Making Newspaper Pots for Seedlings

So Ace Hardware had a sale this week and their seed packets were $.25 a piece! Go Ace!  I figured now would be a great time to get my seeds started indoors to plant outside in May.
Last year my seed trays were a bit of a disaster, because the roots were shocked when i pulled them up out of that nice planting soil and put them in my less than perfect garden soil.  So I did a little research, and found out about making newspaper pots to start your seedlings in.  They are biodegradable, so when my little vegetables are ready to go into the ground I can just plant the whole thing and hopefully there won't be any shock or root damage. And unlike the biodegradable peat pots they sell at the store, they are FREE (if you have a newspaper and some tape) and honestly they didn't take more than an hour to make.

So I bought 8 different vegetable seed packets as well as some petunia and zinnia seeds and made up about 45 newspaper pots yesterday afternoon. I put two seeds in each pot, and hope that one of them at least will take off.  In case you want to try them out, here's how I made them.

First I did some online research, and saw that people made them many different sizes, from a toilet paper tube to a wine bottle.  I wanted mine to be about the size of the 6pack seedling we get at the store so I decided to use a glass spice jar that I had from Target.  It is sort of square shaped which I liked more than a round pot.

So here's how I made my newspaper pots
Step 1: Open up the newspaper and cut in half. I'd recommend cutting several pages at once.

Step 2:  Fold the paper into fourths.  Try to have the loose ends on one side, so that the top doesn't have any loose pages (it makes it easier to fold down)

Step 3:  Roll the paper around your spice jar, or whatever container you want to use. Leave 1" extra past the bottom of the jar to form the bottom of the pot. Have the side with the loose page ends at the bottom. Once you've wrapped the jar, apply a bit of tape to the side.  I used scotch tape because that's what I had, but if you have masking tape it would be biodegradable.

Step 4: Now turning the jar upside down, begin to form the bottom of the pot. It's just like wrapping a present.  Push down on one side.

Then fold the rest in and apply a piece of tape.

Pull the pot off of the jar, flip it over, and fold down the top to make it as tall or as short as you want. 

And there you have it!  Now just continue this process until you have enough pots, or you run out of newspaper (that's pretty much when I stopped as I was having so much fun)

When I finished all my pots I put them in my old seed container trays.  These will get a little wet and messy when you water them, so you definitely need to put them in something while they grow.

I filled them up and used toothpicks with some duct tape wrapped around the end to make little flags to identify my seeds.

Here they are before I watered them

When I watered them, I noticed the dirt compacted  A LOT, so my next batch I filled them completely with soil, watered them and then filled them up again to the right planting depth.  This seemed to work out pretty well.  So here are my completed pots all watered up

Now I must admit that I am a little bit messy when it comes to home projects, so I am sure your pots will be a little bit neater with a little less spare dirt all over the place, but I thought it was all great fun, and can't wait to watch my seeds grow hopefully into a fantastic garden this year.

Happy Planting!

The Value of a Human Life

So when I first started writing my blog, I wanted to stay away from social and political rants, but I really felt I had to write about this issue.

Yesterday I was reading an article on CNN that talked about the US Government's payout to the families of the 16 Afghan civilians who were recently murdered by an American soldier.
They stated that the US Government was going to pay $50,000 to the families of each civilian that was killed, and $11,000 to those injured.
My first reaction was 'Seriously, That's it????'
We spent $663 Billion dollars on our defense budget in 2010, and yet that is all we value an innocent human life?  These people weren't killed as a side effect of a bomb or military operation while engaging the enemy, they were killed by a lone rogue soldier in the dead of night.  Now the government has carefully stated that this is not 'compensation' but is given out of compassion for their deaths and the murderer will be put on trial, but still... that's it??
This amount, it was stated, is a substantial increase of what the US normally compensates for civilians killed during our wars. In 2010 we typically compensated $2000 to the families of Afghan civilians who were killed during a military operation. I have to wonder who decided $2000 was an appropriate amount. Could that small amount really helps replace the lost wage earner in a society where there is usually only one wage earner per family?

In 1988, Americans accidentally shot down a civilian air liner that was leaving Iran during the Iran/Iraq war.
While we never accepted official 'blame' for that incident, we still ended up compensating each victim's family $213,000 for a total of $8million. Quite a bit more than $2,000....

All of these deaths were civilians caught in the cross fire of our war with their country, and yes we compensated their families for their deaths, but I find it so disturbing to see the wide range of what we deemed 'appropriate' to compensate civilian families for their loss.

What is the value of a human life?  $2,000, $50,000, $200,000?
What would have been paid if it had been American civilians caught up in a military operation? Does our government think that the value of an American life is greater than the value of an Afghan life?  Are these civilians part of the war we are fighting? Are they for or against us and does that affect what they are 'worth'?  Is it right that though we decided to invade a country 10 years ago that we can still make up the rules as to what is 'collateral damage' and what is 'murder'?  I don't have an answer to any of these questions, but I do think they are worth asking.

