My Spring Break (Vacation?)

So... spring break is over, and boy HOWDY do I need a break!  It was a crazy busy week, and the philosopher and I got lots of projects accomplished, and we also saw some interesting things, and even had a few fun adventures!

Here's the run-down.

On Tuesday, we SOLD OUR HOUSE in Alabama!  There was much rejoicing, and celebrating, and high-fiving, and wiping of the brows.  ::WHEW::
 
On Wednesday, we started a major outdoor project.  We dug in a herb bed to the back yard, using old retaining wall blocks and a load of happy dirt.  We also went on a quest to my new favorite place, Pike Nurseries.  We bought several shade plants for the shrub bed on the north side of the house, and some happy herbs to go in the new digs we built.  (Pun *so* intended!)  You can't really tell from the picture, but it's on a hill so we had to do a lot of digging on the back side to get it level.

On Thursday, we added a square-foot garden next to new herb bed.  (And I plotted and schemed about all the lovely veggies I'm going to plant, starting with sugar snap pea seeds going down in two weeks!)

On Friday, we took a trip to another favorite place - Harry's Farmers Market in Marietta.  We were continuing our house-selling celebration and got all kinds of tasty things: locally raised steak, Mississippi sweet potatoes, hummus, brie, and lots of other yummy food.  We don't go there often, but it's a real treat when we do!

We also finished the side bed, planting my grandmother's sweetshrubs, a hydrangea, an azalea, a Pieris, and some coreopsis.  Here's a great before-during-and-after comparison:

                                                                                        

                                                                       

Saturday I went on a treasure hunt, armed with nothing but a map with no measurements.  ::heh::   The back edge of our property is a tangled piney, viney, woodsy mess.  We didn't know *exactly* where the property corners were, and wanted to know how far back we could clear into the woods.  So I took the old survey we had (from when the house was built) and made some rough estimates to find the scale.  I then put on my work boots, grabbed my hoe, and headed out, armed with my trusty tape measure.  After a few rough starts, I actually found the pins!  And we have a lot more property than was visibly apparent.  Score!!

We also got to pull out the telescope and enjoyed an early evening clear sky.  I got to say "hello" to some of my favorite objects  - the Pleiades, the Orion nebula, and the Beehive cluster.  Even better is the picture the philosopher took of the moon.  Yup - I took the first one, and he took the other one standing on our back deck.  Near Atlanta.  With the neighborhood sodium arc lights beaming bright.  Beautiful!  (Click on the second one and admire the detail!)

Sunday after church the philosopher did some major wiring in the garage, in preparation for the New Garage Doors we ordered earlier in the week.  He did a great job - it was shocking!  ::snicker::  I did a pile of laundry (we got every bit of grubbies dirty during the course of the week) and then collapsed in exhaustion.  Can I take a vacation now?  I'm too tired to be at work!

Not Much to Say (but I'll say it anyway?)

Wow.  How did it get to to be February already?  And not just February, but *mid* February?  It's a dreary, cloudy day, and both the philosopher and I are fighting bronchitis and a sinus infection.  ::sigh::  At least we have a quiet weekend in front of us to rest and recover.

The big news of course, is Selling Brown: if all goes according to plan, we will close on our house in Alabama next Saturday.  The buyers are doing a final walkthrough this weekend, so we are extremely hopeful that by the end of the month we'll no longer be property owners in Alabama!  (And yea, verily, that is a Good Thing.)

In tasty news, I have discovered a crazy-sounding but absolutely yummy soup recipe involving red lentils, sweet potatoes, and an apple.  Before you turn up your nose, you should try it.  It's reminiscent of butternut squash, but with a savor and spice that is just delightful on a cold winter night!

In gardening news, I have finally transplanted almost all the plants I dug up around Brown.  My grandma's roses, bulbs, irises, canas, hostas, and lily of the valley are all in the ground now.  The only thing left are the sweet shrubs, and since I haven't quite decided where to put them they'll have to wait a little while longer.  It's been so warm that the daffodils have already come up, so now we're hoping there's no deep cold that comes through to kill them off before they bloom.  Crazy weather, indeed!

