As the Garden Grows

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How do you like the new look?

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Well … what do you think of the new theme?

I stayed up late the other night and finally made the changes that I’ve been warning you for weeks that I was going to make.

For some reason the Flooble expandable script that I was using to roll up some of the menu items in the sidebar of the last theme doesn’t want to work on this theme. So, until I figure out how to get it working or find something else that works the sidebars probably look a little bit full. Hopefully not bad … just full.

If you have any problems navigating the site using this new theme I’d really appreciate it if you’d let me know. I added some features that weren’t built into the theme and they seem to be working fine on my end.

I tested this theme in Firefox, Internet Explorer, Netscape and Opera and it seems to work just fine in all of them. Hopefully if you are using a browser that I didn’t list it works well in that too.

One person wrote to tell me that the text looked funny and sent me a screen shot of the site. The screen shot made the text look like a photo that’s quality was really bad, the text was frayed and blurred at the edges like poor quality print I suppose. I hope that no one else is seeing the text that way. As I said, all appears to work well and look good on my three computers and the text looks fine on my end.

I’ll probably tinker with the theme a bit more, and I’ll likely change the header as that’s the one that came with the theme. I like to personalized/ customize my sites by at least adding in my own headers.

Let me know what you think?






Great articles about managing debt

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I think at some point in everyones life they get in to debt. By this I mean the natural debts like owing car or mortgage payments of course. Unfortunately, a large percentage of people also fall into debt that they likely could have avoided. I know that I certainly did!

When I was younger I had my own business and while I was struggling to establish the business I lived on my credit cards because I simply had no cash to pay for things. I suppose in some ways that debt was more understandable than if I’d had a good income but didn’t control my credit card and cash spending because I was buying items I really didn’t need.

I know it’s easy to get carried away with spending. The way items are marketed these days with “buy now, pay later” slogans it’s easy to think “yeah, I could get that nice TV that I really want, I’ll be able to pay for it in 6 months before they start charging me interest.” However, other expenses often come up and you end up paying the high interest anyway. If you’ve done that with a lot of things, the next thing you know you’re in over your head and in debt.

If you’ve had trouble managing your money or paying off debts you might be interested in visiting Careonecredit.com as they have some fantastic articles on managing debt. Articles about Bankruptcy being the last resort, and and another about whether bankruptcy is really a good idea, another about either paying of debt or investing in savings, and yet another great article about whether debt relief is a myth or a reality. The articles are well written and very informative.

You can even learn more about credit counseling if you’ve let your credit cards and borrowing get you into financial trouble.

Considering that there’s so much good information on the site if you aren’t already in debt I’d still recommend that you visit the site and do some reading as you might learn some things about how to keep yourself out of debt too!

This is another site that I’d recommend bookmarking. As I said, at some point we all get into some kind of debt – good or bad, and the more we know about managing our finances and debts the better.

Insects on bearded iris leaves

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A visitor to As the garden grows told me that they’d seen some tiny red bugs on their bearded Iris leaves. Blasting the plant with water didn’t help because the bugs came back out again once the leaves dried off.

Spraying the plants with a blast of water was actually a good move and it can be helpful with many types of insect infestations. The insects that she saw were probably aphids. They love new growth on plants and you’ll often find them on tender young leaves or flower buds. They suck the plants juices and can get unsightly if they aren’t controlled.

Aphids breed quite quickly. If you have plants that are infested by aphids you should give them a blast of water daily. You might also add a drop or two of dishwashing liquid to a spray bottle and spray the areas of the plant that are heavily infested. The soap will smother the aphids.

Whatever you do you do not want to kill any ladybugs. Ladybugs love eating aphids and they are beneficial insects in your garden. So, if you use the soapy water method try to watch where you are spraying and avoid hitting any ladybugs.

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