Post Script:
I hope that this post can be taken as it is intended, an honest and concerned questioning of our government's ethics and moral policies as a country at war.  It is not intended to discredit or dishonor those who are fighting bravely and honestly for their countries, nor is it mean to belittle in any way the lives that have been lost by soldiers and civilians of all nationalities.

Article references:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/25/world/asia/afghanistan-killings-money/index.html?iref=allsearch 
http://www.statesman.com/news/world/u-s-provides-payments-to-afghans-after-soldiers-2261074.html?printArticle=y
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
http://www.civicworldwide.org/healing-the-wounds/afghanistan

Creating a Place for Yoga at home

So I have been practicing yoga for six years now, mostly with my yoga teacher in our bi-weekly classes. I try to practice more often than that, either at other classes or at home, but I always have a hard time creating a meaningful home practice.

I will throw my yoga mat down in the bedroom or living room and go through my stretches and sun salutations but somehow it just feels like exercise; I can rarely capture the feeling of calm and balance that I get when I'm at class.  We were talking about this a few weeks ago in class. I explained I can't escape all the worries of the day, what needs to be done around the house, etc etc but when I come to class, I can leave that at the door.  So my yoga teacher mentioned that in the beginning of class, we always have a ritual; we light candles in her himalayan salt rock candle holder and chant om.  This ritual help bring us from our daily life into our yoga life.  She suggested I create some special space at home, where I can create a ritual to transform it from the everyday to my 'yoga place'.

This idea has been sitting in the back of my mind for a few weeks, where most good ideas bounce around for awhile before I actually do anything with them, and then yesterday my husband and I decided to pop into a thrift store.  And there, sitting between ceramic Easter bunnies and 70's glassware, was my Buddha.

How extraordinary is life sometimes. In the strangest places we can find such wonderful things.  So my Buddha shrine came home with me, and now sits proudly on my dresser, ready to turn my bedroom into my "yoga place".
This morning I lit the candle, put my hands to my heart in prayer pose, said Om, and had the best home yoga practice I've had in months.
It is just wonderful that I can 'create' a place in my house, where for a moment, I can let go the worries of the day and recharge with calm and balanced energy.  Then I can blow out the candle, turn on the lights, and get back to the crazy.

Spring has Sprung

With the unusually warm March we've all been experiencing this year, I am guessing I am not the only one with spring fever. Spring has sprung and I am anxious to get the garden going.

In Colorado, March is usually our snowiest month, but this year we've seen highs in the 70s and nights well above freezing, so of course I couldn't resist getting started on the yard and garden.  There's been so many things to do; cleaning out the dead annuals, pruning back the dead branches from the raspberry bush and grape vine, putting down mulch, the list goes on. Though that's just cleaning; the best part of March is I can finally start putting things in the ground, instead of just looking at sad brown dirt.

I know things are different for every climate zone, and Colorado is difficult in terms of what we can put in the ground in March, but there's still some things that will survive our temperature fluctuations.

My first and favorite addition to my spring garden is the Pansy.
They are such hardy flowers that they can easily survive the freezing temperatures of March, and if you can find a place for them that they won't get harsh summer sun, these survivors will probably make it all through the summer and give you beautiful blooms through the fall.  I always like to get them going in March, because while they do struggle a little bit when the snows come, they get a great root system and just explode in April and May. And, on nice days like today, they just add such great color to my still barren ground.

The next thing I like to get going in March is the early spring vegetable seeds.  Most of the gardening in our yard is done in container pots, because A. we have terrible soil and B. we have dogs that just can't leave things alone.  I like to devote two entire pots to spinach in the spring (we love spinach and the earwigs seem to leave it alone), and the middle of March is the perfect time to start planting things like spinach, lettuce, kale, broccoli, etc in Colorado.  I try to use my container pots on a rotating system, so that come May when the spinach is done, I can plant my summer vegetables/herbs in the same pot.  When I put my spinach seeds in the ground this week I also planted basil and dill seeds indoors that I will put outside when my spinach is done. 

The other thing we always seem to put in the ground this time of year is grass seed. Now we don't have the world's best success with grass on our lawn, though not from lack of trying. I think the three dogs may have something to do with it, and that we are the only people on the block without an irrigation system, and then there was the incident where we used RoundUp instead of weed-only killer on the lawn a couple of years ago, but we are trying to get a little bit of grass to grow..... 

So though there's only just a few pansies and crocuses right now, I can feel the seeds stirring, the lilacs  budding and the world coming to life.  Even if it is just a packet of seeds or a 6-pack of pansies, I hope you can get outside this month and bring a little bit of Spring into your day.