I just signed up for the Great Sunflower Project. Researchers are sending out sunflower seeds to people and asking them to grow them and then twice month to count the number of bees that visit the flowers in one 30 minute period.

It was much in the news last year that bee colonies were collapsing in rural areas -- some reports say as many as 35% of bee hives just vanished. The purpose of this project is to estimate the prevalence of bees in urban and suburban areas, about which much less is known.

It's a cool project, and I'm delighted to be participating in it. If you are interested, you have to sign up by June 15.

I've been busy working in the garden for the last few days. I've planted a lot of transplants and seeds. Here's a list of the transplants I've planted so far:

Tomatoes
I bought 6 tomato transplants from a local CSA to which my husband and I used to subscribe. The varieties are:
Brandywine (an heirloom)
Early Girl (a hybrid that fruits early)
Sun Gold (a pretty orange cherry tomato)
Debaro Plum (a rare Russian purple tomato)
Unknown Plum (the label says "BL Plum")
Unknown (the label says "Yellow Perfect")

Peppers
I planted 3 pepper plants.
Jalepeno (a hybrid from a nursery)
Emerald Giant Bell (a hybrid from a nursery)
Purple Beauty Bell (a hybrid)

Herbs
I planted 7 herb plants.
Lemon Thyme (2)
Minette Basil
Purple Sage
Tricolor Sage
Genovese Basil (2)

Other
Two market packs of marigolds to protect the tomatoes from pests
1 "silver falls" dichondra

I've also planted quite a few seeds. Including the seeds I planted last week, I have so far planted the following (asterisks indicate crops that I am succession planting, so I'll be planting even more of these over the next few weeks):

Early White Vienna Kholrabi* (2)
Bull's Blood Beets* (4)
Cosmic Purple Carrots* (4) -- I have a soft spot for purple veggies
Nutri-red carrots (8)
Cherry Bell Radishes* (8)
French Breakfast Radishes* (8)
Oriole Chard (2)
Vulcan Chard (2)
Lemon Squash (1)
Catnip (several)
Chives (several)
Nasturtiums (2)

And still to come Tomorrow I will finish planting a few more seeds.
Cylindra Beets* (4)
Early Purple Vienna Kohlrabi* (2)
New Zealand Spinach (1)

And finally, I'm still trying to get my hands on some purple bush bean seeds -- those are the last seeds I need for my summer planting. But I may have to settle for green ones.

I am a fan of Mel Bartholomew's approach to gardening -- he calls it "square foot gardening." There are tons of websites and books about it. My previous gardening experience has been mostly with containers, so I'm not speaking from experience -- but the square foot gardening approach just feels right to me. It's intuitive.

The basic idea is that you divide your planting space into a grid of roughly 1x1 foot blocks. Here's my southwest bed with its grid:

I made the grid by attaching some nylon cord we had laying around to the wood sides, using small nails. Other people use yard sticks or horizontal blind blades or bamboo or sticks or all sorts of things. Nylon cord is what I had, so I used it.

Then you intensively plant each square. The grid helps you to space your plants very closely -- this cuts down on weeds and makes the most of the space you have. It also helps to visually organize the garden and keep it tidy. The idea is to never have a bare spot in your garden -- when you harvest something, you immediately plant something else to replace it.

I live in a fairly moderate climate (USDA zone 7), so I have a long growing season -- theoretically it lasts from April to early November, and I could extend it even more by using a cold frame. I could grow a lot of food in those seven months by starting with cool season crops (spinach, broccoli, lettuces, beets, turnips, etc.), moving on to warm season crops (tomatoes, beans, peppers, etc.) then going back to more cool season crops. My garden is only 32 square feet in size, but it has the potential to provide a lot of food for my family -- provided I can figure out how to make the most of it!

There are a few more principles that underpin the square foot garden system: a particular mix of components for the dirt (for various reasons, I haven't used Mel's Mix), succession planting, automatic crop rotation, and planting only what you will eat and no more. But the heart of the square foot garden system is the grid.

It made me happy to nail my grid in place this weekend, and to push a few seeds in the ground -- radishes, beets, kohlrabi and carrots. This upcoming weekend, I will plant my tomato and pepper transplants, and fill a few squares up with flowers (marigolds and nasturtiums -- they are pretty and control certain pests).

I noticed yesterday that a comment I posted on this website didn't display, so I went poking around MovableType -- and discovered that my comments have been set to moderate for some time. I had no idea. I'm not sure how this setting got changed -- I can't recreate the history of it. I apologize to people who've been leaving comments that didn't get posted -- I wasn't getting the e-mail notifications about them.

I was kinda bummed about the lack of comments, but I figured Breaching the Web had so little traffic on it that no one cared! Now I know better.

I live in a tiny townhouse. And behind my tiny townhouse, I have a tiny backyard. And in my tiny backyard, I have a tiny lawn.

I hate my tiny lawn. The tiny lawn is about 12x20 feet. The grass is nice -- it's much nicer than the grass in my tiny front yard, but it's still grass, which I find useless and uninspiring. Here's a picture:

The tiny patio (which you can't see) is about the same size as the tiny lawn. I like the tiny patio.

