winter and animalses

yes - that's animals-es as in lots of them - and not necessarily ours. It's COLD outside!  We had temps below 20 degrees at the beginning of last week, then a snow and ice storm...now it's clear and slightly rainy but still really cold.  This brings out the animals from the green belt...

The chickens seem to be OK with the cold - we put a wool blanket on their coop and shut them in at night so they would stay warm and they seem to be ok.

Then there's the other animals-es..........yea. 
There are 2 juvenile raccoons living under the back porch but of course not just under the porch...the owner has some sheets of plastic down there to move the rain water away from the house so they of course are living on top of the plastic under the wood...noisy!  They are not to much of a pest though.  What's a  real pest is the possum (yes, I know it's really Opossum) twice now it's climbed INTO THE CHICKEN COOP!!!  when we left the door open after dark.  So that's a small detail, thank god it's a small baby possum.  I was so scared it was going to be super agressive and attack us or something.  We had to get a rake and shove it out of the coop and out of the run, fortunately it just went out, scared of us.  It doesn't seem to get that the chickens are possum food which is really really good :)

The one that really annoys me though is whatever has taken up residence in my wall - right under the head of my bed!  rrr!  I can hear it at night eating and moving about - I guess I should be happy there's only one of it but I can't help but wonder if it's going to eat through the drywall and into my room some night. *shiver* EW.  Have I mentioned I'm happy we're moving out of this house?!?

In other news we are about 3/4 of the way done with the major repairs that have to happen to the new house before we can move in.  We'll finish the upstairs this week which means we can start moving boxes while we finish the basement.  The only other things to happen is getting someone to pick up all of the stuff that was left in the house and to clean it.  I'm sooo excited to start our new garden over there!  Yesterday our friend Ben dug the holes for the new chicken/duck run, it is about 5' longer than our current one which will be awesome.  There are lots of pictures coming - I will have to try to make a point to upload some tonight or tomorrow.  For now, I need to go feed chickens and get a move on - another trip to Home Depot this morning for more primer and joint compound then off to the new house to lay my new bathroom floor and finish primer-ing the upstairs.  WHEW.

gardening progress

Last Thursday we worked in our new yard all day. Jen bought a sawzall and with help from our friend Mo we cut down the huge wall of juniper.  While she and Mo worked on that I worked on pruning the plants around the front porch - cut down 3 rhododendrons to 6-12" so that they can grow back better next year.  They were about 8' tall without any lower branches.  The grapes were also cut down to a framework for next spring and I did some more work on the rockery.  Jen & Mo did amazing work on the juniper and we now have a very large space ready for the new chicken run and a large pile of brush to mulch or burn.  It feels awesome to finally get going on it!

seed saving and winter time

I guess it's officially winter now that the predicted high temp for tomorrow is supposed to be 40degrees!  brr!

Today I did a small amount of garden cleanup by gathering the piles of rotting tomatoes saved and harvested seeds.  I've got the heirloom roma's, the red cherry tomatoes and the yellow cherry tomatoes.  I also sorted the tomatillos that were harvested a last week and cooked and pureed the good ones and saved seeds from the rotting ones.  We read somewhere that the rotting (fermenting) tomatoes are better to save seeds from so we've had piles of them stored outside rotting um...fermenting away. 

In other news our chickens are a bit happier now that we got them some straw to walk on rather than be knee deep in mud (do chickens even have knees???) and no seattle channel show after all which turns out to be fine since we were all sick and couldn't make it outside to clean up the yard anyways. 

There's a lot of work to be done before we move-we need to dig up the peach and plum tree and the various roses and flowers we want to take with us and pot them up.  The plum tree might have to be b&b'd to transport it since I think the root system is going to be too big for any of the pots we have.  We have to take down the raised beds and the chicken run...yikes!  Only 7 more weeks to go too.

I guess I'd better get to work - I'm wishing I had my zipcar membership now to rent trucks with, I may have to re-sign up.

whoa!

It looks like our chicken coop is going to be on The Seattle Channels bit about the tool library!  yikes!  I guess that means we're going to have to clean up some of the neglected yard.  Since the move has been planned there's been less maintenance and we've left the rotting tomatoes in the garden to compost...

plans for clean up are being made, fresh straw will be purchased to put down in the chicken run to make it less muddy and cute boots will be worn :)  you know - the important things!

From Vine to Pot

We collected pounds (!) of tomatoes from the garden today. Tonight: making spaghetti sauce
Tomorrow: eating spaghetti sauce, with spaghetti. MmmmMMMMmmmm!

