Downscaling our Vegetable Garden

Two years ago Hillsy and I decided to turn a piece of our backyard into a vegetable garden. That was B.E. before Emma. Now that patch holds a couple of rose bushes, a few Rhododendrons, a Spirea and a few other smallish plants. There's been talk of building vegetable boxes but I finally decided to walk the talk when I read this post on DS last friday. We headed down to Home Depot and bought a few pieces of wood, brackets, screws etc and finally built our box for peas yesterday. It took me about an hour to build (Hillsy assisting) and cost less than $40. The brackets we used were a little pricey ($2.50+ each) but I'm sure you could find cheaper ones if you have the patience to hunt them down. Our heads were starting to spin and wanted to get out of HD as fast as possible, so we grabbed the first ones we saw. I would also suggest springing for the weather-treated wood so you don't have to paint or finish it yourself. *according to one of my readers, you shouldn't use pre-treated wood. I haven't looked into this topic myself, so please do some research before deciding! We'll see how this one goes... there's new talk of building more boxes!







I'm currently pre-sprouting my peas (thanks to this digginfood post, also found via Design Sponge), I already spotted a couple of roots sprouting. I can't wait to plant them in the box at the end of the week!

How long can I keep these alive?

I've been wanting to give indoor houseplants another shot since finally killing the last two of these last year AND managing to kill three succulents, which by the way, were suppose to be the easiest plants to take care of (lie)! Introducing... my new airplants (good lookin' out Melis!!!) A plant that can survive without any soil around!?! Sounds too good to be true if you ask me, but hey I'll give it a shot and keep you posted.

Fruits & Surprises

We had such an amazing long weekend (got married, mini-honeymoon, went antiquing, gardening) - it's going to take me a while to wrap it all up into one post! In the meantime, I wanted to share a couple of shots I took yesterday from our garden. Our Blueberry shrubs have finally fruited, I'm patiently waiting for them to ripen so I can start making this yummy blueberry crumb recipe again. And here's our Cherry harvest for the year... from our tiny cherry tree out back! Surprisingly sweet this year!



Most surprising of all? Hillsy and I were sitting on our deck yesterday afternoon relaxing and chomping on some yummylicous watermelon. All of a sudden he goes "That back patch is a mess. Wouldn't it be a lot better if there was some color back there?" Five minutes later we're at Home Depot buying three pots of Roses, two pots of Spireas and three other pots of "color". He immediately starts action hoe-ing the old veggie patch and two hours later we have a new garden bed full of plants! The suburbs do strange things to men.

Saving Peonies

Just so it's clear - I've never had a garden in my life (until now) and know absolutely nothing about plants and flowers AND have killed every single houseplant that I've ever owned (including low maintenance succulents and cactuses)!



We spent most of last weekend pulling weeds and cleaning up our garden beds. I noticed that a couple of our Peony plants weren't doing so well... most of the stems were bending towards the ground, a bunch had snapped from the plant base. So I stuck a couple of stakes on the ground and tied up as many of the weakened stems as I could. I was SO sad to see this one snapped stem, poor thing had a very promising bud on it (don't ask, must be the pregnancy hormones). I took it inside, placed it in some water and hoped it would survive and flower...

Happy Friday! Enjoy your weekends!!

Take That!

Protecting the fruits of our labor from *wild life.

We bought a long roll of poultry fence + wire + gardening sticks and built these around our tomato plants...

Garden Update

So far we've tried our squash, cubanelle peppers and another pepper variety (can't remember the name of it!). Soooo good! Tasted a lot "greener" compared to our usual supermarket-bought veggies.



We now have a ton of tomatoes growing, one plant has about 20 of them! They're all still green...



After hearing the sad news that our friend's (Melanie and RJ) first riped tomato fell victim to mr. raccoon, we've decided to buy sheets of mesh fencing this weekend in an attempt to secure the fruits of our labor. That's right, a preemptive move - we're learning!!

WILDFLOWER MIX

So excited, I planted some wildflower seeds (similar to this) a couple of months ago and they're finally flowering! I'm not sure if it's too late, but I planted some more this weekend.


Does anyone know what kind of flower this is?

Damn birds

Outwitted by nature again. We draped our blueberry bushes with netting but it was tough to get the netting to close at the very bottom on most of the bushes (next year we'll get larger nets). The tweetlings have discovered the entrance and have now been flying down and entering the bush from the bottom - all day access to our blueberries. I've been running out into the yard like a grumpy old woman with hands flailing yelling hey hey hey get outta there!

Trying to harvest as much as I can so we could at least have some before the bastards eat them all!

Live and learn.

First Berry

Enough Already!

It's been raining since Monday, this is nuts! Sorry I was missing in action yesterday, I was cleaning ALL day long and I have one more room to go.

My poor flowers are all wilting away but I know a couple of guys that are really enjoying all this water!!

Weekend Eats

I had a busy, but fun-filled weekend.

Saturday: Breakfast at Thé Adoré then we split up and Hillsy went to go get a haircut and I headed over to Brooklyn (craft renegade).

We're addicted to pizza from Arturo's (Maplewood). It's so freakin' good, I can't stop!!! (We've had it three nights in a row.)

Sunday: Back to Brooklyn for a blogger boondoggle aka Chicknic. Lots of yummy food and good company.

I got home in the afternoon and had time to tend to the garden. Look how our fruit trees are coming along...


