Veggie Trader

Alas, another great idea I thought up and never did anything about, and now someone else did...story of my life.

Veggie Trader "your place to trade, buy or sell local homegrown produce."

Kinda like craigslist but for produce. I haven't tried it yet. It's still to cold here in Jersey to start planting. But, I am fascinated by this concept. I just hope the focus is on sharing and trading as opposed to selling and buying.

Another Year...Another Seed Experiment

Last year, I dumped a ton of expired seeds in pots some time in April. Wound up with a million plants and a handful of pots with nothing going on and in the end a pretty impressive garden. We called it the Great Seed Experiment.

This year, we're attempting another seed experiment. I don't do the seed starting thing. Seriously, I don't have the energy to put away the laundry or find the floor underneath the layer of toys that have made their way into my living room so the thought of trays, seeds and florescent lights just ain't happening.

Then I remembered an experiment we did in school a million years, germinating seeds of some kind in wet paper towels inside Ziploc bags. So that's what I did. Some new seeds, some old, some expired and some saved from veggies we grew last year.

Most of the packets said the seeds would take 7-14 days to germinate. So far, in under a week, the carrots, corn, peas, cantaloupe, Roma tomatoes, spaghetti squash, and the Serrano chili seeds have sprouted.

I started to worry about how long to leave them in the paper towels. I'd imagine they need sun and nutrients from somewhere, so I transplanted the corn, cantaloupe, peas, spaghetti squash and a fourth of the carrots into egg cartons.

I read somewhere that tomato seeds don't usually do well with the paper towel method (apparently, this was not an original idea) so I wound up planting some seeds in the egg cartons. I guess I am officially doing some seed starting...albeit, half-assed. I was at Home Depot and the seedlings seem to be a lot more expensive this year. I'm cheap. And broke. It seemed worth it to try it this way.

I'm super excited about the corn. Last year didn't go so well. Hopefully this year will be better.

Wanna Save Money on Paper and Printer Ink?

Check out this site: Print What You Like

Ever try printing out a recipe or a...well, anything...and there's a million ads and pics and garbage you don't want to waste your printer ink on. Not to mention you always wind up using that one extra page for some stupid one line web address non-sense that you didn't even need printed.

Well, this site allows you to magically delete all that crap out and just print what you like...hence the name.

You don't have to download anything. You just go to their site and plug in the URL of what you're trying to print.

I'm in the middle of an annoying situation with American Standard. The toilet I bought leaks from the vent hole...apparently, a lot of people that bought this toilet during the time I bought it, had the same problem due to an internal defect...they never put out a recall of course. So I printed out all their complaints and saved me a ton of paper using this site.

Thought I'd pass it along.

Planting Peas on St Patty's Day?

I tried growing peas last year. I had about two pods of incredible little peas. I think they were called petite pea wonders or something. Then it shriveled up and died. I was rather upset.

This year my friend mentioned planting them on St. Patty's Day. So I googled it and found a wide variety of opinions on this. Yeah, I know, surprise surprise.

Then I thought about my mom. She tells me all sorts of crazy Sri Lankan remedies and I always pooh pooh her...and of course, she's always right. So maybe there is something to the old wives tales. Why not try?

I planted them today.

Although, as my mom was the dispenser of all knowledge weird and random, my dad on the other hand is a scientist. Perhaps in honor his profession I should take this on as an experiment and do the wet paper towel sprouting of the seeds and well as a couple started in a egg carton with the other seedlings I intend to plant...ya know, eventually.

I'll keep you posted.

IKEA Summer 2009

Why do I always have to find IKEA brochures on various sites that aren't actual IKEA sites? And why aren't they mailing them out or using them as newspaper inserts anymore? As someone that worked in marketing I have to say that hiding your advertisements so almost no one sees them is kind of a waste of time, money, energy and resources. I'm just saying....

Check out IKEA's 2009 Summer stuff at Grassroots Modern.