It's been far too long since I updated this site. However, thanks to a modification in my work schedule, I should now have some additional free time during the week. I am hoping to translate this into more free time to spend on household projects, and a little bit of time to blog about them. Plus, in all honesty, I am frustrated and angry as hell about the current political climate in this country, and in addition to some political activism, I need a creative outlet.
So let's jump right in, shall we? It's early February and still pretty chilly here in VA. Far too early to plant anything in the ground, and still a week or two early for starting seeds, since our last frost date is predicted to be April 16-30. However, it is not too early for planning! So much to Nick's amusement, while parked in front of the TV watching Season 1 of "The Expanse," (quality sci-fi, by the way), I have been gleefully planning out garden beds.
If you look closely, you may see that tomatoes are not in any of the diagrams. This is because we are planning to tear up and roto-till a section of yard currently filled with some plants we don't care about, and give the tomatoes their own in-ground bed. This would let me spread them out more effectively to avoid crowding. That's a project for another couple of weekends, though. This weekend it was time to work on the potting bench.
You may recall that a few years back, my fantastic husband (with the help of my equally awesome mother-in-law) built a fantastic indoor potting bench/seed starting station. It's a wonderful piece, but the room in which it is located is not heated. This means that even if I used seed-starting heat mats (which I do), the seedlings would not stay warm enough to thrive. Originally, Nick put a hinged piece of clear plastic on the front. It kept the heat in nicely, but the hinges only allowed it to open partway, meaning I basically had to hunch over to work on my plants. That made it awfully rough on my back, and was not ideal. Last summer, the screws holding the hinges pulled out of the wood and the plastic broke. I decided to take the opportunity to come up with a new option that would be easier to use and less painful for my back. Plastic sheeting seemed like a good idea, but how was I going to anchor it without tearing the plastic? Then inspiration struck: a shower curtain! Why not use a clear plastic shower curtain - it's just about the right width (6 feet-ish), and has grommets on top to use as anchor points. Plus, it's cheap! With this in mind, I set to work.
A $10 transparent heavy PEVA shower curtain liner from Target seemed to fit the bill. It was just about twice as tall as what I needed, so I decided to double it over, on the hopes that arrangement would trap more heat. After a false start due to my failure to read the fine print on the back of the first plastics glue package I bought (few glues stick to polyethylene), I got the curtain doubled over. I purchased some screws to put through the grommets, and large washers to place between the curtain and the screw head, to hold the curtain in place. This afternoon Nick was kind enough to help me put it up, and it looks great! The curtain was a little too narrow, leaving about an inch on each side uncovered, but Nick came up with a quick fix: scrap 2x4s cut to fit and make up the difference. The result? Looks good, and it only cost me about $20!
That's all I've got for now, but I will have seed-starting updates coming soon. Take care!
-Danielle
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