seeds, a show, and social media

Hello Everyone!

We have been utterly busy here in London getting our many projects in order. Here’s a quick run down of what’s had our attention:

seeds!

This past weekend we could be found attending two of the workshops at our local Seedy Saturday! We learnt about open-pollinated vegetables from Hawthorn Farm and listened to some seed starting stories from a local master gardener. Lunch was a beautiful Vegetable Tomato Basil Bean soup, lovely! We’ll definitely be making our own version at home.

Restraint was difficult when it came time for us to make our seed purchases (thank goodness I brought a list). Here’s what we came home with:

• scarlet runner beans – we’re going to grow these along the chain link fence at the back of our yard
• bouquet dill
• chives
• giant musselburgh leeks
• long standing bloomsdale spinach – good for spring
• costata romanesco zucchini – as recommended by Kim at Hawthorn Farm
• a mixed bag of native grasses from Tall Grass Ontario – Darren has a weakness for ornamental grass

They had run out of a couple things that we’ll be ordering in the next couple days:

• chinese five colour hot peppers
• mrs. burns lemon basil
• french charentais melon – has anyone had any luck growing melon in zone 5?

Plus we found out about the Stratford Garlic Festival, ever been?

a show!

Last Thursday took us to our local Rogers cable station for a taping of an interview with the Philip McLeod. Yup! My very first television appearance! If you live in the London, Ontario area you can see me in all my live glory! Details:

Mcleod

London’s Rogers Cable Channel 13

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

8pm (I’m the second interview which will be 8:30-9:00)

And if you just can’t get enough it will be replayed on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday

So mark your calendars then come on back here and leave us your thoughts!

social media!

It’s funny how the web and computers were supposed to make our lives easier and faster and more automated, yet I find I’m spending a lot of time trying to figure out where I should be spending my vast amounts of time online.

We blog.

We twitter.

We facebook.

I like them all for different reasons but I find the more time I spend online the less time I spend doing what I love, making pretty pictures.

I like our blog because it’s freeform and accessible to everyone with an internet connection, no account required. It’s the writing that bogs me down. Maybe I’ll write less and post more pictures – artwork or otherwise. We’re actually in the process of reworking our blog so I’d really love to hear your thoughts, that way we can make sure it works best for you.

I like twitter because it’s quick, to the point, and I can have little virtual conversations with people. Well, 140 characters at a time, but there is something profound about one short sentence, don’t you think? I find the twitter feed goes by so quickly that I often miss out on things that I would be interested in. I think I’m going to reduce the amount of people that I’m following so I can participate in more meaningful discussions.

I like facebook because I can share photos and links, plus the length of writing is up to me. I guess my real issue with facebook is that you need to be a member to access our page on a regular basis, otherwise I think it’s a nice blend of a blog and twitter.

What is your favourite way to stay up to date? How do you use social media? What are your suggestions for streamlining?