Christina Pearson

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since May 27, 2019
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Wyoming Zone 4b 6000' elevation
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Recent posts by Christina Pearson

I use leaves as the carbon in my deep litter method in the chicken coop. Over time they break it down into bits and pieces and I don't haven't spent a nickel! It's amazing how so many bags of leaves can be reduced to such a small volume.  
1 year ago
Regarding James Cox's comment: "well don't leave us hanging christina, how do we get the calcium flowing through the plant?  happy face on my tomatoes getting their calcium

or anyone else can answer that  knows, would love to not have blossom end rot in my tomatoes."


The answer from me is, I don't know!
I try to be more regular in my watering routine and last year I planted a variety of tomato that was advertised at blossom rot resistant, and indeed, it seemed to be.
According to Robert Pavlis, scientist/gardener, and author of Garden Myths, "Eggshells do not keep slugs away", and "In most situations, eggshells add no value to the garden. The exception might be finely ground eggshells (down to 60 mesh) added to acidic soil. They don't harm the garden, so if it makes you feel good, go ahead and add them to the compost pile."

"You might be thinking that Blossom End Rot is a calcium deficiency, but that is not correct. The rest of the plant can have lots of calcium, and Blossom End Rot can still develop. More recently, scientists have had a closer look and found that the problem is one of moving calcium around inside the plant, not necessarily a shortage."
I have to chime in here! My sister's bumper sticker and what I saw on the t-shirt of an English teacher:

Let's eat, Grandma!
Let's eat Grandma!
1 year ago
I give the Sun Oven 7 out of 10 acorns. I've used mine nearly every other day for over 4 years and for the amount of money this thing cost, it's beginning to fall apart. I emailed them wondering if they refurbished their units and received no response. But first off, let me say I love it! Especially in summer, I always sing about how I LUV MY SUN OVEN! In summer, I've made three-course meals in it and that's without doubling up on the pots! Even during the winter, with clear skies and careful management, I can cook up a pot of beans in the shorter days. I have used it when temperatures only reach into the 20's Fahrenheit. I've often wished they would manufacture one for the upper northern hemisphere, built with a steeper but less-precarious-for-cooking angle for winter use. I have just begun using it for dehydrating, which is easier in the winter. It's a challenge to keep the temperatures from rising too high but I just had a thought - I wonder if covering up the bottom reflector might help keep temperature down a little easier. It's true that the adjusting leg is a little difficult to use and the oven is definitely heavy to move around, especially if you cheat by not taking out your food - a back breaker!

When the stove finally craps the bed I will buy another. That said, the brackets holding the door hinges are made of aluminum and are experiencing metal fatigue and are no longer holding the glass in place; steel would have been a better choice. The heavy window glass is only attached to the wooden framing that tops the unit and over the years, the screws holding the glass have stripped out of the wood and you need some creativity to reattach them and it's not going to be a long-lasting the solution. You can't attach bolts and nuts because you can't access the area for the nuts - it's inside the oven walls. My advice to Sun Oven is forget the wood and use longer lasting material for the framing. The wood looks lovely but it's not practical. I use a bucket of rocks to hold it in place, especially important when the angle is steeply tilted in the winter. It has held up to some pretty stiff breezes. It's true that it will set things on fire! We use shade cloths over our south-facing windows in September and October and it has melted holes in them! But like I said, I'll buy it all over again!
2 years ago
I just went to the hemp yarn site Judith had mentioned http://hempbasics.com/shop/Item/6-Strand-Natural-Hemp-Yarn and the cost of that hemp yarn had risen to $28 with $27.87 in shipping!!! Warping old sheets sounds better...
2 years ago
I use upside-down, glass lamp shades (like from chandeliers), as large as I can find them, from the thrift store to cover nearly everything I transplant out into the garden early, both as protection from the cold and mostly from spring winds. The frosted ones are best and onto the clear ones, I have (tediously!) sewn, using UV protected fishing line, a 40% sun block shade cloth. When I finally remove the shade-cloth-covered cloches, sometimes going from 40% sun blockage to 100% sun exposure at 6000' can still end up frying the plants!  
3 years ago
Since you won the bid and will now have a new jacket, you could save the old one to use for repairing the new one when it begins to wear out, extending its life even longer!
3 years ago
I don't mean to cast a pall over the week with Dan Chiras, but I have a beef with him. I ordered the Chinese Greenhouse in October of 2019, my cc has been charged, and I have yet to receive it. His web footprint is an out-of-date dead-end and I've been unable to effectively contact him. I really WANT that book!!!  
4 years ago
I am still wearing items I sewed in the 80's and the ones that have held up the best are with a sew-in woven interfacing. I've used the non-wovens and the iron-on interfacings and they both don't hold up for the long haul. It's been a while since I've bought any, but it used to come in gray and white and there were at least a couple of weights (lightweight and a more medium-heavy weight). But from a permies standpoint, I never thought of using a "slightly more heavyweight or light weight fabric", like Catie's mom, but you could really tailor the interfacing to the project (color and weight) from the what the thrift store offers!
4 years ago