Outside

Summer Design 2

Okay, so I changed my mind. I've changed my design again, going for an all-white background with dark green text. As I said in my last post, I was unsure about whether I really liked the previous design (green background with yellow text), and Craig's comment on that post solidified my own opinion. I know that others said they liked the green/yellow design - and thank you very much! - but I had to go with my gut.

We'll see how long this lasts until I start futzing around with it again.

Summer Design

I decided to change my blog settings to reflect a more summer-y look. I really like the new banner, but I'm not sure about the dark green background. It seems to me that it's harder to read light text on a dark background, but maybe that's just because I'm getting old!

New Veggie Blog

Marc over at Garden Desk has created a new blog just for vegetable gardeners. Take a look at Veggie Garden Info - he is aggregating veggie-growing blog posts from all over the blogosphere. Thanks, Marc!

maps.live.com help

In my last post, I talked about the new Microsoft maps program (or at least it's new to me). One thing I noticed the first time I was there is that it's not that easy to navigate. When Susan about navigating the site, I figured I'd post some directions.

When you go to maps.live.com, at the top there are three buttons: Businesses, People, Maps. Click on Maps. Once there, fill in your address in the space right above the Map icon and hit Enter. That should give you a regular map of the address. Floating on top of the map is a box that says 2D/3D on top. In the middle on the right are two icons. One looks like a graph, the other has some little buildings on it. Click on the little buildings for Bird's Eye View. I have noticed that this is not available for rural areas (like my MIL's lake cabin), but should be there for most metro areas and suburbs. Once you click on Bird's Eye View, you'll see the photo of the address you typed in. In the little floating box there's a zoom in/out feature - click on the + to zoom in.

If you want to capture the picture for yourself, you need to do a screen capture then crop it so that it only shows what you want. (Microsoft doesn't let you right-click to do a save-as.)

To do a screen capture: On a PC, simultaneously press down Ctrl/Alt/PrtSc (PrtSc=Print Screen). You can then copy it into an imaging program of your choice. Paint actually works just fine for this, and it comes with all PC's.

To crop the picture: Open up Paint (it should be under Accessories) or another image editing program. Simultaneously press down Ctrl/V to paste the screen capture into the open window. This will show the entire maps.live.com window. To crop it, click on the cropping tool. This is on the left side of the screen. It looks like a square with dashed lines. Place your cursor on the top left section of where you want to crop and draw a square (you'll see what I mean when you try it). Press Ctrl/C to copy the cropped portion, then go to File/New. When it asks you if you want to save the screen capture, choose yes or no. After saving or not (I don't), you'll get a new screen with nothing on it. Press down Ctrl/V to paste your cropped picture. To get rid of the white area, click somewhere outside the white area, then hover your cursor over the bottom right-hand corner of the white area until you get a two-way arrow. Drag the white area up and to the left until you reach the edges of the picture. Once it's to your liking, go to File/Save As to save your picture.

There you have it!

Outside from Above

I'm very lucky to live where I live. Even though I live in the middle of a quintessential suburb, our street - which is a circle - has only 20 houses, each on 2/3 of an acre or more. Over there on the right you'll see what comes up on Google Maps. Our little neighborhood is circled in yellow. As you can see, the entire circle is heavily wooded. With at least 20 acres of woods, one large pond, one small pond and two seasonal wetlands, we end up with lots of wildlife.

I always thought Google Maps was cool, but then I read about a new website from Microsoft: maps.live.com. Over at Ellis Hollow, Craig posted about this new service that shows aerial photos of your house. Give it a try. Once you've searched your address, there's a floating box over the map with some choices - choose bird's eye view to see your yard and garden from above. Also use the + and - buttons to zoom in and out.

Above is my house (click to enlarge even more). The copyright date is 2005, and I would say that the photo was in early spring. I can tell it's not autumn because the weeping willows on the pond are that distinctive chartreuse color they have as they bud out. Our lot doesn't include the pond, which is owned by the city, and we have a more diagonal lot line to the east/right of the house. But all-in-all, that's it. The vegetable garden is the gravel area between the house and the street.