Two weekends' hard labor...

and we finally have ourselves a beautiful new front bed.

Way better than the ... disaster ...

it was when we bought the house.  Yes, that is a multi-level pond (er... "mosquito breeding system") with no pumps.  And pavers are being used for pond stones.  And *retaining wall* blocks are being used for edgers.  Oh, and did you notice all the lovely heat-retaining lava stone?  Yeah.  Ugh.

So we scooped out all the rocks.  We used the pavers as pavers around back, and stacked up the retaining wall blocks for a future raised bed.  And all the other medium river rock we spread out underneath the deck in back, so we could put a chair under there in the shade.  (The lava rock?  We created a drainage area under where the gutter downspout and the AC drip line come out, so it's not mushy and we don't have to mow it!)

Then the bed looked like this:

(Do you notice the appropriate use of retaining wall blocks?)  Ahhh.... Georgia red clay.  So we rented a tiller and chunked up the clay and roots and rocks (well, we raked out the rocks, anyway).  And then we bought a cubic yard of "planter's mix soil amendment".  And tilled the bed again!

To this result:

Talk about a clean slate!

We traveled to east Atlanta to Maple Ridge Nursery and bought a Acer Palmatum "Crimson Queen" - a lace-leaf Japanese maple.  It's a high graft, and so should eventually have a nice umbrella shape to it.  We also added a Camellia sasanqua "Yuletide" and a Gardenia jasmonides "August Beauty" as the foundation shrubs.  And, finally, my grandmother's hostas, ferns, and caladiums have a home too.

I'm also planning to add some Heucheras and some Dinathus in the front, but since they're perennials they can wait until spring. ::whew::
Oh, and did you notice we also added proper edging stones??  We'll eventually extend those around to the bed on the side.  Yes, the side bed is also full of river stones... and red clay and a bunch of sickly teeny-tiny azaleas.  There's also some lovely Coreopsis and a Sweetspire (I think) - but moving all that is a project for another day.  I really need to do some thinking about what will work well on the north side of the house.

In the meantime, I'm going to sit in my living room and relax, and admire my happy plants!

Divide and conquer!

Last week was a busy week.  Our offer on Misty was accepted, so now we're getting all the ducks in a row for all the inspections and such.  We have a home inspection scheduled for this Friday, and we're both planning to go over for it.  (Tip: if you plan to buy a house one of the most valuable - and free! - things you can do is go through the inspection with your inspector.  Ask questions.  Listen to what he has to say about everything.  Take copious notes.  You'll learn tons and have an even better idea of what your new house will need over and above what the inspector includes in his report.)  The philosopher has his grubby clothes all picked out, as well as his boots and a small notebook.  Me?  I have a sketch of Misty's interior, and will go armed with a tape measure.  Then when I get home I can take a piece of poster board, draw a scale drawing of the interior, and start arranging everything! (Yes, I'm a nerd.  Haven't you figured that out yet?)

These measurements and arrangements are critical to the Divide And Conquer Plan of buying a house.  We have some very talented folks in our family, and we will definitely be calling on them for help.  My dad the cabinetmaker will work with us to build some additional storage for the kitchen, and my wonderful mother-in-law is a whiz at custom curtains.  Since we have several very quirky windows, her help and advice will be invaluable.  (For example, when you have a 5' x 5' window - not frosted - situated directly over the bathtub, what kind of curtains make sense?  What kind of crazy exhibitionist designed this house, anyway????)