New house & gardening

We went over to the new house this weekend to do some yardwork and see what all we would want to do. There is a LOT of work to be done.  We all came home and made lists of what we want to do - just to start. *sigh* I do love projects but this is a ton.  First there is a lot, no that doesn't begin to describe it - there is a massive amount of english ivy there.  It's growing up and over the back fence and garden shed and must be pulled down before it pulls down the shed.  There's Ivy all over the front  rockery climbing the trees and pulling the front fence down too.  We pulled part of it from the front just by the entry stairs, it's a lot of work. The property is much larger than our current property and has a lot of mature plants onsite including an apple and pear tree!  I'm excited about that and with the addition of our plum and peach tree we'll have a small orchard going!  There are also a few raspberry bushes so we'll have those and our blueberries.

  Then there's building the new chicken coop.  We've decided to make it a few feet longer and wider since we plan to add 2 ducks and a few more chickens (2 I think) and we picked  a space for it.  It will be perfect, right next to the garden and on the opposite side of the house from the BBQ and patio area except there's a full grown juniper there right now...actually 4 of them.  *rolls eyes*  Fortunately they have grown sideways so you can actually walk behind them and cut them down - we'll need to remove 1 completely to make space for the run and we may end up moving them all so we can put the fruit trees there.  I'm so very thankful that we can get a chain 'saw and wood chipper from the tool library!!!  The mulch will come in quite handy. 

Once some major pruning is done, the chicken run is built and the ivy is under control (work party, anyone?!?) we should be able to do some fun things!  Jen thinks a rosemary hedge would be nice on top of the rockery and I LOVE this idea!  Also, I'm hoping to cover the front of the rock wall with some sedums, Iberis and stonecrop.  It should be really beautiful.  We would also like to make the raised beds taller and are considering using cement blocks but most likely we'll end up using the burlap since that will be free.  There are also some overgrown concord grapes that we would like to build a larger trellis for or perhaps an arbor! 

There's lots of list making and planning going on right now, I guess I'm glad to have fall quarter off from school since there will be so much to do...I'm hoping to get some help from classmates though for some of the pruning and perhaps even some plant ID...

We'll going to try to post before and after pictures but things are busy right now so we'll likely be behind. :)

Moving!

It looks like the moving is official.  We'll be moving by the end of October or November.  The new space has lots of gardening and chicken room and already has 4 or 6 raised beds built in!  We'll be able to build a new chicken run first so that the chickens will be easier to move I think that's the only thing I'm worried about. It was so much work building the first one! I guess that means we should be really good at building the 2nd one right?!? lol

There's a lot of planning to be done but we're going to try to move as much of the soil and plants as we can and hopefully the peach and plum tree too!  This is going to be an adventure! Good thing I love adventures ;)

Oh noes, we might be moving...that means all new kinds of gardening adventures. *sigh
I hate moving.

More Harvest and another egg! 

eggs!

We got our first eggs today, Go Chickens!  I'm so excited! :)

Harvest

Green beans, yellow beans, purple beans, baby onions & garlic, yellow tomatoes, pear tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, zucchinis and pepporcinis

I love this part of the year - tons of stuff to eat!

The garden is growing and growing and growing....we have a squash plant that I swear is 2' tall and 3' around.  Amazing.  With help from our NGP I was able to water the beds today on my crutches.  This weekend is going to be lots of work outside, cutting down knotweed and weeding beds, things have been getting overgrown in my 3 weeks of sitting about.  I'm getting much more mobile on my crutches and can even put a small amount of weight on my foot and move it quite a bit. I'm really looking forward to walking on my own again!

I love this point in the garden, the only thing I'm really worried about at all is the knotweed, everything else, with a little water, takes care of itself.  Now it's just a matter of waiting for all of the delicious harvest! 

And today it rained. Yay!

Yesterday I hobbled around the garden and looked at all the growth, everything looks so awesome!  The potatoes grow so fast it's amazing and the cabbages are filling out, the cucumbers are covered in flowers, the broccoli is about 2" tall and needs thinned, the tomatoes are all finally getting covered with little fruits. It's so awesome to watch!  We got an awesome harvest today, a zucchini, 3 tomatoes, lots of purple beans and yellow wax beans and some pepporcini's and hot peppers.  We will post pictures later.

Just did a quick walkabout in the garden, and we have TOMATOES!!! They are tiny and green but I grew them from little babies!!! Are newly planted bush peas and broccli are looking good as are all the peppers in their yellow containers. So far we have had a harvest of beans, zuchinni, a few tomatoes of the SSCC freebies, blueberries, and tons of herbs. For a year that struggled I would say we have done fantastic!

Things are growing like crazy right now - that means all of the blackberries and knotweed are trying to encroach on everything too.  *sigh*  It's frustrating to be on crutches and not be able to work in the garden.  Tomorrow I'm going to try some weeding around the roses and strawberries because I think I can sit on the ground with my leg out and do that, I might even try some weeding in the raised beds if they need it since I can probably do that from a camp chair.  

