Planning Your Own Vegetable Garden

Written on May 14, 2008 by Holly · Filed under Home & Garden

vegetables Within the next five years, my boyfriend and I are planning on buying our first home. While talking about the home of our dreams and about what a luxury it will be to not have to ask a landlord if we can paint the walls, hang up pictures and change the carpet in our rooms, he mentioned that he would love to have a garden.

Now first of all, my boyfriend is very much unlike most guys you will meet–He loves to decorate, he has an eye for what colors and fabrics look best on me and he has a knack for cleaning the house a whole lot better than I could! I am a very lucky woman to have somehow attracted my very own straight gay man.

While thinking about this garden that he would love to have, we talked about not only having fresh flowers we wouldn’t have to pay an arm and a leg for, but also our very own produce; which of course, with the rising cost of gas to get to the store and the twenty percent increase in food prices that have hit America hard, having our very own vegetables would be a dream!

Being the dedicated blogger that I am, I thought I would share some information I picked up on how to make the thought of your very own vegetable garden a reality.

Like any major endeavor you plan to take on, a vegetable garden takes planning. You can’t just go out to your yard, pick a corner and start planting, you need to take into consideration how much sunlight your crops need, how many different varieties of vegetables you will be growing and where everything is going to go.

Vegetables have very particular needs unlike any other plants. Your vegetables required deep, fertile soil, a level ground and six hours of full sun every day at the very least. You also need to take into consideration that raised beds are better for growing vegetables because they have good draining, which rids your vegetables of disease and suffocation of the root systems. Raised beds also warms the soil a lot quicker than a regular bed and of course, since vegetables need six hours of full sunlight daily, they could use all the warmth they can get!

It is much easier to sketch your plan out on paper before you begin to plant. Decide what vegetables will go where as well as the size of the beds you will need. The best type of paper for this endeavor would be graph paper so you can plan to scale and also make sure you know how big your crops will grow so you can make sure that they are spaced out properly and not overlapping onto each other.

To make the raised beds that I mentioned earlier, mark off the bed layout with string and bamboo stakes. Make sure that your beds are not wider than 36 to 40 inches and using a shovel, carve out a series of lowered paths around the staked-off areas. Then, mound the soil onto the beds and use a rake to level the soil.

If you currently have your own vegetable garden, tell me about it in the comments, I could surely use all the help I can get and if you’re feeling really adventurous, take some pictures and send them to me using the contact form.

You Never Know When You’ll Need a Utility Light

Written on May 4, 2008 by Holly · Filed under Home & Garden

It’s standard procedure to make sure you have a few flash lights stashed around the house at all times just in case anything were to happen; say the power goes out one night and you’re well out of candles, so what do you do to make sure you don’t trip over the dozens of kid’s toys laying in the middle of the living room? Or perhaps you have to go into the creepy crawler-infested basement, you will most definitely need a light with you to make sure there isn’t a giant spider or even worse, a mouse coming your way.

I’ve been in these situations myself all too often; in fact, I have even been in a few tough situations where I wish I had a flash flight stashed in the car, but of course there was no light of any kind to be found since I’m not the best “worst case scenario” planner out there.

However, in light of all of the rough situations I’ve been in where I needed a light of some kind to make my way through the dark house or basement or even the side of a highway when the car decides it’s exhausted and suddenly stops, I can’t imagine the kind of situations the rest of you have been in. But you are in luck! There is a website out there that carries lights of all kinds, including spotlights, utility lights, military equipment and even 24 volt lights, making them beyond prepared to prepare you for the unexpected.

MagnaLight can not only help those preparing for the worst, but they are also a great resource to check out for those who can’t get enough of the outdoors, such as hunters and fishers. What I saw on their site that I really liked is that they sell rechargeable lights as well, so you are not wasting money and polluting the environment with batteries. They stock for virtually any and all situations and activities, making them a go-to resource for whatever type of light you find yourself needing.

Planning Your Big Day: Wedding Registries

Written on April 26, 2008 by Holly · Filed under Home & Garden

utensils There are a lot of things to consider when planning your wedding and let’s face it, who can ignore the fact that there are presents involved?

Women have a tendency to over think pretty much everything regarding their wedding day; the term “bridezilla” didn’t come out of the sky, you know, and setting up your wedding registry is no different. There are some simple things you can do, however, to make the process of setting up your wedding registry.

