The "What's on your mind?" Thread -2017

[foxxycat]

Got the directv all set yesterday. Our equipment we had was like 20 years old. The box was not sending a clear signal to the tv=they reset the signal and POOF! no more tv! Something burned out inside the box. They sent someone out the next morning and we are all set up with HDTV. Holy goodness! What a difference in picture! So then I figured out how to watch older episodes of SVU Law and Order on the tablet with my nifty stereo sounding ear buds. Spent 3 hours watching tv on my tablet. Good show! Conversion and then Sanctuary. the second one is 2 parts. I think you guys would love Sanctuary=got to check it out! Very twisty and turny!

Also got some phone calls from my resume posted on a large site=I found out it's sales positions 100% commission and more baloney. I won't do it-I stick at phone calls. It's interesting to find out my coworkers also got phone calls from those people too. They just want to use us in the union to get a contacts list- I had a coworker explain to me how it works-evidently he did some digging to find out how these jobs work-they only give you training on 4 or 5 calls then you have to do the work yourself. Then later they offer a leads list you can purchase. what a load of CRAP! Anyways been interesting reading their customer thoughts on facebook and other sites=beware they all say!! I would be a horrible sales rep. "what did you want? Just get lost already!!"

 

[muffy]

Margret[/QUOTE]

I believe it was Garrison Keillor who observed that there are places where people only lock their doors during zucchini harvest season, because if they didn't lock their doors then they'd come home to find the kitchen all full of zucchini. But nobody ever worries that they might come home and find the kitchen full of homegrown tomatoes...


Margret

Loved the video. Homegrown tomatoes are my favorite thing in the whole world. I heard that joke about zucchini. I would love to come home and find my kitchen full of zucchini.

Muffy

 

[Mamanyt1953]

I wonder if I could grow a zuccini vine...just one...

 

[LTS3]

Mom tried guilt tripping me for not visiting for over a week. I just hung up in tears

So my new supervisor started this week. I guess she's ok. Her personality is a bit too bubbly and overwhelming for me. As long as she doesn't make me cry and treats me disrepectfully, I can work with her. I offered to order office supplies to get her desk set up since she's probably a bit overwhelmed with all the trainings and stuff. I figured it would be one less thing for her to worry about. Her response wasn't exactly "Sure!!!". It was more like "I do have the ordering system training scheduled but if you can show me how to place orders, that would be helpful". I guess we'll do that next week. She hasn't respond to my email to let me know when she has time to sit with me and place an order for office supplies.

She called me "My Dear" earlier this week She's a few years younger than I am. I hope she doesn't make it a habit to call me that.

 

[muffy]

I wonder if I could grow a zuccini vine...just one...

I wish I could have a few containers of zucchini and tomatoes but I have a very small yard and very tall trees that block out the sun.

Muffy

 

[segelkatt]

I wonder if I could grow a zuccini vine...just one...

I see no reason why not. Zucchini makes a huge plant, about 4 ft across, not really a vine and does not need staking, so if you have an outdoor place (balcony) with 6 hrs of sun you should be able to plant one in a really big pot, about 2 ft across unless you live in Alaska but I see that you are in N Carolina and I think it gets plenty hot there. If you can grow tomatoes there you can grow zucchini. You CANNOT grow it inside as it needs to be fertilized by bees or other insects. If you can plant it in the ground so much the better. They are really prolific which is why I grow only one plant in my community garden plot and usually have plenty for my neighbors.

 

[segelkatt]

I wish I could have a few containers of zucchini and tomatoes but I have a very small yard and very tall trees that block out the sun.

Muffy

You would NOT want "a few containers" with zucchini, you would not be able to eat them all even if you made pickles from them and your neighbors would indeed start locking their doors because they would not want any more. Tomatoes are a different matter, you can never have enough of those. Neighbors would be happy and you could make tomato sauce and either freeze it or can it, fresh tomato sauce in December brings a little summer into your life. Perhaps you could put the containers at a different side of your place where the sun does shine? I've seen people have them on their front porch.

 

[Margret]

Mom tried guilt tripping me for not visiting for over a week. I just hung up in tears

I'm sorry to hear that. Hang in there; perhaps she isn't too old to learn a new way to interact with her daughter.

