Beautiful Flowers

Flowers galore! Some of the my plants are doing beautifully and now have sprung flowers. I'm just posting a couple of pics for fun :) Hope you like em'
Left is a pic of Marigolds








Below is a pic of Gerberas

My First Lettuce!

My Veggie Bed has GROOWNN! Gosh! this is probably what it feels like to be a proud mom. The radishes, lettuce, eggplant, carrots, peppers and tomatoes all have shown positive results.

Well anyway, sometimes when growing lettuce you might encounter - white powdery mildew. This is a common but not too serious a problem; specially if you catch it early. A well known farmer's solution is to mix a few drops of oil, 1 quart of water and a tsp of baking soda. Mix it well and use a spritzer to spray and cover the leaves of the plant.

The lettuce have been the first to reach the harvest stage. They're soo much greener and darker in color than the grocery store kind. Wonder if they will taste any better? To keep it well preserved, I cleaned it under water, dried it with a soft cloth. I then wrapped it with thin paper kitchen towel and refrigerated. This should last four days.

Privacy at last!!!!!!

We've had this house for about a year now, and we still didn't have fences between our house and the neighbors. I've been bugging my husband about this FOREVER!!! Initially, we'd planned to get it done from professionals but soon realized it was expensive, about two - three times the cost if you'd do it yourself. So we were just dragging our feet trying not to spend so much money in this economy but I was also desperate to have some privacy. There was something in the Spring air which just drove me to a frenzy about planting tons of shrubs and stuff, and that pushed me to researching the fence.

Finally after much research and deliberation, this week we built a fence. A FENCE! It was a crap load of work and tons of sweat, but it was fun and doable because we staggered our work and didn’t try to finish it in a day. We also had the neighbors pitch in which was a big help.

Now obviously I didn’t do a whole lot of work because of my physical limitations. But that certainly didn’t stop me from trying my hand at everything. I helped with some digging, moving lumber, nailing the boards of the fence and most importantly most of the sawing. How did I do it? By pacing myself and sticking to things I could manage and taking a LOT of rest.

Research – This fence was the first major project that we’ve undertaken. We don’t consider ourselves handy in any sense and have never worked with wood before. So I researched the crap out of the in’s and out’s of building a fence. ....... See I can help :)

Digging the posts– Now you may know that a fence requires 4x4’s dug 2 feet deep into the ground. Not an easy thing to do specially if you have clay/loamy soil. Now obviously I couldn’t dig a full hole by myself, so I would pair up with another person and when they would tire out I would take over for a couple of minutes. We also dug the holes over three days @ 3 -4 holes a day. I also helped with the leveling of the posts to be absolutely vertical and other small things.




Sawing – A great way for us disabled to help with. This requires zero force/effort but lots of focus and common sense. Using a power tool obviously means you can’t be on your pain medications the same day; it is TOO DANGEROUS. So be drug free, make sure you are not fatigued and then do the sawing. Fatigue can kill you literally when you have a power tool that can saw off a limb. With Fibromyalgia this is not an easy task to accomplish, understand your limitations and STOP when you feel you cannot focus anymore. You need a steady hand and a rested mind to finish this work. It was interesting that I felt a lot more powerful and honestly maybe a little insane with the circular saw. It was this massive powerful tool which would kill me and at the same time I was controlling it....... maybe not a comforting thought for the people around me but nevertheless it was my favorite part of building the fence :)

Moving lumber - The Cedar planks and 2x4's were easy enough to move. I did it slow and didn't overload myself. Just took three-four planks and two 2x4 at a time. Sure it took longer than a strong man doing it, but I was proud of my work. Just remember lift with your legs not your back!

Nailing boards – I could nail about eight feet of boards (not much) but at a ridiculously slow pace. This was really tiring and I couldn’t do any more than that.

Measurements – If you’re good with measurements, leveling you can help. Now I'm not great at it but I helped as much as I could.

The only thing I couldn’t do at all despite trying was actually drilling anything to the 4x4’s. It felt like a lot of effort and force required to keep the nail straight when drilling into a heavy/thick wood piece. Just couldn’t do it. But that’s okay, coz I helped with the rest and considering everything that's a hell of an accomplishment!

