Monday, June 1, 2009

Salad that grows in a table...

Hmm...I never heard of growing salad in a table before. I just kept picturing a bowl of salad with legs as my grandma was telling mom what she'd seen on Martha Stewart one day. My mom thought it sounded like a great idea, she went and checked it out here. She thought it would just fit on the patio under the kitchen window. She showed dad and asked him to build her one. Dad wanted to see more detail in the plans, so he went to growit.umd.edu they have step by step instructions there.

Dad had finally gotten started building the table just before the Memorial Day weekend. He was able to finish assembling it on Memorial Day. Mom decided to do some spring cleaning and flower planting on the patio. She was sweeping up the leaves and elm seeds, while dad finished putting the table together. Me and Cocoa checked it out while dad went looking for some wheels. Cocoa assured me that no bunnies would be getting our salad. Bunny rabbits can jump, but not that high.

Mom and dad decided to rearrange the glass patio table slightly to allow better access to the salad table. Then mom decided to wash off the glass patio table for the first time this year. She used soapy water cuz it was sooo dirty! She washed half of it , then dad did the other half and took us bears inside. Mom got the hose and started rinsing the table. As she was walking around it she got this wincing pain in her foot. She jerked it up, when the pain subsided she put it back down. When she put weight back on her leg there was just no strength in it.Then it happened, her leg just buckled from under her and down she went. I guess just falling wasn't enough, she had to land in the puddle of water from the table. She called to dad and he went out to help get her up and inside.

Mom says her klutziness is sometimes out of her control. She has this disease called Multiple Sclerosis. So she never knows when her legs or arms are going to go haywire. She says that aspect of MS adds a certain amount of uncertainty to life's activities. The fall needless to say ended her spring cleaning and planting.

I was sorry mom fell and got all wet, she had to change her clothes. I gave her my best sympathy, then just to get her mind off things, I got her to help me with my blog.

Having MS is another reason mom wanted the Salad Table. With the table she doesn't have to bend down to tend the lettuces. Bending down for extended times can make her legs go weak. She won't have to walk out to the bigger garden on days when she's having trouble. No weeds with the soil-less potting mix, we'll still have to weed out the baby elm trees from the seeds our giant elm decided to deposit there. But best of all we won't be feeding the neighborhood rabbits.

It was Friday before mom was able to work on planting the flowers again. So me and the guys decided we'd help her by spreading the dirt in the Salad Table and plant the lettuce. Mom says its soil-less potting mix not dirt. It looks like regular dirt to me. Heehe, sounds funny, how can you have dirt-less dirt? But mom says you can.As you can see from the photo just getting up to the table top was a challenge for me. Adding those wheels made it even harder to get up there. It took all three of us to just bearly get me up to the top.We spread the "dirt" and planted two kinds of mixed lettuce seeds. Mom wants to get some seeds for baby spinach for the third section.
We worked really hard helping,so mom gave us a snack. She also let us stay outside all day while she worked around the back yard and patio.

Mom doesn't know it, but I planted a row of carrots and a row of bachelor buttons flowers in the window-box when she wasn't looking. Heehe, they are behind the marigolds and petunias. I'm hoping the bunnies won't bother the carrots in there. I think their green tops will look pretty growing there with the flowers.

Those bunnies are out there, look at him, see he's right there on the patio. Well he won't be eating our lettuce. Now, if we could just keep the chipmunks from digging in mom's flower pots. They like to plant all kinds of bird seed in with mom's flowers. They usually leave the flower roots exposed. Hope they don't do the same in the lettuces.

Let's see if I have better luck growing plants from seed outside than indoors. Of all the peat pots Scruffy, Cocoa, Buster & I planted in April only two plants survived and they only got their second set of leaves last week. Been wondering if I have a green paw or not. Time will tell.

Grr-bye for now,

Buttons

2 comments:

B.T.Bear (esq.) said...

I've never seen that befor iver. That's very clever, but yes, bunnys can jump. I like bunnys.

Buttons the Bear said...

Hey Bob,
Hope you are feeling better.

Bunny rabbits are cute, but they do like to eat up vegetable gardens and petunias. I caught that same little one again sniffing at mom's petunias right outside the patio door just yeaterday. I think he smelled the lettuces that have come up in the table. I shoooed him away with a great big Grr!

Thanks for stopping by,
Buttons