She called me "My Dear" earlier this week She's a few years younger than I am. I hope she doesn't make it a habit to call me that.

Isn't it amazing the things that people think are somehow friendly or respectful, when in reality they're patronizing? I was once putting groceries in my car and a total stranger called me "Grandma," in front of his kids, no less! Frankly, it made me glad he was a stranger; I'd be ashamed to claim him.
________________________________________________

Years ago, my dad installed a sort of glass lean-to next to our front porch. The ends were open to fresh air, but the inside was quite warm, and the full bathroom had windows that opened into it, so we could leave those windows open year-round. He got some kind of a tax credit because it counted (quite rightly) as passive solar heating.

Anyway, just inside that lean-to, and right next to the front porch, was a huge beefsteak tomato bush, which produced year-round. Total bliss! All we had to do was step onto the porch and pick a huge, ripe, homegrown tomato, any time. Ah, I miss that tomato bush.

Margret

 

[arouetta]

Mom tried guilt tripping me for not visiting for over a week. I just hung up in tears

I'm sorry that she got to you in that way. It's really hard to take those first steps into a life of thinking of yourself first.

If I can be nosy, what were the specific guilt-inducing comments she made? Maybe we could help you think of responses to those next time she makes them.

Read up on Cognitive Behavioral therapy. It teaches you how to change your thinking from negative to positive. In this case, you could learn things to tell yourself that cancel out her guilt trips. One example (not involving skewed family relations) is going from a negative "I get stuck with all the **** tasks at work" to a positive "More opportunities to shine and more skills to learn for the future". Kinda like the broken record analogy, you hear or tell yourself negative stuff, you believe it and then you act on it. Using the CBT skills, you change those internal messages, you practice new positive responses to external messages and focus on those new positive responses, eventually you will believe it, and in time you will hear the "wah wah wah" and you will truly believe "Yeah, she's trying to get a rise out of me, but I come first in my life and I take care of myself and what she says ultimately doesn't matter."

 

[Mother Dragon]

I wonder if I could grow a zuccini vine...just one...

See my information about Earth Boxes in the "What's Something Good..." thread around page 13. There are two posts about them, along with early photos of my garden. I think an Earth Box would work very well for you, especially if you can get a little sun on it. One of my posts has the Earth Box website, too.

Right now my tomatoes are over 8' tall and prolific. The peppers are about 3' tall and full of peppers. All you'd need for a trellis is a couple of tall sticks with string laced between them.

Let me know what you think.

 

[artiemom]

LTS3 I am so sorry for your mom making things more difficult for you.
Sounds as if you do need to take a long break from that area of your life. ((hugs))

I can understand how your new supervisor is wanting to 'take charge' of the ordering.. She wants to establish boundaries. Please do not take it personally. If she wants your help, she will ask for it.

As far as calling your 'dear'.. yuck... hopefully that is not a habit. Maybe when she really gets settled in, you can observe her approach to new people and how she interacts.
New supers are always hard to get used to.

How is your back?
___________________________________________________
About 7 years ago, I decided to have a 'garden' on my balcony. I use to have a huge garden where my dad lived.

I bought a ton of container pots. I had a bunch of plants out there! I think there were 3 cucumber vines, 4 tomato plants, basil, and I think a couple of flower pots.

I trained the cucumber vines to grow on the balcony railings. The tomatoes were just bushes in a huge pot with stakes for the plant.

No one knew what I was doing. It had never been done before.
The vines were actually covering the entire balcony railing.

That summer I had so many cucumbers! and a ton of tomatoes. I was giving them away to all my neighbors!

It was a pain to water the plants, took so much time, and made a mess in the house. I do not have a water outlet on the balcony, so I was filling up gallon jugs of water, in the kitchen sink... sometimes watering twice daily..

The next year I tried it again, but on a much smaller scale... unfortunately, I got blight in the tomato plants.. the cucumber beetles discovered the cucumbers. I pretty much gave up on veggies.

The next year I tried one tomato plant.. ended up dumping it out because of all the tomato bugs and blight...new soil also...I live on wetlands..so many 'thingies' out there.

I have not tried planting since then.