The yard is a different matter.  If you recall, I transplanted tons of plants from my grandma's yard when she passed away.  I want to take some of these with me, of course.  So I spent most of yesterday afternoon dividing, conquering, and re-potting.  Now I have several good divisions of green hostas, and striped hostas, and red cannas, and japanese ferns, and chocolate mint, and spearmint, and lemon balm, and sage, and rosemary.  I already have my sweetshrubs in two pots, and in order to minimize the shock to the roses I think I'll wait to dig them up until we have a place to put them in the ground at the new house.  My two japanese maples are still in pots, and may actually be large enough to plant this fall, and I've got two cuttings of our corkscrew willow rooting, too.  I'm also going to wait until the daffodils and lily-of-the-valley are done blooming before I do any divisions there.  What's really great about my plan is that I have a nice shady bed in the front yard that all shade plants will absolutely love, and at the far back, lower end of the property there's already a swamp willow, so our corkscrews will be quite at home.  Now I just have to keep them alive until I have a new yard to put them in!

Let the gardening begin!

Over the winter, the philosopher and I built a 4' x 4' raised bed, with a trellis net on the north side and dividers marking each foot square section.  Indeed, it looks a lot like THIS, only there's nothing growing yet, and we used conduit instead of wood for the trellis.  (I know, I know - I'm a slacker using someone else's photo.  If the sun ever comes out again I'll take a picture of ours!)  We filled it with our very own compost, peat, vermiculite, and a little bit of bagged poo from the Big Box Garden Center.  The theory of a Square Foot Garden is to have very loose, friable soil with lots of organic matter.  You can plant things closer together, and don't have miles to hoe before you sleep.  It seems like a valid theory, so I'll let you know how it goes!  My only worry is that you have to water very regularly, but when you're only talking about 16 square feet, that seems awfully manageable.

This weekend, despite the rain and cold temps, I planted my early spring veggies: ruby Swiss chard, teton hybrid spinach, romaine lettuce, bibb lettuce, yellow onions, and sugar snap peas.  In two weeks I'll plant a second crop.  I mean really - who can eat 8 heads of lettuce all at once?  So I'm spacing out the planting which means there will be a few bits ready every week, and we can enjoy a continuous bounty.  If, that is, the rabbits don't figure out where the garden is.  It's pretty close to the house, so I'm hoping the cat staring out the window will be a good defense (in place of the fence).  ::snicker::  If not, then I'll have to escalate the battle.  I have a plan, but I don't want to comment about it on the off chance the opposition reads my blog.  Rabbits are devilishly tricky little blighters, after all.  (Much like Cornish pixies!)

Anyway, towards the end of the month I'll add carrots to the garden, and plant our new herbs in the herb bed - chives, oregano, cilantro, and TONS of sweet basil to go along with the rosemary, sage, thyme, chamomile, and various mints we already have.  Come early May, the peas, lettuce and spinach will be done, and I'll plant peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant in their places.  I don't plan to start those from seed, so we'll pay a visit to the most bountiful Master Gardener Plant Sale at the end of April.  When the last of the chard comes out, in will go the bush beans.  And if it looks like we'll still be where we are in the fall then I will plant some winter squash and do another round of late-season chard and lettuce!  And if I can talk the philosopher into it, I may even try to do a winter planting of kale.

So bring on the spring, and let the gardening BEGIN!!

The Shrub Bed - Almost Done

Well, for all intents and purposes it IS done... except for the colorful perennials which I'll add in the spring.  But the hard part - the hard work - is all over.  The holes were dug (and the digging bar was utilized - darn that Alabama red clay!) and the happy hummousy composty earth was mixed.  Then the plants were released from their plastic bondage and set free to root deeply.  They were all a bit root-bound, which is to be expected for a fall planting.  I took especial care with the camilla.  At the last minute I decided to go with the sasanqua instead of the japonica.  The sasanqua variety is a little less formal, but more importantly it is more cold hardy.  And seeing as I live in north Alabama, you can never quite be sure what the weather will do.

My biggest worry is the crape myrtle.  The three main trunks were taped together, and it looks as though they'd been that way for a while.  When we took the binding off, the tree didn't relax much - you can see in the photo how tightly the trunks are bunched together.  If it doesn't relax this fall, over the winter I'll stake them separately (after pruning, but NO crape murder!) and see if I can gently encourage them to grow a bit more spaced out.  In the long run it will make the tree happier, and prettier too.

So here's the whole bed - the picture was taken from the sliding glass doors facing the yard.

