Gardening 2023

[cineater]

Aw hell, no rosemary.  Today is their day.  I'll give them a little longer.  I soaked the seeds so really they should have come up earlier.

[cineater]

Marsha said not to give up, they could take up to a month to come up.

I'm looking for grants for Marsha's fruit trees.  Contacted the state as they administer federal grant funds.  They referred me to a certain grant.  I'm reading through all the rules wondering if it's really worth $500 for all the paperwork and outcomes record keeping I would have to do.  Really, it be would easier to go back to work and earn the money then all this red tape.  Far more enjoyable I can tell you that.    But I get into the frequently asked questions and it clearly states the produce can not be donated.  We're out of that one.  All the produce is donated to the food pantry.  Really not worth $500 to give up our donations.

[cineater]

Score!  I walked out of there with a donation for the fruit trees and a used projector that looks like it's never been used for our classes!  I wasn't even asking, just putting the word out there.   

Give me shit about $200 Marsha.     She's a little taken back.  You know I could have been talking up my bed renovations but fruit trees get the priority in my book.  God I hate asking for money, taking shit off your hands is more my thing.

[cineater]

Okay, did I make my point with the following?  Personally, I can't believe saving for the future isn't evident but some people ....  The whole time I'm typing that up, I'm thinking, I'll be dead by the time the wood rots and if there's money to make improvements, I'll think of something we need and it will probably kill me building it!     One of those shot yourself in the foot moments because if we save money, we don't have money to spend.

"Once we obtain the initial targeted emergency budget the steering committee projects, I think we need to talk about additional savings for structure replacements and improvements to the gardens.  All of our wood structures were built around the same time, over several consecutive years.  Eventually, we will be unable to make repairs to these and they will have to be torn down and replaced.  We can expect this will happen around the same time and be expenses that will happen in consecutives years that we will be unable to manage in a yearly budget, imo.  It's a long way off but eventually, we will be faced with these issues.  There are improvements to the garden that we can't foresee, some we can, like handicapped accessible pathways, that we should start saving for now too.

As I see it, the plant sale is pretty much maxed out on the income it can produce.  Over time expenses will go up for our group while our income will pretty much stay the same.  A savings for the future of the gardens would give us a buffer to the yearly budget when the time comes for replacement of structures and new projects allowing us to complete those projects timely with possibly, a couple of projects needing to happen roughly at the same time, with in a couple of years of each other.  We have time but I think we need to establish a savings for the future."

[cineater]

Marsha is cancer free.   

She had a test today.  I could tell when she called and the tears in her voice it was going to be good news.  She may do two more chemos just to make sure it's gone or go straight to maintenance meds.

[cineater]

Okay, that's it for the gardens.  I went and got my nails done.    I've sent the official closing of the gardens statement to our newsletter.  We finished winterizing the gardens.  Good night my little loves, we'll see you in the spring. 

Today we loaded in all the supplies for the greenhouse.  Switch gears over to plant sale.  I'm only a grower and helper here.  Marsha's show now.   

Tomorrow I'll know my budget for next year.     We'll be operating with one third less than our average, maybe less than that.  My real question is how much did we spend this year?  I know I'm under budget but how close was I to that average?  I'm known for under budget and bringing it in ahead of time.  This year, I want to be known as "damn girl, you got a shit load accomplished out there".  Four years under my leadership, one out for covid, and I'm hitting my stride.  The little garden that could, yeah you are.   

[cineater]

Why did I try to put all those noodles through the garbage disposal?  I could have just put them in the trash!  So I blew out my pipes and had a big clog.  So I took the pipes apart and tried blowing air with the shop vac threw it.  Oh yeah, the last time I used that was to vacuum out Bob's car from the straw bales.  Left a little straw in the hose.     But now the pipes all came off and I can't get them back on tight.  You fix one and the other pops off.  Craig's in Colorado, won't be back until Monday.  He says a 10 minute fix.  Told him I'm betting not and I would explain the straw when I saw him.     One thing leads to another and it's just too long to explain in a text.  He wanted to see my Dead tree anyway.

[cineater]

Woohoo, maybe.  We got all the money we asked for.  The whole program is short $1100 going into it and I'm short $1900 from my garden average.  I'm pretty sure that will all be okay.  The whole program will come out of the whole.  The gardens can live on our amount with the donation, Menards rebates, sales and some scrounging.  