 

[Mother Dragon]

I'm so sorry your last experiences were bad. Some years are good, some not-so-good. Two years ago I lost everything to a sudden invasion of leaf-footed bugs. imagine stink bugs on steroids, about 1" long. They were huge and would fly right at you if you disturbed them. They reduced the tomato plants to twigs almost overnight.

My big container garden is on a drip system. Last fall I noticed things looked droopy. We increased the frequency of the watering. Everything looked awful. Then my husband found that the water faucet, which is between two 7' locked wooden gates, had been turned off. Maybe our resident poltergeist did it. He turned it back on and some of the plants revived but were severely stressed. A couple of weeks later, they were clearly dying. Again, the water had been turned off. This time it was too late and I lost 42 plants. This winter's only freeze took care of almost everything else.

I got a new section of 22 pots this year and have space for 75 plants. I have 10 tomato plants, a variety of herbs, including 4 basil plants and 4 varieties of mint, cucumbers that are over 8' tall, zucchini, eggplant, jalapeños, hot peppers, habanero peppers, unbelievably hot peppers, and of course, catnip. The grape tomatoes are super prolific and delicious. The big tomatoes are being harvested, too, as are a lot of jalapeños and a few habaneros. Right now everything is looking OK, but the heat is getting really bad. The heat index at 5 p.m. yesterday was 111. We're going to have to increase the watering. Tomatoes at this stage will chug up to three gallons of water a day.

I found a leaf-footed bug in the mint last week and we were going to spray since it's too late to hatch praying mantises and ladybugs. However, that got upset when Darwin bit my husband in the excitement of encountering another cat while walking on his leash in the back yard. Robert spent almost three days in the hospital and we don't want to expose the wounds in any way to the spray. I can't walk, so I can't do it. We're just crossing our fingers and hoping the leaf-foots will die from the heat. Fat chance.

I don't know where you live, but you might start a little fall garden. It just might do well with the cooler days. If you have room on your balcony, you might put a rain barrel for water. I think there's an adapter you can put on your sink faucet to attach a garden hose. That might work, too.

 

[muffy]

You would NOT want "a few containers" with zucchini, you would not be able to eat them all even if you made pickles from them and your neighbors would indeed start locking their doors because they would not want any more. Tomatoes are a different matter, you can never have enough of those. Neighbors would be happy and you could make tomato sauce and either freeze it or can it, fresh tomato sauce in December brings a little summer into your life. Perhaps you could put the containers at a different side of your place where the sun does shine? I've seen people have them on their front porch.

Thanks for your post. The only place I could grow vegetables would be in my front yard and I'm sure my neighbors would complain. When I had tomato plants before I took them to work and they really disappeared fast. I lived on tomato sandwiches all summer and I made the best pasta sauce and froze it. I can't grow anymore vegetables because it would be too hard on my back and knees.

Muffy

 

[Mamanyt1953]

See my information about Earth Boxes in the "What's Something Good..." thread around page 13. There are two posts about them, along with early photos of my garden. I think an Earth Box would work very well for you, especially if you can get a little sun on it. One of my posts has the Earth Box website, too.

Right now my tomatoes are over 8' tall and prolific. The peppers are about 3' tall and full of peppers. All you'd need for a trellis is a couple of tall sticks with string laced between them.

Let me know what you think.

I took a look, and I have the site you recommended bookmarked. I'm going to save my pennies for next spring. I'll definitely be growing tomatoes. I want one variety for sandwiches and ~drool~! fried green tomatoes, and I want a tiny sweet variety of grape or cherry tomatoes for salads. The zuccini is still up for grabs, but a bell pepper plant would be lovely. I think those are easy, as well.

Muffy, a LOT of the bush-growing veggies are very pretty to look at. I'll bet you could put some against your house and the neighbors wouldn't know the difference!

 

[segelkatt]

Unless one has an association that dictates what can be grown in a front yard it should be none of your neighbors' business. You could even encourage them to do the same thing or offer to share your surplus. Of course there is also the occasional thief one has to worry about. I agree with Mamanyt1953 that you could grow the short bushy types of veggies next to the house and hardly anyone would be the wiser. In the condo community where I live the association has very strict rules and says no veggies can be grown in the "common areas" which is anything outside your 4 walls. Because the waiting list for a community garden plot is very long there are quite a few surreptitious gardeners who grow tomatoes and peppers and quite a few herbs right next to the walkways where there is little traffic. Unless Security happens to notice (and they don't usually go there) or someone reports them they will happily keep doing that.

