Herbs and Earthboxes on the Deck - Summer 2007

Word of the Day

Cromulent - Being well-formed; legitimate; of a word, especially a neologism, that is not previously attested in the language but obeys its rules of word-formation.

I'm having a bit of trouble blogging today. My hands are still so cold that they're stumbling and bumbling on the keys. I went out after breakfast and harvested everything from the garden. It's snowing! I've never seen snow this soon in the fall. OK. Nothing is accumulating because it's 40°F outside but I actually did see snow coming down. The temperature tonight is supposed to get down to 25°F. Brrrr! There was no putting off this chore for a drier, warmer day. I didn't get as many green tomatoes as I wanted so I'm not sure if I'll be able to make piccalilli relish as a planned. I picked all the eggplant. Many are really quite small but I did pick six large ones and about six smaller ones. Keep in mind that I've been gifting and eating eggplant as they've grown large enough to be usable so in my opinion, growing eggplants in Earthboxes is a good thing. I planted two eggplant plants in each of my two Earthboxes. I will grow eggplant in these Earthboxes again next summer but I may decide to limit myself to using just one of the Earthboxes for eggplant next year. Two plants provided plenty of eggplant to feed me and my family and my extended family. I bought two more Earthboxes that I plan to use next spring. My experiments from previous years using these Earthboxes for tomatoes and zucchini encouraged me to expand my Earthbox gardens. I'm tempted to try Earthboxes in Arizona. We'll see. They aren't cheap.

With all the wet and cold, I decided to just harvest everything and leave the plants where they stand. In the past, I've removed all the plants and left the gardens bare but on further consideration, maybe the old plants will help keep the weeds down. Or am I just being/thinking lazy? Oh well...it's supposed to be warm again next week. Maybe my thinking will be clearer when I'm not faced with cold and wet.

20 Days and a Wake Up Before HTP and I Fly South for the Winter

#1 Son will be coming some time today. I'm not sure if he'll be driving to The Lake after his last class or if he has to work and will wait until after work. I'm sure he'll let us know...not. Oh well...my fingers have finally thawed enough for me to go downstairs to make up the bed in his room.

Murphyism of the Day

Klipstein's Fourth Law Applied to General Engineering

Any wire cut to length will be too short.

Noteworthy Quote of the Day

To wear your heart on your sleeve isn't a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best. -- Margaret Thatcher