Tomato Growing Experiment

Starting from seeds and then moving to small cups after a couple weeks.

After about 3 weeks, almost ready for final transplant.

I don't know why, but I love to tinker around in the garden and grow veggies! It must be because both my grandfathers always had amazing gardens and my dad has also been known to have his own plants. I like trying to grow tomatoes because they are unpredictable and can grow indeterminately if you take care of them and stake them up. Living in an apartment makes it challenging because I am forced to grow them in containers. This past summer (2008) I started late in the season (late July), but still managed to get a bunch of tomatoes by October.

This year I started planting way early (April) and even went so far as to start everything from seeds. Also I was blessed to be able to use an old flower bed next to our apartment building; it had been neglected and was overgrown with Ivy and some old bush-like plant. I spent a few days digging up everything and completely clearing it, preparing for a mini garden. The flower bed is about a 50 foot strip and 4 feet wide. I let my front neighbors plant two rose bushes in the front section, but I got the rest for a bunch of different vegetable plants.

This is before I cleared the flower bed.

This is the bed currently.


I originally planted 5 tomato plants near the back part of the flower bed. Only two survived because of an idiot Mexican yard guy that went crazy with his blower and knocked 3 plants down, breaking them at the base and killing them.

Here you see one of the two flower bed plants that I staked around 5 weeks old. I'm going with small bamboo sticks because I think it looks more rustic and natural.

I planted the same seedlings into 5 different sized potted containers, ranging from 12inch pots to 14 inch pots. Also staked at about 5 weeks. Notice the immediate difference in the size of the main stalk compared to the one planted in the flower bed.

Currently, the two flower bed tomato plants have drastically tripled in size compared to the potted plants on our balcony. They all get the same amount of watering and sunlight, however it is a little harder to keep the potted plants perfectly watered (sometimes the leaves droop if you don't water a bit on a daily basis).

Below is me and my two big plants. Notice in the background there are lots of tiny seedling plants starting to come up. These are all other veggies such as peppers, onions and more tomato plants.

Its been exciting to see the progress of the same plants in two different growing areas. All of these first wave tomato plants are just starting to flower and form tiny tomatoes. I have had to continually prune each plant along with add more stakes to the two in the flower bed. I also planted some heirloom tomatoes in place of three plants that were murdered by the blower. I will update when the tomatoes are in bloom.

Spear Chunkin....I mean shootin

So this past weekend I had my first free diving experience with my friend Q (Chris Quirarte) and his friend Zack. We all drove separately to Ventura Harbor and met on Dock G where the Peace Dive Boat resides. I got there last, around 11:30pm and everyone was already in bed trying to get some rest for an early morning departure and dive. I had a hard time falling asleep in the little bunk, especially after the anticipation of getting there and making the long 100 mile journey. I think I was mostly excited. To calm myself, I practiced holding my breath in the dark and timing it with my cell phone. My first attempt was 1 minute 29 seconds, which I thought was pretty impressive, especially since I hadn't timed myself in years and I remembered one minute being pretty good. Second attempt I hit 1 minute 58 seconds and felt pretty good, had to try again to break the 2 minute barrier! Third attempt I got 2:02 59 !!! Woo Hoo! Maybe my 30 challenge has paid off by expanding my lung capacity from having to breath only with my nose in that hot room! Finally I fell asleep feeling reassured that I probably wouldn't drown the next day!

I awoke to the sound of the boat engines starting up. I looked at the time and it was 4:10am. I tried to go back to sleep but was restless hearing all the sounds of the boat getting untied and slowly moving through the harbor. Our bunks were all on one side of boat and as the boat picked up speed it sounded like the water was rushing by our heads! Then as the boat made it out of the harbor and made it to full speed, the rocking of waves began. I had to lay flat on my back to keep from getting nauseous. Finally I made it back to sleep and awoke a couple hours later to Q saying "you gonna make this first dive"?

