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Thelma’s Thursday Therapy Thought

A dear Navy friend volunteers to join us with some crafty ideas each week!

Hello. My name is Thelma and I am a craft-a-holic. (Everyone say, “Hello, Thelma!!)

How are your seedlings? If you planted right away (Friday or Saturday), you should have a mess of sprouts now. Good for you. Let’s thin them. For me this is the hard part, a little bit like murder. But it is much better for the plants.

If you planted as I described: the sunflowers in the X (or plus + when you rotate the bucket) and the smiley face veggies and the big circle of marigolds, you most likely have a tangle of sprouts in those designs. You should thin down to five sunflowers – just one in the center, and one on each end of the X or +.

Thin the smiley face veggies to 4 around the circle (3, 6, 9, and 12 on the clock) and one each for eyes nose and mouth. Leave two marigolds between each of the sunflowers at the end. Water every other day and keep rotating the bucket to get them all to grow straight.

The spinach and lettuce seedlings are edible. You may now sit back and admire your handiwork. I suggest you write down how much growth you see each day. Those sunflowers should really take off in about a week.

Now for today’s therapy. How about a Zen-style meditation garden? And we can bring this in for real cheap.

You’ll need a container with sides on it – I like a small cake pan from the value dollar general store. (Or the lid to a pizza box, the top to the shoe box, a hat box lid if you like round, you get the idea) Also there you can find child’s garden or beach implements – a rake, a small shovel and a hoe, though all you really need is the rake.

While at this gold mine, find perhaps a plastic tree, maybe a very small umbrella. If not at the value dollar general store, try your Exchange, or the super-mega sam-like mart (you know what I am talking about, I just don’t want to appear to endorse any particular place). Look in the kid’s section, the garden section, or the fish tank supplies!! Get a roll of tin foil, the smallest roll you can buy (25 feet is usually the small size.)

You will want some sand, or gravel (enough to put one inch deep in your container). You can pick up a handful from either the beach, or a few sandboxes at the park/recreation area. Gravel can be found in parking lots. If you scavenge for free stuff, you will want to wash it first. (Think cats and kids, tires, trash, you get the picture.) While collecting bits of nature, find a few small rocks or stones for accent pieces.

A few hints here for washing “found” sand and gravel. This works for me. Put sand/gravel in pan or bucket or other suitable container - no holes. Cover sand about 5 inches with water (any temp, not too hot), Swish the water and sand mix around a few minutes, and let sit about 3 to 5. Gently pour off the gunky water. Do this enough times that the water pours off clear-ish, and the sand/gravel looks pretty clean. The big pieces will fall back down to the sand at first, you can pick them off.

The last time I did this (I give these gardens as gifts) I poured the water and sand over a cloth lined seive (collander) for the final rinse. I also dried the sand in that cloth. Use a tightly woven cloth, like an old tee shirt, and still some of the sand will get through. I don’t recommend doing this in the head on the ship. The (there is no better term, sorry) turd chasers won’t like you getting sand in their pipes. And it takes at least a day to dry the sand, depending on your atmospheric conditions.

You CAN buy play sand, or aquarium sand. Play sand usually comes in HUGE bags. I actually owned one once, as I was gifting these a lot. Now I go to the park - I’m cheap.

Line your box with the tin foil to make it water and bug proof. If you use a big enough piece of foil, you can bring it up and around to cover your “garden” when not using it, to protect from disaster.

Fill with your cleaned sand or gravel, hopefully to about an inch. Place your decorative touches in the sand and move the sand so that the decorations rest on the bottom of your container.
Use your rake to smooth the sand around your decorations.

This is the Zen part: You will find that as you rake, you will make lines in the sand. These can be simple lines or curves, figure 8s, crossed lines, whatever you can think of. You can spend hours moving the sand around, changing the position of the decorations.

Many Zen gardens have the stones raked into lines around the rocks so that they look like pond surface ripples. You will find that this is not as easy as you might think.

CAUTION: If you find that you are spending hours at a time raking your sand, set a timer away from you so you have to get up to turn it off. Cover your sand and walk away. Make sure you keep up with your quals, your homework, your job and family.

Have a question for Thelma? Post them in the “comment” section and she’ll get back to you…feel free to post comments and ideas there, also.

{Big Wave} Thanks so much, Thelma…see you next Thursday!

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