 

[muffy]

Manany1953 & segelkatt:

I'm having a hell of a time trying to leave a message.

I do have a neighbor association and they would not allow vegetables in the front yard and I have no sun up against the house. I have arthritis and there is no way I can take care of any outside plants. I do appreciate your help. I do want to move into an apartment and maybe then I can have a few containers on the balcony.

Muffy

 

[LTS3]

LTS3

I can understand how your new supervisor is wanting to 'take charge' of the ordering.. She wants to establish boundaries. Please do not take it personally. If she wants your help, she will ask for it.

How is your back?.

My new supervisor and my current one co-worker actually kind of know each other from the last job they had. I'm kind of paranoid that if the supervisor needs help with anything she'll go to my one co-worker all the time because they have that connection already and can talk about how great and awesome their former boss is (from what I hear from others, that boss isn't all that special so I don't get it). My co-worker has never ordered anything and hasn't bothered to learn how to. I've been doing all the ordering since I started the position. I like ordering stuff so I hope I can continue to do that. I'm trying to order as much as possible this year on the lab's budget while I can

My back is sore today. I had PT yesterday. We did a new stretch that is probably a bit too much for my back to handle. I haven't done the at home stretches today yet. I'll do them before bed.

Isn't it amazing the things that people think are somehow friendly or respectful, when in reality they're patronizing? I was once putting groceries in my car and a total stranger called me "Grandma," in front of his kids, no less! Frankly, it made me glad he was a stranger; I'd be ashamed to claim him.

She may have said that just to be funny but I feel so old

I ended up going to Mom's today. I made sure to bring my own lunch and dinner so I wouldn't be criticized for eating something I'm not allowed to eat. Did it work? Not really. Mom tried guilt tripping me into eating dinner by cooking lobster and cajoling me like a 3 year old and then criticized me by saying that she bought the lobster with her own money not Dad's just for me and I should not let it go to waste and blah blah blah The lobster will go to waste anyways (long story). I am not planning to go to Mom's tomorrow after work for dinner

 

[tallyollyopia]

Some birds are really dumb. One of them got in through a 6 inch gap, it must have hopped in and then could not find its way out again. Panthera promptly got it. When I got up this morning I found the evidence on the living room rug, just a pile of feathers and some bloody spots that I had to clean up.

And then there are crazy cats: the cat I had rehomed over 2 years ago has something about vets' offices. He is perfectly ok with anyone who comes to his home and lets them pet him, including the workmen when a new carpet was installed and he rode on the furniture which was being moved instead of cowering under the bed as most other cats would do, walks up to anyone and acts like he is the king of the castle (until the fluffy Persian who is half his age and half his weight but looks huge on account of her fur, comes along), is a door darter and will visit the neighbor's apartment (thank goodness he can't escape from the complex which is built in a square with front doors open to the inside court and he would have to open two very heavy doors to get out from there) and goes bananas when he is on an outing in his stroller and people ooh and aah over him, he just loves the attention. But take him to the vet or to the groomer to get his claws clipped and he turns into the Tasmanian Devil of cartoon fame. Just an exam drives him nuts, he bites and claws and growls and giving him a shot is almost impossible. He carried on like that last year at his annual visit also. This year the vet said she will give him a shot to sedate him next time so that she can properly examine him. He is most likely a brown tabby Maine Coon, 4+ years old now and weighs about 12 lbs. Has anyone else had a problem like that? Why would he carry on like that before anyone has even touched him? Even at the groomer's?

I can't speak for cats (being relatively new to owning them myself), but when a dog is like that it's because he's had a massively bad experience (in the dog's case, operation without anesthesia--and yes, we handled it), and he's reacting to the smell that reminds him of the experience.

Just hung up on Dad again He answered the phone and crankily asked what I wanted and why I bothered to call. *Click*

I just saw two beautiful deer in my back yard. They were eating some cracked corn and some apples I put in the yard. I just started putting the corn out last month and the deer just started coming to eat the food. It is shocking to look out and see such big animals in my tiny little yard. I need to stop feeding so many animals. I'm starting to spend more on their food than I spend on my own. I keep waiting for my little box turtle to show up. I feed him tomatoes and Fancy Feast.