I wanted to kill Marsha!  She offered up her garden budget until after the plant sale to account for the $1100.  First off her budget is not hers, it's mine for the garden.  I determine where it goes and when it's spent.  I manage that, not her!  The group agreed she didn't have to do that, probably to stop us from bickering and to keep me in my chair.    But we're not done talking about that.  I have some other cost saving measures I haven't discussed with Marsha.  She's not my assistant until after the plant sale.  She doesn't want to hear that until she comes on board again as the assistant.  I'll keep her updated on the successes, ie I got your plants covered, but she doesn't need to know everything I'm trying.  If I'm good, we will finish off some projects.  If I'm really good we won't use all that budget.  But for god's sake, quit tripping me up!  

Oh yeah, and I backed up dirty water into the dishwasher with the clogged pipes.  Maybe I shouldn't be so confident in my abilities.     God I hate those little reminders of fuck ups especially the timing.  I'm already freaked out.    Oh well, moving on.

[cineater]

I have a rosemary!  Just one at the moment. 

[cineater]

Maybe my expectations are just off about the pipes.  They are PVC pipes.  No way I was going to leave all that dirty water that backed up into the dishwasher.  So fingers crossed I hadn't clogged the pipe between the disposal and the dishwasher with the noodles, I decided to run it through the rinse cycle to see if I could get it to drain.  Either that or get the shop vac, suck it out and deal with that mess.  Don't worry, this works.     Connected the pipes back up.  Put a bucket under the sink in case it didn't.  Had the trash can standing by in case I needed to dump the bucket.  So it worked, not a drop out of place.

Basically, I can take the pipes apart by hand.  I'm expecting not to be able to do that.  I'm thinking everything should tighten up and it shouldn't be that easy.  But they just won't tighten down any more!  Shouldn't they be glued together if the pipe can be pulled out of the screw thing?  But maybe it's just that way with a washer to keep the pipes from leaking?  You know, unless you shove too much shit in the disposal.  Maybe you don't glue them together so they can come apart in case of a clog?  The bathroom pipes are nice and tight.  Maybe I just need new washers to get them tighter?

Trying to save Craig the trip.  Would love to see him.  He got pissed at the Extension and quit the gardening group so it's been a while.

Wait, why did the fan over the stove stop running?  And it doesn't work on low either.  It's just a switch right?  Fuck!

[cineater]

It could be the motor.  The handyman made a pass at me one time.  When his wife finally died of cancer, I texted him back I was sorry.  He texted me back a cat emoji with heart eyes!  I'm not calling him.  I'm just going to let the motor cool off even though it wasn't running that long and try the switch again.  But why would it be the switch if the fan was running when it stopped?

[cineater]

Sink fixed, along with the tire on my wagon.  Still trying to figure out my range hood fan.  Sondra came over and saved my ass.  Good company too.  Anyway, back to gardening, no more straw in my pipes.

I went to my "ladies" gardening club Christmas party.  My old club has merged with this one.  They are making a big deal about the new officers of the club.  They had a regional representative there doing an induction ceremony.  I turn to our old president and say, we were doing it wrong.     The rep has made each of them a snowflake to signify something and she reads to them the duties of their office to which they have to say I do.     It's all real formal and at the end she tells them they are snowflakes.  Why yes, they are a bunch of old, fragile white women.  I start giggling, the lady next to me does too and my old president laughs along with us.  Fortunately we were in the back or we might have been kicked out of the club right then and there.

So the talk with Marsha didn't go well about her funds, drop it.  That's the second time she has put her funds in jeopardy.  Maybe she is just looking for an excuse not to do her project next year.  If so, just tell me and I can put the funds elsewhere, no big deal.  And then the write up from the meeting pissed me off.  I've sent an email and brought it up in the meeting how we need to save to replace the wood structures someday in the garden and make possible future improvements.  Not that I haven't brought it up before and been ignored but it was reported in the meeting notes that our horticultural specialist pointed that out.  No, what he said was I was making a really good point!  The nice part of me says, what does it matter as long as the end results is achieved?  But the other side of me is damn pissed!   

[cineater]

Score!  We got a wheelbarrow donation.  That's $165 we couldn't cover by being down $1900.  I say $165 because that's what Kevin paid for one last year.  WTF?  No more shopping for you Kevin.  I would have never paid that much.

So that's $475 for the plants and $25 for a sprayer I don't have to cover with the money I'm getting.  And $165 covered that I didn't get money for.  That's $665 towards the $1900 deficit.  A third of that $1900 and the physical year hasn't even started.  I have a pretty good idea where another third of that money is coming from, Menards rebates, but no clue where the last third is coming from.  Probably shouldn't count the $25.  That's not additional funds or funds we didn't have money for.    But I'm off to a good start. 

Slow start off the line with the rosemary.  I have a second one, going for 200.  Is that one percent or .01?     It's got to be one percent.  I could write my work out but nobody is interested in that.     Just agree, whatever, I still don't have shit for rosemary plants.

