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<\/a><\/p>\n…and planted the seeds.<\/p>\n
Please note the usage of egg carton lids as water reservoirs.\u00a0 I accept donated egg cartons from everyone.\u00a0 But I rarely use the 18 egg cartons.\u00a0 Mostly because I am confused about pricing.\u00a0 Should the cost per egg be cheaper because they are buying more eggs?\u00a0 If it’s cheaper won’t everyone want the 18 egg cartons—which I have in limited supply?\u00a0 If I price the eggs the same regardless of amount, since 1 dozen eggs costs $2.50 (or approximately $.20 per egg), that means an 18 egg carton should cost $3.60.\u00a0 Who’s going to make change for that??\u00a0 And what about the fact that the 18 egg cartons are too wide to fit in the egg carton cabinet, meaning they end up stacked in corners all over the house?\u00a0 Now that I think about it, what sadist even developed 18 egg cartons? Isn’t my life complicated enough as it is?!<\/p>\n You can see why they end up being deconstructed into seed starting trays.<\/p>\n Plus, the flip sides make excellent card holders for little hands.<\/p>\n Or for a mom who needs one hand to hold her wine glass and the other to reach for M&Ms while wondering if she should just keep the Old Maid and lose or try to pass it off to a child who will cry when he gets it.\u00a0 Help build their character by letting them lose and kill the children’s fun?\u00a0 Or take the hit and let them call you Old Maid for the rest of the day?\u00a0 There are no easy parenting decisions.\u00a0 Although they are easier with wine and chocolate.<\/p>\n Also, please note that a child with a fever may be too sick to go to school.\u00a0 But he can be given Tylenol and, when it kicks in, get up and help out with the farm chores.\u00a0 Letting an asymptomatic kid lay in bed watching TV and making endless request for juice and snacks is a bit too June Cleaver for me.\u00a0 Never mind a quick way to get kids calling home sick 3 times a week.<\/p>\n Anyway.<\/p>\n The seeds were labeled with very professional labels…<\/p>\n …and set in the greenhouse on fancy straw bale shelves.<\/p>\n Then I watered them and filled the reservoirs.\u00a0\u00a0 After a few days the seeds were germinating.<\/p>\n After a few more days, they were dried up and dead.<\/p>\n I called a friend who gardens successfully in large greenhouses.<\/p>\n “I don’t understand,”\u00a0 I said.\u00a0 The first time I filled the reservoirs with water it lasted for 3 days.\u00a0 So in 3 more days I came back to refill the bases, but the plants were already dried up and dead.”<\/p>\n “Was it sunnier than usual?” he asked.<\/p>\n “Yes,”\u00a0 I exclaimed. “So I expected the seedlings to be happy and healthy with the extra warmth, but they were dead!”<\/p>\n “You can’t wait 3 days to check on the greenhouse,” he explained.\u00a0 “If the days are overcast, a heavy watering may last for a long time.\u00a0 But if there’s even one sunny afternoon, the greenhouse will heat up and the plants will absorb every ounce of water available.”<\/p>\n “So I should check on them on sunny days?” I asked.<\/p>\n “You need to check the greenhouse every<\/strong><\/em>day,” he said.\u00a0 “Watch the weather report and plan to open or close vents and windows according to predicted temperatures and amount of sunshine.\u00a0 But don’t just rely on the newscast.\u00a0 Sometimes I come home from work at lunch break to open the greenhouse if it turns out to be warmer than anticipated.\u00a0 And if nighttime temperatures drop unexpectedly or a cold front comes in, you may have to get up at night and turn on seed warming trays.\u00a0 Consider putting in black 55 gallon drums filled with water to moderate temperature changes.\u00a0 Also, keep an eye on humidity…”<\/p>\n At least I think that’s what he said.\u00a0 I honestly didn’t hear much after “…check the greenhouse every<\/strong><\/em>day.”\u00a0 Because I was wondering what he meant by every<\/em><\/strong>day.\u00a0 Like <\/strong>every<\/strong> <\/em>day that I have time to do gardening chores.\u00a0 Or every<\/em><\/strong> day that I remember I have seedlings in the greenhouse.\u00a0 Maybe every<\/em><\/strong> day that there is no emergency in the barn like bloat or kidding or an overturned automatic waterer.\u00a0 Perhaps every <\/strong><\/em>day that the school is not calling to tell me one of the kids needs to be picked up for a suspected case of pink eye, ringworm, head lice, norovirus, swine flu or any other reason that that staff can find to cut the class number from 22 kids to a more manageable 18.\u00a0 Or every<\/strong> <\/em>day that I can summon the energy to drag 100 feet of hose across the driveway, go back and straighten all the places where the hose kinked itself, attach the gentle misting arm to the nozzle, haul it into the greenhouse for watering, and then reverse the entire process.