Muffy

I know deer are beautiful animals--but they can easily become pests. Please be careful.

The cats and I made a father's day card for my husband.

View attachment 184425

View attachment 184426

I'll be staying in a lot for the next few days. We're going to have temps between 112 and 120 from Saturday until Thursday. I bought extra food so I won't have to go out. Crazy people hike in the mountains here and some have to be rescued when they get heat stroke or run out of water and can't get back down.

There are people who just have to be stupid.

I love deer. I don't have a garden but one year I was growing some tomatoes in containers. I saw two very big deer eating some sunflower seeds in the back yard. I was thing how beautiful they were until they started heading around the side of my house where I had my tomatoes. I opened up my door and yelled at them and they took off. Nobody but nobody messes with my tomatoes.

Muffy

I believe it was Garrison Keillor who observed that there are places where people only lock their doors during zucchini harvest season, because if they didn't lock their doors then they'd come home to find the kitchen all full of zucchini. But nobody ever worries that they might come home and find the kitchen full of homegrown tomatoes...


Margret

And then there are those among us who scream--FREE FOOD!!!

Got the directv all set yesterday. Our equipment we had was like 20 years old. The box was not sending a clear signal to the tv=they reset the signal and POOF! no more tv! Something burned out inside the box. They sent someone out the next morning and we are all set up with HDTV. Holy goodness! What a difference in picture! So then I figured out how to watch older episodes of SVU Law and Order on the tablet with my nifty stereo sounding ear buds. Spent 3 hours watching tv on my tablet. Good show! Conversion and then Sanctuary. the second one is 2 parts. I think you guys would love Sanctuary=got to check it out! Very twisty and turny!

Also got some phone calls from my resume posted on a large site=I found out it's sales positions 100% commission and more baloney. I won't do it-I stick at phone calls. It's interesting to find out my coworkers also got phone calls from those people too. They just want to use us in the union to get a contacts list- I had a coworker explain to me how it works-evidently he did some digging to find out how these jobs work-they only give you training on 4 or 5 calls then you have to do the work yourself. Then later they offer a leads list you can purchase. what a load of CRAP! Anyways been interesting reading their customer thoughts on facebook and other sites=beware they all say!! I would be a horrible sales rep. "what did you want? Just get lost already!!"

Oh man. I had trouble with those too.

Margret

Loved the video. Homegrown tomatoes are my favorite thing in the whole world. I heard that joke about zucchini. I would love to come home and find my kitchen full of zucchini.

Muffy[/QUOTE]

I wonder if I could grow a zuccini vine...just one...

Speaking from the one time the family managed to have a garden (life happens)--zuccini's are hard to kill. Give them space, a little water, and they'll grow. (Get the weeds and you'll even have produce from them.)

Mom tried guilt tripping me for not visiting for over a week. I just hung up in tears

So my new supervisor started this week. I guess she's ok. Her personality is a bit too bubbly and overwhelming for me. As long as she doesn't make me cry and treats me disrepectfully, I can work with her. I offered to order office supplies to get her desk set up since she's probably a bit overwhelmed with all the trainings and stuff. I figured it would be one less thing for her to worry about. Her response wasn't exactly "Sure!!!". It was more like "I do have the ordering system training scheduled but if you can show me how to place orders, that would be helpful". I guess we'll do that next week. She hasn't respond to my email to let me know when she has time to sit with me and place an order for office supplies.

She called me "My Dear" earlier this week She's a few years younger than I am. I hope she doesn't make it a habit to call me that.

Hang in there, you can do it. As to the new supervisor--it might just be a way of speaking. I don't know about where you live, but a lot of people where I live say things like "Dear", "Honey," or "Boo," not because they're being romantically endearing or sarcastic, but because that's just the way they speak.

I see no reason why not. Zucchini makes a huge plant, about 4 ft across, not really a vine and does not need staking, so if you have an outdoor place (balcony) with 6 hrs of sun you should be able to plant one in a really big pot, about 2 ft across unless you live in Alaska but I see that you are in N Carolina and I think it gets plenty hot there. If you can grow tomatoes there you can grow zucchini. You CANNOT grow it inside as it needs to be fertilized by bees or other insects. If you can plant it in the ground so much the better. They are really prolific which is why I grow only one plant in my community garden plot and usually have plenty for my neighbors.

