folks that's the deal "
Loretta Lynn, High on a Mountain Top

High on a Mountain Top is a song that Loretta Lynn recorded for Van Lear Rose -- produced by Jack White.  It's one of my favorite songs.  It makes me feel ridiculously happy because I recognize my  home in the lyrics; I suppose a great, universal song has that effect on many people.

My hubby bought me two packs of Blue Fescue Grass seeds for my dry stream bed garden.  He also purchased and "installed" -- and I do use that term loosely as drilling a hole in our bathroom ceiling and shoving a wire clothes hanger through it was part of the installation process -- a grow light.  We are very slowly remodeling our entire house; so our bathroom doubles as a workshop and terrarium. 

I never in a million years would have thought two packs of seeds and a shop light hanging from a hole in my bathroom ceiling would make me so happy, but up on our ridge folks, that's the deal.

Do you see the way the seedling bends?

"do you see the way that tree bends?

does it inspire?

leaning out to catch the suns rays

a lesson to be applied

are you getting something out of this"

-- Present Tense, Pearl Jam

One of my husband's favorite songs is "Present Tense" by Pearl Jam.  When it comes to sowing seeds in late January, I think these lyrics are pretty fitting.  It's easy to feel glum this time of year and yearn for spring.  In years past, I spent the long, dark days staring outside at my dead garden spaces, designing elaborate gardens, and lamenting the cost of all that I wanted.

But not so much this year.  My wonderful hubby gave me license to order fifty dollars worth of seeds the week after Christmas.  Talk about getting your money's worth!  Seeds are one of the most affordable ways to make December dreams a reality.  If I bought a dozen ornamental grasses at a nursery it would probably run me at least 100 bucks (and I would love every second of it), but for less than ten bucks at outsidepride.com, I ordered enough to create three dozen plugs of Blue (eragrostis elliottii) and Purple love grass (eragrostis spectabilis -- who can resist that name?  I think I am going to start working it into my everyday vocabulary:  "You look spectabilis today.")    These are anchor plants for two of the garden sketches I came up with last month.  The package indicated that they could take up to 65 days to germinate, so I started them early.  They germinated in seven days, oh well!

Now each day is spent moving them and my lavender and agastache to a sunny spot in my kitchen after my son eats breakfast and then back into the bathroom in the evening when it's time to start dinner.  I watch them as they bend toward my southern sun, and the next day, I turn them.

 

It is so much fun to go to the nursery, but the shopping high is a quick fix that leaves me wanting more.  Growing plants from seed, on the otherhand, is a closed loop system of fulfillment: grow the plants, harvest the seeds, store the seeds, germinate the seeds, care for the seedlings, grow the plants, harvest the seeds, store the seeds, and on and on it sustains me.    I am getting something out of this -- plants that I couldn't otherwise afford.  And even when the forecast is rain, snow, and ice I have a reason to be very happy in the present tense.

Just a Barrel of Rain

 “Just a box of rain

Wind and water

Believe it if you need it,

If you don’t just pass it on”

-- Robert Hunter, The Grateful Dead

We don’t exactly have a box of rain, but we have a long rectangular gutter and a barrel of rain, which is frozen at the moment.  Constructing the rain barrel last summer was really our first attempt at a big “DIY” garden project. 

For my April birthday, my husband purchased a small greenhouse, and he and his father constructed it near our shed in the back for convenience.  Shuttling my seeds, pots, potting mix, gloves, and spades back and forth between the two really was convenient.  Obtaining water, on the other hand, was not.  It was a time consuming, up-hill chore.  .  At first, I tried dragging a hose back and forth from the house to the shed.  But invariably, I’d forget to put it up.  After discovering it in his path while in the middle of mowing our huge yard, several times, my husband had enough.

Then, I tried lugging a watering can back and forth; that didn’t last long either.

Finally, we saw an episode of Michelle’s Beschen’s B.Organic concerning rain projects on PBS http://www.borganic.net/videos.php?video_id=26

My husband decided that we didn’t need to purchase a rain barrel; he could make one.  His cousin had several empty plastic pickle barrels, and he was more than happy to give them to us.  Hubby drilled a large hole in one, put a spigot into the hole, sealed it, and there it was.  He’s gifted and talented.

Next, we had to purchase a green gutter for the shed.  We thought this would be easy.  It was not.  We rushed over to the hardware store only to find out it had to be special ordered.  Whoever was in charge of picking up phones and requesting special orders was not there; we’d have to come back.   We headed back a week later.  The phone calling specialist was not there.  We trudged back a week later, still not there.  Then an idea warmed and began glowing like a compact fluorescent light heating up to save the environment.  This person could call us whenever he came to work.

