Bathtub Full of Corn, Prom Time, and The Wife Gardening

The girl took me to the dump today, had limbs from trimming a tree out front, and I needed dirt to put in my bath tub. Dirt in my tub, was that funny? Don't you have a claw foot bathtub with popcorn and sunflowers planted in it? OK, maybe it's odd, but so am I, besides you have to be in my backyard to see it. It's in the corner next to the house, right next to my smoking table. I don't smoke anymore, so I grow salad greens on that, I know!

The boy has his senior prom tomorrow night, hooray! The wife took him down to pick up his tux this afternoon, a real learning experience for her. She either didn't pick up on the fact that guys are different from girls, or she is tainted by living with me for so many years. She said that she, and all the mothers in the shop, were dying at how laid back the boys were. How's it fit...good. How are the shoes...good. Does it need to be ironed...no. Most of the boys, including mine, left with jackets and shoes that fit, and freshly ironed tuxes.

We have been having some great salads, all thanks to the wife stepping up to be an awesome gardener. I think she has caught the bug, the satisfaction of going out to the yard, instead of out to store for supplies. Can't wait for the tomatoes to come in, they are the greatest! She knows how much it means to me, so she didn't hesitate, although it did cost me a new gardening wardrobe, and she's still looking for the right hat!

Multiple Sclerosis, Pacing the Stimulator, Garden Chores, and My Babies Under the Weather

The wife is sick, is that allowed? Who will take care of me if I need anything? What if one of the kids need something from a parent? I don't remember voting on this, or giving this my Okie Dokie. I suppose I can pick the boy up when he's finished, but I cleaned the kitchen for Pete's sake! She's sleeping on the sofa right now, I'm going to put her to bed so I can hear the hockey game! I guess I can man the watch so she can rest, she sure has earned it.

I'm looking at the stimulator from a different angle, see if it makes more sense this way. I used the cane today, and it made a big difference, especially with my knee. What ends up happening is my leg gets tired, so I start hyper extending the knee. If I use the cane, it doesn't happen as quickly, and isn't as severe when it does. I think I need to acquiesce to the fact this may take some time. It is working, and after having it tuned up on Monday, I hope it works even better. Most of all, I need to give my body a chance to adapt to it, and get stronger, I can do that.

If the weather cooperates, I am going to make the rest of my idiot garden tomorrow. I bought some more plants, including some variegated sweet potato vine for my arbor at the gate, and some moon flower seeds. I'm debating if I should fill the tubs up with compost from the dumb. My one buddy uses it all the time, says it's great, the price sure is right. I need 2 cubic feet per bin, and I have 3 more to make.

Idiot Garden Club, Easter Guests, and Learning How Not To Do Too Much

I went out and tried to be productive, again. My legs are killing me, and I am exhausted, again. I need to put notes on all the doors telling me to take it easy, I can't seem to remember that. The worst part is got absolutely nothing accomplished! I was trying to cut up the old side porch with an air cut off tool, but we are talking some serious metal. It will go to the scrap yard whole!

Why do they let major league baseball players go on the field with a huge wad of chewing tobacco in their mouth? Would they have let Jim Palmer pitch with a cigar in his mouth? Seems like a strange way to do things, image and all, I mean for the kids.

We are getting ready to have my 1st idiot garden club meeting here on Saturday morning. Looks like we will have 5 or 6 people come, not too shabby for the first effort. We will make a couple of the idiot boxes, show them how to assemble them, tell them how to make the soil mix to put in them. Should be a hoot!

We are having Easter dinner here for the wife's family. we enjoy doing it, and the Mother in law has done her share. To make it better, the daughter is bringing her friend home from school, she lives too far to go home for Easter. It makes us feel good to have her come, we have met her parents a couple of times, I hope they are glad she is coming too. The girl went to her friends house and then to central park for a concert, so that's pretty cool.

Tomorrow is a new day, I need to promise myself to not do too much. I think the best way to do that is to promise myself not to go outside, God knows I don't work too much in the house!

Multiple Sclerosis, Statins For Demyelination, and Idiot Gardening Begins

I've been thinking about statins lately, wondering what they would do for people with MS, people like me. When the experts talk about statins cleaning the plaque out of arteries, is it the same plaque as the lesions on my brain and spinal cord? If it is, how much would I have to take to get rid of mine? The experts are split, some say it helps, some say it actually make it worse! I wonder if anyone has every opened an MS dude up and tried to scrape the plaque off the brain or spinal cord? If they did try it, I sure hope it was someone who left their body to science, not some some poor soul who thought they were in for a check up!

