Month: July 2013

This year I decided to plant a garden. I had my husband build me a planter eight feet long by two feet wide and eighteen inches deep. I used my wine crate planters for the tomatoes and the big planter for the green beans, one tomato plant, green peppers and lettuce. I have a small plant of chives growing as well. On the outside of the planter I planted squash.

Somewhere in the planting of this garden, I decided to use Miracle Grow soil. for vegetables It took a bundle of cash; but I planted in the rich top soil hoping for some results. I had used it before but this year I use quite a bit of it, letting it fill the new planter.

I think this  is where things got a bit out of hand. My tomatoes are about five feet tall. The pepper plants and green beans took every inch of soil in the planter and grew bigger than any plants I have grown before. I have eaten fresh salad leafs and many green beans since the middle of July. I use the green beans for salads and eating raw. I liked them cooked as well. So, back to what I was saying…

I have heard that Miracle Grow helps plants grow. What I did not realize was how big!! I have tomatoes all over every plant and wonder just what the yield will be when harvest time comes. I, also, wonder how safe this product is for humans. I have decided that most of the nutrients in the soil are non-toxic. In fact, it probably would not be on the market if it was harmful. I found another blog called, “The Rustic Vegetable Garden, Miracle Grow and my Fall Garden, written by Gary Pilarchik. Also, you might find it interesting to learn how to transplant tomatoes. Apparently Gary likes using Miracle Grow and using planters. In this video however, he is not using it. I probably should have watched this video before I planted my tomatoes.

What articles and videos like this did not tell me is…how big the plants would get. I have lost branches of tomatoes because the plant was so big it broke it’s branches from the weight of the tomatoes. I should have been more careful and watched the plant, before the branches broke. I just never had plants grow that big before. I did not prune the plant either.

The long and short of this story is, most of us know how to buy a plant start in the spring. What most of us have to find out before we begin to grow planter gardens is what are the best products to buy to grow the best plants possible with the best yields. So I will stop commenting on my garden and the overly large plants and just eat the harvests. I did all this to lose weight and eat healthy this year. Maybe some one out there will comment on this blog and let me know if I did the wrong thing by using all Miracle Grow soil; and whether plants are suppose to get as big as mine did.

It has been one month since I have joined weight watchers.  I am counting every single bite I take into my body and wonder how I managed to let my portions get so big! I am exercising more and my joints hurt, even though most of what I do is done in the swimming pool.

The benefits are noticeable. I have taken 28 pounds of pressure off my knees. I feel much better when I wake up in the morning and have so much more energy.

I have not felt hungry, unless I skip a meal. I love the points plus part of the program, since I can use those points when I need a bit more to eat to feel satisfied. I am eating out at restaurants half as much as before. Because the fruits, vegetables and lean meats and fish are part of this life style change, it means more money  is being spent on groceries. I absolutely love fruit and vegetables! I eat them at every meal and when I take a snack; but they do cost more than the food I was eating before! I have including a Weight Watchers video to show how it all works and why fruits and vegetables are so important as part of your diet.

One of the things I really like about this program is I can eat fresh vegetables. My husband hates vegetables; but he will eat salads and certain fresh vegetables that can be steamed or microwaved. He doesn’t like broccoli and cauliflower. My solution to this is to chop up the broccoli and cauliflower into the salad where he cannot taste it. I add fresh green beans, purple onions, carrots, cucumbers, radishes and my fresh out of the garden leafy lettuce. I spend more on fat trimmed steak since he cannot eat fish. When I want fish, we simply go out to eat. Even a few drops of fish oil can make him very ill.

Because I do not work with my hands and body like he does, I do not burn the calories he does.  I work with my mind and my hands sitting on my backside, he gets far more exercise per day. So, I have built into my program, swimming at a leisurely pace for one to two hours, weight training, biking and equitation. After I have reached the goal of reducing the first 5 percent of my body fat, I will increase the level of activity from low to moderate, given the willingness of my body to cooperate. I am fighting knee pain and when my knee joints swell, I am somewhat immobile. I have lower back pain when the weather changes and I listen very carefully to what my body is telling me, every day. I do listen carefully…especially when I exercise.

I have read a considerable amount of information on knee replacements and hope this is not something I have to do in the near future. Losing weight is the first step toward taking pressure off my load bearing joints. We are all aging and those of us who have been athletic all our lives find that deterioration of the joints is almost unavoidable. Most of the damage on my joints came from things like aerobics, running marathons, equitation, weight training and the martial arts. At the time, no one told me about the side effects of these activities and the many other sports I participated in. Racket ball and tennis didn’t help either. Regardless of all of these problems, I want to keep the equipment I have for as long as possible. Knee surgery has a long recuperation period. I cannot afford to be out of work that long.

Over the next several years, baby boomers with joint damage will rise from 46 million to 67 million  by 2030  and the Boomer population will rise to 20 percent of people living, per an article, “How Baby Boomers will Change Health Care”. The authors go on to state how one out of every two Boomers will live with arthritis and eight times more knee replacements will be done than are done today.  I for one wonder how the country can absorb these rising costs in health care. Taking steps to keep their joints functioning for as long as possible will be what is needed in the future. I for one, intend to continue down the path I have been travelling to avoid adding to the burden on the health care system. I do not know if I have passed the point of no return yet. Only time will tell.

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