Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Gardening - Herb Garden Rejuvination Long Overdue

I had a couple of planters containing some sages, oregano and thymes on the deck all summer. Now that fall is here, I had to replant them in a more permanent place in the herb garden behind the garage. The only problem was that the herb garden had been neglected and was severely overgrown. There was a wild grape vine growing out of the middle of it and the oregano was spreading over the chives and they were not getting enough sunlight.

Before

There was catnip growing here and there and a wild grape vine was growing over the lattice and covering the rhubarb. I had to prune back some mulberry suckers that were growing from stumps beside the fence. There is a row of stumps from cedars that were cut down before we were here that make it impossible to dig up the mulberry, so, I just keep pruining the suckers.

The hoses you can now see beside the fence were once a garden hose which the dog chewed up last year. I decided to keep them to lay out in the garden if earwigs got to be a problem. There were no problems with earwigs this year, but the garden snails have really been bad this year. I told my husband, who likes Escargots, that I was going to start a snail ranch, so he could have all he can eat!With all of the grape vines, mulberry suckers and various weeds gone, I can actually see my rhubarb and chives, which the snails have been having a feast on. Now, to tackle the oregano!
I was digging up and pulling out oregano for a couple of hours, then I had to get the roots out so that they didn't grow new plants all over the place. I decided to keep only a small clump of it and pulled up the rest. There was enough of the herb to fill two garbage cans!


After I got all of the oregano dug out, and cut back, I was finished for the day.

Day 2

I dug up a couple of clumps of chives and replanted them closer to the rest of the chives. I then started to replant the sages and thymes.
The last of the plants was a new variety of oregano, which has a purple coloured leaf. I hope this one doesn't grow out of control.



Monday, September 14, 2009

Back to Business - Earlybird Vintage & Collectibles

I have been working on opening an online store "Earlybird Vintage & Collectibles"



and I hope to have the "Grand Opening" sometime this month. I have boxes and boxes of inventory and I am getting more every week, going to yard sales, flea markets and auctions and getting some great bargains.


My entrepreneurial endeavours began a couple of years ago when I decided to open an eBay store. I had a Paypal eBay seller's account already, but I had to open a business account, which is free and takes care of a lot of paperwork, i.e. invoices, receipts, sales records etc. It also allows me to make Paypal buttons for any website.

The eBay store lasted for a month and a half, I had to have eBay listings in the regular auction to direct traffic to my store. I only had two store sales in 6 weeks and the sales from the regular auction and store sales just paid for the cost of the store.

I hope that this time the store does better. I am using Viviti website builder to create and host the store. I am able to add Paypal buttons to the pages easily wherever I want, as many as I want.

I have discovered a fairly new auction site, SeeAuctions.com, which is an alternative to eBay, for buying and selling antique, vintage and collectible items. I have registered as a seller on the site and have just received the confirmation email so I'll start some listings this week. What I like about the site is that they do a check of the sellers to ensure that they are legitimate, something that eBay should do also. And besides that, the first year is FREE! Whether you have one item listed or a hundred, the price is the same. SeeAuctions.com uses Google shopping cart and Paypal so there is security and Paypal Buyer's Protection on your purchases. SeeAuctions doesn't charge commissions either, all the money you make is yours! You can read all about SeeAuctions.