Now after the work everyday I rested with my heat packs and cold packs. Took a long bath with epsom salts to decrease muscle fatigue and slept for ten hours straight. I didn't do anything else during this time frame (Hence my previous post on eating out and fast food). Now I'll be honest I had to quit mid day on the last day coz I just couldn't go on anymore. I had to lie down for the rest of the day. After the fence was put up, I was bed ridden for sometime but I was extremely surprised that I hadn't hurt myself more; okay fine I stubbed my toenails and my hand a couple of times but that's normal right? . I am still resting but atleast now I can go out and sit in the backyard with some privacy :)

Dieting and fast food ????? NOOOOO its not possible! .... is it .... ?

This week I haven't been able to cook much and have been relying on take out and fast food. Great Diet huh? Well I have a couple of rules that I abide by while eating fast food

Burgers --- If I get a burger, I skip the mayo, cheese and substitute with avocado or mustard ketchup. I also skip the bun for a lettuce wrap. This is because adding mayo and cheese both add a 100 cals each, adding the bun adds 250 cals. So by making these changes, you save at least 300 - 400 ish calories (depending on what you sub it for), dialing it down from an average of 900 calories to a moderate 500 cals. If you want to save more calories, switch from ground beef to ground buffalo, OR to a turkey or chicken burger (Grilled, not breaded of course). I know you're thinking buffalo? Is she crazy, but its actually really tasty AND its the least fatty of all the meats including turkey.

Just a note -- to make it clear, skip the fries. They don't offer oven roasted fries yet (which they totally should) but as of now, no good substitutes for fries.

Mexican food -- Always stick to order a burrito naked -- meaning without the tortilla. Add as much veggies as you'd like. Always choose black beans over refried beans - its vegetable oil versus pork lard that you are choosing. Guess which is bad for the heart and your waist line. Another choice would be to have tacos - mexican style, this means no cheese, no sour cream. But I would still add the lettuce, all kinds of veggies and tons of salsa.

Fried Chicken --- KFC grilled chicken is the latest addition to my list. Its not too bad, I wouldn't say fantastic substitute though. I prefer my own version of 'fried chicken'. I'll put up the recipe soon.

Subway - Subway is by far your best bet on easy and worry free choices. I love them and their food, but even in this case, skip the mayo, choose lite mayo or better choose mustard or the avocado. Load up on all the veggies and choose the whole wheat bread.

Calorie Check - My biggest tip would be to look up the calorie content of your favorite fast food place; McD's, Carls jr, taco bell, subway etc. all have their calories put up on their sites. Understand what it would take to decrease those cals, you'll likely choose an item which would be healthier for you.

Mulch away....

Make hay while the sun shines right? Well, we decided to mulch this sunny weekend. Its not like a complicated job, just very painful for the back and knees.

Our backyard is filled with grass, concrete and weeds and I just couldn't bear the stupid weeds anymore. Weeds were suchhhh a pain in the ass and there are many ways to take care of them. Flaming them is one way, but seriously who wants to put a flame burner thing in my hands huh? Some other ways include using a chemical weed killer, but I really don't want to use unnecessary chemicals that could affect my future plants. I could also use rubber mulch (inorganic mulch) for long term solutions but it doesn't slooowly decompose into good usable soil like organic mulch does. My ultimate choice = organic mulch over a layer of plastic weed barrier cloth. This choice of cloth allows water to penetrate (an important thing if you don't want to cause water logging). The barrier doesn't allow sun to penetrate thus killing the weeds.

Overall, after the work, I think I still prefer mulching over weeding. Both cause backpain but mulch looks so much better, dont'cha think?

Transplanting for success ........ uh.. .. okay I'll take survival.....

Last week I hardened my seedlings and this week I finally transplanted my vegetable plants and its companions. I did pretty much everything recommended – I hardened the young ones for about 5 days, by hardening I mean I took out the plants for an hour the first day, then got it back inside for the rest of the day. This I then slowly increased to 4 hours, then to a full day. By doing this the plant doesn’t suffer a temperature shock when transplanted into the bed. I then checked the weather for ten days. I saw we had some good rain and overcast clouds, and three days of sun. What I completely missed – was the wind factor. I don’t know why this didn’t come to my mind before, but I should have seen the pattern of A FREAKING STORM brewing. I read the sunshine, the low temps the high temps but I skimmed right past other information. Boy! Talk about missing the obvious.

Right after I transplanted the seedlings, I had to scamper to get some wind barriers for the storm. I missed the extra dark clouds in the sky because this is Portland, its always cloudly and its not so out of the ordinary to have some dark clouds here and there. Sheesh!