I'm excited for some planned improvements next year but I think all of our projects this year are on hold until I get better. It's a lot of work doing all of this on your own and Jen has been doing an amazing job of taking care of things on her own - I am way impressed and feel very lucky to have a gardening partner :) 

 Things I am excited to help with is learning to can pickles when our cucumbers grown and make plum jam when the plums are ripe.  I'm also going to work on building a tall frame to grow the sugar snap peas on next year and build some potato bins.  Not sure how much building can be done with limited mobility but I'm sure I can figure it out.  2 other small things I want is to find a semi-permanent location for my duck kiddie-pool and possibly plant a few water plants in it and make a fountain with the big blue pot.  Not essential but fun to do. 

My new blueberries are looking fantastic and I'm glad to see they are growing in their pots well since they won't be going into the ground until this fall I think they doubled in size since I got them.

pictures

10 million pictures are never fun to upload and the FB links aren't always a good plan so here's Picasa links for all the pics since 2009 for anyone who likes to look at pictures.

2009:

2009

2010 Spring Break gardening:

SpringbreakGardening

April 2010:

April 2010

Random gardening since 2009:

Gardening

2010 tomato bed project:

tomato bed 2010

potting table project:

potting table

July 2010 slideshow

View all

Get your own

Little yellow rose is still hanging on, I don't know if its going to make it another year...












Here is a new rose, smells wonderful and the colour is very nice, I don't want to plant this guy until he is done flowering.


















Some lilies from our flower bed out front, I missed out on bringing them in last year; a mistake I won't make again. They have an intoxicating aroma and I have one bunch in the living room and another in Lacy's room.








Three pots of the venus flytrap stayed inside in their terraruim while another smaller pot went outside to join my two pitcher plants. We are going to have quite the carnivorous bog, but that is a plan for another day.










Here are the three bromeliad pups with the venus flytrap in the background and some african violets. All the indoor plants are doing very well.











I just picked up this hydrangea at Trader Joe's its not too big right now but hopefully will be a ten foot bush eventually. When he came home he was a light blue colour but with the acidity of the mulch, added coffee grounds, and planting him near an evergreen bush its turning a very nice shade of violet.






The climbing lily starts out with the yellow framing around the red petals and then they mature to a deep bright red without any yellow at all. They are gorgeous! But not 6' tall :(










This is one of the free tomatoes from SSCC. I believe this one is for making paste.

















Yay more zucchinis! The zucchini plant is huge this year.












We now have beans, this one here is a yellow wax bean. Pretty tasty!


















and some purple bush beans again this year - they are so pretty!
















The grapes on the fence are doing really well too, Lacy is excited to eat them!

















Look! The cabbage is finally starting to get a head on it. The spider living in the middle must be doing it's job to keep the cabbage moth larvae away.











These are some type of giant 'crazy' squash that I got from Jarett's (the NGP) mom. We're not sure what type they are but apparently they are large and have green flesh. The leaves are easily twice the size of the other squash.
















Our potatoes are growing really fast! As soon as they get another 4" tall or so we will add more dirt and unroll the bags a bit. We think this will be in about 2 more days. We are thinking of building a frame around the bags so that they don't fall over when fully unrolled and so that we can add another bag on top if they keep growing up. We might have a LOT of potatoes this winter!














This is another tomato bed it hasn't filled out entirely yet, it's 6 free tomatoes from SSCC and the front row I grew from seed.







The raised beds look awesome!












These are some of the peppers from SSCC, that we got for free to add to our container garden.













Our container pepper garden including the banana and bell peppers that I grew from seed. I have planted a few peppers in the ground just for comparison and its nice to know that my instincts were right, they are doing much better in the containers.














See the size of those tomato plants? Some of them are up to our waists. They all have flowers but none of the ones grown from seeds have fruits, yet.

With all the difficulties and so much work over the last couple weeks we haven't done much of a gardening update. So here are some pictures we took a few weeks ago, enjoy!



Totally completed chicken home with permanent door and everything.







Here is Lacy repotting her venus flytraps, turns out she had 13 little guys in that tiny little pot.












Here is our raised bed looking well, we have at least two cabbage heads and we decided to add some more beans and peas which may or may not produce this year. The tomatoes in the bed are also doing well.















Here is a nice picture of Lacy repotting her orchids, why isn't she using our potting bench?-I don't know!











Here is the end result of that climbing lilly we were waiting for. Its quite pretty but 8ft high it is not! More like 11 inches....

....yay? sunshine!

