Demo, baby.

Progress is being made on my future mini farm! The demo will be completed by the end of the week, if all goes well, and I'll be able to start cleaning up and preparing for spring. I was hoping I'd be able to go out and chart light this week, but my poor toes are in too bad of shape to even think about that.

And no, I don't get to keep the awesome yellow machine.

Not much excitement.

It's officially winter and garden activities have been reduced to clean up and planning for the spring. My biggest project has been moving a massive forsythia that the former owners poorly planted and cleaning out the English ivy that the neighbors have let run rampant.

Here's the forsythia before I cleaned out the ivy around it:


And here it is after I cleaned it out:



After cleaning out all of the ivy, I found that the ivy had caused the forsythia to airlayer itself. This has given me a bazillion forsythia babies, all over 2' tall. I plan on listing those in my etsy shop, at some point.

The plant itself divided into two giant chunks that I have already planted where they will get much more light and, hopefully, bloom more frequently.

I did learn one thing from this entire escapade that I am allergic to English ivy. I will wear gloves the next time I fiddle around with it.

Bit of a blog break.

As you might be able to tell, I took a bit of a blog break. Life is going swimmingly, but a couple of things have popped up that are requiring a bit of work. One of them may lead to my own little farm for the spring! Excitement.

I've spent a lot of time inside because of rain, recently, so I thought I'd share my current project. I got a bunch of plastic from the lovely Katy of girlindustries and have spent a lot of time piecing things together, testing, and thinking. She sent some clear bags that I just couldn't wreck by fusing. I, instead, trimmed off some undesirable lettering and added drawstring 'tubes' to the top. Now, I have some pretty fancy drawsting giftbags. I need to run them with some black cord, and they'll be finished!

Mmmm, compost!

I've been pretty productive for the past couple of days. I finally got around to dumping out one of my composters and can't wait to start filling it up again. I dumped it out after it got rained on, so I declined taking pictures of the finished product. I added some leaves and bark shreds to it, and it's now sitting in our 'pit' to cure.

I set up these composters about two years ago and they've served me well. Here are some pictures.We assembled a 'deck' out of scrap lumber and fixed a bunch of small, fixed casters we got at Harbor Freight for .35 each.

I cut a door in the end, screw in hinges, and a latch. I also used a hole cutter and drilled 1" holes in rows along the sides for ventilation and drainage.

We got the white bin from someone who attempted to make a standing bin. She was moving and it hadn't worked out for her, so we happily took it off of her hands and have a nice second bin. We had to modify the deck to work with the way it was cut.

You can see how the bins sit on the decks. They roll quite freely and it's soooo easy to get things mixed up. I knew I couldn't do the pitchfork/pile method, but this has been great for us. These bins maintained temperatures into the hundreds all winter last year, which I thought was pretty surprising.

Any better?

I worked on my Garden-in-a-Bucket idea today, and I think it looks pretty darned good!

It's been a good day.

Today has been a good day. What's so good?

Well, it rained for the first time in 26 days today! Hurrah! Things were starting to get thirsty and the half inch we got today will definitely help out.

Other than that, it's been a plastic wonderland. I made about twenty envelopes from old potting soil bags yesterday, and six clear ones from scrap 6 MIL plastic. I listed the six 6 MIL ones and plan on listing a set of ten of the potting soil mailers today.

I couldn't bear to part with all of them, so half of the potting soil bag envies are MINE! :D I got an order for a book off of paperbackswap, so it got packaged up in one of these and is out in the mail. I hope the person receiving it reuses it!

Just because it says 'mist'...

I got a new hose nozzle a couple of weeks ago and I'm loving it! It's very heavy duty, has great heft, and all of the settings are different and work like as they should. Even better, it was rather inexpensive!

Today, I went out to check on my flats of winter veggies and found that they needed a bit of moisture. I dragged over my hose, knocked my handy-dandy nozzle to mist, and went at it.

Just because it says 'mist', I learned, doesn't mean that it's a gentle mist. Yes, it mists, but I'm short and being only a couple feet away with the nozzle is a bit too much for tender little seedlings. I've been working on my technique and found that aiming the nozzle over, rather than at, the flats works much better and the little seedlings maintain their heads.

So far, arugula, some spinach, broccoli raab, buttercrunch lettuce, swiss chard, kohl rabi, and kale are all making an appearance. I wish the fennel was showing, but the seeds I found were old and hadn't been properly stored. I may go get some fresh seeds for this winter, if I'm feeling motivated!

A bit of a break.

I got to take a short break over the weekend while visiting my in-laws. It was quite nice to come back to two sales, one in my fluffnflowers shop and one in my fluffnfixings shop. I'm a bit disappointed that the first sale in my fluffnfixings shop was not one of my upcycled mailers, but that's how it goes and you can't argue with any incoming moolah. :)

I've got a lot I need to do this week and a two days are already gone from it. I got my first business card order from vistaprint, and I must say that I'm very pleased. The colors are excellent, the printing and alignment is excellent, and the quality of the paper is also excellent. Even better, it was very inexpensive. I'd rather support an etsian or private printer, but it's hard to argue with the budget. I spent the morning collating (without the intention of binding them ;) them and have them ready to attach to my sample seed packs. I've got four or five people waiting for promos to include in packs, so I've got a lot of work to do on them.

