I'm Still Here

Yes, I know I've been AWOL lately. We burned up the roads in April traveling and I've been trying to catch up ever since.

Our trip to New York was wonderful but of course not nearly long enough. Oscar is quite the charmer and growing up much too fast. Suzy says he's ready to crawl will be very soon.

We joined my sisters in Virginia Beach and took our mom to Duke University for evaluation of her macular degeneration. She was given a low vision test and discovered that she could get new glasses that would improve her vision. The best news is that the disease is progressing slowly so they are pretty sure she won't go blind.

They found out that she has scar tissue on her eye from a previous cataract surgery that can be removed in the office that will improve her vision. They also told her that they are looking for people for trial testing a new medication for the dry kind of macular degeneration. She said "No" but the rest of us said "Yes". So now we just have to wait and see what happens.

Meanwhile back at the daisy patch we have been discussing the pros and cons of planting a garden this spring. The pro's are fresh veggies, lower grocery bill, healthy eating, exercise involved cultivating, and weeding.

The cons are time crunch, physical demands of breaking up the ground and supplementing our poor clay soil, access to watering plants, freezing or canning extra produce and the fact that I'm such a lazy daisy.

Result: Square Foot Gardening

Raised beds that are four feet by four feet. Soil is amended and only six inches deep. Plants are concentrated in a small area and weeding is done by a small trowel and harvesting done with scissors.

The beds have a grid and the book tells you how many plants you can plant per square. Tomatoes and broccoli take a whole square. Strawberry plants are four to a square. Peppers take a whole square too.

We have two three foot boxes for yellow squash and zucchini. Green Beans bush plants are 9 per square and they suggest you plant every two weeks to make sure there is a new crop for harvest through out the summer.

So far, so good. We are building our compost pile this weekend. We were very fortunate to get dirt from a friend who owns a nursery. I planted my strawberry plants so the divine miss Em will have berries to pick when she comes to visit Bop-pop and Dita in June.

I'll give you updates throughout the summer!