I'm sorry that she got to you in that way. It's really hard to take those first steps into a life of thinking of yourself first.

If I can be nosy, what were the specific guilt-inducing comments she made? Maybe we could help you think of responses to those next time she makes them.

Read up on Cognitive Behavioral therapy. It teaches you how to change your thinking from negative to positive. In this case, you could learn things to tell yourself that cancel out her guilt trips. One example (not involving skewed family relations) is going from a negative "I get stuck with all the **** tasks at work" to a positive "More opportunities to shine and more skills to learn for the future". Kinda like the broken record analogy, you hear or tell yourself negative stuff, you believe it and then you act on it. Using the CBT skills, you change those internal messages, you practice new positive responses to external messages and focus on those new positive responses, eventually you will believe it, and in time you will hear the "wah wah wah" and you will truly believe "Yeah, she's trying to get a rise out of me, but I come first in my life and I take care of myself and what she says ultimately doesn't matter."

Or, if you're of a literary bent, you could read the book Pollyanna and try adopting the same method she uses to look at the world. (Pretty much the same thing, but easier to get behind and understand.)

 

[tallyollyopia]

LTS3 I am so sorry for your mom making things more difficult for you.
Sounds as if you do need to take a long break from that area of your life. ((hugs))

I can understand how your new supervisor is wanting to 'take charge' of the ordering.. She wants to establish boundaries. Please do not take it personally. If she wants your help, she will ask for it.

As far as calling your 'dear'.. yuck... hopefully that is not a habit. Maybe when she really gets settled in, you can observe her approach to new people and how she interacts.
New supers are always hard to get used to.

How is your back?
___________________________________________________
About 7 years ago, I decided to have a 'garden' on my balcony. I use to have a huge garden where my dad lived.

I bought a ton of container pots. I had a bunch of plants out there! I think there were 3 cucumber vines, 4 tomato plants, basil, and I think a couple of flower pots.

I trained the cucumber vines to grow on the balcony railings. The tomatoes were just bushes in a huge pot with stakes for the plant.

No one knew what I was doing. It had never been done before.
The vines were actually covering the entire balcony railing.

That summer I had so many cucumbers! and a ton of tomatoes. I was giving them away to all my neighbors!

It was a pain to water the plants, took so much time, and made a mess in the house. I do not have a water outlet on the balcony, so I was filling up gallon jugs of water, in the kitchen sink... sometimes watering twice daily..

The next year I tried it again, but on a much smaller scale... unfortunately, I got blight in the tomato plants.. the cucumber beetles discovered the cucumbers. I pretty much gave up on veggies.

The next year I tried one tomato plant.. ended up dumping it out because of all the tomato bugs and blight...new soil also...I live on wetlands..so many 'thingies' out there.

I have not tried planting since then.

I'm so sorry your last experiences were bad. Some years are good, some not-so-good. Two years ago I lost everything to a sudden invasion of leaf-footed bugs. imagine stink bugs on steroids, about 1" long. They were huge and would fly right at you if you disturbed them. They reduced the tomato plants to twigs almost overnight.

My big container garden is on a drip system. Last fall I noticed things looked droopy. We increased the frequency of the watering. Everything looked awful. Then my husband found that the water faucet, which is between two 7' locked wooden gates, had been turned off. Maybe our resident poltergeist did it. He turned it back on and some of the plants revived but were severely stressed. A couple of weeks later, they were clearly dying. Again, the water had been turned off. This time it was too late and I lost 42 plants. This winter's only freeze took care of almost everything else.

I got a new section of 22 pots this year and have space for 75 plants. I have 10 tomato plants, a variety of herbs, including 4 basil plants and 4 varieties of mint, cucumbers that are over 8' tall, zucchini, eggplant, jalapeños, hot peppers, habanero peppers, unbelievably hot peppers, and of course, catnip. The grape tomatoes are super prolific and delicious. The big tomatoes are being harvested, too, as are a lot of jalapeños and a few habaneros. Right now everything is looking OK, but the heat is getting really bad. The heat index at 5 p.m. yesterday was 111. We're going to have to increase the watering. Tomatoes at this stage will chug up to three gallons of water a day.

