Phew!

It's been a while since I've posted. We moved back in October to what I hope is a more permanent home (one that we'll buy eventually I think). It doesn't have the huge track of land we wanted, but it has some and it will do for our purposes. Behind our property is a "green belt" which is more than an acre or trees separating us from the street behind us. It's actually quite nice and we are really enjoying out new home.

Anyway, with the move in October, then trying to get the house in order before Thanksgiving and now trying again to make sure it stays somewhat in order for Christmas, it's been challenging to say the least. I'm almost done unpacking, but I've been sort of stuck on the last 15 boxes since three days before Thanksgiving. I actually managed to unpack our entire lives in less than three weeks. Most everything has a home, thankfully and I have a few boxes that are in need of storage because I just don't have a practical place to put them right now. I came to the conclusion that we just have entirely too much stuff and it isn't frivolous junk. Camping gear alone takes up.. wow. And then the kitchen... double wow. You just never realize until you move.

So now I'm back on a limited basis through the holidays. I'm pleased to be able to sit down and actually not feel guilty for touching my computer with stuff standing around me in boxes waiting and pleading to be put away. And I've been very busy writing for Patti Moreno. Be looking forward to this coming year, I've sent many articles to her this month. Seven in total at this point!

I had a thought this past week about an inexpensive self watering container while talking to a rather handy fellow at work. We were talking about building my hydroponic system because he has the tools I'm missing and is interested in seeing how my first run at a full indoor system will work. I was showing him plans when I came across a set of plans using cut off two liter bottles screwed into PVC. It hit me at that point that I could just put the cut off top right back in the cut off bottom and fill it with water.

So I did. I poked my husband into finishing his Pepsi and then I proceeded to cut it in half, stuff some cotton into neck and filled the bottom part with water. The wicking process began. I didn't put the water in from the top because I wanted to see if the cotton would actually pull up enough moisture into the dry soil and it did. It only took a couple of hours but the bottom part of the soil started to intake the water so I felt it was a sound process. I put together three of these over last couple of days. I have lemon basil, sweet basil and garlic chives so far. Now that we're going to save our two liters (I had the kids dig through the recycling bin and grab a few others for me from the last month) I should have a few of these all over the house to see what plants respond well to this and which ones don't.

I'm very excited about this and hope it works. I'll get pictures posted of them as soon as I can.

Council for Responsible Genetics

I saw this over at Garden Girl's forum from another member there. The site is dedicated to a safe seed program where seed distributors can sign up saying that they are selling seeds that, to their knowledge, are not genetically modified.

It shows distributors not already taking the pledge how they, too, can pledge that their seeds are genetically safe.

It also has a list of seed distributors that have already taken the pledge for your seed shopping needs.

All in all, a definite 10 on the Greener Meter scale.

http://www.councilforresponsiblegenetics.org/Help/TakeAction.aspx

Nessy?

Ok, I know this is way off gardening topic, but Loch Ness is interrupting.

Apparently, someone thinks that she has been captured by Google Earth.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/loch-ness-monster-monster-spotted-on-google-earth/story-e6frev20-1225766449373

Strawberry Tip

For your first year of planting strawberries, pinch the blooms off to help build stronger, healthier plants and to also make bigger strawberries.

Really Cool Vegetable Database

Ever get the feeling that you just pick the wrong varieties? You try 4 different ones, they all suck but your neighbor seems to sniff out the goodies when you're stuck with stunted, half-dead plants that won't sustain themselves much less a family.

Welp, here is something to help you out. The University of Saskatchewan has this program where they are putting all the varities to the test and man, is it handy. I've been digging in there on and off and have found that several varieities I wanted to try probably wouldn't be too good of an idea for me to try without a back up.

The really awesome thing about this after I had time to really sit down and look is that it gives you a recommended list of stuff to grow based on their trials. Very handy indeed.

So, have a look at this thing and let me know what you think about it.