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The Perfect Gardening Day

July 24th, 2008

I’m sure the perfect gardening day is different for everyone. My perfect day was yesterday. High of 75, overcast with rain the night before.

Why is this the perfect day?

The rain softens up the soil for weeding, so I spent the day weeding most of the flowerbeds.

75 degrees is perfect for me, I don’t mind it being hot (high 80’s is my limit if I can be in the shade), but I much prefer it to be in the 70’s. I always know it’s going to be a good day when I have to wear a sweatshirt for the first hour or so while working outside.

I must say, I hauled so many buckets of weeds I was able to fill up my compost bins with weeds, next year they’ll improve the soil in the same beds they were pulled from.

Thirsty?

July 23rd, 2008

One of the blogs I read is written by a woman in Australia. For a while now she’s been talking about the water shortages, today she didn’t have water when she tried to make her morning tea. You can read the article here.

I am an advocate of not using resources just because you have them. I grew up in South America and we didn’t get water all the time, we built a huge cistern and saved rain water for all of our water usage.

In our part of Ohio, we have plenty of water and have never had problems with shortages. I’m sure sometime in the future it will happen, but for the moment we have plenty. It always amazes me that people consume so thoughtlessly until there is a problem. We Americans probably won’t do much to curtail our water usage until we’re beyond the point of no return. I always cringe when I see sprinklers on in a rainstorm, or water from a sprinkler system running down into the storm drain. Thoughtless consumption is the American way!

What have I done personally to use less water? We just installed a rain barrel system that can hold 400 gallons of water, this will be used for gardening & car washing (more photos and info on this project to come). We also save gray water to use for gardening. I have also planted mostly drought resistant plants that do not need watering, and I let my yard get brown & crispy in the summer when it’s hot & dry.

So what are you doing to save water?

No water was wasted for the photos in this post, the glass of water was finished by yours truly and the bowl of water was used on my zucchini.

My Mom’s Garden

July 23rd, 2008

I think I caught the gardening bug from my mom. She’s always been an avid gardener, both ornamental & edible. When I was young we had a HUGE vegetable garden at my grandparents house out in the country. We worked in the garden all summer and then canned and preserved all the produce we grew. About 15 years ago my parents moved to a new house with a nice-sized city lot. There was a ton of room for gardens. They have an orchard, a small garden and many ornamental beds. I think this bed was the first one put it – it’s called “The Garden of Eden”. It’s in a small fairly wet area of their yard. It looks great throughout the summer with things blooming all the time. This photo was taken on July 11.

A few more of my mom’s flowers.

Mr. Chiots loves these plants. I’m going to get a start from my mom.

Something Fun

July 22nd, 2008

While at a meeting in Cleveland on Sunday Mr Chiots and I spotted our first Smart Car out and about (we first saw them at the Cleveland Auto Show this winter). Always brings a smile to your face when you spot something like this!

I wonder how many bags of compost will fit in it?

Picking Blueberries

July 22nd, 2008

We LOVE blueberries. We eat blueberry pancakes, muffins, syrup, and cobbler all year long. We planted our own blueberry bushes this year, but they’re not producing yet. So we went to our local You-Pick farm (Spring Hill Farm in Carroll County, Ohio). We were at the farm for about an hour and we picked 27 pounds of blueberries to freeze for winter eating.

The blueberries were HUGE this year due to all the rain we’ve had this spring.

We love their blueberries, but we’re really looking forward to the day when we can pick them in our own back yard.

About

This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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