Frantically, I asked my husband if he had any ideas. He said we could use his camping gear and put up tarp. That could work well, till we found out we didn’t have any stakes to hold up the tarp. Then thought hmm, maybe somehow we could hold it down using bricks and stones. But of course, the wind that particular day was 19-mph and completely threw it up in the air. Thankfully didn’t hurt anyone or break anything.

Then finally I started using old milk jugs and juice jugs; a great way to recycle them too. This is recommended by several garden Experts (not my idea). Unlike the tarp, this didn’t allow any wind drift beneath so didn’t fly out. We basically cut out the bottoms of the milk jugs and the juice bottles and stuck it over the small seedlings and under the soil an inch or so below. The clear plastic allows sunlight in, traps heat during day and helps heats the plant through the night PLUS acts as a great wind barrier. I also used our recycle container. Thick plastic. That also worked well too, the main thing to note, it had holes in the bottom of the container and I removed it immediately after the winds died down. I’m not sure, but I’m guessing the thick red plastic would suffocate the plant.

So lesson learnt, read the FULL weather forecast for the next ten days and see if anything is amiss –low temps, high temps, rain AND wind.

Dos and Don’ts for Cacti and succulents.

Here's a small list of dos and don'ts for taking care of your cacti and succulents. This was by request from Saritha. Thanks for the input.
Don’t put cacti and succulents in the same pot, they have different water requirements so you’ll end up hurting/killing one.
Don’t water too often. If your succulents/cacti get HOT blazing sun every single day then you may have to water once a week at max. If you get sun once in a while or soft sun (not Arizona type) or if your cacti don’t have diminished sunlight, then only water the succulents once in 10-15 days and water cacti once in 20 days or so. They really don’t need a lot of water.
Do water appropriately – Watering depends on the sun, moisture level in the house for indoor plants and whether it’s a succulent or cacti. Make sure you while watering, you don’t put it under the tap and let it run, the soil is not meant for absorbing water at a rapid pace. So use a measuring cup or something similar and pour water slowly and unlike most plants, don’t water it thoroughly till the top level keeps moist. Let it be dry for about a half inch on the top.
Do get a suitable soil. There are soils out there specific for cacti and succulents. When I first starting growing these, I used regular potting soil…. And I killed two of mine and almost killed 1 which is now thankfully growing well in the new soil. Soil meant for cacti and succulents is mixed with sand, gravel and potting soil. Don't put sand from the beach, it has too much salt which will kill em'.
Don't let it rot - If you see signs of rot, it will look like a small ripe boil (quite yucky), this means you are over watering. Stop! Let it rest and let the soil dry up. The picture on the left is the one cacti which survived my previous potting soil batch. The soil retained too much water and rotted all my cacti. This mark is the remains of the rotted part. It fell off when I changed the soil and stopped watering as much. Now its actually growing. Check pic below.














Don’t use too big a container for your cacti or succulents. If you do, you will end up over watering the plant trying to get to a moist soil.
Do use a cactus food fertilizer if you want it to grow a bit faster than usual (which is very very slow). Usually when you add fertilizer, the instructions will be different for indoor plants versus outdoors.
Do you use THICK gloves. I’ve been poked through my gloves while transplanting.
Basically if you won’t let it rot, you’ll be fine. Have fun with your cacti and succulents.

Jumpstart diet wise -- an update boooooooooo

Whew! What a waste of effort. My fruit diet is a failure. Five days of eating only fruits for one meal, I thought it was a healthy thing coz it was fruits and lots of it. Plus I really needed to do something as I was on a lull of not losing any weight (coz I wasn't working out for the past three weeks due to my knee problems).

So yeah I lost about 3 pounds from Monday to Friday, but I seemed to put back EVERYTHING on from Saturday to Sunday when I returned to my normal diet. Okay fine, I ate out on Friday night. But still I went from 214.8 - 211.8 and then BACK TO 214.0. Can you believe it?
Besides the weight, I didn't have fun with this at all. It was torture eating so many fruits. Before the diet I thought it would be fine eating so many fruits since I like fruits, but not the case, I seem to seriously crave spicy food. The innate sweetness of the fruits drove me nuts. So all in all, I would say a total and utter failure.

Sheesh! short term solutions don't seem to work at all. Big surprise huh? Looks like I have to go back to my normal diet. Eating sensibly and working out a little everyday.