My raised-bed garden is bursting. The first set of photos below contains my peppers, lettuce, herbs, broccoli, morning glories and an errant hen & chick. Early planting on right.
Eggplant seedling 6-11-12
Snap Peas 6-12-12
Red leaf lettuce sprouts 6-12-12
Gardening is one of my passions and this summer is the first time I’m making a full-fledged effort to grow a variety of vegetables, in addition to my herbs and perennials. I’m using my blog to chronicle How My Raised-Bed Garden Grows. This is also the first time I’ve built 4 square-foot, raised-bed gardens. It’s also a first for planting seeds outdoors. Everything was pretty easy to do, just involved my labor — which is fine, because the weather’s been wonderful and gardening counts as exercise.
What you’re viewing is two full weeks of garden growth. I’ll shoot more photos every day to chronicle progress. I’ll also be adding more pictures to my Pinterest Gardening Board, so please visit there as well. And of course, I welcome your advice and photos of your garden. Click on Let’s Talk and we’ll connect green thumbs.
Mainly herbs: lavender, basil, fennel, cilantro, purple basil, sage, a few hot peppers, some green beans and snap peas
tomatoes, broccoli, eggplant, carrots, beets, zucchini, cucumbers, onions, rainbow chard, basil, peas
This is a great time to say thank you for following my blog and participating in great conversations that (I hope) have helped you realize your PR goals and your business dreams.
This year has been tough for nearly every organization seeking to boost sales or increase awareness through traditional media such as print and broadcast, or word-of-mouth platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
In 2011, professionals were faced with a double whammy: shrinking marketing budgets and trying to follow and adapt to an ever-changing media landscape. We’ve all had to learn a lot of new rules and tools to stay on top of social media marketing.
As my way of saying thanks, I’d like to share a few timesaving tools and resources that kept me on top of my game this year:
1. PR Daily: A fantastic eNewsletter for PR and marketing professionals following traditional and social media trends and topics.
2. LinkedIn’s Answers: Saves countless hours researching an infinite number of topics or challenges. Why start from scratch when you’ve got experts eager to help on any topic for any industry.
3. Google Docs: Invaluable for collaborating on projects. Edit or create documents on a Google Doc and use Google’s chat tool for instantly discussing or improving upon your changes. It’s simple and elegant.
4. Join.me: Share your computer desktop view with others remotely for presentations or collaboration. Others can view your desktop presentations or follow as you navigate web sites by simply clicking on a link to Join.me.
5. Highrise Contact Management: Following-up with the reporters you pitch, or the prospects you’re trying to reach is easy with Highrise. It helps you track all emails and phone calls and sends reminders about the tasks related to those contacts. An easy way to create, organize and monitor all your customer info, emails and notes.
Give these free tools a try and tell me what you think. And if you would like to review your PR efforts this year, or want to discuss your 2012 strategy, don’t hesitate to contact me through the form here on my blog or at michelle at michelledamico dot com.
Wishing you happiness in the Season of Giving and lasting prosperity in 2012.
Enjoy these photos as a gift from my personal collection.
Gifts from an ice storm, by Michelle Damico
A visual feast is often the next best thing, by Michelle Damico
Your passion will take you there, by Michelle Damico
Image by jpo.ct via Flickr
I ran/walked today for 30 minutes. Not a big deal for most people. But I hate running. Have hated running since college. But since having emergency surgery this summer, I lost interest in my power walking routine and gained weight. Now I want it off.
So much of my life is directed by chance, and this little story is proof once again. My new client, Coach Brendan Cournane, planted the idea of a run/walk routine when reporters picked up on this training technique and wrote about it in their news coverage of Brendan (he coached 400 runners) in this year’s Chicago Marathon. I am amazed and inspired by his stories. I’ve been thinking about running since he called me a week before the marathon. But in my mind I made all the expected excuses why I could not “Just Do It.”
Why did I decide to lace up today? A simple Twitter inquiry from @GiniDietrich, PR Maven and Blogger Extraordinaire. She was following up on my comment to fellow tweep @MSchechter about his run-walk program.
Gini’s question: “how are you doing?” was code for “so have you gotten off your butt yet and started the program?” That simple prompt stayed with me all day. Whenever I checked Twitter, it was staring me in the face.
By 4:30 this afternoon, I said enough with the BS. No more excuses. End the week with a positive accomplishment. And I did. Thank you Brendan, Michael and Gini for the inspiration and motivation this month.
Once again, my writing and social media idol Roger Ebert is right: ”So much of what happens by chance forms what becomes your life.” Life Itself, a memoir.
Never had one of these pay a visit before!
I love sharing news, it’s simply in my DNA. So I can’t resist. This morning, as I’m doing client work, a wild turkey trots across my property. Since moving out to the far NW suburbs of Chicago, I’ve seen possum, raccoon, moles, chipmunks, hawks, cranes, coyotes, fox, vultures, field mice, snakes, frogs, turtles and box elders (weird insects that small like pineapple when you squeeze them). But I’ve never seen a wild turkey.
I’m wondering if she’s a momma looking for food for her chicks. Here’s an interesting fact, courtesy of Answers.com: The average turkey will lay 110 to 115 eggs in a 28/30 week period.
The gobbler’s sperm is stored in the hen’s oviduct, so that fertilized eggs may be laid up to four weeks after mating. One mating is usually sufficient to fertilize an entire clutch. A hen lays an egg nearly every day until her nest contains 8-15 (average, 12; smaller clutches by younger birds), but won’t begin incubating constantly until after all eggs are laid.
A hen turkey doesn’t begin incubating until she lays the entire clutch of eggs, and incubates it for 28 days so that hatching is synchronized.
Now, if I could only spot an owl.