We did at some later date order the gutter, and it even later arrived.  Someone, with  specialized skill in making phone calls, left a message that it had arrived while my hubby was working, but I had his truck, so it was no problem.  I thought. 

Once I arrived at the hardware store, I realized that his truck was a problem.  The bed is six feet long; the gutter was eight.  I had not one thing to secure the gutter.  And unlike my hubby, I am not gifted and talented.  Ingenuity escapes me.  The guy loaded it into the back and tied it down with a piece of twine that had to have come from Thumbelina’s spool.  With two feet hanging out of the back and the box ripping, I pulled out of the parking lot.  It began hopping and flapping before I reached the first stoplight.  We weren’t going to make it home.  I stopped at the next stoplight, beside the post office, signaled, headed in, bought packaging tape, and taped the box and Thumbelina’s thread to the bed of the truck – in many places.   I cut my hand, but overall, felt very MacGyverish when I pulled into my driveway.

We placed the gutter at the rear end of the shed, situated our rain barrel underneath it, made a rain chain out of some small tin flower pots, and waited, and waited, and waited.  Three weeks later the rain finally did come. 

Was it worth the work, hassle, and wait?  You can believe it, if you need it.  If you don't just pass it on.

A Dry Stream Bed is Definitely a Ditch

“Unto your dreaming

When you’re alone

Unplug the TV

Turn off your phone

Get heavy on with digging your ditch”

-- Dave Matthews Band

My husband and I live on the land that his grandparents bought years ago.  We live across a gravel, country road from the home where they lived for some time.  The row of Leyland Cyprus trees that line the way to the pond were planted by his grandfather as was the burning bush that I am digging a ditch to.  Like me, his grandfather was a digger of ditches – definite ditches, to be exact:  When Dave Matthews wrote “Digging a ditch for when I’m old / digging a ditch where stories told,” he might as well have been talking about my husband's grandfather.  He dug so many ditches in his life time that his shovel is as flat as a spatula, like it could have been Paul Bunyan’s flapjack flipper.

 

This past fall my husband’s grandfather past away, and we inherited his shovel.  It feels right here in our home, not just because my husband treasures it, but because I now have an indescribable urge to flatten a shovel. 

I naively planned to begin removing the sod from a portion of our front lawn in order to build a dry stream bed “on any nice day in January or February.”  It is January 22; school has been in session 8 out of 22 days.  Nice days have been few and far between.  I’ve revised my journal entry to “any day that the temperature rises above 45 degrees and the wind doesn’t feel like it’s tearing holes in my skin.”  I’ve squeezed in a couple of hours with my shovel during those.  They were glorious. 

I am eager to get heavy on with digging my ditch.  I want to build a dry stream bed constructed from the rocks we find here and with the strength we find here too.  If we were rich, we could hire a landscaper, but we’re not.  And more importantly if that ever was my way, it no longer is.  When I’m old, I want stories told to my grandkids about my shovel.

Eragrostis elliottii: all you need is love

I decided that my first post should be about the first seeds that I planted this year.  Eragrostis elliotti, commonly known as Love Grass, has been keeping me sane since January 1.  Those folks who say things, in the "they say" realm of the world claim that what you do on the first day of the year will define your year.  I ordered seeds early and sowed them with purpose. 

I shouldn't give myself too much credit for purposeful planting in that I didn't exactly have everything that I needed.  According to some websites, in fact, I hadn't even collected the most basic ingredient:  soilless starting mix.  I didn't have a grow light; I didn't have heating mats; I didn't even have room under my refrigerator for trays.  I did have several peat trays leftover from this past spring, which I soaked for several hours.  And I can honestly say this technique is an improvement over my previous seed starting method.

The following is my former method; I do not recommend it:  dump dry potting soil into peat pots, drop seeds on it, dump more potting soil on top, dump a lot of water in there, hope the seeds don't get washed out, wonder how-in-the-world people get seeds to start like this, talk to Dad, realize that most people don't get seeds to start like this, pray that some of the seeds are still in the peat pot. 

Anyway, I've learned at least four things:  moisten the soil in the pot first, make sure it's all drained out, then press the seeds into it, and don't dump water on it.  With my new and improved method, the soil became moist, and I sowed my seeds.  Then, I sat them in front of a window.  I placed the cells in a plastic tray, watered them from the bottom, and to my surprise they germinated. 

Now, I have tiny, two inch blades of Blue Love Grass.  And on days when the entire world outside of my window looks like an Andrew Wyeth painting, those blades of grass glow, reminding me that, really, all you need is love.