I found a leaf-footed bug in the mint last week and we were going to spray since it's too late to hatch praying mantises and ladybugs. However, that got upset when Darwin bit my husband in the excitement of encountering another cat while walking on his leash in the back yard. Robert spent almost three days in the hospital and we don't want to expose the wounds in any way to the spray. I can't walk, so I can't do it. We're just crossing our fingers and hoping the leaf-foots will die from the heat. Fat chance.

I don't know where you live, but you might start a little fall garden. It just might do well with the cooler days. If you have room on your balcony, you might put a rain barrel for water. I think there's an adapter you can put on your sink faucet to attach a garden hose. That might work, too.

It may be too late to hatch them, but you can buy them as adults for the garden. If that helps.

Thanks for your post. The only place I could grow vegetables would be in my front yard and I'm sure my neighbors would complain. When I had tomato plants before I took them to work and they really disappeared fast. I lived on tomato sandwiches all summer and I made the best pasta sauce and froze it. I can't grow anymore vegetables because it would be too hard on my back and knees.

Muffy

You might try making a keystone garden, at least in the backyard with shade loving plants. The whole point of a keystone garden is to bring the ground level up so that it's easier to work. Some of them are very beautiful.

I took a look, and I have the site you recommended bookmarked. I'm going to save my pennies for next spring. I'll definitely be growing tomatoes. I want one variety for sandwiches and ~drool~! fried green tomatoes, and I want a tiny sweet variety of grape or cherry tomatoes for salads. The zuccini is still up for grabs, but a bell pepper plant would be lovely. I think those are easy, as well.

Muffy, a LOT of the bush-growing veggies are very pretty to look at. I'll bet you could put some against your house and the neighbors wouldn't know the difference!

Unless one has an association that dictates what can be grown in a front yard it should be none of your neighbors' business. You could even encourage them to do the same thing or offer to share your surplus. Of course there is also the occasional thief one has to worry about. I agree with Mamanyt1953 that you could grow the short bushy types of veggies next to the house and hardly anyone would be the wiser. In the condo community where I live the association has very strict rules and says no veggies can be grown in the "common areas" which is anything outside your 4 walls. Because the waiting list for a community garden plot is very long there are quite a few surreptitious gardeners who grow tomatoes and peppers and quite a few herbs right next to the walkways where there is little traffic. Unless Security happens to notice (and they don't usually go there) or someone reports them they will happily keep doing that.

Manany1953 & segelkatt:

I'm having a hell of a time trying to leave a message.

I do have a neighbor association and they would not allow vegetables in the front yard and I have no sun up against the house. I have arthritis and there is no way I can take care of any outside plants. I do appreciate your help. I do want to move into an apartment and maybe then I can have a few containers on the balcony.

Muffy

What is the exact wording of the neighbor association on vegetables in the front yard? There may be a loophole you can exploit.

 

[tallyollyopia]

My new supervisor and my current one co-worker actually kind of know each other from the last job they had. I'm kind of paranoid that if the supervisor needs help with anything she'll go to my one co-worker all the time because they have that connection already and can talk about how great and awesome their former boss is (from what I hear from others, that boss isn't all that special so I don't get it). My co-worker has never ordered anything and hasn't bothered to learn how to. I've been doing all the ordering since I started the position. I like ordering stuff so I hope I can continue to do that. I'm trying to order as much as possible this year on the lab's budget while I can

My back is sore today. I had PT yesterday. We did a new stretch that is probably a bit too much for my back to handle. I haven't done the at home stretches today yet. I'll do them before bed.




She may have said that just to be funny but I feel so old

I ended up going to Mom's today. I made sure to bring my own lunch and dinner so I wouldn't be criticized for eating something I'm not allowed to eat. Did it work? Not really. Mom tried guilt tripping me into eating dinner by cooking lobster and cajoling me like a 3 year old and then criticized me by saying that she bought the lobster with her own money not Dad's just for me and I should not let it go to waste and blah blah blah The lobster will go to waste anyways (long story). I am not planning to go to Mom's tomorrow after work for dinner