Video Mishaps: Garden2Blog Adventure with P. Allen Smith

If you’ve been following my back page, you probably already know that I’ve been invited to the 2014 version of P. Allen Smith’s Garden2Blog. I’ll be joining twenty-plus other bloggers for two jam-packed days of tours, demonstrations, and workshops, while squeezing in time to get to know my fellow bloggers and P. Allen Smith himself. I’ve already heard he loves chickens and roses, and chicken and rose bloggers are well-represented on the roster. Me, I had to interview my 12-year-old daughter, the family chickenmeister, to find out how big our flock was. (8 hens, 2 roosters, and 6 ducks)

We were already issued a challenge by Jobe’s Organics to create a container planting with Jobe’s Organic Potting Mix, Jobe’s Organic All Purpose Granular Fertilizer, and a $10 gift card from the local big-box store for plants. Well, finding enough plants to attractively fill a 12″ pot for only $10 was somewhat of a challenge. I found it easier when I decided to make this for my mom for Mother’s Day. She is easier to please than I am.

The real challenge was making a video using either Vine (6 seconds) or Instagram (15 seconds). I admit we weren’t told we had to use either of those; they were recommended as working great for this. Documenting the process of putting a container together in fifteen seconds seemed near impossible to me, but I gave it my best shot. I had never used Instagram before, and there was a learning curve with that. I somehow thought I could fit more into the screen if I turned my phone sideways, but all I did was create a sideways video: Since it was raining on the one day I had free to shoot it, I set everything up in our screened porch, but the lighting wasn’t so good. And trying to add a cameo shot of my mom didn’t work out so well.

I wasn’t very happy with that first effort, but now that the container was planted, I couldn’t very well show how I did it, could I? I gave it another shot later in the week, this time explaining why I chose the plants I did: I did this one at my mom’s house, because I thought I would have her say, “Thank you! I love it!” at the end, but fifteen seconds goes by really fast, and there wasn’t any time left.

Video has never been my strong suit, and I just never seem to have time to work on my skilz. For that matter, I don’t watch very many videos either. I hope you got a few laughs out of these two, and thanks, Mom, for being a good sport. If you want to see some better efforts, look for the #G2B2014 and #Jobes hashtags on the social media channel of your choice. The smart ones shot theirs with full-fledged cameras and uploaded them to Youtube.

Disclosure: I was given the materials to put this container together.