Garden Updates and Past-due Electric Information

Let me be the odd duck who flip-flops what I’m going to talk about in my title. Back in January, I posted about how we had added some drying lines to the laundry room in hopes of conserving electricity, on top of using strips and cutting out the amount of lights we use. Needless to say, it seemed to work.

Yes, indeed, you read that correctly. We were able to drop 8 KWHs off from our daily amount and cut our monthly by more than half. This was a full 30 day cycle bill, in one of our harshest winter months, mind you. We did it, though. We cut well more than the target of 2 – 4 KWHs a day. So what was the total cost of the bill for February?

I wish this number had stayed the same for March, but it seems that we loosened up a bit. Granted, March’s bill came to 10 KWHs a day, 280 a month, and only ran us $44.04. I guess there’s really nothing to complain about there! (Last year, for March, we were at 11 KWH a day, 319 a month. It’s nice not having to have lights on…ever.)

On to the gardening update! As of 3/24/2010, we had:

  • Roma tomatoes – 16/16 pots have seedlings!
  • Early girl tomatoes – Nothing yet.
  • Green peppers – 2/12 pots have seedlings!
  • Pumpkins – 9/12 pots have seedlings!
  • Sunflowers – Nothing yet.
  • Herb mixes – Bunches of littles!

We are now up to:

  • Roma tomatoes – 16/16 pots have seedlings!
  • Early girl tomatoes – 16/16 pots have seedlings!
  • Green peppers – 12/12 pots have seedlings!
  • Pumpkins – 12/12 pots have seedlings!
  • Sunflowers – 8/8 pots have seedlings!
  • Herb mixes – Bunches of littles!

Each tomato pot has two plants growing, same with the green peppers. The pumpkins we did three in each pot, not knowing the fail rate.

The best part about this is that, when we weed out the plants, we’re giving those “extras” that survive transplanting to friends and family. My parents had already said that they would take both tomatoes and green peppers, and a couple family friends have also mentioned taking tomatoes, this on top of the fact that we promised some to Joe’s parents as well.

We’ve also done some re-arranging with our set up. (Hopefully a new layout will be drawn up and put into the gardening page soon.) We’ve decided to do a “Three Sisters” garden in one area, giving us much more space. Next year, we’re hoping to try our hand at even more companion planting, but we want to do it a little at a time.

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