Images of Spring

The one that survived the cull, a Sweet 100 plant growing above the ones that didn't make it.

The tomato plants continue to grow. The Roma tomatoes were the last to sprout, doing so just a few days ago. Hopefully they'll catch up with the others.

A couple weekends ago I picked up some strawberry plants from my Dad. They were runners from his own plants. I didn't have a good spot for them prepared, so I went out and bought some edging material, then extended one of the beds near our patio in order to make space for the new plants. Nearby, an Arborvitae shrub had been adversely affected by the last heavy snow a few months ago. The shrub was probably around nine or ten feet tall, and the heavy wet snow weighed it down, permanently bending it over so that it leaned out over the steps leading from our yard to our patio. Trying to prop it up wasn't an option, so the father-in-law and I cut and dug it out. A replacement Arborvitae was purchased and planted in the location of the old plant, as we felt we would miss the privacy it offered for our patio. I probably planted the strawberry plants too close together, but I have no idea how many will survive, so things may work out in the end. We are looking forward to fresh strawberries later this year. With recent rains, the plants are perking up and appear to be happy in their new home.

Last fall while at one of the big box home improvement stores, we noticed some 4'x4' cedar raised bed garden kits on sale. I had wanted to do a raised bed garden, but hadn't figured out exactly how I was going to do it yet. Other home improvement stuff had been the priority, and I hadn't put a lot of thought into it yet. Looking at the kits, they seemed like a simple enough start for the price, so we went ahead and bought two of them. The kits were made in the USA out of USA materials, and come from a company not too far away in Cleveland. All the major parts are dovetailed, so the only tools needed for assembly are a rubber mallet and a screwdriver (The caps on the corners are screwed in place). The kits spent the winter in our garage behind the wife's bicycle. With the weather starting to warm up, I went outside last weekend and set them up in a mostly sunny spot in the back yard.

Yes, I can fit my lawnmower through there. . .

They went together very easy, and the only major problem I had with them was that the cuts on some of the boards that make up the sides weren't very straight. I had to test fit boards to mate a straight side with another straight side so I wouldn't end up with a gap between them. When I started setting them up, I wasn't completely sure how I was going to do it. The original plan was to scrape up the sod where the beds would go then fill the boxes in with bagged garden soil. This was somewhat tedious though, and I didn't have a good spot for all the sod to be dumped. What I ultimately ended up doing was scraping up the sod, flipping it upside down, and then placing the boxes around it. The instructions that came with the kits said that they would each require eight cubic feet of soil to fill them, but with the existing sod, I got that down to six cubic feet per box. I laid down newspaper between the flipped sod and new garden soil. Time will tell if I end up with grass growing up through the new soil. I'm looking forward to getting some things planted out there, but I need to figure out a way to fence off the new beds. More on that later. . . .

The McGovern Report: The story behind the first U.S. dietary guidelines explains why to this day the decades of science supporting a more plant-based diet have yet to fully translate into public policy.

US animal activist laws 'may impact globally'
By Matt McGrath Environment correspondent, BBC News

Update: Remember Food Babe's Kraft food dye investigation? She just came back from visiting Kraft's HQ and finally got answers. . . . or maybe not. Kraft tells her that their US consumers want to eat products with cancer causing chemicals. Read more HERE

As mentioned in the previous post, I purchased tomato seeds last year that never got planted.  I also had seeds I saved from my Sweet 100 cherry tomato plant from last year, as well as some seeds a coworker gave me. 

Sitting in the window sill are the following tomato varieties:

• Sweet 100 (Cherry)
• Tiny Tim (Cherry)
• Super Sauce Hybrid (Roma)
• Cherokee Purple Heirloom

Sweet 100 Tomato plants growing(or weeds)

So far the Tiny Tim and Sweet 100s are growing.  One Cherokee Purple just recently sprouted, and the Roma's are doing nothing.  I have two pots of each type set up, but I only intend to keep one of each plant, giving the spares away.

Newspaper Pots

Last year I purchased some tomato seeds at the local home and garden show, but due the circumstances moving out of our condo and into our current home, I never got a chance to plant them.  I am this year though.  A few weeks ago I decided to make my own starter pots using old newspaper. I got the idea from various websites and youtube videos I had seen in the past, like this one(LINK).  The newspaper pots are similar to those biodegradable pots some plants are sold in now.
The idea is that they break down over time, and you can actually put the plant in the ground while it's still in the pot.  The tomato seeds went in soon after, and then the pots went into some desk drawer dividers that I re-purposed into trays.  I had the newspaper laying around already(lots of it available at work), so this pot project cost me $0.  The pots and seeds are now happily sunning themselves in a bright window, with a long mirror positioned on the window ledge to reflect and amplify the light.