Below is a wider view of the neighborhood. Our house is at the top in the middle. One of our neighbors has a gorgeous garden - their house is on the bottom to the right-middle. If you enlarge the picture, you'll see the distinctive grass vs. bed shapes of the yard of true gardeners. They also have a greenhouse attached to the back of their house (exclusively for orchids), but at this angle you can't see it.

I'm not quite sure what to think about this. On the one hand, it's pretty darn cool. But on the other hand, I'm not quite sure what to think from a privacy point of view. At least when I looked at the satellite picture from Google Maps, I was happy to see that you couldn't make out too much - both because it's too far away and because the picture was taken in summer with the full leaf canopy. These Microsoft images, though, are a whole different thing. Luckily they didn't catch me out in the vegetable garden, bending over to plant spring greens!

Online Vegetable Reviews

When I posted a correction to my 2006 Potato Review (now corrected), I received a comment from someone at Cornell University inviting me to rate vegetables over at their new vegetable rating website: Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners.

The site is very much in its infancy, but I can see that it has a lot of potential. I believe that the folks at Cornell are using the information for research purposes, but the things they're interested in (what varieties grow best in what location/climate) are the same things that us gardeners are interested in.

There are some things on the site that need improvement, and some mistakes in some of the varieties, but the people working on the site are ready and willing to help. When I e-mailed with a few name corrections and a suggestion on making it more user-friendly, I received a very nice reply back from them.

So, if you grow vegetables and are interested in putting in your own 2 cents, then head over to Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners.

Book Time

As many in the garden blogging community know, Carol over at May Dreams Garden has organized the Garden Blogger's Book Club, which is reading Henry Mitchell's The Essential Earthman this month.

However, fewer people may know that Kathy of Cold Climate Gardening fame suggested using LibraryThing (LT) as one forum for discussing the book. She started a group called Gardening, to which some bloggers - and LibraryThing'ers - have posted.

In the past week, I've become hooked on LT. Over in the right-hand column of my blog you'll see a few random selections from my gardening library. To see my entire library (still a work in progress), click here. For anyone who is interested in books and has a perfectionist streak, I highly recommend checking out LT. A lifetime membership is only $25, which is a steal.

The First Seeds Have Arrived!

I received my first seed delivery, from Seeds of Change. Spring is coming! even if it's cloudy and 40 degrees right now.

The delivery includes: 1. Two shelling/dry beans: Indian Woman Yellow and Jacob's Cattle; 2. Peruvian Purple Chile; 3. Two poppies: Hungarian Blue Bread Seed and Oriental Scarlet; 4. Rhubarb Chard; and 5. A free packet of chives (of which I already have plenty in the garden, so I'm not sure what I'll do with them).

This year I'm going to experiment with a bunch of new things (see the 2006 seed list at right). One is dry shelling beans. I've ordered several, and I hope to be able to have quite a few for next winter.

Another experiment will be with peppers. I haven't planted any for several years because I was never that happy with the results. I've only tried bell peppers, and usually they really didn't start ripening until the end of August. And even then, the yields were not all that great.

But, this year I will experiment. My plan is to purchase six self-watering containers from Gardener's Supply. These will go along the south-facing garage wall, which will give them lots of sun and warmth. I will also try some tomatoes in the container, which will give me an opportunity to compare tomatoes in the ground with tomatoes in containers.

So, the question is, when can I start planting? There is still snow on the beds, but it's supposed to be in the 40's all week with some sun, so maybe most will be melted by the weekend. I can bring home some clear plastic and put it on the beds to warm them up and dry them out. Perhaps by the second weekend of April?

On a side note, it seems that the pictures from my phone just don't work well with Typepad. I tried uploading a picture from this morning, but it won't work. Also, in the photo albums, the pictures from the phone will create a thumbnail but not a full-sized image. I'll have to learn more about this in the coming week.