I planned out my 2009 idiot garden, I'm ready to rock and roll! I am growing everything in 8, 18 gallon tubs. 3 of them will have tomatoes, 6 plants in all, 1 tub of green, red, and yellow bell peppers, 2 of each, a tub each of green beans and peas, 16 plants each, and 2 tubs of mix leaf lettuce, 8 plants each. I will also have a few 5 gallon containers, one each of honeydew, cantaloupe, and watermelon, and then herbs too in 3 and 5 gallon containers. I can't wait for tomato sammiches! Wait a minute, I'm going to need to make a ninth tub for Kirby pickling cucumbers, gotsta have bread and buttter pickles, and Slammers garlic dills! I can almost taste everything now!

A Better Idiot Proof Garden System

These guys have idiot gardening down to a science! I am going to explore the watering system after, and if I ever get my bathroom finished! Read that garden site, I like it when people admit they don't know what things are called, or why they work. It's interesting. We are off to farmers markets tomorrow, yippy!

Oh yeah, one convention down, one to go. I could have put each one on for the cost of a camera and an Internet connection! The money that was wasted distresses me beyond words. I'm sure the other team's pep rally will be as opulent as this one was. It would have showed real balls for one of the teams to have had their convention online and sent every registered voter a $5 gas coupon they could print out and use. Guys, you missed your chance to shine!

Are There Really Dead Zones In Our Oceans?

Global warming, wars all over the world, violence in our cities, and now I read about dead zones in our oceans. Dead zones? Sounds like something Stephen King should write about. Do they exist? How should I know? I don't have a dead zone test kit from Acme. All I can do is decide which of the 2 sides I choose to believe. Like most things the 2 sides are diverse in their opinions of if it exists, why it exists, and who is to blame for it. I sure wish I could believe our leaders, but you know.

So these said dead zones, why are they there? Are they a naturally occurring phenomenon, caused by plant life and small animals, martians who are waiting to colonize the earth, or is it runoff from our crops? Once again, it depends on who you talk to, or listen to. Did we have this problem back in the 50's, and did the government tell us truth about it then, or cover it up like they do now? How are we supposed to decide for ourselves? Should I believe what I'm told blindly because we have a Republican or Democrat in the White House, or in charge of Congress? Please, get real!

Are our fish and crabs going to be gone soon? Is it safe to eat what's left? Is it global warming making the farmers put nitrates into the water? Why don't we send Consumer Reports Magazine in to investigate, they are totally non biased, right? Can it be fixed? How much will it cost to not only stop it, but then to fix it and make it all better? Wow, I'm confused, and just a bit fed up. Do I need to make up some buttons demanding farms are forced out of business? Hm, that means no food, and that's a bad thing. If we can't trust the government, then who do we turn to?

I say we all start growing our own food. They want to make me responsible for my own social security, why not my own food. How much land do I need for my own food? Give each one of us a parcel of land to farm, if I do it wrong and it pollutes, I don't eat. OK, that doesn't make sense, but how about we make the people responsible follow the rules. Farmers have to do what they need to do to fix the problem. Builders can't build right on the water, no matter how nice the houses are. That means for everyone, even the rich. We stop polluting our streams. No more fines, you pollute, you go to jail. There, I came up with a couple of ideas, now it's your turn. Tell me what else we can do, make a comment to help us all.

Tragedy Strikes Idiot Proof Garden

Don't tell me something is idiot proof before I've gotten the opportunity to prove it otherwise! Yeah, I can idiot up things with the best of them. So my storage tub garden grew. And it grew. And man did it grow! I had no idea when I pirated this information off line both from another pirate, and from the official manufacturers web page, that these damn things would work so well! They are huge! There in lies the problem.

Bigger things usually do weigh more. Trucks weigh more than cars, elephants more than mice. Even people follow this rule. I'm 6'5" and weigh about 300 pounds. My father is a little wisp of a man, 5'7 and 3/4" weighing in at a whopping 160.(He weighed 118 when I was born) So why did these plants get so big? I think it must be that I grew them perfectly! What else could it be? Sure, maybe they all get that big, but mine are bigger! Bigger means heavier Jug. Oh yeah, any idiot knows that, or at least most of them.

My July 3rd post showed how much they had grown from the June 3rd sowing, well not sowing since I didn't plant seeds, but just work with me. Between July 3rd and yesterday, the tomatoes were close to 7 feet tall and the green peppers were almost 6. Yep, farm livin is the life for me! I go out each day and water, make sure they are staked up and supported, and stand for a few minutes with my hands on my hips saying, "Yep!"

