Saturday, June 06, 2020

On the Home Front








Gardeners!  Check out this website!









No Space?  No Problem! 

The Upward Garden Tower is a vertical planter for micro gardeners, hydroponic growers, urban farmers, and traditional gardeners looking for an efficient and compact growing tower capable of producing a ten fold increase in production per square foot of garden space. 

The Upward Garden is the ultimate space efficent alternative to traditional gardening  that also eliminates the hassles of weeding and much of the maintance involved in traditional gardening. 

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from "Our Story" on the website


"That’s when we started making the Upward Garden Tower — a vertical strawberry planter that only requires a small fraction of the square foot space of traditional gardens.  




"We placed 4 vertical towers in each bed (each growing 16 plants) and ended up with 128 strawberry plants without adding a single square foot to the garde


There's much, much more to learn about this concept when you visit the website. 

And, do pass it along to your gardening friends. 

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Who ARE the people behind this cool gardening idea?  

Well, they're our next-door neighbors---Wes, Alyssa, Caleb and Nathan.  

I often joke about the time I saw Wes (pictured below) at Co-Op Country Store one Saturday and remarked that it had been at least three years since I'd actually laid eyes on him. 

That was when he was a busy engineer at Quest Aircraft Co., creators of the Kodiak.  

Nowadays, Wes is working in his own creative workshop at home, along with his wife and two sons. 

He has a big machine in the shop which, with its laser feature, cuts out quilt squares along with a whole lot of other stuff. 

During the early months of the Pandemic, Wes and Alyssa kept busy filling orders for fabric, sending them all over the nation. I think we all can figure out why their product was so popular. 

Well, they also love gardening, and, as their classy and evolving website will tell you, their gardening methods have evolved. 

For some reason, they got tired of weeding, and who doesn't get tired of bending over and who doesn't wish for more garden space.

Well, with Wes' visionary engineering talents and plenty of assistance from Alyssa and the boys,  this family has come up with some neat, space-and-back-saving ways to have a garden, not only with dirt but also with water. 

AND, imagine strawberries growing from your tower in the winter months WITH NO WEEDS!

Wes brought over one of his towers the other day, and yesterday I transplanted some of my chard in my tower.

I put the tower out in the fenced in garden, covering the bottom portion with dirt to ensure that it won't blow over.

Wes says a bigger planting pot with rocks around the tower will also work.  

  
If this concept of gardening works for me, I may be going over through our woods, crawling through the fence and asking Wes to sell me a few more of those seemingly indestructible towers to add to my garden space.  

And, who knows, I might even try some winter planting.

Just another of the many innovative and amazing projects going on within the comfort and beauty of the Selle Valley. 

Good luck, Wes, Alyssa, Caleb and Nathan.  BTW: my chard is starting to bounce back quickly from the trauma of transplant.  














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In other news on the home front, I set some goals this week, specifically to accomplish something and to ensure temporary escapes from the news outside our Selle sanctuary. 

One involved a nice supply of oranges.  I love oranges, but my sensitive stomach will NOT allow me to eat them, along with a lot of other fruit. 

So, I decided to try some marmalade. Twas a messy job, to say the least, and I failed in my first attempt. 

Won't use that recipe again.  It suggested using the membrane, the seeds and what was left of the oranges after squeezing as a pectin. 

Put it in a bag, secured with a rubber band and throw it into the juice and sugar, the recipe said. 

Well, I tried that and ended up with orange residue-filled water.  

So, yesterday morning I emptied the jars into a kettle, added a package of pectin and more sugar and then let the mixture boil for four minutes.  

Voila! The marmalade set up, and I tried it in a peanut butter sandwich for lunch yesterday.  Yum!  Success the second time around! 






Two other goals of fun and distraction from national events involved two of my horses Lily and CB.

As noted on an earlier post this week, all worked out fine with Lily as I clipped her, bathed her and dressed her up for some photos taken by my sister Barbara.  

She is now entered in a virtual horse show.

All good. 

Then, came CB.  All he had to do yesterday afternoon was put on his "Greatest Showman" act in the barnyard. 

I figured that he would go into instant action of prancing and cavorting around the enclosure if I just separated him from his buddies, Lily and Lefty. 

Knowing I'd be doing this alone, I organized a few preliminaries----grooming him so he'd look reasonably nice and setting up a ladder outside the fence for a good overall view.

I also pulled his colorful ball out of the shop for motivation, if necessary.  The plan was to enter him in the virtual "liberty" class where the horses perform on their own trotting and showing off their beautiful Arabian stuff for 1 minute and 30 seconds. 

No problem with my CB, I thought.

One hour and about 30 minutes later I gave up after several takes with the longest footage lasting maybe six seconds. 

I spent most of that time gathering more accessories to scare CB into submitting to prancing and dancing through the barnyard.  Banging pots and pans.  Squirt water at him with the hose.  Shaking an empty garbage bag.  Throwing his ball into the barnyard.

In between all that stuff, I had to keep charging my phone because all those takes of mainly CB walking around the barnyard kept draining my battery. 

So, I also brought out the extension cords to keep the phone charging as I went up and down the ladder. 

Admittedly, the ladder provided a nice perspective, but standing there waiting for action for at least an hour and worrying that the new neighbors next door were probably wondering what the heck that old fool was doing up on that ladder for so long . . . all for naught. 

CB would not perform.  And, my calves felt pretty tired by evening after standing there so long. 

And, so one of the goals has not been reached.  I do know, however, that I have one of those "crazy" Arabians with ice in his veins.  Nothing seems to faze CB, and CB will perform when he wants to. 

So, I guess that's liberty at its best.  Maybe my sisters will come over today if the rain stays away, and we'll give it one more try. 

In the meantime, I remain pretty pleased with the aforementioned accomplishments along with several others that have occurred this week.

Like any citizen in this country, I still pay close attention to the many layers of what is happening all across America.  

And, I continue to pray that wise and courageous minds and leaders, like those who spoke or wrote so eloquently this week, will continue to do so.  

The chorus of their voices can do wonders in helping guide us back to the America we have loved so much. 

In the meantime, this Selle sanctuary, with its many creative and inspiring inhabitants like Wes and his family, continues to remind me that good things are still happening in pockets all across this country. 

Happy Saturday. Check out that website.  










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