Tall Tales & Falsehoods

This year my family and I are planning on planting our own garden. We are very fortunate to have access to some land and equipment that most do not. For the past few weeks I have been planning the garden out with my Father. This is what we have decided.

The garden will be approximately 18 rows with a length of 84 feet per row. Each row will be spaced out four feet (the width of our plow) for a total of 72 feet. The total area of the garden should be 6,336 square feet. This is little over 1/8 of an acre. While we have plenty of land that we could plant more I want to make sure I can personally attend to this amount of space in my limited amount of time. An additional 1/2 of an acre will be plowed for planting space if needed. We will be setting aside 1/4 of an acre for fruit trees and bushes that take two years to germinate.

Below you will find a list of the vegetables that we plan on planting and the anticipated planting date harvesting date of each:

Peppers (Bell): P-March 5 / H-May 21
Onions (Yellow): P-March 5 / H-June 11
Broccoli: P-March 5 / H -May 21
Beans (Snap): P-March 12 / H-May 7
Cantaloupe: P-March 12 / H-June 4
Sweet Corn: P-March 12 / H-June 11
Cucumbers: P-March 19 / H-June 18
Squash (Summer): P-March 19 / H-March 11
Tomato: P-March 19 / H-June 4
Watermelon: P-March 19 / H-June 25
Okra: P-April 1 / H-July 2
Lima Beans: P-April 1 / H-
Potatoes (Sweet): P-April 16 / H-July 30
Peanuts: P-April 16 / H-Aug. 13

*For more information on harvesting and planting dates check out Clemson Corporative Extension, specifically this article.

While I understand that this will be quite an undertaking I am hopeful that my crop will yield a bountiful harvest. I am planning on using all heirloom seeds from the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company. This is very important to me. And while everybody tosses around the buzz word “Organic” I am not so wrapped up in that. I will use all natural products, hard work and sweat to make my garden work, but don’t want to bank on such a buzz word. By no means does this encompass the reason why I am planting my own garden. My crops are meant for a means of being more self sufficient rather than necessarily eating health. I am hoping that eating healthy will be a by-product of working hard.

I hope to blog more about the progress of my garden as time goes on. Please write in and drop some comments on how you think I am doing and what I may need to look out for.

We talk about the speech all the time. We know the famous words. But when (if ever) have you ever actually sat down and watched Martin Luther King Jr’s speech? It has been way to long for myself.

He accomplished so much before his passing at the age of 39. Makes me wonder what my contribution to society will be. What will yours?

A big congrats goes out to my students who entered into the Coastal Uncorked Poster Contest! We had a great showing and two of the students got recognition for their outstanding work.

I have high hopes on this event and look forward to seeing it take shape. I am glad to know that my students had the opportunity to showcase their design skills. It makes me proud as a teacher!

This weekend in Myrtle Beach there seems to be a bunch of things going on. I always bitch about finding out about things after the fact so I am trying to do my part in spreading the word.

Here goes a few things that I am trying to get involved in this weekend.

1) The first MBGeekOut gathering is going on Friday at 7:00 at Liberty Tap Room on 76th Ave. N Kings Hwy.

2) PEZ in the Sun Collector’s Gathering

Thursday, November 5th 2009 – Saturday, November 7th 2009

Springmaid Beach Resort, 3200 South Ocean Blvd

3) C&E Gun Show

NOVEMBER 7 – 8, 2009

Myrtle Beach Convention Center

4) Waccamaw RiverKeepers Celebrate Our Rivers

November 7, 2009 5:30 – 9:30

Ripley’s Aquarium

Plus a really good friend and Godfather to Memphis will be in town. It is too bad that my wife will be out town all weekend long.

I hope to see some of you out there at the events this weekend!

I hate cats, well that is not entirely true. I hate people who likes cats. Well that isn’t true either. I hate people who like cats and think they are caring for them by giving them food. (That doesn’t sound as good as I hate cats, but we will go with that.) All to often do I see people “caring” for cats. It is an easy thing to say and they feel all warm and fuzzy inside. But giving an animal food doesn’t mean that you are caring for them. Your caring shouldn’t mean my wife starting off a horrible day cause of it.

If you are “caring” for cats, look at the definition and ask yourself are you really “caring.”

At the very least remember waht Bob Barker used to say.

Another year has come and gone for CREATE South. It was a great experience this year. As one of the co-founders of CREATE South my hands touch all facets of the conference. For better or worse that is just how it is. We learned a tremendous amount from 2008 and even more form 2009. CREATE South 2010 should be even better.

As I look back on getting CREATE South 2009 together I wanted to make sure I posted some of the key points that I think will lead us to an even better conference in 2010.

• Remember to have fun
• Don’t forget to ask for help
• Know your strengths and weaknesses
• Plan ahead
• Have contingencies
• Find more sponsors

I like to tell myself that this is a grassroots conference. This takes a little pressure off. With a grassroots effort, things tend to a be a little more laid back, expectations from others aren’t so high, and the ability to change everything at the last minute is ok.

Andre @ CREATE South 2009 By Chrys

I do not like structured environments and I want to make sure that CREATE South stays true to the grassroots feel. One day I want to be able to hand off CREATE South to the new blood and let them run with the philosophy that we have instilled in it.

One of the best things we did this year was partner up with Horry Georgetown Technical College. In doing so we had a new found partner with some of the same goals. They were able to provide real life, hands on applications for their students to test their skills. CREATE South in returned received a venue to have the conference and an ongoing working relationship with a leader in the community. For that I am grateful.