The row of hollies is probably close to 40 years old, as is the big holly tree in the back.  It's hard to see, but at the far end of the bed is one of my grandma's rose bushes.  All the rest is the new plantings.

 

This is a close up of the three gulf stream nandinas and the tea olive (osmanthus).

 

This is the sweetspire, the crape myrtle (see how close the trunks are?) and one of the gardenias.

Finally, this is the other gardenia, the camellia - and did I mention it already has buds? - and the barberries.

I am really proud of this project.  I designed it, and we implemented it perfectly (well, I suppose I can't really say that until the plants survive the winter, can I??)  So I'll pamper my new plants this winter, water and talk to them and encourage them to grow.  As Tom Bombadil said, "Eat earth!  Dig deep!  Drink water!"... though I hope none of my trees grows as angry as Old Man Willow!

A bit of inspiration

“Gardens are not made by singing "Oh, how beautiful," and sitting in the shade.” - Rudyard Kipling

So this weekend we're planting our shrub bed. Or, well [ahem], we're going to START planting our shrub bed. With twelve large holes to dig, it might take a bit longer - especially when one of those holes will be for a ten-gallon tree. Yeah. Um.... SO! Anybody got a spare shovel and want to come to Alabama for a weekend???

Here's what we're planting....


Osmanthus fragrans (Sweet Tea Olive)
Itea virginica (Henry's Garnet Sweetspire)
Nandina domesticus x (Gulf Stream Nandina)


Gardenia jasminoides (August Beauty Gardenia)
Camilla japonica (Professor Sargent Camellia)
Berberis thungbergii (Crimson Pygmy Barberry)

And the centerpiece will be a Dynamite Crape Myrtle...

(I nicked the photo from my World's Best online nursery - if you live in the southeast and need to order plants, check 'em out!!)

And yes, I even have a garden plan. ::sigh:: Are you surprised?? As I played around with garden designs, I had the notion that I was actually pretty good at it - at least the layout. I'm still struggling with plant choices and what will do well in our soil and with our sun exposure.

This plan includes a couple of long-range projects (the arbor right next to the house and the patio with a pergola out by the hollies) but even without those two elements, I think the space will look really good come next spring. I'm still agonizing over perennials to plant around the shrubs, so I'm sure I'll inflict that agony on my hapless readers at some point. My colors for the bed are white and red, and that's only because I wanted to focus on sweet-smelling plants - which are mostly white. So the tea olive and the gardenia and the sweetspire are all amazingly fragrant, and they even bloom at different times. (I feel so gardener-ish!)

So that's what I'm sitting inside dreaming about today. And on Friday, we'll make the trek to the nursery, and the digging will commence! You'll be there with your shovel and garden gloves around noon, right? ::grin::

Fighting for the bed!

Heh. And now I bet you're wondering what in the *world* I'm talking about, right? Did the philosopher make me sleep on the couch? Have we been overtaken by cimex lectularious? Or has the cat gone rabid and taken refuge in the master suite? Nope! None of the above!

You've read about our War Against The Pool. You've seen the results of the battle. Now we have created a blank slate, and are working to install a beautiful new shrub bed and cobblestone patio in its place. So why is it a fight? Well, do recall that we live in Alabama. And you do know that Alabama is notorious for its red clay. And, if you glance at the pictures I linked to above, the new shrub bed is backed by a row of 40-year-old holly bushes. So... red clay plus holly roots plus no rain for three weeks make for... concrete-like dirt.

We've amended the soil with manure, hummus, and potting mix (bought in bulk from our favorite local landscaping supply store (and no, by that we do not mean "Lowes" or "Home Depot"). Two weekends ago I edged the new materials with plastic edging so it wouldn't wash away. We hauled in the dirt via truck and trailer, so after we got the dirt in place we could actually sow our initial grass seed. We opted for a cheap rye grass, again just to hold the soil in place until we can reseed with something better in the spring. I also re-planted all the perennial herbs... I had to dig them up when we removed the pool and they've been languishing in pots. Now they're in the ground again with a beautiful new layer of mulch to keep them safe over the winter. And they're right by the patio, so there's easy access from the kitchen!



