Farm House Bed Side Tables

 I really do love the way these came out. The color is great and best of all I spent under 70 bucks for two of them. I will say this. I seriously need to figure out how to install drawer slides. The wood slides I fashioned aren't doing the trick.. Here's the link to the plans for this project http://ana-white.com/2011/01/farmhouse-bedside-table

Cactus..

I love the desert and miss California to death.. So this is a simple painting I did awhile back but I do love the colors it adds to the dining room.

Winter sowing and Mel's mix for Square foot gardening...

I have winter sowed my seeds this year, and built some beds for the south side of the house. This is only a third of all the jugs I ended up with! Sheesh. Portland has a way of forcing you into spring months before its arrival. Its so grey for months! So I got to Winter sow seeds in the winter to help with my grey sky blues.. Here's more info on Winter sowing here. Cost effective, eco conscious and most of all EASY.

                                                                                   

 I am using Mel's Mix for my beds. I am new to this so I am hoping I did good! I bought all my products for the local Feed and farm supply. Aloha Feed and Seed. I found the oh so elusive vermiculite in 3 cu ft for 30 bucks way better deal than the big box stores. Believe me I went every where so check prices. They have a organic compost there that has all of the 5 different sources I needed derived from forest products, dairy manure, chicken manure, worm castings, bat guano, kelp meal and oyster shell.  The last product you will need is Peat moss.

Mix one third Vermiculite, one third Peat-moss and one third Compost  on a tarp. Made it a lot easier and totally got my workout in. Fold over itself east to west and north to south over and over... Haul that sucka over to your bed and as you have someone help you dump it in, give it a nice raining of water as your dumping it in. Make sure you get all of it pretty damp it will settle quite a bit. I let my mix set out in the beds for a week or so to let the microbes get there thing on... But then after that i made some more and immediately put plants in so Ill keep you posted as to which way yields better.  Ill post some pics this week of progress and keep it updated. *crossing fingers*