http://www.gardeners.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-Gardeners-Site/default/Page-KitchenGardenDesigner

Neat huh? AND, yes, AND you can print it out and with it will come lots of information about each crop you are plaining on planting!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8qPAV-LDnM&feature=related

So, I’m cheap. I could have gotten one of thost pot makers from like Burpees, but that is a unitasker and cost like $20. I like my $.49 can of beans that later went into some chili.

I don’t do it exactly like the You Tube video, but close:

Heres a picture of my cole crop box with a hoop house over it to warm up the soil, protect them against freeze temps and excessive winds.

Square #1 with Brassicas

Time to sit back and relax

For storage

Compress Peat Moss, 2.2 cft $6

Horticultural vermiculite, 4.99 for 8dry quartsHorticultural vermiculite-probably medium/coarse

Mica Flake attic insulation 3cft 8.99Attic insulation vermiculite-everything from fine to very coarse

Attic insulation vermiculite-everything from fine to very coarse

Looking GOOD!

My Mel’s Mix in my table top square foot garden

This will contain my lettuces

Here are my peppers seedlings at just over a month old

Peppers in their new home

Potted up in 4" pots

Here are the brassicas growing into toddlers

Brassicas growing

Romanesco green cauliflower from my brother

 Little onion seedlings growing tall!

not an onion fan, but I hope these are good!

More pepper and some lettuce

More peppers and some lettuce

Mater seedlings

itty bitties

1 opossum (at least)

Stupid marsupial

So, lets tally some of the critters:

3 or 4 ground hogs

Fatty McFat Ass

a huge family full of squirrels

Squirrel Obesity

2 skunks (at least)

a family of rabbits

A turkey

And I am also told there are fox and deer. Um… don’t i live in the city?

I just can't plant one

Here are my cole crops; cabbage, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, collard greens.

Brassicas

Well I got some items in the seed pots. I met an AWESOME VERY helpful poster on www.michigangardenclub.com named the Pod Piper. As you can tell by his name is passion is peppers (with some tomatoes sprinkled in there). He hooked me up with a TON of pepper and tomato seeds. Seriously, like a TON.

I am finding out that those in the gardening community are eager to help as well as spread their “fruits” of their labors.

Here is my “greenhouse” set up. It is two 24 inch long shelving (two different kinds which was a mistake, but i was way too lazy to fix). Then I got two Habitat for Humanity Restore specials, shop lights. And had to go to Wally World to get some plant spectrum lighting.

So:

Shelving:$12 x2= $24

Shop Lights: $5 total

Lighting: $6×4- $24

Chain: $2

Total- $55

Hey, gotta start somewhere

This is going to be fun

I thought I would repost my experience from 3 years ago!

I slept like CRAP on Thursday night, so Dust slept in the future baby’s room because I was tossing and turning. I didn’t feel bad, just slept bad. So I FINALLY went to sleep after watching “Where the Heart Is” (I think that is the name) at

about 6 AM. I woke up at like 11:30ish, ate a little, fed the cats and then laid back down because I was still really tired. I woke back up at 1pm checked email watched Discovery Health and started to get a little cramping, nothing bad, it just felt like I had eaten some bad Taco Bell. So I took some Tums and started to get ready for work. At about 2:30, the cramping really started to suck so I called the OB and left a messege with her nurse. So I went to work. I got there about 3:30, started getting w

ater, first aid kits, and taping done for the basketball game that night and got the phone call from the OB nurse and she said to grab some water, lay down, and rest. She said to start timing the contractions and if they got to 5 m

inutes apart, 1 minute in length for two hours then either call the office or go straight to the hospital. Well, by about 4:30 I called Dustin and asked him what he thought as I read the numbers off. He said that ultimately I only knew where I was and how bad things were. So I just kept walking around because they weren’t HORRIBLE, just bad menstrual cramps. But by about 4:45, I called Dustin back and said he needed to come to the high school because they were coming really close together and were strong. I didn’t tell him HOW strong, they were strong enough that I was gripping the taping tables and pacing back and forth and scaring the shit out of my high school students (they called me the “Abstinence” example for the day). The HS kids were really g

ood, getting me water and ice, walking with me, rubbing my back, timing my contractions with my stop watch from football, etc. By the time Dustin got here at 5:40-5:45, my contractions were just under 5 minutes apart and last just over 1 minute. DH drove a zillion miles per hour and got to the hospital/LD at 6:20. I was in a room and being checked (pretty much screaming) at 6:30 and was at 4 cm, I was trying to breath, but we had barely touched on it at the last Birth class and hadn’t even done the tour yet! So everything after this was a whirl wind, things were being thrown everywhere, I was lucky because my OB was actually already here with another patient. I was panting and my DH told my nurse that I wanted to go “natural/unmedicated” and I was like, umm I don’t know anymore!!! I was shaking in pain and something I did (don’t know what) told the nurse to have the d

oc (actually a resident because my OB was still with the other patient) that she needed to check me again, it was now about 7cm (20 minutes later). 20 minutes later, she checked again I was 8 cm and -1 station. I was crying f

or an epidural pretty much but I later found out that I really couldn’t have one, nor did I have time anyway. So they FINALLY got the IV in me. I I tried to rest. About 20 minutes later I started panting again pain returned like CRAZY and I just knew I had to push, and I had to push NOW! They checked me again and I was 10 cm and +3 station. They kept telling me not to push, not to push because my OB was delivering another baby right down the hall and she really wanted to deliver me ( she calls the baby boy down the hall Zaley’s “boyfriend”), So I just held on ( ok I lye, I was secretly pushing to relieve the pain). So I finally got to push at about 7:40 and she was born at 8:04.   About 20 minutes later they were doing the normal post op stuff and checked blood pressure and the nurse FREAKED OUT, and grabbed another mechanical BP cuff, and then another, and then another, and finally manual. The reason being that my BP was 220/110 (it was 154/87 when I came in) and my urine protein was 4+ (super saturated, highest it can be). So the next hour was ANOTHER whirlwind of events happened, I was put on mag sufate (or “OMG there is lava going through my veins” that SHIT SUCKS!!), tons of saline, some BP meds, oxygen, and it got my BP down to 190/100. Over the next day it gradually decreased but stalled at 160/90 and I started to get sick, really sick. They thought maybe I had a pulmonary embolism because I just couldn’t breath no matter how hard I tried, it felt like a horse on my chest! So chest x-rays, EKG, nebulizer, they decided to take me off of the mag sufate, which made everything better, but my urine protein went back up. I somehow feel asleep, doctor said I actually passed out from exhaustion!   Azalea Raine was born at just under 36 weeks, tiny weighing only 4lbs 5oz, but remember they thought she was going to be small anyway from the previous US. She was 17.5 inches long but perfect. Her apgars were 8 and 9, lungs great, blood sugar great, temp was the only problem. She was able to stay with me the first ni

ght, and I kept her temp up by keeping her skin to skin. Which helped a ton. She fed “ok” taking in about 8 cc of formula before falling asleep. But in the morning the neonate doc wanted her in an isolette to regulate her temp better. That broke my heart and I was pissed because you can’t just give me my baby then take her away! So she is now across the hall in the isolette being fed 20 cc of high protein formula by bottle or if she can’t get it all by bottle, she takes it by tube. I got to hold her again for the first time today, which helps put me at ease. We are going to stay in the hospital even though we are discharged (some cool program called bed and breakfast allows you to stay at $50/day). We don’t know when she will get to come home, most of it depends on her weight, ability to maintain body temp, and ability to feed.

First family picture

Down to 4lbs And the diva now.Pointing to her brain

DIVA