The tomatoes are getting bigger… I need to probably cut back on all of the leaves that are half hidden from the sun. It seems to me that leaves hidden from sun/lamp light must be a net drain on a plant. Also, if I trim everything back, the plant might focus more on growing fruit than growing more leaves.
I know that almost nobody will want to read this, but Congressman Miller keeps sending out worthless tattle tale emails instead of doing his job. I am also replying to his office email address, but I assume that whatever I send there gets junked fairly quickly… so just to insure that I’ll put a copy up here. I have an opinion about most of the stuff coming out of his weak PR machine, but usually his content and my thought process are very much along the lines of the following:
Congressman Miller’s 22 June email:
In November 2006, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi assured the American people that she would make this the most honest, ethical, and open Congress in history and will give the American people the leadership they deserve. The leadership they deserve? Is that leadership a broken promise to the American people as the Democrats change the rules to allow earmarks to be stuffed into spending bills behind closed doors after the bill has passed the House.
Taxpayers work too hard for their paychecks to be frivolously spent by the federal government on the bridge to nowhere type of earmarks. With more than 32,000 earmarks turned into the Appropriations Committee, we can only imagine how many more earmarks were requested of Congress that were never submitted.
I believe in transparency of the process, of people taking responsibility for the requests they make. I would like to see not just a handful, but every member of Congress publish the appropriation requests that they made so that the taxpayers are made aware of how their tax dollars may be spent.
Members of Congress who choose to fund Trout Genome Mapping, the Please Touch Museum , Women’s World Soccer Cups, Rock n’ Roll museums, and other pork projects are choosing to put their political gains before the best interests of the American people. A true representative of the people will work tirelessly to cut the wasteful discretionary spending and reduce the deficit; thus strengthening the national economy and creating jobs. Americans are not taxed too little; Washington just spends entirely too much. The best way to get Congress to stop wasteful spending is to let those who earn it, keep it.
While the Democratic controlled Congress is going back on their pledge of openness and transparency, their underhanded attempts at passing pork-filled spending bills for the upcoming fiscal year must be stopped.
Now more than ever, Congress must work diligently to craft appropriation bills for the next fiscal year that not only enable us to carry out our missions abroad but also maintain and improve the lives of our citizens.
Either we tie the hands of Washington or it will tie the hands of our children and grandchildren. That is an easy choice for me to make. Now is the critical time for Congress to step up to the plate and do what is necessary to control earmarking that has gone awry. If not now then when? That’s what I think. What do you think? Email me at http://jeffmiller.house.gov.
My whiny response (22 June 2007):
Mr. Miller,
Once again you have sent me an email detailing the deplorable deeds of the Democrat Party. Once again you have written me in the role of “tattle tale” instead of “Congressman”. I know that the Democrats are using earmarks to fund pet projects, I also know that your own party has been known to fund a little pork (incidentally, most of the earmark examples you have mentioned - the bridge to nowhere, the Hard Rock Cafe Museum - were for Republican Controlled districts). You claim to seek transparency; but despite requests you haven’t made your own pet projects publicly available (your website would be a great place to do so).
Your email strikes me as a thinly veiled political tattling. I applaud you for acknowledging the obvious: earmarks are bad. Now, instead of whining about something most of the U.S. hates, how about writing some legislation banning the practice? A report on action you’ve taken: thats the kind of email I’d like to receive.
Respectfully,
Jim O’Loughlin
OK. The lamp is up and the plants are spread out and pruned (probably too pruned). The whole set up is rather rickety… but I think it’ll hold.
In any event, there is a lot more space for the leaves to get light now. Also, the basil isn’t getting crushed at all any more (although the basil seems to want to shy away from the lamp - even from the ceiling).
Some good news: spreading the tomato vines out let me see that I actually have tomatoes!
I think that I’m only weeks away from red romas!
You may not really be able to tell from the below picture… but the plants are really growing like crazy.
Instead of growing like they should, the tomatoes and squash are clobbering each other and the basil. I finally have all the materials to make a really crummy and fragile means of hanging the lights AND the plants from the ceiling. I’m sort of excited to see just how big the tomato vines really are.