Here we go again: bucking advice and moving forward with our own plan.
We planted a tomato plant and a bell pepper plant (it's before Mother's Day, which is a major no-no in Colorado). But then again, we did plant them inside our warm and toasty Early Starters, so they should be okay.
Then again, snow is expected tomorrow night. Egad!
P.S. The spinach sprouted!
The P.E. coach at my school asked if I wanted to join him and another teacher for a drink after school. "Sorry, Coach," I replied, "I have to take care of my kids."
Astonished, he replied, "I didn't know you had babies at home."
I explained that I did, in fact, have baby sprouts in the garden and that they needed to be watered.
And aren't they so cute? The white onions are doing really well. We've also got radishes, red onions, and wild flowers. No sign of the carrots or spinach.
A couple of sprouts have appeared in each hole, so I simply snipped them down to one (since I planted them in a perfectly spaced manner). That's the extent of "thinning" in the square-foot gardening method.
I love spring.
I am happy to report that Matt and I made the switch to glass for our portable water bottles (goodbye, Nalgene!).
We shopped around Whole Foods to find suitable bottles. We thought about applesauce jars, but those were only 25 ounces (as opposed to our 32-ounce Nalgenes). I found the perfect grape juice jar, and Matt found a cocktail mixer bottle, which had a narrow spout, similar to his Nalgene.
My friend, Claire, is a fellow teacher and she expressed concern about the breakability of glass in a classroom environment.
As a Montessori teacher, we have glass all over the classroom (even in the infant/toddler classrooms) because it cultivates carefulness. If the children are clumsy or quick, they drop the glass and it breaks. They learn that their actions have consequences in a very natural and concrete way.
I'm going to try and cultivate carefulness with my glass bottle. I'll let you know how it goes.
I've been really, really trying to emphasize the first "R" of the three-R's in the arrow, but I had to break down and buy a new book--Go Green: How to Build an Earth-Friendly Community. It's super-reader friendly and full of next steps.
Among them:
Nalgene bottles are under attack.
Alas.
The bad news is that the bad plastic is also in eyeglasses (sucks for me), baby bottles, and even dental sealants (sucks for me again).
But, honestly, what did we expect? The more we process and produce things, adding ingredients that help us make a more durable and sellable product, the more we screw ourselves over.
The unintended consequences of our actions are so difficult to predict. And even when they are predictable, the immediate promise of profit overshadows prudence.
A huge part of the responsibility is on us as consumers. We have to look at convenient products through wary eyes. And then make a choice. Is the convenience worth the potential risk to my own health and the health of the environment?
Sometimes the answer is yes. (For me, cell phones fall into that category.) Often times, the answer should be no. (For me, microwaves fall into that category.)
The choice is yours; just make your decision wisely.
As for me, it doesn't make much sense to drink from plastic every day. I might make the switch to the metal bottles, but I'm afraid we're going to hear disturbing news about them two or three years down the line.
I think the best bet is to find a thick glass bottle that I like and reuse it. This article suggests that a juice bottle might work well. I'll be on the lookout the next time I go to the store.
Anything wrong with glass?
Phew. A friend of mine from high school performed Reader Rescue. He said the plant was a jade. Then I was able to perform Google Rescue and learn that I was sunburning my plant. Jades like sun, but they need time to re-acclimate. Thanks, Paul!
In other news, I planted the Chia Herb Garden that Matt bought for me in the depths of the dark winter. It comes with these bizarre soil sponges. They are really sponges that seem to be made out of soil. You're supposed to get the entire thing wet and then squeeze it out. Next you put it into the terra cotta pot and simply lay the seeds on top.
I'm supposed to cover them with plastic wrap or plastic baggies to create a greenhouse effect (the good kind), but we don't have such things around our house. Although, now that I think about it, we probably do have a plastic bag from the phone book that gets delivered to our house every two months. Let me go look for that. I really am trying to follow the directions more often this time.
The Season Starters really do seem to create a little heat oasis on top of the soil. Unfortunately, we had to move them (water and all) to get the soil ready for the tomato plants. We had gotten so excited about setting them up that we forgot to level out the earth beneath them.
We were scooping dirt from unused beds and suddenly Matt reached for pea square and dug his hands straight down into it before I could utter a word out of my agape mouth. Oh well, I'm not that excited about peas anyway. It seems pretty tedious to get them out of their sleeping bags (three at a time?) to generate enough for a side dish.
In other distressed plant news, I seem to be killing a piece of a plant that I picked up at school and replanted. I don't know the name of it, so I can't come to its google rescue. If you know the name of it, please let me know!
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