Garden dreams are part of the winter season and often get a chance to become reality by summer if we dreamed ‘right’.  Dreaming about a way to control the environment with a greenhouse ranks up there pretty high with the plans for beautiful and bountiful gardens.

I found an e-book, Building Your Own Greenhouse, that the big dreamers will enjoy.  It’s available free at The Legacy Gardens.  Download, dream, maybe build.

While you enjoy the e-book, please share your dreams or your experiences with greenhouses or other innovative gardening projects.

Redworms thrive on the microbes of deteriorating kitchen garbage.  Coffee grounds, filters, tea bags, loose tea, peelings of all types, scrapings and paper provide organic nutrition that the worms turn into wonderful black dirt.

Because vermicomposting is a cold process, the seeds aren’t killed.  Every spring when I add some of this rich, freshly made dirt to my container gardens, I am rewarded with more little volunteer plants than I can use.  Often they don’t produce well in the containers shared with flowers.  The water and space needs are just different, so they are pulled and returned to the soil.  This year a jalapeno pepper plant grew quietly till it was large enough to let it go and see what would happen.  I’ve picked peppers from it a couple times and there are  a few more red and green peppers ready.

I began working with worms for composting several years ago.  I really like having a resource that I can turn the garbage into something beneficial.  The worms are quiet ‘pets’ and also do a great job of eliminating my junk mail.  They don’t care for light.  When I pour paper shreds over the beds, that creates a simple ‘lid’ on the tub and the worms glads stay ‘under covers’.  Meanwhile, the paper begins to get worked into the bed along with the garbage and before I know it, they need more paper.  Paper is organic and decomposes like any other garbage, hosting the microbes that feed the worms.

The first ‘farmers’ on the community who have set up the program are located in the Ozarks of Missouri, but are not limiting the conversation to that region.

You can learn more by going over to that link and becoming a member.  There is a generous membership area with blog space and opportunity to submit articles or suggest articles for publication.  Join today and Enjoy.  There is no charge to become a member.

I didn’t plan on the compost pile delivering me two huge packages of pumpkin seedlings!  One was moved to a trellis and the other left to take over the compost pile.

Members may comment.  You can become a member here:

Legacy Gardens   Come on over!

I despise smoking. Smokers smell, they contribute to health hazards. In crowds, they make me smell in a manner that is most offensive when I get away from them; the odor hangs on and ruins my clothes, fouls my surroundings and belongings. (Wipe a wet cloth down the walls of the smoker home, or on the windows of the smoker car. Yech!) With all of the information about health in particular that has been daily available for the last 50 years, I have a really difficult time appreciating the intellect of someone who chooses to begin a smoking habit.

I understand the evils of smoking in terms of health and these days in terms of money. I have great sympathy with the people who think that adding four cents to a pack of cigarettes will keep young people from smoking. I am suspicious of the success future of such thinking, but they have my sympathy.

However, this is an amendment to the constitution. I cannot support a lifetime tag on the amendment of any constitution that addresses an addiction, a health issue and a small tax. This would have to be introduced in a different format to get my support. So, I will be voting NO next week and the smoking idiots can remember that if you play, you pay. Sure, your health care will cost Missouri neighbors, but you will be the uncomfortable one with the ravages of lung cancer or emphysema and with the shortened life. We will miss you, but it was, at the very base of things, your choice and you can choose.

I have major problems with the Missouri Stem Cell Initiative a proposed amendment for the 2006 elections in Missouri.

Number one, I do not believe this is good for Missouri or the United States. I believe that researchers have not sufficiently resolved the possibilities of stem cell benefits for the ailments and conditions targeted from other sources of stem cells besides embryonic stem cells. I believe there are sufficient other resources for stem cell research and possible resolution of health conditions, both disease and injury. Resources which include cord blood, baby teeth, adult stem cells and others. I do not support the call for the embryonic stem cell supply. There are lines of embryonic stem cells of sufficient supply to experiment. Prove it first with these; then be good scientists and check in other paths to learn if the results cannot be replicated with acceptable stem cell sources. Embryonic stem cells are not acceptable. I must vote NO.

Secondly, the advertising for this initiative makes fools and points the ‘stupid’ finger at Missouri residents and voters by implying that without this amendment being enacted, Missouri residents will be denied the medical advancements of stem cell research. What a totally fraudulent statement to make! That is so insulting. If I were mad/insane enough to endorse this mad scientist idea, I would hope that my pain at the insulting promotion would counsel me to vote NO.

Thirdly, with the caveat that I do endorse stem cell research and that I do not wish to diminish the suffering of people with injuries and conditions for which there is no other encouragement, stem cell research and application/treatment is still a medical procedure. And a medical procedure with limited demand among the general population.

I resist the thinking that would make a medical procedure an amendment to any constitution. Make it a law; make it a proclamation, make it a proposal with term limit, but not an amendment.

I find sufficient reason and personal opinion to vote NO on Amendment 2 next week.

There were probably 200 lbs of walnuts (in hull) on the ground. Walking between the upper end of the garden and the tree line was a treacherous project. Earlier, green apples had dropped to threaten, but they were cotton balls compared to the ankle turning opportunities offered by the walnuts.

Enter the Nut Wizard — http://www.thenutwizard.com/! This tool comes in various sizes, but we have the largest one. I wish I had a little one for acorns, but that is another tale

DH brought a giant sized Nut Wizard home and it works best for the black walnuts. It worked so well that I agreed to help him pick up a load of walnuts to take to the huller! We were really tired and worn out after that afternoon of scrabbling for walnuts.

He says it reminds him of the Fisher Price toys that little kids push around. The pop corn popper one. It reminds me of a carpet sweeper. But sometimes it works best if you just pop it over the top of the walnut. The wires separate and Schzam, the walnut is netted!

The Nut Wizard – don’t be without one!

People in other areas had the beejeezus scared out of them with high winds, hail and rain. Table Rock Lake and Branson were the worst last night. The TV people pre-empted much of the night with reports, etc. which is good.

The rain has really greened stuff up. Forsythia is getting the yellow flowers. The one that got a good hair cut a couple weeks ago even has a few buds on it. Our neighbor and I were discussing how to trim the ones by the road as we don’t want to give them a good hair cut. They are closer to the road, so their three big shrubs stop a lot of dust, noise and give them a little privacy screen. We have one right on the road that stops a lot of dust, with big lilacs paced across the grass toward the house. We’re thinking that if we take the trimmer with us when we get the mail and whack a little, we can groom them, but not get us too dusty!

The local saying is that we are 2 weeks from a drought. I think we’re cool for a few days.

I re-trimmed the roses a few days ago and kept a couple of pieces of the runner to repot. People here hate these multi-flora roses. They do require a lot of discipline, but they are pretty at bloom time.