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. 

Taping of Farm Cruelty Is Becoming the Crime
www.nytimes.com

GMO producers aren't required to tell us what's in our food AND we may not be able to sue them if their food makes us sick?
'Monsanto Protection Act' slips silently through US Congress
rt.com

Ag Gag Bills Target Hidden Cameras  - ABC News
"Question.  Would you like to see where your dinner came from. . . . do you think we should have the right to see where our food comes from.  That question is at the heart of a battle between animal rights activists and farmers."

Inspired by Forks Over Knives, Dublin, Ohio Employees Adopt Plant-Based Diet with Success
By Janice Stanger, Ph.D. forksoverknives.com

How Food Companies Exploit Americans with Ingredients Banned in Other Countries
www.100daysofrealfood.com

Beef's Raw Edges
The Kansas City Star, in a yearlong investigation, found that the beef industry is increasingly relying on a mechanical process to tenderize meat, exposing Americans to higher risk of E. coli poisoning. The industry then resists labeling such products, leaving consumers in the dark.
By Mike McGraw, Kansas City Star

How Fertilizer Could Actually Hurt Our Food Supply
Our food system relies on crucial nutrients—and we’re running out of them.
By Megan Bedard, takepart.com

We've been getting more rain recently due to the leftovers of hurricane Issac and other friendly weather systems moving through our area. In the drought months prior though, I had been wanting to get a rain barrel. I don't like using treated city water for garden and yard use. It's there for drinking, not dumping on the ground. With other projects going on with the new house, the rain barrel project was put on the back burner.

We've recently started working more on the landscaping so I finally took on this project. I don't remember how I came across it, but I recently found out about the The GreenSpot Rain Barrel Program that is part of the Franklin Soil and Water Conservation District. The GreenSpot Backyard Conservation Program partners(FACT & FLOW)have come together to offer low-cost rain barrels to help ease the problems associated with rain runoff. Residents in the participating cities can take a class about rain barrels and water conservation online or in person to qualify to purchase a 45 gallon rain barrel at a discounted price. I chose to do the online course, answered a few questions at the end, then purchased my rain barrel. The whole process was easy and took somewhere between fifteen and twenty minutes. A few days later I got an E-mail telling me that my rain barrel was ready to be picked up nearby.

I had already determined where I wanted to put the rain barrel so that it would be close to a planned raised bed garden, but there was a large prickly bush in the way. Neither of us really cared for the bush that much, and it was too close to the air conditioning condenser. We had already trimmed the bush back to get it away from the condenser, and recently trimmed it down and dug out the stump. I had a short window of opportunity to get the rain barrel installed before Issac made it up to Ohio, and spent several hours in the sun digging to set up a base of concrete cinder blocks for the rain barrel to sit on.

The rain barrel is connected to a nearby downspout by a flexible tube. A rubber water diverter goes into the downspout, directing water through the tube and into the rain barrel. Once the rain barrel fills up, the water flows back through the tube to the downspout, and then all the water from the roof goes through the hole in the middle of the diverter, rather than causing the barrel to overflow.

There is a lid on the top of the rain barrel that can be put on upside down and used as a planter if so desired. The manufacturer includes a filter that can be installed in the center of the lid to allow water to drop down into the barrel once it has drained through the soil. There are two outlets on the face of the barrel so a hose can either be attached directly to the barrel or to a spigot.

We got a decent amount of rain when Issac came through the area the following weekend, and it quickly filled up the rain barrel. Of course now that we've been getting rain again, there is less need to use the water from the barrel to water plants. Oh well. I'm planning to get a second barrel that will be connected to the first to capture more of that free water. We're planning to do some landscaping around the barrels(probably tall grasses), and I'm considering building a shelter to enclose the barrels to protect them from the elements and hide them even more if the landscaping doesn't do the job.

To learn more about the Greenspot Rain Barrel Program click the link below:

Green Spot Rain Barrels

When I get asked why I'm a vegetarian, I wish I could answer as eloquently as this:

Philip Wollen, Australian Philanthropist, Former VP of Citibank, Makes Blazing Animal Rights Speech at the Animals Should Be Off The Menu debate.

Will People Really Be Forced to Stop Eating Meat?
by Natalie Wolchover,Livescience.com

So, Who Sent Those Sick Cows To The Slaughterhouse?
by Dan Charles, NPR
"For all the outrage aimed at the slaughterhouse,what about the dairy that sent cows to slaughter, even though they appear to be barely able to stand? The episode shines a harsh light on one corner of the beef industry: The part that slaughters cows that have spent most of their lives producing milk."