Gardening and Greenhouse

Green Thumb answers:

I wouldn’t let your kitten outside. I let my childhood cat outside and he contracted feline aids (even though he is spayed). I just adopted a four month old and I bought her a lot of toys, treats, and i purchased the same food the shelter was feeding her so she won’t get sick eating different food. Also a litter box with a side low enough she can step over. Also kitten shampoo and a brush. She is medium-haired and I don’t think she had ever been groomed at the shelter. A scratch pad so she won’t scratch the furniture. I named my kitty Ruby.

Green Thumb answers:

Cool weather crops can be planted 2-3 weeks before the last frost. They include lettuce, spinach, and onions. You can also plant a second harvest of them in late summer for a fall harvest. Other crops have to wait to be planted until all danger of frost has passed. They include beans, tomatoes, peppers, squash, and so on. For tomatoes and peppers, you buy seedlings instead of putting seeds in the ground. If you plant them, and a week later it gets down to 33 degrees one night, then you have to throw a tarp or blanket over them, or they will be totally dead by morning. So be careful about that.

Find a place in the yard. Cool weather crops would be alright with a little shade, especially afternoon shade when it gets really hot during the day. Tomatoes and whatnot like full sun. Take a shovel and scrape off the grass/ top 2-3 inches of sod. You can use it to transplant in a bare spot in your yard if you have any. Then, take a shovel and turn over the plot one shovel full at a time. It’s a lot of work so don’t plan on too big of a plot, or plan on a big workout and LOTS of exercise. You will then have to till the area with a rototiller, or you can chop it up with a shovel and hoe. That’s a lot of work, but that’s how I do my small garden. Using a rototiller is much easier, but avoid buying a doinky little rototiller because they are cheaper. Then, smooth the surface with a steel rake.

Next, stake out rows. Some plants need rows every 12″ and some need rows every 24″. To maximize space, I plant lettuce and spinach every 10″ or so. The back of the seed packet says 12″ or 18″. You need to make wooden stakes or buy whatever they are selling, and pull a white string tight between them to mark the row. (Twice as thick as kite string. Sold at hardware stores.) That way you can plant the seeds in a straight line. So stake out a row, plant the seeds, stakje out the next row, plant the seeds, stake out the next row, plant the seeds. It takes half a day or longer. When the seeds sprout, you pull up the stakes/string. You plant a seed every 2 or 3 inches or so, and then thin the seedlings to every six inches or so. Gardens like to be watered. I water mine almost every evening in the hot summer. It’s better wet than dry. The plants really respond to the water.

When you plant tomatoes seedlings, you add a small stake and loosely tie the plant to the stake with twine. When the plant overgrows the stake, you pull the stake and add a larger support. With both tomatoes and beans, you need to tie them up. For tomatoes, I buy a wire cage shaped like a cone from WalMart or somewhere else. They used to be $1-2, but some places charge $4-5 even though it’s just a few thick wires. You can support them any way you want. You can use a 6′ stake, or you can use several stakes and string between them. You tie off the plant to the support system. With beans that gown as vines, you put two stakes at each end of the garden and maybe a stake in the middle. You use string or wire horizontally at the bottom and top of the stakes. Then, you add strings vertically every 6″. The vines grow up the strings. Lots of people buy bush beans to avoid this process.

Don’t refigerate tomatoes after you pick them. They lose some of their flavor. Just let them sit on the kitchen counter. I use them in salads, and people love them as a side dish at supper salted and peppered. It is great having them every day during the summer.

Here’s a picture of a tomato cage:

I got it from here. You can see different supports for tomatoes:

http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0geu7fLgspJE0YAGihXNyoA?ei=UTF-8&p=tomato%20cage&fr2=tab-web&fr=b2ie7

However you trellis beans is fine. Here is a string trellis. You can use whatever. The tomato cages also in this picture are from a roll of wire fencing (6″ gap farm fence). The fencing is cut to length and wrapped in a circle making a nice support:

http://www.victoryseeds.com/catalog/vegetable/beans/images/pole_bean_trellising.jpg

Here they used wire instead of string for peas (vines like beans):

http://search.live.com/images/results.aspx?q=bean+string+wire&FORM=BIRE#focal=312c4236cf7182ee2c60a86d8c47ebf0&furl=http%3A%2F%2Fssrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca%2Fjcroft2%2Fimages%2FAug%252013%2520beans%2520029.jpg

Pic of a garden:

http://ssrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca/jcroft2/images/Aug%2013%20beans%20029.jpg

Good luck.

Green Thumb answers:

We will tell you to your parents!
Be a good child and sit at home…

Your parents will look for you everywhere, call the cops, give them your name and…
At the airport with your wonderful dreams they’ll CATCH you!

No way, believe me…

Green Thumb answers:

What you can do is go to your local animal shelter and see if you can “borrow” their live traps. Place a food at the end of it and it will catch the cat with out harming it.

But …the cat that you just trapped might not be yours.