Square Foot Garden

Well its happen...  something eat part of my garden.  I will be installing a fence tomorrow.  Completely decimated the egg plant, eat my strawberries and took a bit out of a jalapeno but spit it out.  Hopefully the rest of the garden last over night.  I plan to build the second garden plot and erect a fence tomorrow.

Egg Plant gone

strawberries gone

Cucumbers coming up

Good Reading
There is a series of books that have lots of good tips.

Ranger Digest

There are many useful tips in the books.  Even if you are not a military guy/gal they tips that can be useful for camping and survival.

One thing I have noticed when writing this post it that it is becoming more difficult to find the printed versions.  There are digital versions for purchase across the net.

My collection

Square Foot Garden Update

Planting of the first Garden is complete.

Happy Garden Helper

I mixed 4.5 cubic feet of organic gardening soil and 3 cubic feet of peat moss.

Grid set up

 I placed 1" long wood screws every 1 foot around the edge of the garden to make my Grid.  I used twine and wrapped the screw heads and pulled it tightly

21 Square feet

I did buy some plants that were of decent size so that my daughter and I would have something to tend to while we wait 7-21 days for the sprouts to emerge.

And now we wait.  As a procrastinator it takes me so long to do things you would like I'm good at waiting but I'm not......  I'm sure I have ADHD on top of being a Procrastinator.

kzw(1)

Guilty as charged.  Procrastinated 3 nights in a row and no posts have been made to my page despite how easy this is.  Funny to watch the stat plummet with each day showing no new posts.

I sincerely apologize!  Does it make it more sincere when I capitalize it?

I have been diligently working on information for this blog despite not posting.  I have done several product test which I will be sharing in the coming days as well as finishing up the square foot garden project and waiting for all that free food!

Product testing/reviewing, if you have a product you would like me to test please send me an email to brasstac3121@gmail.com.  If I have the product or something similar I will post a test/review quickly.  If I do not have the items I know a group of like minded individuals who most likely have one.  If you have the product and would like to send it to me to test for a brief time I can also do that.  Of course to be returned.

I have a good friend and we buy many of the same items.  He has told me for sometime that I need to be a product tester.  I asked him why and he said "Because you use the things you buy."  I asked him what he meant?  His comment, your not afraid to take your things and get them dirty or sacrifice them.  Me, I try to keep them looking brand new.  At the time we were both in possession of Canon Elph cameras.  Identical models bought the same year mine looked like hell his looked brand new both still worked properly.

Product testing and reviewing will become apart of my blog.  I consider a review anything that I have only had my hands on few a few experiences and a test something I have worked with extensively.  Stay tuned.

New use for old things

Bicycle inner tube after a flat tire.  Worst part of riding is a flat tire.  There is rarely a good time for a flat.  What do with that inner tube after you change it?  What I want to do is throw it in the woods and forget we ever met.  However what I do is tie a knot in it so I don't confuse it with a newer one.  After that I take it money and take revenge....  I cut it up into small pieces and reuse it.  That old flat bicycle tube can be turned into a large number of high strength rubber bands.  These have lots of uses.  A couple of things to consider. 1) you can also do this tractor inner tubes. 2) inner tubes for bicycles come in many shapes and sizes 3) any inter tube listed a light will stretch easier..

Give this a shot if you have something that needs held together.

Got OUT of bed

I got out of bed this morning.   Feels good so far and I decided to not procrastinate and get this post out now.

Have a Great day!

Get OUT of Bed

Simple little app I use on my phone.  I used to use it last year and for some reason I deleted it.  Not sure why but I found it again last night.  It WORKS.

I went to bed quite late, woke up at early however felt great.

The way this app works is it measures how much you move at night and gauges your sleep cycles.  The alarm clock is set up to wake you up when you are in REM sleep.  It also does not wake you up with a harsh beep it uses one of several light music tones so that you are not jolted awake.

Point being,  I was able to wake up feel fresh and saved 1 hour normally wasted procrastinating getting out of bed.

What could you do with an extra hour?  How nice would it be to wake up and feel refreshed without the harsh beeping of a typical alarm?

Give it a shot it's worth it.  There are several other apps that work similarly however I have no experience with them.

We all know a good night's sleep makes for a better day. Try this out.  I hope it helps.
_______________________

Getting home.....   How many of you have thought about what would happen if you could not drive home but had to be there?  Do you have any supplies to get home?  Do you have extra shoes and clothing that would be useful to walk home?  How far is it to get home?  How long do you think it would take you?  Is there safe passage or do you have to navigate through some rough neighborhoods?

If you have never assessed this need, you may be in for some real surprises!  Getting home is tougher than you may think.  My experience with this thankfully does not come from any type of emergency need but I did have a car break down and it took 3 months to get a new one.  4 days a week I had to travel 12 miles to work and 12 miles home.  I worked 11am to 11pm.  My directions of travel were not exactly straight nor ideal.