\u00a0 That kind of every<\/em><\/strong> day?<\/p>\n Because surely he didn’t mean every<\/em><\/strong> single day that the sun comes up and I am still alive.\u00a0 I don’t do anything every <\/em><\/strong>single day.\u00a0 Not even brush my hair every <\/strong><\/em>morning (which is why hair clips were invited) or put on my PJs every<\/strong><\/em> night before bed (who hasn’t woken up in their barn clothes on the couch where they fell asleep trying to summon the energy to get upstairs for a shower and bed time?).\u00a0 I think every <\/em><\/strong>day is for boring<\/span> normal people, not farmers.<\/p>\n I nodded politely as my neighbor gave his advice.\u00a0 Then as I walked home, I pondered all the ways I could avoid having to check the greenhouse every day.\u00a0 Taking good advice is also for boring<\/span> normal people.<\/p>\n I restarted the seeds.\u00a0 But this time I blocked up the holes in the sides of the egg carton (you know the slots where the lids fit) so the trays would hold more water.\u00a0 And I purchased some $.67 clear plastic trays that are designed to go underneath house plants, set the peat pots in leftover 6 packs, and put them in the trays.\u00a0 Those trays hold a whopping 3 inches of water.\u00a0 Which I figured should be good for at least 2 sunny days.\u00a0 Guess what?<\/p>\n It worked.<\/p>\n Which just goes to show that cheap and easy has it’s place in life.\u00a0 Just not in preteen clothing or parachute repair.<\/p>\n As soon as those seedlings had a good set of roots I moved them into larger black pots sitting in the 3 inch trays.\u00a0 The tomatoes went right into the straw bales.\u00a0 The straw bales got saturated every 3 or 4 days until water ran out the bottom.\u00a0 This kept the plants watered and the heat of the straw decomposing kept the roots warm, too.<\/p>\n That’s when it happened.\u00a0 All that cheap and easy went straight to their heads.\u00a0 Those plants exploded like they had just been waiting for a haphazard home where the farmer only checks on them when she remembers to do it, none of the kids are home sick, and the only other thing to do is clean the bugs out of the windowsills.\u00a0 Perhaps they felt challenged by the benign neglect and felt like they had something to prove.\u00a0 Perhaps they noticed the last batch of withered seedlings tossed in the compost next to the greenhouse and realized their survival was in their own hands.\u00a0 Perhaps the tomatoes had a running bet with cucumbers and everyone wanted to grow bigger than those ridiculous heat-loving, drought-tolerating herbs.\u00a0 Whatever the reason, it was a beautiful sight!<\/p>\n And all that growth changed my approach to gardening in the greenhouse.\u00a0 See, around here we work on the law of negative returns<\/strong>.\u00a0 I know what you’re thinking: “Huh?”\u00a0 Or some of you are thinking: “We’re not impressed.\u00a0 We know you googled that.”\u00a0 Anyway, like most people, our basic understanding of input and output used <\/em>to focus on the law of diminishing<\/em> returns.\u00a0 The law of diminishing returns states that in all productive processes, adding more of one factor of production, while holding all others constant, will at some point yield lower per-unit returns.\u00a0 That law is for non-farmers.\u00a0 Any farmer knows you don’t have a chance in hell of adding one more factor of production while keeping all others constant.\u00a0 Nothing stays constant on a farm except the fact that the credit card bill always says you spent more than you thought you did on your last farm project.<\/p>\n Instead, on a farm you can try throwing everything you’ve got at a project—time, effort, and money—and hope it succeeds.\u00a0 If it does, great.\u00a0 If not, then you’ve experienced the law of negative returns—when adding more of a factor actually results in decreased returns.\u00a0 That law stinks.\u00a0 It also follows us around about as bad as a bottle-fed buckling.\u00a0 So, over the years, I’ve cut back on the time, effort, and money I invest in a new project.\u00a0 And I’ve discovered a new rule of my own: Put in just enough time, effort, and money that you won’t lay on the ground weeping and gnashing your teeth if things don’t go as planned.\u00a0 Or at least you won’t lay on the ground weeping and gnashing your teeth for more than an hour.\u00a0 An hour is acceptable.<\/p>\n I realize my rule is not very encouraging and enlightening.\u00a0 Not so much Joel Osteen<\/a><\/p>\n as it is Maxine. <\/a><\/p>\n Which is just the way it is sometimes.<\/p>\n But in this instance, the cheap and easy combined with a half-hearted effort actually resulted in a copious bounty.\u00a0 Which in turn inspired a frenzy of even more cheap and easy.