Because I was pleased with my first order, I've placed a second order for a small run of labels (free except for the $3.93 rush shipping) that I plan on placing on my fused plastic 'business cards' that I cut out the other day for my fluffnfixings cards. I think these will be a LOT of fun to hand out and can't wait to get them. They take considerably more work, so I won't be handing out as many as the fluffnfixings cards.

Shiny objects...

Got distracted again. There's been a lot of stuff going on recently, and it's been a bit tough to keep up between doctor's appointments, imaging appointments, and life in general.

The EtsyOrganicTeam is off to a good start, and I've, apparently, been given full reign of the blog. So far, it's been a lot of fun, but not having flash really prevents me from keeping up with treasuries and that sort of thing.

It's also harvest time in them thar gardens. I've been doing a lot of seed sorting and harvesting, cropping and pruning, rooting and moving. It seems that fall is in the air, so it'll get really busy in another month or so. I've got a ton of bushes that I need to move to new homes.

I've also been dealing with a piecing nightmare. I came up with a pattern for a pair of pants and it's truly one of the most annoying things I've ever done. I haven't decided what's going to be victim first: the sewing machine or the square. Luckily, I bought 6 yards (a whopping $4.81 at 5% of the original price!!) so I've got some room to play with it.

Happy Pollinator Week!

By now, most of us have heard about the declining bee population and horrible predictions about that's going to affect food in the future. While the predictions may not seem as dire as they're made out to be, it's still important to understand the role that pollinators play in our day-to-day existence..

Without pollinators, not just bees, plants requiring pollination would be in a bit of a pinch. Hand pollination is possible, on a small scale, but those who have done plant propagation know that it's very time consuming and doing it on a huge scale (like enough to feed a significant portion of the population) would be expensive and nearly impossible with current technology. These animals and insects are responsible for most of the food we eat. Wind and rain can also help with pollination, but even people have a hard time stopping the overall forces of nature!

Pollinator Week came to be last year to promote the pollinators of the world and to encourage people to create habitats and an environments conducive to these important creatures' well being. This year, Pollinator Week is 22-28 June, and you can find the list of cities and states that have declared it here.

If your state or area hasn't had it declared, consider contacting your governor, mayor, or whoever's 'the boss' next year to encourage them to make the announcement. The group has a pre-written sample release that you can send, so that you don't even have to have a way with words to convey the message. The Pollinator Partnership has tons of information and handouts available to spread awareness and educate people about this important movement. So make sure to share!

The Pollinator Partnership isn't the only group spreading the word, however. The Great Sunflower Project is another group that has fun guides and offers seeds to it's participants! Although seed shipments for this year are over, the Great Sunflower Project is taking sign ups for new members. They have a pretty active forums section that will be able to answer or help you with any questions you might have.

The Great Sunflower Project is a bit more cuddly than the Pollinator Partnership, and has a bunch of resources and helps you with the best days to monitor your sunflowers for bee population. The group also offers assistance to schools and great resources to help teachers. You'll get to record your data and submit it to the group.

The information that you submit will help bring to light how bees act in suburban, home, and community gardens and the surrounding areas, ultimately leading to a greater understanding of how to keep these critters happy and get them thriving.

Photo courtesy of Wildflower444444.

If you're not interested in joining up or participating in group fashion, there are always ways that you can educate others or simply fulfill your desire to help out.

Here are some small things that you can do on your own:

• Plant a butterfly garden! Butterflies, bees, hummingbirds, and other pollinators all have similar tastes, so the plants that are labeled for butterfly gardens are perfect choices for new additions. Remember that some plants will flower to feed adult pollinators; some will be tasty, leafy treats for the caterpillars and nymphs; and some will be both.

• Try and use as few pesticides as possible. The chemicals that you use to rid your plants of nasties also eliminates the good guys! Look online or in organic and natural gardening books for ideas on how to control the pests in your gardens without toxins that threaten pollinators (and sometimes people!) Remember, some of those 'snacks' taken out of your favorite plants leaves could be from juvenile pollinators.

• See about planting native plants. Native plants have been feeding the caterpillars, nymphs, and adult pollinators in your area for a loooong time, so they appeal to creatures that are indigenous and will help build the population. Not only that, but these natives are more able to tolerate conditions in your garden that other plants might struggle in!

Check out the following resources for information regarding pollinator and insect conservation:

The Great Sunflower Project

The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
The Pollinator Partnership

And, of course, post any that are particularly near and dear to your hearts! :)

Thanks to the EtsyPHAT for their proofing and suggestions, and thank you to Wildflower444444 for her photograph!