The reason the herb bed's not finished is because there where you see the clay at the bottom of the picture is where the edge of cobblestone patio will run. Once that part of the project is done I can add the other border stone and finish out the mulch.

This past weekend I spent a large portion of Friday and half of Saturday building the stone border for the large bed by the hollies. It's about 40 feet long, and averages to seven feet wide. The stones came from the mountain behind the house, and are the same field stone that our house facade is made of. I really like the way it looks, and it ties the back yard into to look of the house.



I really, really had fun doing this. It's like combining Tetris and Lego and aesthetics all at once! You have to make sure the stones fit together, and find smaller stones to fill in the gap, and make sure it has a pleasing curve. Of course, after two days of hauling rocks around, I am ... sore. But it's all worth it! This weekend we're heading down to Wayside Nursery (a wholesale shrub and tree company) and we'll pick up our 15-gallon Dynamite crape myrtle, our Henry's Garnet sweetspire, our August Beauty gardenias and Doc Sargent camilla, our Gold flame nandinas and our crimson pygmy barberrys. And since we're watering the grass (it's still scraggly right now, but at least it's growing!) we can set the sprinkler to make sure it gets the new shrubs too. Then they can grow their roots all winter and be fresh and happy in the spring. Yay, plants!! ::happy dance:: Ahem. Sorry. I got excited there for a minute!

Yeah, this whole project is a lot of work - shrub bed and grass and patio and such - because we're doing it all ourselves. But considering if we had hired it done it would be well over 10k - and that doesn't include the pool removal - I'm quite happy getting this done for less than a thousand dollars. And having a beautiful back yard instead of a non-functioning pool will make our house more sellable... and that's looking more and more like something we'll be needing to do next summer. (!!!)

Why do I garden? Let me count the ways...

You know, I actually don't even *have* a garden (yet) in the traditional sense. We have a patio container garden and an herb bed and some volunteers out by the compost bin, which to my joy and pleasant surprise are actually thriving!



Of course, our life is transitory right now, so we haven't been committed enough to actually till and dig and work an in-ground bed. So perhaps that's why. I don't garden because it "saves money at the grocery store". My yields aren't nearly enough to significantly lower our produce purchases...well, maybe the cherry tomatoes and basil. (Heh. We call that our bruschetta pot!)



I don't garden because I have a brilliantly green thumb. I think of "Green Thumbers" as those who garden instinctively and confidently - I actually fret over our little plants, always hesitant and uncertain about doing the right thing to make them thrive. I have a bag of bonemeal and a bag of bloodmeal and a bag of sulphur pellets we bought for the holly bushes. But I always have to run to my Vegetable Gardener's Bible and look stuff up... definitely not the hallmark of one with a green thumb! Still, this summer is shaping up to be more successful than last summer (blast those tomato hornworms and squash vine borers of 2009!) so I am taking that as a positive sign. And my flower / shrub beds are doing even better.

So, again, why am I so drawn to gardening? There's a satisfaction to it, and a heritage, too. I am so proud that I've successfully transplanted many of my grandmother's (and by extension, my great grandmother's) plants: hostas and callas and roses and lily-of-the-valley and daffodils... seeing them grow makes me inordinately happy.



There's an aesthetic quality to gardening, too. I detest "manicured" gardens - those whose shrubs are forced into boxes and balls and other unnatural shapes. But I like tidy gardens, on the other hand. Garden plots where plants grow in their natural patterns but complement their bed-mates with color and smell and texture. But... how do I square that with the idea of raised bed gardening? I delight in the idea of several neat and orderly raised beds with walkways between them and a cute (but functional!) garden fence around them... with a gate, even! Something like this, or this, or this. Maybe it's because I like the plants to look natural but I like order in terms of beds and layout? Hmm. I think that's the librarian in me transferring to my garden design...

