I am in Lafayette, Indiana today and tomorrow for a meeting with Lafayette Life Insurance Company and it is cold. I thought that I would bring my running shoes and take off a little early in the morning for a couple miles, but it is windy and only in the low 50’s, and I only brought shorts. I would run in the hotel fitness center, but they do not have one. I was bummed because I couldn’t work out Monday and left early this morning so I couldn’t run today either. Tomorrow I will be in meetings all day and traveling in the afternoon and will not be back to Colorado until late evening, so I guess it will have to wait until Thursday.
Lafayette is about half way between Indianapolis and Chicago. We flew into Indianapolis this afternoon and drove about an hour north to get here. It is the same city that Purdue University is in and this week they are hosting some of the NCAA Women’s Tournament games. The company said that they usually put visitors to their home office up in a nicer hotel then the one that we are in, but it is not a big deal. We are comfortable and it is not a big deal. Tonight we went to the Outback Stakehouse for dinner.
We have meetings tomorrow at the home office and then fly out after. The trip home tomorrow is kind of a bummer because we drive to Indianapolis to turn around and fly to Chicago for a layover, then on to Denver, so it will be a long day.
Each day that I go to water my plants they seem to have grown a little more. I planted them with the idea to get them to a point where I could transplant them by mothers day, but at the rate they are growing, they will out grow the box by the middle of April.
I have to rotate them a couple times a week because they tend to grow towards the light as you can see in the pictures. Overall, I think the tomatoes and peppers are doing great so far, but I haven’t seem anything even sprout from the zucchini. I planted some more seeds on Sunday, so we will see how they do it the next couple weeks.
Here are a couple updated pictures.
Tonight for family night we decided to clean the basement a little bit then we went to the dollar store. The boys like to go there and pick out a toy or treat and think it is pretty cool that:
- Everything costs a dollar, and
- we tell them they can have whatever they want, and
- they can just roam the store (for the most part) without us following them around.
It is a treat for them to go there.
Tonight Koby got an orange sword and Spencer got a pack of recorder flutes. There were two in the pack and as soon as we got to the car Koby called the blue one to be his, even though they were both Spencer’s to begin with. Spence, being the agreeable kid that he is said “okay, you can have the blue one” and Koby made out with two toys out of the trip. (It totally would have been something Cami would have done as a youngster.) I guess that is why we love them.
I happened upon a book that I am kind of excited about. It is called “Often Wrong, Never in Doubt”, by Donny Deutsch. I had to ask Cami a couple times if she was sure that it was only a dollar and she assured me that it was. It is hard to believe that you could find something like that in the book section at the dollar store. Now, I am not sure how good it will be. I usually don’t buy a book without it coming recommended in one fashion or another, but it was a buck at the dollar store. If and when I get to it, I will update with my review. According to the reviews on Amazon.com, it looks mostly good, but we’ll see.
I have gotten past the first week of my mini-greenhouse, and have had to make a couple minor changes which I think have made a positive improvement.
The first change that I made was to switch the light bulb out from a 75 watt plant bulb to a 125 watt heat lamp. The plant bulb was a little too weak and didn’t quite give the heat that I needed. With it getting a little cold during the night, there just wasn’t the heat I needed.
When I built the greenhouse, I did it intentionally with an arched roof and plastic wrap so that the water that I put on the plants would evaporate, collect on the sides and top and keep it pretty humid in there and help the plants. With the 1st bulb, it wasn’t quite strong enough. But the new heat bulb works great and the sides and top do a great job of collecting the dew and keeping it pretty humid and warm. It is awesome.
The next change that I made was I put a timer on the light. It is timed to go on at about 6:00 am until about 7:30 or 8:00 pm. This is to give the plants a little break and simulate the sunlight a little bit. It seems to be a positive benefit for the plants.
Right now, the tomatoes and bell peppers are growing. I have yet to see anything from the zucchini. Maybe this week, but more likely I messed something up and they will not grow, but two out of three is not that bad.
Here is a picture from this week. (I will update this project about once a week.)
One of the things that my dad made us do when we were younger was work out in his garden. He always had a pretty large plot of ground dedicated to his vegetables. It was something that I really didn’t enjoy too much growing up, but as I have gotten older I have begun to enjoy it a little but more.
I think it would be awesome to have a green house and grow plants year round. Remember “Big Top Pee Wee” when he grows those huge tomato’s? That was sweet! (By the way, this year is the 20th anniversary of that movie)
Anyways, I don’t have the room on my property for a greenhouse, but I thought about it for a while and came up with a makeshift greenouse for my basement. I built it with some PVC pipe, plastic wrap and a heat lamp. There are two variations and think I like the 2nd one a little better because of the pots that I used and because it is indoors.
Design 1
Design 2
The box I built in the 1st design was meant to be filled up with dirt so that I could have a bigger planting area, but I decided I didn’t want that much dirt on the table, especially because it doesn’t have a bottom on it yet or a good place for it to drain when I water it. Plus in the 2nd one the lamp is a little closer to the plant, providing more heat.
Not too sure if this will work or not, but I will keep track of it and if something good happens, I will update about it.
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