gracezw
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I just reserved a bottom bunk bed in Toucan and Macaw. I am happy to share the room with 3 others. --- Toucan and Macaw sleeps up to 4 guests, 2 sets of bunk beds in each room, indoor bathroom, balcony. Two rooms are available side-by-side.
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Dean and all, all this looks very exciting. I am considering coming on my own, if I cannot bring my 11-year-old.
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Dean and all, thanks a lot for the updates! I am done with the survey!
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Mechanism, Thanks for your response! I am glad that our February vacation matches with yours too! Thank you also for pointing to the website’s 4-night minimum stay requirement. I did not see it. Why does it have to “once-in-a-lifetime”? I thought we could visit it again if we like it.
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Hi Dean and all, All this looks great! Certainly I am interested! I have been thinking of starting to take my now-11-years-old son out regularly at least once a year on healthy eating and physically active trips with like-minded people and families. This looks even better than I thought! My son's school breaks: January 16, 2017 Martin Luther King Day January 27, 2017 Staff Learning Day February 20-24,2017 Mid-Year Recess April 10-14, 2017 Spring Recess For now I have a concern: my son has mysterious stomach aches once in a while. I need to have a plan on how to handle that during the stay. I would like to hear suggestions from other parents who plan to go.
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Dean, that is well said. That is such a good reminder for me. Thank you!
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My local community farm uses black plastic, but mostly for suppressing weeds. Dean, where do you plan to buy black plastic for the growing season next year?
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Dean, thank you for your responses. I will think about it. How do you water your plants? I guess you have a dripping system? Is your dripping system underneath your fabric? How much water do you give to different types of plants? How do you simulate one inch of rain?
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Dean, your visit of your CSA looked great! Thanks for sharing! Is your CSA farm an organic one? I called my local master gardeners' hotline and asked them questions about my own veggies and fruit growing. I also threw in a question about using fabric/plastic after I read your update here. They did not like the idea of fabric/plastic because: 1. It is not part of organic farming; 2. It may overheat the soil and the plants 3. To avoid/reduce insects problems and disease, they recommended cutting off the lowest leaves of a plant so its base won't touch the mulch. How would you respond?
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Dean, I like your fabric/plastic instead of mulch idea. Conserving water is a high priority for me. This is my first growing season. Currently I use wood chips. When a vegetable plant is small and thus its base is small, in order to cover all or most of the soil, the fabric/plastic needs to be placed close to its base. When the plant grows bigger, would you gradually move the fabric/plastic away from its base to make room?
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Saul, thank you for your encouragement!
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Dean, thanks for analyzing this 2012 study of Healthy lifestyle habits and mortality in overweight and obese individuals! It is great to hear when I have been having such a hard time losing the same 5 pounds! First I need to suppress my food cravings when I am alone. I am also torn between staying away from home kitchen as planned and being pulled by my 11-year-old son for helping him prepare his food. His eating window is different from mine. And I don’t do well as I should in an already very selected list of social events which unfortunately still have some food sharing themes. I guess I will rest for a couple of days. Then I will keep working on being 5 pounds lighter to reach my college weight. It will be a big personal challenge and a desirable test on my willpower/self-discipline.
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Dean, I talked with my local master gardeners' hotline today asking about how to make sure that I water just the right amounts for different vegetables -- tomatoes, chard, watermelon, mint, and tree collard. It turns out that I may have watered them too much(everyday!). The master gardener on the phone said that she would use a hand trowel to pull out a few inches of soil around the roots (without hurting them), and feel the layers of soil. She wants the soil to be able to crumble in her hand. How do you know how much water is not too little and not too much?
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Yes, it was very sad. That's what you get when you live in an suburban neighborhood full of McMansions and Jones... Your greenhouse looked beautiful to me! Yes, it is very sad and disturbing. How did the association find out about your greenhouse? Did they fly a helicopter over your backyard? Was the greenhouse in your backyard?
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Hi Dean! Your posts about your garden are great! How many years have you been growing veggies and fruit of your own? This is my first year and there is so much work! Mulching with wood chips is part of the work for the purpose of saving water. I don’t have deer problem. I have bird and slug problems. I hand picked slugs every night. One night I caught 100 of them! I visit my local master gardeners’ demo garden and a community farm regularly to get help. Your pictures with the plants labeled look very nice. What program/application do you use for labeling what is in a picture? I love cherry tomatoes too! I also grow two heirloom ones – Hawaii pineapple and pineapple. I grow beefsteak too. I went to a tomato talk of two hours. The expert said that tomatoes would not like rain. So I waited and waited until the rain settled before I planted them. Do you need a green house for growing your seeds? For working on your compost, how often do you need to physically turn it? Your pawpaw fruit looks very interesting. I haven’t tried it yet and haven’t seen it either. Have you tried fresh mulberries, loquat and jujube dates? Recently I have got fresh mulberries from my farmers’ market. My neighbor picked some loquat fruit for me from their yards. I have a jujube date tree in my yard.