I was laying in bed last night, of course I was laying, come on, I am house broken! Anyway, I'm laying there listening to one hell of a storm! The light show that went along with it was quite impressive too. As I lay there I could have sworn I heard a loud sigh from beneath my window? I hoped my babies are OK? You raise them and you hope they are ready for the real world. The weight. Had I calculated the weight? I will have to make adjustments for the size and weight of all the fruit on the vine. I was going to run out and check, but the wife reminded me of the weather and the fact that it would like a scene from the "Shawshank Redemption" if I went out now.

I spent many a restless night in the stir, OK, enough of the movie references. Let's just say I would have been up all night if it weren't for the dose of Ambien I took to in hopes of the constantly cycling cramps in my legs fading away into a drug induced slumber. Back to my babies! So I get up this morning, a bonus right there, but I need to go check my fruit. Are tomatoes fruits or veggies? Aren't they fruit so the government can tax them? Try taxing these! Back to my babies!

As I turned the corner past the saw grass, past the claw foot bath tub, my worst fears, any parents were realized. My plants had gotten so big they had actually collapsed under their own weight. My 7 foot tomatoes were now 3 foot. My 6 foot peppers were down to 4 foot, and had actually lost a branch. As you can see, I lost some very young green peppers. How could I have not calculated in the weight? So much for idiot proof! I still have tons of tomatoes and peppers, but I will lose a bunch due to lack of sun. Next year I'm going to buy a welder and make a steal arbor or trellis. I give this method an A+! It is a great way to grow if you have limited space, ability, or mobility.

More Idiot Gardening in 18 Gallon Storage Bins

30 days have gone by since I planted my urban sustainable garden. Yippee! Listen to me, urban sustainable garden! How is that for making something fun sound way more important then it is, but you have to admit, that's pretty cool! Notice the size difference between the storage tub tomatoes and that of the bath tub ones. All the same size when they were planted! Thanks, I thought so too!

The green peppers are doing well too, just starting to pop out of the flower ends. My salad tub is still producing, deliciously! I'm a little discouraged with my zucchini though. I'm getting veggies off of them, but not the amount I figured I would off of the number of blossoms. I will need to figure that one out.

I planted 8 varieties of tomato to see which ones did the best in this style of gardening. So far I would say they have all done well, except that the bath tub maters are growing slower then the storage tub ones. My cherry tomato planted in the bottom of the flower pot is good for a laugh. It looks like a banzai tomato plant. I've gotten a couple of fruit off it, but it has only grown about 4 inches! The tomatoes on the right are Early Girl, and they are! I'm just waiting for these to vine ripen before eating them.

I have to tell you, it's a lot of fun to go pick it, and then go eat it! It's a rush! The bins are working as expected, fill the tube until it runs out of the hole and that's it. I'm already trying to figure out what can be done to make them produce better, and produce earlier, for next year. I'm tossing around the idea of a self watering salad greens garden planted in 2, 3 foot round kiddie pools! The best part about the tomatoes are that I don't have to worry about that old Italian guy turning up to ruin them. You know the one I mean, Sal Minella!

Gardening so easy an idiot could do it! I did!

Ah, nothing like the smell of freshly tilled soil, the achievement felt from hoeing weeds for hours on end. Fighting bugs and varmints, wondering if everything is getting enough water, fertilizer. Ah, alls I need now is Zsa Zsa to pal around with and I'm set! The problem is I don't feel like, or have the energy to do most of those things, not to mention the room!

How does a poor slob like myself get not only fresh veggies all summer long, but also the joy and sense of accomplishment of having grown it all by myself? You can't! No, I'm kidding, I kid, that's what I do! I decided to build my own self watering vegetable containers. I'd heard of them, but I didn't want to spend the money for them. I went online and Shazam! There they were.

I've decided you can find anything on the internets. I made up 5 of the containers. 2 have tomatoes in them, one has squash, yellow and green, one has 2 types of lettuce, and the last are my green peppers. Each has a strip of organic fertilizer that runs down the center that will feed the plants for the entire growing season. You fill the "fill" tube until water comes out of the overflow hole.

Let me see....yep, that's it! Just like I said, even an idiot could do it! As long as you keep water in the reservoir, all is good. The black plastic keeps out weeds and that's about all there is to it. Now alls I have to do is wait. The squash will be on the table soon, they are about 3 inches long and we have been eating salads for a few weeks.

My claw foot bath tub has 3 tomato plants in 5 gallon buckets. I am going to compare how the tomatoes do in the tub against the self watering ones. I'm no expert, but I bet we know how this is going to turn out. I also have a cherry tomato plant growing upside down out of the bottom of a hanging basket of flowers. Man, what was I thinking!