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Growing seedlings in the back porch

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We have an unheated enclosed porch at the back of our house and I use this area to start seeds in March and early April. Well, to be completely honest, some seeds get started indoors in late February or early March and then as the weather begins to warm by the end of March and early April I often end up with most of my seedlings in the back porch area where I have one of those small three shelved plastic covered green houses.

The room is on the South side of the house and it gets a lot of sunlight through the windows and uhm corrugated green plastic ceiling (how classy!) from early morning to mid-afternoon or so. In the summer we can’t go in this room unless the window is open as it just gets too hot. In the winter the back porch is reasonably comfortable in the day time even in January or February. So This is a good place to grow plants for the garden.

I am thinking of getting some blinds for the windows in the back porch because I think they might help deflect a little bit of the sunlight and consequently the heat that builds up in the room. of course, there’s that corrugated green plastic roof that covers the back porch. It lets a lot of light in as well. Oh and the cold of winter, and heat of summer.

The back porch has wood paneling- dark wood paneling and I’ve been thinking of white washing the wood so the room will be bright. I wouldn’t actually use white on the walls though but a very pale green/white wash. So I’m trying to decide if I should get natural wood or bamboo blinds or the regular metallic kind. I guess I have a few months to think about this because I’m certainly not going to be doing anything else out there this year.

Where do you grow your seedlings? Do you start them indoors under grow lights?






The Pink Fridge

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Have you heard of The Pink Fridge? It’s an online magazine for UK women. Yes, I know, I’m in Canada – why am I writing about an online magazine in the UK? Well, I know that many of my readers are from the UK and from Countries all over the world. This is most definitely a global site, and I thought my UK readers might be interested in hearing about the Online Magazine.

Just like a print magazine there are a number of sections of interest to browse through.

There is a Love and Life section and it’s filled with articles such as being your own boss and working at home, a supermarket dating guide, an article suggesting that women should pay lower insurance rates because we are better drivers, general advice and many more topics from marriage to personal finance. The Health and Beauty section has quite a number of current articles as well, ranging from an article discussing skin types to a weight loss guide.

The popularity of Manolo Blahniks are discussed in an article in the clothing section, which is a sub-directory of the shopping section. I expected to find listings of online stores or discussions about the UK’s fashionable shops in this section but to my surprise I found articles about fashion trends, clothing, Jewelery, perfume, and a well written article that discussed the history of Champagne and it’s uses today.

I quite enjoyed the Travel section, reading about the city of Prague, golfing in Scotland and beach holidays on the Mediterranean. I was drooling as I read about Cyprus. It sounded so wonderful.

Try as I might I was unable to find any information regarding the name of the online magazine. Perhaps the Pink Fridge refers to something unique to the UK that as a North American I’m ignorant of, but I was curious as to how the name of the magazine came about and wished I could have found some information about the name.

I was quite pleased to find that all of the articles were well written and held my attention. I think this Online Magazine could easily have a broader focus since many of the topics are of interest to women all over the world. The only suggestion that I would make for the site owner would be perhaps to make the font ever so slightly larger in order to make it a little easier to read the articles.

I think my site visitors would find The Pink Fridge to be an interesting site and I do hope that a few of you will visit and decide for yourself if you enjoy the articles or not. I stand by what I’ve written and think that The Pink Fridge could very well develop into a popular online magazine over time.

Gardening in the dark

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I think that I’ve mentioned more than a few times here that I often tend to do a good portion of my gardening work at night. Why? Because my snoopy old lady neighbor who is very lonely follows me around and makes my gardening work hell ’cause it takes me at least three times longer to get anything done when she’s outside watching me.

I love the dear girl but I’d rather sit and have a tea with her before or after I get my gardening done.

There have been times when I’ve gone outside and planted new plants in the dark. My husband holding a big halogen light so I could see.

Now I’m starting to think of less obvious ways to garden in the dark. What about a headlamp flashlight? This would be helpful too if I’m gathering earthworms for the compost or another area of soil in the garden too.

I came across a company called Opticsplanet.net and they sell streamlight flashlights, as well as a number of other brands such as Surefire and Pelican. They have everything from the headlamp flashlight I was fantasizing about earlier, to LED flashlights, pocket, gun mount lights, and flash light accessories. The company also offers discount pricing and free UPS on orders over $29.95 so I think I might just spend a bit of time over there browsing and see if I can come up with a way to light my garden as I work and defeat my nosy neighbor.

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