[cineater]

We're seeding up onions today, several hundred of them, probably more.  Not sure how many are coming home with me, maybe all of them.     I'm wearing Welcome to the Jingle for the seeding party. 

I'm up to 4 rosemary.  All of them are in the same half flat and the flat that is probably the coldest which is weird as they like heat.

Over 1100 hours volunteer time.  That's a part time job.  Got us up to $729 of the $1900 deficit.  The parks department contacted me about the Gold Star Memorial.  I took the opportunity to also ask them about their rumored wood pile and if I could raid it.  She hasn't answered yet but I've seen some of the wood that has come out it from another group and we can definitely use it in the Fruit Arboretum.  It's got an $825 wood budget.  If I can take a whack at that and I think I know where I can get some cinder blocks, I would be close to clearing the deficit.

On the down side, they aren't selling education classes.  The demo garden budget for 2025 isn't going to be any better.

[cineater]

One of my new leads called.  She has the smallest garden up there and calls me all the time!     She wanted to put some daylilies in the ground.  Really?  It's the end of December, just throw them in the back of the garage.  I'm trying to divert her to plant sale activities but she won't commit.  Stop her from calling me and put her on Marsha.    Anyway I'm telling her some of the onions we seeded up last week are coming up.  She feels like she missed something by not participating but then again says we probably didn't want her around.  She's switching back to being vegan.  "Oh, a little gassy?"  I've never asked a vegan if that's a problem.  Highly suspected it would be and apparently it is.     Okay, helping with plant sale may be a problem, that's all indoors.  I assigned her to walk the gardens once in a while over the winter to make sure everything is copacetic.  You just stay out there. 

We put heat mats under the rosemary hoping that helps them come up.  The onions are popping up.  Like growing those because they get a haircut several times before they head to the greenhouse in February.  And my Christmas cactus is blooming right on time.  We've had mild weather so the ornamental kale is purple and the pansies are still looking great at the gardens, not that anybody but my new lead is up there.   

[cineater]

We're going dumpster diving!  The parks department gave me permission to go through their wood pile.  I've seen what another group got out of there and there's some good shit.  I'm working on that $1000 worth of wood we have in the budget.  I'm not going to do the math just yet, we'll see what we get but I'm starting to feel better about the garden budget next year.  My real goal is to get some where I can sit my ass in the Pantry garden.  I'm tired of sitting on a bucket.

[cineater]

Not a huge score but nice.  They had the composite we were looking for.  Saved us about $200 and I had a marvelous time climbing around on the hill of wood.    They just threw the wood on there, no organization so we had to dig and unbury.  I did meet a mouse.  The parks have more than one park.  I may be able to get more.  They had some cinder blocks I have to ask if I can have.  I work on those next.  We need 118 of those.  There was about 20 there, Leslie may have another 20 and I have 10 on hand, around those numbers.  I've got the wiggle room in the garden budget.  Feeling so much better about that.

[cineater]

I'm still smiling.    I was crawling all over that pile.  Throwing boards off of it.  No sooner than I'd climb down, I'd turn around and see some more buried in there.  Then I was crawling around underneath it, going around to the backside and finding more.  When you crawl around on a bunch of cut trees, you're always falling through but this was solid.  Marsha just stood back and collected the boards.  Going on my list of great times this year. 

Anyway, rain coming in.  A couple of inches in the next 24 hours and then several days of rain.  We did have our third worst flood in December.  Checked the garden, we are flood ready.  All that wood is in a fenced area.  The new straw bales could float away.  Phebe did leave one of those hunting decoys on it.  That would be kind of funny but doubt I'd see that.  And we did just pack in the greenhouse supplies which are sitting on the floor.  Highly unlikely we'll have a problem.

Heat mats don't seem to be helping the rosemary but I do have a 5th one coming up.  Onions continue to pop up.

First day of winter.  Longest night and then we can start adding daylight hours. 

[cineater]

Oh shit, giving myself a little nightmare before Christmas.     With the cataract surgery in March I won't be able to bend at the waist or lift.  I normally clean the mountains of flats and containers after each seeding party and get them back in time for the next party.  We need the supplies and the room in the greenhouse, those can sit.  People have no idea how much work that is.  It's all bending and lifting.  I'm on it, I'll put together a cleaning crew.  I'm going to miss that though it's one of those brainless tasks that keep you busy.

Marsha is doing much better.  She's getting a shot every few weeks instead of the day long chemo treatments.  Her numbers are getting better and it looks like the cancer is all gone.  My other friend, Sondra got the results of her CT scan this week and she remains cancer free.  She still has all the plastic surgery ahead of her to restore her face.  Two of the strongest women I know.

[cineater]

Another rosemary coming up!  It's in a different flat so maybe the heat mat is helping.