small gardens & small government

  "I am the captain of my ship!"   So said the ant as he stood on the cork bobbing in the middle of the Pacific ocean.  "I've done my exercises, harvested that seaweed, and prayed my Rosary. The weather is calm, and I skirted that storm. I am indeed healthy wealthy and wise." Slowly, the camera pulled back to a satellite like perspective. First revealing 8 billion other ants  scattered on bits of flotsam and debris. Slowly opening to continents and a planet and finally a solar system  and our Universe.    The death of my niece Lisa has left me feeling a bit small. The YouTube videos I linked above left me feeling a bit like that ant, captain of my ship but master of oh so little. Lisa died after a long battle with cancer. I have no great wisdom about death or Lisa's life. I know intellectually that death will come to all of us. I admire Lisa for either accepting or ignoring that reality and in her final year marrying a good man, Ira, and getting some o...

I don't know! Really, I don't know! My tomato starts are horribly small. That may be a comparative thing having seen the size and vigor of the local farm stores $1 tomato plants. Additionally, the local Master Gardener's sale is coming up, again, $1 beautiful plants. I've tried over the years to be more self-sufficient by growing and even selling my own starts along with growing heirloom varieties so the seeds would be true to type. I blame the soil for my lousy starts but.... In my Denver garden I was able to simply fill pots with some of my compost add the seeds and cover them with a 1/4 inch of commercial organic seed starting mix. Since moving   here I've been busy terracing the south-side of our house with raised beds and filling them with anything that vaguely resembled soil. When time came to start seeds there wasn't even a smidge of half finished compost to be had. Yup, I admit it I bought a bag of that crap they sell at Lowes. Or in my best Clintonesque...