With that mind, I've talked the philosopher into a single raised bed for next year. We're going to use the Square Foot Gardening method, which involves raised beds dug really deep and an intensive gardening style. Basically you divide a 4' x 4' block into 16 squares, and each square gets a crop according to its spacing needs. (ie: one tomato per square, but 24 carrots!) Then when you harvest one square, you can turn in some compost and plant another crop. We're going to put it out by the well house, so there's easy watering and a nice flat space. I really think I talked him into the project by agreeing that we should rent a tiller for an afternoon. He got oddly excited about that! ::grin:: Anyway, we'll prep the space and start amending the soil this summer, and (maybe) plant a late crop of lettuce before the weather turns cold in November. Then we'll be ready to go next year with a REAL garden. And that, my friends, will be a Happy Thing Indeed.

Notes to Self:

Things to do this spring...



H/T to The Joneses

Laborious Labor Day

(Unfortunately, without pictures)

The Philosopher and I had a very successful Labor Day weekend, replete with many labors! He re-wired our front porch light and added a second light on the front edge of the house. Now if you visit us after dark you can see the porch from the driveway! It was a 2-Lowes effort, so not too bad at all. He's getting very good at figuring out knotty electrical wiring solutions without either electrocuting himself or setting something on fire. Yay!

I had a different project: a new flower bed. Rather, an herb bed. Inside the pool fence. About 18 inches wide and spanning about half the length of the fence. I plan to fill it with rosemary and lavender (and maybe some chocolate mint) which will make that area smell fantabulous! Our pool area is covered with about three inches of pea gravel, so first I had to rake all that aside and redistribute it to low-lying areas. (Pea gravel is heavy, even with a wheelbarrow!) Then I had to peel the weed barrier back (slimy!) Finally I had to bring all the large stones from the front so I could line the edge of the bed with them. (And if you didn't know, large stones are even heavier than pea gravel!)

It took me about 6 hours, but the work is done. Well, we still have to get 1/2 a cubic yard of soil/leaf grow to fill the bed. (Drat this Alabama red clay!) And some mulch. But...I've got the rosemary cuttings in pots, so they'll establish a good root system in a month or so. And the lavender is layered in the front bed, so theoretically the shoots will set their roots before it gets too cold to transplant. But I have some guilt here... what on earth do you do with the extra plants you propagate? I only need about 4 of each, but you want to root more in case any don't take. I hate to just toss them in the compost...hmmm. If you need some lavender or rosemary, I may have some extras. ::grin::

Anyway, by early summer next year, we should have a fragrant bed filling the evenings with sweet and savory smells. Ahhhhhhh.

Veggies!

1. Alabama Spring Onions
2. English Peas
3. Cucumbers
4. Broccoli
5. Eggplant
6. Baby New Potatoes
7. Zucchini Squash
8. Cherry Tomatoes
9. Lettuce
10. Strawberries

These are the items we are receiving in our farm delivery tomorrow. I just can't say how excited we are! I'm thinking eggplant parmesean, fresh broccoli, zucchini bread, roasted new potatoes, cucumber-and-cream-cheese sandwiches, and lots of strawberry jam. (Not all at once of course, but it really is nice not to have to plan meals based on a trip to the grocery store.)

Now I remember...

...why I like living in the southeast!

The weekend was absolutely beautiful, near 70 degrees on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Saturday was spent with my mom, helping her clear out a storage room so it can become a bedroom for my grandma (who's moving in with mom on Monday). Friday and Sunday we spent outdoors: clearing and burning brush, repairing the back deck, and sinking a new post for our bird feeders. I also transplanted some lavender and rosemary from pots to the new herb garden bed by the front walk. Mmmmm - the lovely smells you get now just coming to our front door! I plan to add other herb-y perennials like thyme, Greek oregano, tarragon, chives, and mint as the days warm up a little more. I expect we'll have some more cold weather before too long (our local meterologist calls long-range forecasting "voodoo-land," and apparently voodoo-land shows another arctic blast coming in before the end of the month), but right now I'll take all these 70 degree days I can get!