\u00a0 I dragged out some 55 gallon drums that we’ve been saving to turn into rain barrels (by “saving to turn into rain barrels” I mean letting sit at the top of the driveway for 4 years) and set them up in the greenhouse.\u00a0 Now before you think I was doing something crazy like following my experienced neighbor’s advice, you should know my main goal was to achieve more shelving for more seedlings.<\/p>\n I proceeded to use the circular saw to cut an old and discarded fence panel into shelves. (I know you’re jealous.\u00a0 I know you wish you had primo items like this sitting in a pile at the top of your driveway for you to see every single day as you drive up to the house.\u00a0 Don’t be a hater.)<\/p>\n My father had suggested I level the greenhouse floor before adding more shelves or planting.\u00a0 That was a great idea.\u00a0 But using rocks from around the yard to level the barrels and the panels sure was a whole lot easier.\u00a0 Just note that if you are visiting my greenhouse you shouldn’t try tapdancing on the shelves.\u00a0 Or leaning on them particularly hard.<\/p>\n And if you are leaning, be sure not to hold on with your hands underneath the shelves.\u00a0 Because I didn’t so much as remove protruding nails as I just pounded them flat.\u00a0 Shouldn’t be a problem as long as your tetanus is up to date.<\/p>\n Oh, and the third support to the high shelf isn’t actually a barrel.\u00a0 I only had 2 of those.\u00a0 Instead, it’s just bricks on top of a 5 gallon bucket on top of cement blocks on top of 2 old tires.\u00a0 Definitely don’t lean on that.<\/p>\n Plus, don’t grab the old metal shelving I stole from the deck where it was holding water guns, sprinklers, and beach toys.\u00a0 It’s rusted away in a few spots.\u00a0 Also, it’s not attached to anything.\u00a0 Just kind of balancing there.\u00a0 On the uneven ground.<\/p>\n And don’t stand on the lower shelves to reach for anything.\u00a0 They’re just resting on empty upended flower pots.<\/p>\n Now that I think about it, it’s better not to visit the greenhouse unsupervised.\u00a0 Or without insurance.\u00a0 I’m just saying.<\/p>\n Those of you that know me are probably shocked at this frantic investment of effort.\u00a0 Especially since many of you know that previous years’ attempts at seedlings resulted in pathetic little transplants that had to be babied in the garden and struggled through the entire season.\u00a0 But the growth of the seedlings in the greenhouse was so impressive…<\/p>\n …so inspiring…<\/p>\n …so irrepressible…<\/p>\n …so downright intoxicating…<\/p>\n …that I just couldn’t stop spreading seeds.\u00a0 And to add fuel to my gardening giddiness, the tulip and daffodil bulbs that Pretty and I planted last fall along the garden fence actually bloomed!<\/p>\n They weren’t dug up by squirrels.\u00a0 Or eaten by deer.\u00a0 Or too damaged when we planted them (I like to buy cheap bulbs off the discount racks when they are already dry and withered or hopelessly sprouting under the store lights).\u00a0 No, they were glorious…<\/p>\n …radiant…<\/p>\n …and triumphant.<\/p>\n The blooms made us practically delirious.<\/p>\n When we saw that the wildflower seeds we sowed were coming up, too, I think I did swoon for a minute.<\/p>\n Of course, the only thing left to do was to get Middle to lay out a row of compost on the other side of the fence in return for some computer time.<\/p>\n And plant more seeds…<\/p>\n …in order to rejoice over more seedlings.<\/p>\n While Pretty and I were admiring the fresh and delicate shoots, pushing up through the dark soil, something else caught our eye.\u00a0 The pear and peach trees were blossoming!<\/p>\n They were blossoming despite the fact that they were bought for $5 each, so root bound that the pots were splitting, and the nursery worker explained that they were sold AS IS and wrote “Good luck” on my receipt.<\/p>\n You’ll have to excuse for me for what I did next.\u00a0 I couldn’t help it.\u00a0 I was tipsy with success.\u00a0 Buzzed on blossoms.\u00a0 Gardening under the influence.\u00a0 I went down to the garden and I did it.\u00a0 Something I swore I would never do again.<\/p>\n I planted potatoes.<\/p>\n But this time I planted them under straw.\u00a0 The same magic straw that I used in the greenhouse.<\/p>\n But that’s not all.\u00a0 Since I was feeling no fear, no pain, just sweet spring greenery flowing through my veins, I went even further.\u00a0 I took the basketball court that passes for our back yard…<\/p>\n and I…, yes, I really did…despite years of lost time, effort, and money…<\/p>\n …I planted grass seed!\u00a0 It was a desperate, daunting, drunken act!\u00a0 It was inexplicable!\u00a0 An inexcusable lapse in common sense.\u00a0 It was…<\/p>\n A MIRACLE!!!!<\/p>\n Oh, my.\u00a0 May this magnificent bender never end!<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n