Between planning, organizing and cooking I got to have a little fun and meet some really cool people. For me the conference isn’t what I learn in the session but rather what I take away from the people that I meet there. This year was a great exercise in networking for myself and my ideas.

I feel as if CREATE South 2009 was a big success. It laid down a firm foundation to build an even better conference with in 2010.

Until then check out some of the other CREATE South 2009 links:

Tiffany Trent Blog Post

CREATE South 2009 Flickr Group Pool

The Twitter Talk

I now know there is a point and time in your life when you have to be selfish. It is not a good thing, but a necessary thing. It is weird to say, I know, but it is the truth. I have always thought of myself as a very giving person. When it comes to work, helping or money – if I have it then it is yours. However, as I have recently discovered, sometimes you have to say NO.

You work hard to provide a future for you and your family. Sometime circumstances creep in that threaten to take away that future. You have to make hard choices. You give a little and when that is not enough, you give more. But what happens when you have to give even more, give to a point that stretches you so thin you are not sure where it is going to come from? You have to become selfish. You have to say no. At the same time understand, that when you say no, it is ultimately going to hurt somebody else.

You can say “it’s nothing personal,” but deep down it’s all personal. Maybe not to the person it directly affects, but personal to you. Because if you don’t say no, it’s going to hurt you and your family.

This is the point where I am at right now. It sucks.

Today I did something that anyone of us would have done for somebody 10 years ago. However in today’s day and age what I did may seem a bit weird or creepy.

I am on an email list from my local grocery store chain, LOWES Food. I got an email blast from them with this weeks specials. They are currently running a sweepstakes where somebody gets free groceries for a year. Today they announced one of their winners, stateing that they had 5 days to contact them to claim their prize.

WOW, free groceries for a year especially during these times…who couldn’t use that. What if it was me? How often do I actually read over spam/like emails? I thought to myself that I should find out if this person was on FriendFedd or Twitter and try and inform that they won. Now granted I have to clue who this person is or any ties to them or the store, I just thought about being a good person.

Well it comes to find out that I couldn’t find this person anywhere on the net. I did however find their phone number through Google’s phone book. This is where the delimia comes in. Contacting somebody on the internet is very inobstrutive. There is this president that has been set that if you are on there you want, or at least it is ok, to be found. However a name in a phone book is totally different. It is just a random number, not tied to any kind of social activity.

I went ahead and gave them a ring. I wanted to make sure she knew that they had won! I didn’t speak to a live person but to a machine. I merely stated that they had no idea who I am, I am doing this because I would hate for them to miss out, I gave them the 800 number to call and claim their prize and told them the date they had to do it by. Then I hung up. I didn’t leave my name or number or any way to get back in touch with me if they had questions.

When I got off the phone I felt weird, like I went to far, I impeeded on their life. Was it wrong for me to go the extra mile to try and inform them that they had won free grocries for a year? In another day and age I thibnk we would have all done this, but at the same time we may have not had the resources to find this particular person.

I thought I was being neighborly, somthing I think we all to often forget to do. What do you think?

I am very interested in the cost of food. Not only from the point of view that I am a consumer of said goods but also form the point of new ways of generating the same amount of food for less. Most say that food cost comes from the shipping from far off destinations coupled with environmental concerns. Food shipping also has a huge impact on the carbon footprint.

There has been a lot of press about grow/eat local. This concept is very appealing to me. While there are tons and tons of ways to do this, urbanites have started to buy small plots of larger land tracks to grow and maintain there own food supply. This is also accruing in large city’s on rooftop gardens and city parks. Would this idea be appealing to fellow Horry County citizines? I don’t really think so but it may.

I have at my disposal about 8 acres of land located off 701 S right outside of Conway. What if I made a urban farming location where people could rent out smaller plots and plat there own crops? Have it where all tools, water, fertilizer are all supplied. Also have on a hand a “real farmer” who could coach folks the ways of growing crops properly. You could charge for the service and make it as easy as possible for people to become “Weekend Farmers.” As long as you make the place nice, free of backbreaking work and give growing advice you could make it work. I think people are scared off from the up front cost of equipment, the thought of loosing their crops due to inexperience and actually doing back breaking work. If you supply the knowledge, the equipment and a helping hand people would be more inclined to join up. {You could possibly create it like a co-op where all crops are put into the overall pool of crops and each family gets there own share. (But I haven’t thought this idea out fully so I will hold off for now. Too many negative thoughts as far as “Share Cropping” is concerned.)}

Taking it one step further you could also have live stock where each” Weekend Farmer” has his/her own cow, hog and chicken. You would then get the eggs from the chickens and each season get the beef from the cattle and the pork from the pig.

The idea is not that far of a stretch. You already have people renting out horse stables and while this is for recreation the same principals apply except now the recreation is “gardening.” You are making it fun, enjoyable, family time and eco-friendly.

What do you think? Would you become a “weekend farmer?”

Yesterday SC Voted! It was a good showing for a “red” state. I was happy to see everybody who turned out to cast their vote. While I casted my vote for the underdog, I see it was well worth while. People see a change on the horizon and showed they are ready for it yesterday.

The primaries in SC gave an economic boost to Horry County. With all the media and press in town I was glad to see restaurants full and happenings all around town. With the debates last Tuesday I was glad to have participated and was able to see first hand how a production of this nature gets put together. It was great to be apart of the excitement and highly recommend to anybody out there to become involved in some form or fashion. It is going to be an eventful year.