There is a lot of gear required for this sort of spear fishing. I had on a full wetsuit, booties, a neoprene hoodie, a weight belt with 12 lbs of weights, scuba mask, snorkel, long free diving fins, a dive knife, and finally a 4 foot wooden spear gun with a float line and big float attached to it. To say the least I was a little overwhelmed with all this gear and not knowing what to expect when I hit the water. Thankfully Q and one of the deck hands helped me into the water and handed me the gun and told me to swim out 50 feet or so to load it. The water temp was pretty nice actually...maybe 63 degrees. Visability was good too, maybe 15-20 feet. The boat was anchored in about 40 feet of water right smack in the middle of a huge kelp bed a few hundred yards from Santa Cruz Island.

It was a breathtaking experience both literally and mentally! Looking all around at the underwater forest seemed like I was inside one of those nature channel programs. I had to keep telling myself to breathe! My earlier "out of water" breath holding skills were quickly diminished and I was lucky to dive down more than 20 seconds at a time! I had a hard time clearing my ears past about 10 feet, so I decided to just be a surface hunter! Q spent some time with me showing me how to load the rubber bands on the gun and how to patrol around in the water. The hardest part was trying to stay relaxed and not use up additional energy, but this is much harder said than done. It's gonna take lots more experience to learn this one technique.

After about 2 hours of "hunting" we made it back to the boat and I was both exhausted and borderline nauseous from all the movement and swaying. Back on the boat there were a few stories of big fish sightings and a few lucky spearings. We were specifically targeting White Sea Bass and on this first dive, two were shot - both maybe 12-15 lbs. A few other random fish were shot, a sheephead, a couple barracudas, and one kelp bass. Not the most successful first dive, but loads of fun and adventure none the less.

The crew provided us with a hearty breakfast of eggs, pancakes, sausage, and oatmeal to build our energy back up for the 2nd dive to come. The boat re-positioned a mile or so down the island and before I even had a chance to rest they were ready for us to get back in the water. I had taken off my wetsuit already so I was one of the last people back in the water for this 2nd dive. This time I went off by myself and explored and explored.

I found Q after an hour or so and we stayed near each other until the end of the 2nd dive. I was getting anxious to shoot something so I started setting my sites on some of the larger kelp fish that kept swimming all around. Finally a pretty large kelp fish swam in between two large strands of kelp and maybe 10 feet from me. I swam over and quickly took the gun off safety, pointed, and shot through the kelp. I didn't think I had actually shot the fish until I began retrieving the line attached to the spear. I felt a tug and then another. I remember thinking "YES" I nailed one! I called over to Q and told him I needed some help getting the fish off the spear. After we got everything all sorted out, I told Q I was heading back to the boat. I must have inspired him because not even 5 minutes later I heard him yell that he had now shot a fish. I swam back over and helped him get a nice sized California Sheephead onto the fish stringer. We both swam back to the boat with our 2 fish.

These ended up being our only 2 kills, yet we had a blast. No one else had much luck either on the 2nd and 3rd dive spots. There was one notable White Sea Bass shot at the 2nd spot, it was over 4 feet long and weighed about 51 pounds! Amazing! To say the least I got exposed to a very adventurous new way to fish. After a nice lunch and brownie sundae, the boat headed back for Ventura Harbor. We sat up on the upper sun deck and talked and hung out the whole way back. Q and Zack had several Moose Drool Beers and I sort of dozed on and off. I was very wiped out. We finally arrived back at the dock around 6pm and it was still fully daylight out. We packed up all our gear and carried everything back to our cars. I think Zack ended up following Q back home to Whittier and I drive home to Huntington Beach. It was an awesome experience that will be sought after again! Many thanks to Q for the spear gun, weight belt and for teaching me the ways of the spear fisherman!!!

30 days in a Row!

