Starting from Seed
2011 is my third year gardening, and the first year I’m starting plants from seed indoors. I started my first seeds about four weeks ago, in late February; mainly lettuce, chard, oregano, and basil. The lettuce and chard were failures, and the spices aren’t looking so hot. I’ve since sowed more chard and lettuce directly in the garden as I have previous years. In the last 2-3 weeks, I’ve also started green, jalepeno, and cayenne peppers along with tomatoes.
2010′s garden had a terrible yield compared to 2009; mainly because of the lack of regular feedings and little time to look after it. I’ve expanded in 2011 and intend to get my best yield yet.
4x4 Raised Bed dedicated to tomatoes. I still need to add some more soil.
I built a new 4×4 raised bed which will be dedicated to tomato plants. Instead of the string trellis method I used in previous years, I plan to stake the plants this year for better access to the plants in the middle. There will be 9 tomato plants in the new box.
In my 4×8 box, I’ll be growing peas, pole beans, lettuce, chard, carrots, cucumbers and peppers. Lettuce, chard and carrots I’ve done; the beans, peas, cucumbers and peppers are a first for me. The beans and peas are going on the back (north-facing) row allow the length of the box and will be supported by a net trellis on a frame I built out of 1/2″ electrical conduit. The frame is still in the garage for now. It gets anchored with 2′ length of rebar driven halfway into the ground. The conduit slips right onto the rebar and makes a very sturdy frame. The trellis net is tied to the conduit. My last trellis net lasted 2 years. I still need to buy a new one (and a couple of spares) for this year.
4x8 square-foot raised bed
In addition to all that, I tilled up what is about a 15 foot long by 5 foot wide section of my lawn not far from the raised beds. (Less to mow… yay!) I’m going to add some compost and experiment with growing some sweet corn and sunflowers. I’m a sunflower seed junkie, and I’m looking forward to munching on my homegrown seeds. If the corn experiment goes well, I’ll probably dedicate another large 4×8 bed to it next year.
Most of the seeds were started in the Jiffy peat pots I bought at Lowes. The peat pots are pretty handy, but flats with my own soil mixture would probably work just as well. I rigged up a single 24″ fluorescent tube that the seedlings spend 14-16 hours under each day. In hindsight, I wish I had gone with at least a twin ballast for two 24″ tubes. I’ll definitely be expanding the lighting rig next year.
The tomatoes and peppers are doing well and will be transplanted in the garden in the second week of April. Half of my basil and oregano sprouted and died within a few days. I still have one each of basil and oregano and I’m watching them closely. They will likely be planted in 12″ containers. Next year, I plan to build a small raised bed dedicated to herbs near the back door.
I’m really looking forward to seeing how the tomatoes do this year. I’ve always bought transplants rather than starting them from seed. I always seemed to buy my transplants a little late, and ended up with plants that were root-bound and slow to get going. Hopefully, starting earlier this year will boost my yields and produce better crops.
Cutting the Cord
In February 2011, I cut the cord.
I was a DirecTV subscriber for ten years and was tired of paying around $100/month for satellite service. I called Time Warner cable (I was already subscribed to RoadRunner Turbo at $40/mo.) and got what I thought was a more economical deal: $117 a month for RoadRunner Turbo and their standard digital cable package with one DVR. “We’re going to save almost $20 a month,” I told my wife.
So the satellite was turned off and the cable was hooked up and my family was enjoying the same programs, more in fact, albeit with slightly worse picture quality compared to DirecTV. But I still wasn’t satisfied. I had something like 100 channels, and they all sucked. Why I was paying so much for so little?
After talking to a friend, and doing a little research, I decided my family could handle cutting the cord. Time Warner had a 30 day money back guarantee (minus installation fees, of course) and I canceled my digital cable less than 3 weeks after it was turned on. What follows is what I’ve done so far.
Antennas Direct DB8
I bought a refurbished HDTV antenna from Solid Signal for around $60 with shipping. I took down the DirecTV dish and mounted the antenna on the dish mast. We grounded the antenna and installed a surge protector and active splitter on the main coax drop from the antenna. The living room already had two coax drops since it was required for the dual-channel DVR from DirecTV. One of those drops feeds our main TV while the other drop powers the active splitter in the garage. Total one-time cost: around $90.
I’m still blown away by how much crisper the HD picture is when using a terrestrial antenna instead of satellite or cable. DirecTV looked pretty good. Cable–not so much. The antenna blows them out of the water. I’m now getting the uncompressed digital signal straight from the towers. We get all the major local networks, all of which have sub-channels showing SD or alternate content. All total, we get around 20 channels OTA–free of charge.
We already had an Xbox 360 that was primarily used for watching Netflix. We also have a Wii on another TV which also streams Netflix. The kids now watch most of their shows on Netflix. The same friend told me about PlayOn, which is a service than runs on your Windows computer for streaming content from the Internet to the XBox, Wii, PS3, Roku, etc. We can watch shows from Hulu, YouTube, Amazon, Nickelodeon, Discovery, Cartoon Network, PBS, NatGeo, Pandora…. there are literally dozens of “channels.” It also supports plugins, and there is an active community adding more “channels” all the time. PlayOn normally costs $40 for the first year and $20 for each additional year. I got lucky and caught it when they were running a sale for $20 for the first year. PlayOn streams to both the Xbox 360 and the Wii.
Lastly, we wanted DVR functionality. I decided on the HDHomeRun from Silicon Dust, which I bought on Amazon for $120. The unit has two tuners picking up the signal from the antenna and plugs directly into my home network. It’s configured to record TV shows on the same Windows 7 computer than runs PlayOn, which is a Core 2 Duo with 4 gigs of RAM and 1.5 TB disk space. We also have a laptop running Windows 7 that the family uses. We can watch TV on either computer and the Xbox 360 on the main television via Windows Media Center. Windows Media Center downloads program information from the web and gives us guide functionality. I must admit; Windows Media Center is the best “DVR/tuner” I have ever used. The HDHomeRun can record two programs at once, does the whole “season pass” thing via WMC and stores everything on the desktop machine, all in full HD (if available), and streamed over my home network.
Here’s the really amazing thing: I’ve not heard a single complaint from anyone in my family. I was worried they would hate not having 100+ channels at their fingertips. In reality, by cutting the cord, we really didn’t lose much. I miss ESPN a little, and hopefully Time Warner will sign a deal with ESPN3 soon. (ESPN3 is available on PlayOn) The kids also watch less TV now which is always a good thing.
Total cost up front: $250. Includes antenna with related accessories and the DVR. Will be recouped with less than three months with no satellite/cable TV bills.
PlayOn: $20/year
Netflix: $10/month
Monthly cable bill: $0
I only wish I had done it sooner.