Condo Blues

Friday, June 6, 2008

How to Grow Upside Down Tomato Plants

I wasn’t a big gardener. In my rental, I tried growing tomato plants in pots. I was too cheap and  lazy. I
didn’t buy tomato cages and tried using a wooden dowel rod and yarn as a plant stake.

 That experiment in cheapatoode didn’t work out as well as I planned because the plant grew taller than the dowel rod. Then big heavy tomato vine overloaded the stake and constantly flopped fruits of my labor over the side of the pot and onto the ground where it became bug lunch. I relied on Mother in Law for homegrown tomatoes after that fiasco.

At 4’11”, I’m still not a big gardener, but I’m coming around to the whole stick-a-plant-in-dirt-and-hope-it-lives thing. For now, I figure that any plant that I grow better do something more than just look pretty, like be food or insect-deterrent.

Given my limited food-growing space on my teeny tiny patio, and the fact that the former tomato plant pot now is chock full of basil plants, I thought that I’d give an upside down tomato planter a try. I got my planter as a gift.  

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How to Plant an Upside Down Tomatoes



Materials

Power Drill (if you need to install a plant hanger)
Potting Soil
Fertilizer/compost
Tomato plant (duh)
Dirt (double duh)
Epsom salt
Water
Small shovel/trowel
Gardening gloves (if you don’t want to get your hands dirty)


Do It

1. If needed, use the power drill to drill a pilot hole in a stud in your porch, overhang, etc. and install a hook/plant hanger so you can hang up your planter.

2. Dump a healthy dose of fertilizer/compost (do not use Quickie Compost for this project. Tomatoes don’t like nitrogen-based fertilizers.) into the bag of potting soil and mix it up with the small shovel/trowel. You can skip this step if you cheat like I did and buy potting soil that has a natural fertilizer already mixed into the potting soil.

3. Add a dash of Epsom salt into the potting soil and mix it up with the small shovel/trowel.* For some reason, tomatoes love, love, love Epsom salts in their soil and will grow like gangbusters. Maybe they like to soak their roots in a soothing Epsom salt bath after a tough day just like us humans. Come to think of it, how tough a day can a tomato have leisurely basking the sun and slowly growing?! I digress, on to Step 4.

4. Remove the tomato plant from the nursery’s plant pot and break up the root ball of the plant a bit with your fingers.

5. Put the tomato plant in the planter with the roots inside the planter.

6. Fill the planter with dirt using the small shovel/trowel/your hands.

7. Hang the planter up. Be careful, the planter will be heavy.

8. Water the planter daily because the upsides down planters tend to dry out more quickly than traditionally potted tomato plants.

9. Watch it grow!

*If you’ve already planted tomatoes and forgotten to add some Epsom salt to the soil, not to worry. Dissolve a dash of Epsom salt in the water and water your tomato plants with the Epsom salt water. Do not use table salt for this step of the project. However, feel free to sprinkle table salt on a slice of a fully-grown tomato if you wish. Hmmmm…good eating!

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Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Save Water with Shorter Showers

I grew up in a house with three women and one tiny bathroom. I learned early on how to make good use of what little quality bathroom time I was allotted every morning by taking short showers. Of course, during that time in my teenage life I was more concerned about maximizing my allotted primping time in the bathroom mirror time than saving water, reducing the water bill (much to my mother’s dismay), or saving the planet.

However, now that I am an adult who now pays the water bill, I want to find ways that will reduce my water usage, reduce amount of money in the water bill, and save the planet (you're welcome.) The first thing most water-saving how-to type articles tell you to is save water by taking shorter showers. However, in the grand scheme of green things, I couldn’t find much information on how many minutes in the shower are considered water-saving short. Or, for that matter, I couldn’t find much information on how many minutes in the shower are water-wasting too long. Crunchy Domestic Goddess has some answers and a water saving challenge. She writes:

Did you know that the average shower length is 8 minutes*? By reducing that to 5
minutes, you can reduce the amount of water you use by nearly one-third, or
roughly 10 gallons per day. And that’s where this challenge comes in. I’m
challenging all of my readers to reduce their shower time to 5 minutes. If you
already take a 5 minute shower, perhaps you’ll consider cutting back a little
bit more? Reducing the length of your shower by just one minute could save you
up to 1,825 gallons** of water each year.

*GreenPrint Denver ** Utah.gov
I like this challenge. It’s one of those simple sustainable ideas that won’t cost you anything but time (well, actually, it should save you time) and will help you save money in the process. Give it whirl for the summer. If you can’t stand short showers, try to find another way to save water, such as showering with a friend. What water-saving tips do you have?

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Monday, June 2, 2008

How to Make Quickie Compost

I wanted to add the natural green goodness of compost to my potted herb plants. I already spread the all of the winter batch of compost from the covert composter in my flowerbeds. The next batch of compost won’t be ready until the end of the summer. I didn’t want to use chemical fertilizers on plants I planned to eat. What to do? What to do?

Easy. I whipped up a batch of quickie compost for my potted plants. Quickie compost takes only a few minutes to make, unlike traditional compost that can take up to six months to break down.