So I have to brag a little here. For the past 30 days, Sadie and I have been quietly participating in a 30 Day Challenge at our favorite little Hot Yoga place here in HB. We have both been attending fairly regularly since this past January (maybe 2-3 times a week) but we decided to step it up starting April 20th and attend a class a day for 30 days straight. No days off, no make-ups.
Now if you've ever heard of Bikram Yoga, you would know that it is a very structured type of Yoga comprised of 26 poses done in exact order under instruction from a teacher in a room no less than 105 degrees Fahrenheit. Its also 90 minutes long. Now if that doesn't scare the pants off you, then listen to this...at our Hot Yoga studio, they have improvised the Bikram poses into a slightly altered order, yet still sticking with the same principles, but also play background music. Our room is heated to no less than 110 degrees with an average of about 112 and sometimes as hot as 116 depending on the size of the class and humidity. Nonetheless its is a "moving" experience and most certainly not for the faint of heart.
I am very proud of Sadie for all her 6am classes then straight to work, then to ballet class for 1-2 hrs in the evenings. She is very dedicated and strong. Even on the weekends we had to make it to a class each day when we really wanted to sleep in or just be lazy. We didn't take any trips during these last 30 days, and we were forced to do our laundry every single day (because of the sweaty towels and clothes). It was quite the commitment.
Not only do I feel physically stronger from all the classes, I feel mentally capable to take on just about anything. This challenge even helped me to be on time to appointments and work and events.
There have only been 140 days so far in 2009 and I can say I've spent at least 50 of them in Hot Yoga class.
Go team Eppes!

Rollin in our 5.0

Yes I love that song from Vanilla Ice (Ice Ice Baby), but that's not what this is about. Two nights ago we felt a 4.7 Magnitude earthquake (I rounded it up to 5 for the title) at our apartment in Huntington Beach. It was funny/confusing because Sadie had just let Fifi to go potty outside and then just as she walked back in the door, the rumbling began. I happened to be standing by the couch and I just grabbed her hand and stared at her. I think we were both sort of paralyzed by the movement, but it was pretty mild and short lived. It lasted maybe 15 seconds. As soon as it stopped Sadie said "should we go under the doorway"? And I replyed, "I was worried about the TV"!
That's the second earthquake that I've felt since moving out here in 2003. The first one was also at this apartment in Huntington Beach, just several months ago...I was home one afternoon for a lunch break and had laid down on the couch for a nap. I was pretty out of it. I had fallen asleep watching some discovery channel show about plate techtonics and massive erruptions (no kidding). Along with having the show in my subconscious, just before the earthquake a big huge garbage truck was in our alley, right next to the apartment picking up the dumpsters and banging them up and down. So imagine waking up hearing the truck banging and banging the dumpster, seeing the TV show about plate techtonics and feeling the whole apartment shake! I was thoroughly confused. I remember running into the office and holding onto the flat monitor thinking it would surely fall over!

To Blog or NOT to Blog???

What the heck is a blog anyway? It honestly sounds like Black Frog - BLOG. I mean seriously, why is there such a need to invent new ridiculous terms that there are already perfectly good words for?

Wikipedia describes a blog as: A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.

So WebLog is the origin of the word apparently, and because it was such a long and hard word to say it needed to be shortened to "blog".

Anyway, I started this internet based journal for purely popularity reasons. It seems to be the thing to do now, and there is a very slight chance that I could become rich and famous from it. So all of you hundreds/thousands of readers....stay tuned.

And Then There Were None...

So I watched an interesting TV show this weekend called "Life After People", a History Channel take on what would happen to the earth if people disappeared or suddenly got wiped out. I've always pondered this idea, because compared to the overall life of the planet we have existed for just a blink of an eye. Even the dinosaurs made it millions of years longer than we have so far, and their remnants are just scattered bones.
It showed how in a few hundred years the planet would easily take back over all of our so called modern marvels and bustling cities. The oceans would flourish again with overwhelming life, recovering from humans treating it like their own personal sewer/fish market. All of our engineering and technology would be no match to weathering, oxidation and corrosion. Famous structures like the Eiffel Tower, Golden Gate Bridge and Empire State Building would make it maybe 100 years before collapsing into rusted rubble. Its amazing how often man has to continually maintain all these structures to keep the elements from taking control.
Even our digital media and film records (DVD's, CD's, hard drives, fixed disks, and all other memory written devices) would make it maybe 200 years before succumbing to humidity, warping and cracking then eventually turning back into dust. It seems that the ancient Egyptians had a better grasp on maintaining their history, buildings, wall paintings/carvings than our present modern societies.

Bottom line is that without constant human intervention to maintain our everyday modern ways of life, planet earth would quickly wrap its motherly arms around itself and bring back a homeostasis of pure...true life. People sure are arrogant to think we are timeless. Great idea for a series History Channel. Check it out: http://www.history.com/content/life_after_people/about-the-show