Cassie's Stuff

Wow! The winter is passing quickly. It doesn’t seem like it when I look out the window and see a good 12 inches of now on the ground – very unusual for this part of Ohio! It got down to -7 overnight. Brrrr!!! But Square Foot Gardening classes are starting this week. Friday I’m speaking for the Newark Garden Club and next week I’ll be at the Spring Hill’s Homeschooler’s Sessions of Sharing, and Upper Arlington.

Mel Bartholomew told me that Paul Nagy, a certified teacher in Middletown, has hooked Mel up with an Amish builder here in Ohio who is developing SFG boxes that need no tools to assemble! I’m hoping they’ll be available soon.

Mel also has OFFICIAL Mel’s Mix in bags that will be available this coming gardening season. The problem is that the minimum order is 1 pallet, which is 50 bags! Paul and I are working together to get orders to fill a truckload – 20 pallets. Between garden centers and personal orders, I think we can do it! The bags are 2 cu.ft. and I think retail for around $16. Let me know if you’d like to be included.

More classes and events in March. I’ll get my calendar updated soon. If you would like me to come speak to your organization or group of friends, drop me an email at Cassie@CassiesStuff.com.

This is a test post to see how my AWeber is working.

Well, after dealing with sick kids all week, I must succumb to H1N1. Feel like crap. When I feel better I’ll post what I’ve learned about Swine Flu and why it’s being blown way out of proportion.

Facebook is being screwy and won’t let me post ANYTHING on my wall. I post it, then refresh or go to another page and wham! It’s gone. Grrr.

This is so exciting! When Mel was in Newark in August, he said they were working on the Square Foot Gardening cookbook and now it is available! Watch this vid to learn more:

Get it here:

Wow! Global climate change is making a huge impact here in Ohio with a FREEZE warning on the last day of September?!? Not even any frosts first, we’re going right to a freeze. Geeze. We are two weeks early from our October 15 date, the usual “first frost” date for Zone 5/6. Don’t panic! While it is expected to get to 32 degrees tonight, this is not likely to be a hard freeze and many of your summer plants can be covered and protected . Bring in any houseplants and cover summer vegetable plants with blankets. I’m afraid just sheets are not going to be enough. If you have a trellis, drape the blanket over the trellis and anchor it around your garden box. If you don’t have a trellis, try to support the blanket in some way with sticks into the ground. If you can’t, just covering it will be better than not. This is not the end of warm temperatures and our “Indian Summer” will show up soon! If you’re tired of gardening and would just like to salvage what you can, tomatoes can be picked green, wrapped in newspaper and kept in a cool, dry area such as a basement. They will ripen slowly over the next couple of months and you might have home-grown tomatoes at Thanksgiving or Christmas! Be sure to check them periodically to be sure they are not rotting. Pick whatever other vegetables are ripe and then remove plants after they’ve died back from the freeze. If you planted “spring” vegetables in August or September, they will be OK. In fact, kale, brussels sprouts and other cole-family plants LIKE frost and the frost will improve flavor. Cover spinach and lettuce lightly to protect them, but they should do OK.

Anyone interested in a workshop yet this fall? I think I still have enough ingredients left to mix soil and, quite frankly, I need some help getting boxes built and ready in my yard for the spring! We’ll start from measuring and mapping the yard, determining layout, design for most efficient use of space for maximum growth, building boxes, mixing soil and we might even build a couple of low hoop houses for some winter greens. We’ll discuss how to integrate food production within the landscape (although, right now I’m mostly focused on food production in my small yard, but we still want some pretty) and even incorporate some edible landscaping plants!

Sitting at Children’s Hospital in Columbus while my 10yo daughter recovers from her breathing ailments and am trying to work on my blog. This is proving more difficult than I thought, which may explain why I haven’t done it sooner! Even with a pretty good template, I wish I had more technical skill.

When I moved my site, I didn’t realize it would shut the old one off quite the way it did, email included! Live and learn, I guess. At any rate, email is back up. You can contact me at Cassie @ CassiesStuff.com (be sure to include both ss in the middle! And, of course, take out the spaces)

Please be patient while I redesign my website to be better than ever (I hope!)!