Wow.  to expand on my last post summer has arrived with a 20 degree jump in temperature overnight.  We've gone from mid 70's (or lower!) to mid 90's.  It is HOT!  The garden is loving it - the tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini have visibly grown over the last 2 days and I'm sure we will see even more growth in the rest of the garden.  Jen just planted more seeds yesterday: bush beans, summer squash, spaghetti squash and a crazy squash (Just what IS a crazy squash?!?).  Hopefully these will all come up soon.

The chicken run door is finally built - I borrowed a jigsaw and a speed square from the tool library and even made the awesome mitered corners on the door frame and made braces with other scrap wood so it would stay square then covered it with mesh and cross brace.  All that we need now is to buy the hinges. Funny thing about building is that when something is only a 1/4" off of square (say a doorjam) it makes a huge difference in building a door.  I cut our door a 1/2" narrower than the doorjam but since it didn't entirely work  apparently it would have been better if there was a 1" difference width wise.  Who knew it made such a difference?!?  oh well, the door still works and is nice and square - it just looks odd without a square door jam.  I think I put enough braces in that it won't warp with the sun too.  Once the door is installed the run will be complete!!!

Now that most of the major projects are done I'm already off to thinking about more projects: widen the tomato bed for next year?  plant a wisteria vine on the fence? clean out the basement and make space to hang the potatoes, onions and garlic I hope to have this fall?  dig out new flower beds along the front walk and fill with bulbs, daylilies, crocosmia and peonies?  Plant more blueberries and maybe an apple tree?

Not sure what all of that we will do, I've got the wisteria vine in a bucket of water to see if it will root, planning on cleaning out the basement this next week and I will be keeping my eyes open for blueberries on sale.  We've been talking about getting some baby ducks when they are available at the feed store so we'll have to find a place to put their pool.  We found several smaller varieties we liked online but we'll probably buy whatever we can get locally so we don't have to order them online.  I don't like the idea of ordering animals through the mail - it just seems cruel especially in our hot weather right now.

We will have to update with some new pictures tomorrow.  Oh - and in some other good news the hot weather is killing the aphids infecting the plum tree, hopefully it will recover soon.

Summer has arrived! Yay sunshine!

Newest Garden Pictures

She is carrying dirt for the potatoes, we are planting stuff at 9pm! Thats why its so dark.












All the wet cool weather caused some mold to show up on the zuchinni but its otherwise quite happy and is producing a lot of flowers.













A bunch of scraps of plants and weeds destined to be chicken feed.













My purple rose, it starts out pink and fades to a light dusty lavendar and smells wonderful.













Lacy planting the garlics.













One perfect radish. These guys went to seed before we could eat them, we kept hoping they would get bigger. Too bad they got all woody and were turned into chicken food.














Free garlic plants.














Burlap sacks filled with mulch dirt and potatoes.

lots of work going on...

We've been very busy in our garden, planting more (free!) tomatoes, peppers and garlic.  We dug out the Euphorbia stumps by the house and created another new tomato bed and removed the struggling sugar snap peas in favor of more tomato space.  I sure hope our summer weather gets here soon so we actually get tomatoes!!!

We've also acquired (free!) Crocosmia and Himalayan poppies and created a new flower bed and purchased a peach tree to put in it too, it looks fantastic right now!  Yesterday was "clean up the yard day" and Jarett, the NGP, even helped by hacking down the ever-encroaching Japanese Knotwood and replanting the Euphorbia stumps along the edge of the back yard.  If they live we will have a beautiful hedge there next summer.  Jen and I planted the new tomatoes, re-did the worm bin; putting it in a rubbermaid tub this time and generally cleaned things up everything looks awesome!

Things are finally starting to grow too; we have flowers on tomatillos, tomatoes, zucchini, and garlic.  We do have a horrible aphid infestation in the Italian plum tree we have to take care of but other than that things are looking good and the chickens are happy.

Here's Jen and our new flower bed - the peach tree is on the right corner.  I'm hoping it will double in size next year.

Tomato Beds

Here is the original bed starting to fill out and get greener.


















My second little bed in front of the sugar snap peas.



























A closer picture of the bigger plants. Today this guy has a bunch of cute little yellow flowers on him, this was taken about a week ago or so.











Squash plant is doing very well in the cabbage bed.

Prying the bromeliad pups and repotting them. There is also a geranium and come rooster tail to be dealt with.













This is the container garden full of peppers I planted yesterday. We have been very busy in the garden lately.










Here's all my pepper plants, hoping they will stay warmer in the containers than they would in the tomato bed and then produce more peppers.

















A close up of all the new flowers.











A tomatillo that I grew from seeds harvested last year.












The second banana pepper of the season.



















A better image of the peach tree.