I've decided to turn my tiny lawn into a tiny farm. I'm giving it the entirely expected name of "Tiny Farm." I'm approaching the establishment of Tiny Farm with tiny steps so that I don't get overwhelmed. I have a tiny tendency to bite off more than I can chew.

To begin Tiny Farm, my husband and I built two 3x6 foot raised garden beds. Here's a shot of one of the raised beds:

I put one bed on each side of the tiny lawn. The beds are made from 2x12s, cut to size by a nice guy at Home Depot. My husband and I screwed them together with deck screws, then put them on the tiny lawn. I lined the beds with newspaper to smother the sod, then I filled them with the dirt left over from last year's container garden (which was great -- a mixture of composted manure, kitchen compost and nice sandy dirt). I need to add more dirt -- I'm planning on a mixture of coir, compost and vermiculite. And then Tiny Farm will be ready for it's first tiny transplants.

I love Tiny Farm.

I've seen grocery store and gas prices go up. I've listened to stories on NPR about oil supplies. I've even thought about how to spend my economic stimulus check to help out the economy. In short, I have been paying attention.

But I haven't really felt the impact of the weak dollar until today, when I encountered something that hit me where I live. The price of tea has gone up. Not a lot, not so much that I can't buy the teas I like, but enough that I noticed. I buy between 1 and 2 pounds of loose leaf tea once every couple of months to fuel my 2-pot a day habit. I ordered tea today from my favorite supplier, Upton Tea, and I was startled when my order was about 8 or 9 percent higher than the last order I placed on February 28, for virtually the same teas.

I can afford the increase, but I didn't anticipate that tea would have gone up in price as a result of the weak dollar. In retrospect it's obvious that it had to -- it's a luxury agricultural product imported in small quantities (I'm not drinking Lipton here!). The extra money made me think about the weak dollar in a way all the news stories I've been reading haven't -- it made it personal.

I promise to not make this into a dust mite blog. But as I mentioned previously, I've found it very difficult to find documentation of personal experiences of adults who are suddenly trying to deal with a dust mite allergy. There is a lot of information written by parents dealing with a child's allergy, but not much about adults dealing with their own allergies. So I'm writing this partly to get it off my chest, and partly in hopes that it will be helpful to other people.

The primary method for dealing with a dust mite allergy is to encase each part of your bedding in an allergen barrier* -- this means at a minimum you need to encase your pillows, your mattress, and your boxsprings. The encasing** completely covers each object -- for example, the pillow encasing is like a regular pillowcase, but is a bit shorter and has a zipper on the open end to completely close it. You put your regular bedding (mattress pad, pillowcase, sheets) over the encasings. Everything that is not encased -- blankets, sheets, pillowcases -- must be washed every week (or even more often) in very hot water, in excess of 130 degrees (F), with bleach or borax (I prefer borax), both of which are effective in killing the mites. The encasings themselves get washed less frequently -- I've seen recommendations that vary between once every two weeks to once every six months.

The purpose of the encasings is to create a barrier between a fibrous object (mattress, pillow, etc.) and your body. This barrier prevents allergic reactions in two ways: (a) it prevents the mites that are already in the object from escaping and causing an allergic reaction (imagine what happens when you flip over your pillow and put your head on it -- a pillow without an encasing emits a cloud of dust mites, but a pillow with an encasing does not), and (b) it prevents new food (your skin cells) from moving into the object and hopefully reduces the size of the dust mite colony in the object. For most people, the first of these is most important -- unless you buy new bedding, the existing dust mite colony in your mattress or pillow is probably large enough and has enough food that it probably cannot be significantly reduced.

Encasing seems a reasonable and sensible dust mite abatement strategy, but implementing it has been a challenge for me. There are dozens of companies that sell encasings under their own brand names, and there are no standardized terms for describing the fabrics they are made out of. Trying to compare products across companies is confusing and difficult. To make matters even worse, there is no standard method for grading or rating the degree of protection offered by each different fabric.

There are four basic types of fabrics used in encasings, ordered below from least expensive to most expensive:

(1) Vinyl. Vinyl comes in various gauges or thicknesses, from 4 to 6 (a higher gauge number means a thicker fabric). Vinyl used to be the only dust mite bedding option available, and it is still often used for children***. Vinyl provides a complete barrier to dust mites -- the only place they can travel through it is at the zipper. However, it can be very uncomfortable, especially if you are a warm sleeper -- it will make the bed clammy -- and it rips easily. For adults, it's used mainly to cover box springs because it's cheap and completely impermeable -- it can be put on once and never removed.

(2) SMS. SMS stands for soft/melt/spun. I don't know why it's called that. It's an artificial fabric made from polypropylene that is strong and resists punctures. SMS is replacing vinyl for use on children's beds, because it's more comfortable than vinyl and it breathes better. I find that SMS has an unpleasant artificial feel, sort of like tyvek. Although it's more breathable than vinyl, it will still feel clammy to a warm sleeper . For adults, it's mostly used to cover box springs.

