Spring is here...maybe (part 1 of 2)

So our lovely state of Michigan has graced us with a zero winter. We have had about 3 or 4 days of actual snow so far this season. The worst storm that we had lasted for about one day and then within two more days all of the snow had melted away because of a warm up. It is March 8th and we have 46 degree weather. Yesterday it reached 67.

All of this warm weather has been bugging me because I feel like I should be out prepping my garden, but I just know that we are going to get a late cold snap that will kill anything I have planted. So instead of getting things ready outside, I'm working on prep projects and other fun things inside.

My lettuce boxes were a miserable failure last year. They grew everything perfectly well, but the design was flawed. The side warped because of the moisture and the ends cracked because I didn't pre-drill for the screws. I also didn't plan the boxes properly to make sure they drained well. I drilled holes, but the ends were constantly dumping water. The other major issue I had was the fact that I never bothered to get the 2x4s hung on my posts so that the boxes could be elevated away from the garden. Basically, I never finished the garden plan.

This season, I'm building new boxes, reclaiming some of the lumber from the old ones and using some new. I plan to line the insides with 4 mil clear plastic to prevent warping and I'm redesigning the rest of the boxes so that there will be no structural failure. I'm also thinking about building 4-two foot boxes instead of 2-four foot ones. I still have to determine which would work better.

This season I also plan to expand from 2-4'x6' raised beds:

From Stuff I Made

to include 2 more 4'x5' raised beds that will lie perpendicular to the existing ones on each end. The 4x4 post in the picture is one of two that serve as the structure to hold up the lettuce boxes.

Wow, this update is already getting long and I have so much more to say. Maybe I'll split it into 2 entries for organizational purposes. See part two for the indoor projects I'm working on currently.

Chickens!

There is an ordinance change going through in Ferndale. Well, I should say that the amendment has been written and it has a lot of support from the residents, but it hasn't actually come to council yet.

In the meantime, I'm reading up on raising chickens and building coops. I have found a few really nice designs that I might attempt, but I'm pretty sure I'll have to pull permits and get inspections for this kind of stuff if it ever comes to pass. Here are 2 of the designs I'm considering:

From Farming Vegan in the Big City

From Farming Vegan in the Big City

So far, this is just a pipe dream. Not that I'm not certain I could make it work, but I'm not interested in trying to bend the existing laws just to get what I want. I will have to wait and see if the new ordinance gets passed before I even consider getting into this. But the hope of having chickens gives me reason to educate myself on how to raise them!

I'm Going to Grow Tea Next Year

  I found this great website where I can purchase tea seeds and plants to grow at my house. I still have a lot to learn about growing tea properly and oxidizing and drying it to create delicious tea, but this is a start! The guy on the site apparently travels to China every year and purchases a lot of seeds and then gets the plants growing by the Spring so that you can grow your own tea all summer. I'm afraid I'll have to buy a grow lamp or something to be able to do it properly, although I've been planning on getting a grow room set up in my basement to get a jump on the season.

  I've been learning more about mixed farming lately and I am working on a comprehensive plan for my family so that we might be able to start saving some money, even on my meager salary. If I work hard at it, I think I might be able to start growing enough food to both save and eat as well as to sell within 2 years. I'll really have to concentrate on the task at hand though. I hope Ferndale opens their Farmer's Market again next Summer. I missed this year and I'm more than a little bummed about it.

Does Anyone Want To Learn to Make Kombucha for Free?

I'm in some scoby trouble. I stopped making Kombucha at the end of the summer because I got busy. The problem is, because of my neglect, I have a ridiculous amount of scoby (the stuff that makes Kombucha) and I have nowhere to store it right now. If anyone wants some, I have enough to go around!! Let me know via comments, email or Facebook. I'll even teach you how to make it.

Part Three: Going Vegan? Already One? There's an App for That!

  In my final installment of this series, I rate the worst apps I tried. Some of them are terrible because they don't work properly. Others are simply built on a bad idea. Now, I realize that I tried out 16 and only rated 6, but all that means is that the other 10 were either mediocre in design and function or not very noteworthy at all. The first two parts of the series are below as well as in the index to the right.

  My final critique only includes apps that were based on a bad idea or don't do what they say they do. As before, I list the app as well as the star rating it received in the store. Here is my list of the worst three and why I didn't like them:

1. Vegan Recipes (2.5 stars) - This app is functional, but very incomplete. Most of the recipes have incomplete ingredient lists. The descriptions of the steps get cut off because the screens aren't formatted correctly. The final issue with this app is that every recipe is estimated to take 10 minutes to prep and 50 minutes to complete, even the ones that have to be refrigerated OVERNIGHT.

2. VeganSteven (2.5 stars) - This app attempts to guide users to different vegan friendly locations for shopping and eating. The big problem is that the categories are not indicative of the businesses that are listed. For instance, when a user chooses "Vegan Shoes", the app lists a maternity store, a pharmacy, Whole Foods and even a barbershop. This app would be great if the creator hadn't royally messed up the categories.

3. Veggie Spots (1.5 stars) - This app also has potential, but the programming must be seriously flawed or incomplete. Ultimately this should allow you to enter your zip code and find local vegan "spots" in your neighborhood. It uses the GPS in the iPhone to find your current location, but instead of helpfully showing you where vegan restaurants are located, it forces you to play a kind of "warmer or colder" game using the map. My search results often numbered in the teens, but I almost never got to see them all thanks to the poor mapping.

  Food Additives 2 (3 stars) is the app I was in search of originally. It is a decent app, but the descriptions of the individual additives are weak. The Animal Free and Cruelty Free apps have very weak databases and could be promising with a large amount of user feedback. Honest Label is a really neat scanning program that would allow you to instantly see what is in a product without the hassle of reading the label. Sadly, the newest version of the software crashes every time I try to scan, rendering this app completely useless.

  So there you have it. The very worst "vegan" apps in a nutshell. During this project I learned that, while my iPhone functions very well as a phone, messaging device, camera, etc., it doesn't hold a candle to the combination of my eyes and brain when it comes to choosing my food. It's a handy assistant, but the flaws of its human programmers became evident very quickly. I guess the iPhone isn't better than a human quite yet!