I think I've figured out this comments situation. I won't bore you with the details, but as of today I'm back to responding regularly. If you ask a question and I think others might like to see the response as well, I'll reply in the comments, but I'll also reply directly, so you should get an e-mail just like in the past.
Now for some (hopefully) more interesting stuff. I started working on a vegetable garden this past weekend. I've only been wanting to do this for the past five years. The promise of excellent pollination by the bees helped motivate me to finally just start. Thanks to the recommendation of my sister, I've decided to try square foot gardening. I'm starting with a 4x8 foot box, and I hope to add a couple more before the year is out. The book talks about how easy it is, and that may well be the case, but building the box was a little trickier than I expected. There was way too much cursing on my part, and I may have damned my drill to hell once or twice. Poor little drill, I didn't really mean it. With the help of Mr. HeyLucy, however, we worked it out and the next time should be a little easier. It turns out that redwood is really, really hard (doh! That's why it's suggested for use in outdoor projects), and my starter holes were not long enough or wide enough, and the screws just would. not. go. in. I kept stripping them. It's a good thing I have no plans to disassemble it any time soon.
I also planted some potatoes in trash cans. I don't remember where I first read about growing them that way, but the day after I planted them I got a link to this handy little video in my inbox. I had four kinds of seed potatoes, so I put two in each trash can. There are French fingerlings (a small, long, skinny red potato), Burbank russets, All Blue (also small like the fingerlings, but they have the prettiest purple flesh), and Yukon Golds.
This is not too impressive, but I'm swallowing my pride and showing you a picture of my weed-filled yard. Just remember that this is a before picture. I hope that an after picture by the end of Summer will show vast improvements. I labeled the important stuff. You might have to view it larger to read everything.
I'm excited to get planting this weekend.