(3) Membrane fabrics. These are fabrics, often cotton or a cotton blend, that are laminated onto a membrane. The membrane is usually made of urethane. The membrane provides the allergy barrier, while the fabric is for comfort. Some companies advertise that their membranes are "breathable", but I'm not sure I buy this. They are more comfortable than SMS or vinyl because they feel more like regular sheets, although the membrane can make them uncomfortable and clammy. If you aren't a particularly warm sleeper, this might be a good option.

(4) Tight-weave fabrics. These are fabrics, usually cotton or a cotton blend but also found in polyester, that have extremely tight weaves, giving them very small pores (spaces between the threads). They do not have membranes because the pores are so small (usually in the 3-10 micron range) that dust mites (100 microns) and other allergens (cat dander is 6 microns) cannot move through it. These feel like stiff, thick sheets, and they breath like most other bedding, so they are the most comfortable option for most people.

The effectiveness of these fabrics as an allergen barrier is measured either by vacuuming various allergens through it (the only method for testing SMS or membrane fabrics, but also used with tight-weave fabrics) or by measuring the pore size (frequently the only method used for tight-weave fabrics). Vinyl is assumed to be a complete barrier and is rarely tested. For both measurement techniques, there is no standard way to conduct the test, so results of different manufacturers cannot necessarily be compared in any meaningful way.

After searching through the various websites and reading as much as I could, I decided the only sensible strategy for choosing a product was to choose a seller who seemed like they wanted to educate me rather than scare me, and who provided a lot of information about their fabrics. I realize this is less than ideal, but given how weedy this industry is, it's the only way of picking a seller that made sense to me. I poked around the web for reviews, looked at blogs for cautionary tales, and ultimately decided to buy my encasings from AllergyGuardDirect. I am not affiliated with them in any way, but I am a satisfied customer. I can recommend their customer service and order fulfillment -- they were helpful, answered my questions, and sent my order very fast.

I have an old-school king sized bed -- it doesn't have any kind of pillow top. It is 76x80x9 inches. Here's what I ordered for it:
2 extra-long twin size 6-gauge vinyl covers, for my split-style box springs
1 king size 100% cotton tight-weave mattress cover
2 king size 100% cotton tight-weave pillow covers

With shipping, these 5 items cost about $140. The cotton tight-weave covers have pore sizes of 4.9 microns. All the products were of good quality and well made.

The vinyl covers smelled when they arrived, so I hung them over our banister for a few days to let them air out. If I had it to do over again, I would probably buy SMS or membrane covers for my boxsprings instead of vinyl, because the vinyl covers were hard to put on. But I was swayed by the promise of having a complete barrier on that part of the bed that requires little maintenance -- I plan to wipe these down with a cloth occasionally, but I don't plan to ever remove or wash them. If I had any chemical sensitivities, I would definitely have bought something other than vinyl. Ripping is a common problem with vinyl covers, and even though we were very careful when we put the vinyl covers on, one of them ripped -- the hole was small, and I just covered it with duct tape, so it's not much of an issue, but I probably would not buy vinyl again.

I am pleased with the mattress cover. It fits very well and was easy to put on. It's also comfortable -- I don't notice it at all. I put my mattress pad over it and made the bed like normal.

I'm less pleased with the pillow covers. The pillow feels fine with it on, but I like my pillow to be cool, and I often flip it to the cool side when I wake up in the middle of the night. I find that my pillow is warmer with the cover on. It's not hot, it's just warmer than I'd like. I'll probably get used to this, but for now it's annoying me. I suspect I would have this problem with any pillow cover though, I don't think it's specific to this one.

So this first -- and probably most important -- stage of combating dust mites is finished. The cost wasn't huge and the process was manageable, if confusing at times. I have one more major encasement to do -- of my comforter. But I haven't done that yet, and it's problematic enough to warrant its own post. I've also massively de-cluttered the bedroom and instituted some necessary new laundry procedures. I'll write about both of those activities over the next few weeks, as I accomplish them.

___________________________

*These barriers have the added benefit of making your bedding impenetrable to bed bugs. With bed bugs on the rise across North America, and with my husband and I traveling and staying in hotels as much as we do, I do worry that one of us will come home with these unwelcome little hitch-hikers since even nice hotels are increasingly infested. I'm not providing any links, because the stories are gross -- but you can google them up for yourself. I'm far more squeamish about bed bugs than dust mites, so I'm delighted to have this extra protection on my bed.

**This word bothers me. Why are these things called encasings rather than casings? I have no idea, but encasing is the term used not only by marketers, but also by researchers, so it's the term I'm using here. I just wanted to point out that I find it annoying!

***I feel bad for kids that have to sleep on vinyl. In fact, I've noticed that most companies that sell encasings consistently recommend their cheaper, less comfortable products for children. I can only assume this is because the products probably get replaced more often for kids (as they move from cribs to "big kid" beds) and because they may need waterproof barriers in addition to allergen barriers. But I still feel really bad for them!