First of all, start with the room you get the most excited about when you think about getting shiny, new things for it. If it’s your bedroom, go to the bedroom and take a look around. Take note of what you already have (and like) and think about what you’ve been wanting to add to the room that you haven’t already. If you have some items, like myself, that maybe your parents or your soon-to-be spouse’s parent’s handed down to you, would you like to update them? If so, in what colors or styles? Make a list of items you need as well as what you would like–It’s okay to be a little frivolous; in fact, it’s expected.

After you’ve finished with the room that you get the most excited about, move through the house in the order of what rooms give you that warm and fuzzy feeling and rooms that you would love some new gadgets for. However, it is also expected that you will forget some items that you’ll be kicking yourself later for not adding to your registry, so to help out with setting up your wedding registry, I Do Sugar, part of the Sugar blog network, has made a very convenient PDF file containing items that one can most often easily forget about to make sure that doesn’t happen to you!

You can download the PDF file here; I can’t even imagine the number of sanities this file is going to save when it comes to wedding registry planning!

Chix Can Fix by Norma Vally

Written on April 7, 2008 by Holly · Filed under Home & Garden

Home improvement books really aren’t my type of books, since I’ve always lived in apartments and can’t really take it upon myself to paint and redecorate without the approval of a landlord, whom most often are scared to death when you say “Oh yes, I’m thinking about black carpeting and green walls, what do you think?” However, Norma Vally’s Chix Can Fix tempted me because the book is not only geared towards home improvement, but also to fixing household appliances without the hassle of having to call in a professional and be robbed blind. I was also curious as to how a woman would speak to other women about home repairs and improvements, especially considering that traditionally, this book would have been geared solely towards men, had the author been a man.

I do not watch television; in fact, for three years I didn’t even have basic cable channels so my television was only used when I was watching a movie, so I had no background on who Normy Vally was or what this so-called “Tool Belt Diva” thing was all about going into this book. I was especially interested in this book to see how Vally represents women who do their own home improvement and repair work and because I had never made my own home repairs, nor knew who Norma Vally was, I went into this book completely clueless and came out just as clueless as before, but more offended than anything else.

Norma Vally speaks down to her readers, a true triumph since this book can be found in several clearance bins in many different home improvement and supply shops. She goes into explicit detail and over-simplifies already clear points as if she were a man imitating how one should speak to clueless women. She attempts humor quite frequently, but instead of coming off as humorous, her wording falls nothing short of being condescending and petty.

The self-proclaimed Tool Belt Diva had the perfect opportunity to publish a positive and helpful book for women, already knowing that women would be more inclined to purchase her book, but instead makes the same mistake as most other books of any nature do when attempting to appeal to a female audience–Speaking abut fashion and making every other sentence “cutesy” will not build a solid fan base; instead, this will provoke readers to look at the author of the book in a negative light, knowing that she does not take herself seriously, never mind being able to take the plight of her readers seriously.

If you are still inclined to purchase this book, you will find step-by-step instructions on a variety of different home improvement and repairs, such as plumbing, electricity, walls, floors, doors and windows. You will also find an estimated budget for every project in the book if you are saving up or would like an estimate for a particular home repair or improvement.

Chix Can Fix did not impress me, nor did I see what I had expected; I expected a woman-friendly book that went above the stereotypical “man job” demeanor; what I got was the reinforcement that because you’re a woman, you have no right to do these types of home improvement jobs, but if you insist on doing them anyway, Norma Vally would like to think she can help–while insulting your intelligence the entire time.

Rating: ½☆☆☆☆

Earth Hour 2008

Written on March 28, 2008 by Holly · Filed under Home & Garden

earth This Saturday is a big day for helping the Earth out a little bit in your every day life. March 29, 2008 is Earth Hour, an event created by the World Wildlife Fund and is a day where for one hour (8PM to 9PM–your local time) you will join other people across the world in turning your lights off to raise awareness about global warming.

Last year, Earth Hour was an event in Sydney, Australia and had over 2 million participants and had over 2,000 businesses power down their light sources. This year, Earth Hour is making this a global event–No matter where you are located, turn your lights off from 8PM-9PM and help to fight climate change.

“Join people all around the world in showing that you care about our planet and want to play a part in helping to fight climate change. Don’t forget to sign up and let us know you want to join Earth Hour.“

But what will you do for a whole hour without your lights? Crunchy Domestic Goddess has some ideas, including talking with your kids about why all of the lights are turned out and educating them about the Earth and global warming.

What will you be doing with no lights during Earth Hour?

Here are some other ways that you can help the Earth after March 29th:

  • Turn off lights when you leave a room.
  • Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs.
  • Turn off appliances when not in use.
  • Unplug your electronics when they are not in use.
  • Use less hot water.
  • Switch to green power.

What are you doing in your every day life to help fight global warming?

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