This morning Kate looked out to see the aftermath of a squirrel assault on our planters.
I guess the squirrels thought that there must be something good hidden in these intriguing boxes of dirt. Of course the herb seeds are so tiny I doubt even a squirrel would be interested in them. I’ve restored the box and covered it with a clear plastic lid from a seed tray to try and protect it. The dogs are going to have to be better guards!
Planted Garden
Yesterday I planted the porch garden for this year. First I had to get the Earthboxes setup. For a couple of them that meant taking out the dirt so I could change the location of the watering tube. Most of them just needed the old fertilizer removed, the soil turned and any old roots broken up. I added some new Whitney farms potting soil to the mix. Then I added new mulch covers, cut openings according to our garden plan and planted the seeds. We’ll see how they do being planted in the boxes. If some fail to germinate I’ll try them in my seed tray instead.
Earthboxes without mulch covers:
All planted, with new mulch covers:
It has been exactly a year since I planted last year’s garden. Of course then I planted the seeds inside. We’ll have to see how this goes. Depends on the weather too.
Seeds arrived
The seeds have arrived from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. They included a free gift, a packet of green zebra striped tomatoes. I don’t think we’ll plant them this year. Just don’t have space on our little porch for more. I have a couple days off so maybe tomorrow I’ll start the seeds.
6.5 Miles
We haven’t been training recently due to trips and illness. Today was our first day back doing a long walk. We went 6.5 miles and could tell that we weren’t feeling quite up to our usual distance or pace. Even so it was a nice day. Warm, a few clouds, some sun, but not too hot. Everthing is blooming and putting out new leaves. We took a few pictures along the way.
Car plans
Eventually I’d like to convert a vehicle to be a hybrid biodiesel-electric vehicle. Life in an apartment doesn’t really provide space for that. Up until recently I’d thought about just getting an older model diesel that I could run on biodiesel – but still lacking space and with concerns about reliability we backed off that plan. After that we thought we’d take the easy road and just buy a new inexpensive car like the Hyundai Accent. I’d rather have a biodiesel Smart Car, but hey, American auto manufacturers just aren’t providing something like that. We were moving ahead with this latest plan up until we hit the insurance quote. It seems that having never owned a car isn’t really in our favor with insurance. It was going to cost almost as much as the payments on the car itself, at least in the first year.
What the insurance quote really did is make us stop and realize a few truths. First, we don’t need a car right now although it would be nice. Second, we really should be focusing on paying off our still fairly substantial credit debt that we’ve been trying to get out from under. Bottom line: no car right now. We have one active credit card with a large balance and we’re going to pay that off first. With it gone we’ll be in a much better position to afford a car, house, etc.
Very Veggie
Our porch gardening supplies are arriving. Just the other day the Whitney Farms Very Veggie organic fertilizer kit arrived. The tomato cages are on the way and the seeds should be arriving before long. Last year we started seeds on March 8th but I’m going to wait a little longer this year since it’s still pretty chilly at night. I still need to get the Earthboxes set up and ready so maybe I’ll do that this weekend.