Take a few moments and assess the most direct route you may need to walk if you had no other choice.  Are there any significant obstacles you would encounter?  Would you feel safe on all the walk?  Do you carry a firearm?  Do you have any a backpack, water, and food?  How long will it take?

I will be doing a test walk of my own soon and chronicle how it goes.  I currently have a "Get Home Bag"  I feel it is well equipped for my journey.  What I'm not sure about is how my 28 miles drive is going to translate into a walk.

Sitting her typing this procrastinating going to bed.  My goal is to get a good night sleep.....

Get OUT of Bed

Procrastinating starts first thing in the morning for many of us and last all day.  I used to get up when I woke up.  Meaning if I set my alarm for 7am and woke up at 6:30 I got out of bed and started my day.  This was great.  I felt better I got more done.  All things that have taken me years to realize....  I was in a relationship and made a terrible decision....  the person I was with loved the snooze.  Would set the alarm a full hour before she needed to get up just so she could hit it a half a dozen times.  I allowed myself to fall into this trap and I'm still working my way out of that trap today even though we are no longer together.

Just to let you in a secret, one of my purposes for this blog is to force myself to break some of these procrastinating habits.  This blog gives me a since of responsibility to chronicle my climb out of the procrastinators pit.

Example of this pit.  Last night I set my alarm(s) it looked like this.

The Procrastinators Alarm system

This morning this is how I woke up.  I have used this method for longer than I care to remember because I can remember when I woke up simply to the a strange lightly playing song.  Not any more. I finally got out of bed at 0630.

Working a new plan tonight will report back tomorrow.

On the preparedness front I am at work today and did not get a bag of potting soil for my starters.  

Something to work on is to assess your actually calorie density of the food storage you have to include your pantry.  This process takes a few hours.  It's an eye opener how little actually caloric storage we have.  I will do my own pantry in a few days.  I have done it in the passed however it has been more than a year.  I rely more heavily on the concrete numbers of my long term storage.

Square Foot Garden 2014

In 90 minutes you can get a few steps done before it official to late for a procrastinator to accomplish additional work without supplemental lighting.  I was able to build one box, remove the sod, turn the soils, breakup the clumps of dirt, level the box and smooth the soil out.

I should mention this project is a new journey which I'm sharing.  There are many things I intend to do with this blog that I have considerable knowledge of.  This particular facet (gardening) is new to me.

Please post helpful comments and suggestions I will view them all and implement those I feel will work best in my situation.

I have a small family a baby bunnies I'm suspecting I'm going to have to fend off.....

Supplies

Loaded by Subaru truck down with (4) bundles pete moss 3cubic feet each, (6) bags organic gardening soil 1.5 cubic feet each, (4) 2x6x10's, (6) plants, bag of seed starter pots and various seeds. Total cost today was $157.00.

layout box (my is 7'x3')

I choose 7'x3' so the garden would be kid friendly.  I used several resources from the internet and many of them mentioned a narrower garden if your child would be helping you.

Screw of choice

I like this particular screw it uses a T-25 Torx bit (star bit) that holds well and slips less than Phillips

Pre-drill your holes so you do not split the wood

remove the sod

turn the soil

I turn one full shovel depth after removing the sod.  This got me down 10-12 inches below the ground.  Turning the soil allows the roots and easier path to find water and also allows water to soak in better.

break up the clumpy soil.  I used a metal rack.  Could not find my hoe.

Getting pretty dark at this point.  I leveled the box in the soil and spread it would evenly.

I'm fairly happy with my progress.  Tuesday I will spread the pete moss and gardening soil.  Vermiculite was suggested in the article I was reading but the person at the garden supply center suggested additional pete moss rather than vermiculite.  Tomorrow I will be working on the starter seeds.  Going to read to see if a mini green house and grow light might help this procrastinator catch up on some lost time....  you know March, April, and May......  on my seed purchase I paid attention the the date ranges.  I pick plants that were under 90 days so that I could make sure I had plenty of time to harvest and possible plant a second crop 2-3 weeks after the first.  I'm thinking about leaving space in each "square foot" to allow for multiple harvest.

Tools used today were: compound sliding miter saw, electric drill with 3/32 drill bit, cordless drill with T-25 bit, round nose shovel, metal garden rake, pencil, tape measure, 2' level, and wheel barrow.

Resources I found useful were general search of square foot gardening, density planting charts that should how many of a particular plant you could put in 1 square foot. I found that Google image search gave me the best selection and easiest viewing

Square Foot Garden 2014

Finally after main years (procrastinating) saying I want to build a square foot garden.  Tonight I'll be assembling (2) 7'x3' square foot gardens for a total of 42 square feet.  Also in typical procrastinator fashion I have waited until late spring and it's currently 7:36pm.  Sunset is promptly at 8:47pm. Perfect time to start.   Will report back soon.....

The right way to eat a banana, brought to by the Monkeys,  They Know!

Open the little end

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