You can make quickie compost by mixing coffee grounds and shredded paper together (shredded junk mail works well for this project.) Then add the quickie compost mixture to the soil. That’s it. As the coffee grounds and paper mixture naturally break downs in the soil, it adds beneficial nitrogen and composty goodness to the soil for your plants.

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Do not try to make quickie compost by working raw fruit and vegetable scraps into planted soil. If you do, the raw material will remove nutrients from the soil around your plants as it breaks down and may attract nasty critters like rats or raccoons to your garden bed. The quickie compost method works well for apartment dwellers or anyone else who wants to use compost in their potted plants or small flower gardens but doesn’t have a large area available for a traditional compost bin.

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Friday, May 30, 2008

How Not to Groom a Pekingese

Haiku Friday
itchy sneezey dog
vets says let’s see some pink skin
sad naked Peke now

Blitzkrieg is allergic to corn and wheat. Once I switched him to an allergy free diet, Blitzkrieg stopped power scratching. The hair grew back on the bald spot he made from scratching himself so much and his temperament improved. (Anecdotal evidence suggests that a corn free diet helps dogs with fear or aggression issues.) In other words, as long as I kept Blitzkrieg away from corn and wheat, he was itch free and life was good. It’s difficult because both corn and wheat are in almost every dog food or treat out there, from the cheapo doggie junk food brands to the expensive made with human-quality ingredients brands, but the benefits are definitely worth the truble.

Last spring, Blitzkrieg started scratching himself with a vengeance again. A trip to the veterinarian was in order. After a through exam (which Blitzkrieg absolutely hated) the vet suggested that we shave do a “therapeutic shave down” so we could see if Blitzkrieg had some sort of rash or lesion that may be the cause of the new itching and scratching. I agreed.


This is what I dropped off at the vet/groomers.
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This is what I picked up later that day.

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I had a naked dog! I honestly didn’t recognize Blitzkrieg when they brought him to me at the vet’s office. He looked like some weird mutant Pug! He wasn’t scratching himself anymore, but he sure was pissed off at me for doing this to him.

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Thankfully, Blitzkrieg’s condition was nothing serious. The vet said Blitzkrieg has seasonal allergies that we easily treat with medication during the pollen season.

Eventually we all adjusted to the mutant dog haircut. Blitzkrieg came to terms with it once he went to agility class and realized that he was able to run across the dog walk and not pant as much afterward. Pekingese and other brachycephalic breeds (smash faced dogs) are more susceptible to heatstroke than their non-smash faced dog brethren. I took advantage of Blitzkrieg’s severe summer ‘do and took him to a few more summer festivals than in previous years because I didn’t have to worry as much about Blitzkrieg overheating and getting heatstroke in the summer sun.
In addition, I got some interesting comments about my freaky little Peke. My personal favorite came from a drunk guy at a music festival who yelled a crossed a parking lot at me, “Hey! Your dog sure has a big dick!” How do you answer that one? Do you answer that one? If so, what is the polite thing to say? “Um…thank you?”

Lately, friends and neighbors are asking me if I’m going to shave Blitzkrieg for the summer again. I’m not sure. Before we rescued and rehabilited Blitzkrieg, he was beaten when he was groomed. That’s why our boy is missing an eye and some teeth. The shave down allowed me under a behaviorist’ guidance to work with Blitzkrieg through his fear of being hit on the hindquarters with a hairbrush. Now when I even say the word brush, it sends Blitzkrieg into a happy tizzy because it means he has a chance to earn treats. (That's a very good problem to have, in my book.) However, the sound of clippers still terrifies him. The vet had to sedate Blitzkrieg last summer before the groomer could groom him. I want to spare Blitzkrieg as much doggie trauma as I can.

Therefore, the springtime dilemma is to decide whether I should or should not cut Blitzkrieg’s coat for summer. Then, if I do decide the boy needs a haircut, how short do I go? My childhood dogs were strictly wash and wear. Double coated dog grooming is still new to me. What do you do with your double-coated dogs in summer?

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Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Five Natural Ways to Repair Brown Grass from Dog Pee

Blitzkrieg loves to romp in our backyard with the neighbor dogs Winston, Aaliyah, and Noel.

Unfortunately, with happy dog rompage come happy dog peeage. The acid and nitrogen in the dog pee burns the grass and leaves brown dog urine spots all over our combined lawns. There are several chemical and food additive solutions to this problem but my neighbors and I prefer a natural approach.



Five organic remedies to repair those brown dog urine burns on your lawn that will not harm you or your dog.


Friday, May 23, 2008

Scare Your Neighbors with Garden Decorations!


shiny ball gone
replacement décor follows
yard to scare neighbors?

An unknown mischievous brat darling neighborhood cherub smashed the gazing ball I put in my front flowerbeds for height. I did some shopping around Design Toscano for a replacement garden decoration. I didn’t find a replacement for my gazing ball, but I did find some garden décor that would scare my neighbors.
Nothing says, “Welcome to My Home” like a two foot tall Garden Yeti!