The arugula is going ballistic. So amazing to be able to just pick and eat! Arugula and summer berry salad. Strawberries go so well with balsamic vinegar, also added some mozzarella cheese. Mmmm.

Filipino Sweet Meat

... that's a Hillsy term, which comes from....

A. Filipinos love their sweet meat. E.g., traditional BBQ, Tocino (cured meat), Longanisa (sausage) - all sweet!

B. Mosquitos freakin' LOOOOOOVE me. I'm flattered. Really I am, but please microvamps, enough is enough! We'd be sitting outside in the yard and for some reason, I'm the only one who gets eaten up alive. His excuse? Filipino sweet meat!


He's been on the mosquito case for a while now, looking for the best solution. Last year, we couldn't even sit outside nor open the back door - they'd come flying in and I'd get eaten up while sitting on the couch. It was ridiculous.

I'm happy to report that he's found what seems to be the best (affordable) space and personal repellent available in the market. OFF!® PowerPad® Lamp and Lantern and the OFF!® Clip-On™

I love my little fan, I've been wearing it (easily clips on to waist or pockets) while gardening and watering plants and so far so good. It'll be coming along with me to every BBQ we get invited to this year! The jury is still out - I'm a tiny bit weary since the mosquitos are not out in full force yet, but I shall try to remain hopeful...

Signs of growth

I love checking in with our plants, vegetables and trees at the end of each day.




There are always new signs of growth on a daily basis!!

I had a vision

We had our walkway put in last month and there were tons of extra pavers from the job - I decided to keep them "just in case". I knew I'd eventually use them for something...


Here's how I spent the long-weekend. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I like the little natural path between the two mirror-image borders. I'd like to eventually add a cute bench at the very end. I'm just waiting for a few more plants that I ordered and after that, the front will be basically done (for now).

C'mon grass don't be shy

I've been told that less is more in this case but I just couldn't help but tinker with the instructions.


After pulling out a crap load of pachysandras underneath the Dogwood tree, we're left with nothing but a HUGE patch of dirt. We bought this stuff from HomeDepot a couple of weeks ago that's supposed to help you with patches. Now I know it's meant for small patches but since we have more than half a bag left, I decided to use it on this larger area. I also decided to spread a very sparse layer of shady grass seed on top of the PatchMaster. I'm well aware that the PatchMaster already contains grass seeds, but I have a bad habit of doing things my way. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't - I guess we'll have to wait and see!

Here's a picture of a patch that we used PatchMaster on, you can see some grass growth.

Stones and a Bath

I had so much fun gardening this weekend, despite the fact that every muscle in my body is sore from all the digging. My least favorite part of gardening would have to be making the actual beds. Digging up grass is no party.

I found some random stones around the house and decided to create a path out of them in the back. I love the quaintness that it adds, I also bought this cute bird bath from Lowes (for about $30).


Melissa kindly recommended some plants and I'm really happy with the way it all turned out. I'd love to create another plant bed in the back, we'll see how far I can stretch out our non-existent gardening budget!!


I also found random rocks and used them as edging. I decided that the bed wasn't wide enough, so I layed the rocks a little further out - I'll have to eventually scoop out the grass.

Front Yard

It's all coming together! The front yard was one of the first things on my radar when we decided to purchase this house. We knew there was lots of potential hiding, somewhere... deep down in there.


Not sure if you guys remember, but one of the first things we did when we moved in was tackle the overgrown state of the bushes/trees out in the front. We pretty much dug everything out except for the Dogwood tree and planted new shrubs. Luckily the newly planted shrubs survived the harsh winter we had and everything is starting to bloom.

After reviewing several estimates, we decided to go with Avellino Custom Masonry to do our walkway. I'm aware that the pathway design is unconventional - the idea behind this is a 20-second adventure! Instead of a straight path to your house, you're giving the person a mini-adventure as they walk towards your house - a turn here, a tree, a turn there, oh look another tree... :) I also chose to go with straight edges versus a curved pathway because I actually like the contrast between the softness and less manicured nature of cottage-style landscaping/plant choices that I hope to be making and the actual walkway. There is a method to most of my madness.


They were scheduled to start work on Saturday but came by Thursday afternoon to start... hmmm.... when does THAT ever happen??? They had me there!

These guys were machines... the walkway was pretty much done by Saturday afternoon. Most of the work was in one day - really amazed at how quickly they worked (not to mention it was freakin' HOT on Saturday).

Hillsy and I worked all day yesterday, planting trees and we also started our garden out back. I'm really enjoying working on the yards, but I guess we'll have to see how green my thumbs are!

Dreaming of a Garden

I've been ripping out pages and pages of beautiful gardens, thought I'd share a couple of my favorites. One day, I hope my front and back yards can look half as good as these...


Any city folks interested in gardening in the burbs?

photos: Country Gardens

Herb Box

Here are my lovelies...


It'd be nice not to have to buy herbs anymore - they're so pricey at the supermarket and I rarely finish the package.

Growth

Oh lifeflixers - I know I'm killin' you with these seedling shots but I'm just so amazed by them... these things are growing like wildfire. The string beans have shot up so quickly they're even taller today (I took this pic last night). They're so cute, you should've seen them this morning all swayed towards the light, you guys must think I'm nuts but I'm completely enthralled by this process - it's just not something that I've really stopped and noticed before. The growth process of plants, food, etc.


I'm so used to seeing a string bean in a plastic bag at the grocery store - witnessing its growth from a teeny teeny tiny seed into this completely amazes me... clearly, I don't have kids.