Early Gardening

I think this is the earliest I have ever had my garden in - but my Spring veggie garden is planted!

After the scorcher summer last year, I've decided I'll have a Spring and a Fall garden this year and the Summer will just be herbs and then nectar plants for the butterflies and hummingbirds. 

Also this year I am one of about 15 participants across the southern United States who are doing a marigold seed trial for a seed company.  I was sent 5 new types of marigold seeds, and I'm tracking how/when I planted them, and giving progress reports on growth rates and success.  I have lots of space available for planting, so bring on the free seeds!  I don't mind tracking things; I pretty much do that anyway.  In addition to their nursery labs, they wanted "real home gardeners" to do a trial with the seeds.

We are so warm so early this year - and the weeds were the first to notice.  I hand pulled an entire wheelbarrow full of weeds out of half of my parkway and driveway on Saturday afternoon after volunteering at Habitat for Humanity Saturday morning.  (By Saturday night I really could barely move... so sore...)  Weeding is such great therapy...

And then most of the day Sunday I worked in the backyard - it was just glorious.

The weather was picture perfect, and it was great to have the prep come together so well:  I have my own rototiller now, (thank you Red!) I used my own compost from my compost tumbler (I supplemented a little with some organic bagged, too) and I watered in my work with water from my rain barrels. 

I also made a border for one of the beds from beer bottles... turned upside down and buried so just the ends stick up... courtesy of Pinterest... (I wish I had buried them a little bit deeper...)

A bed of marigolds - with 3 existing perennials in the back

Asparagus box, with marigold seeds planted down the middle

Overview - including the small patch of sugar snap peas with trellis -
and that's my Bay Laurel plant in the middle.

Here's what I planted - and aside from the marigold seeds, they are all seeds that I had left from last year:

In existing asparagus box
50 seeds of Narai Orange marigolds

Sugar snap peas by fence with trellis

Beer bottle bed:
100 seeds Inca 1 Yellow Marigolds

Long raised bed:
Scallions
Kale
Radish
Babuda Gold Tall marigolds (25)
Italian pole bean
Marigold Discovery yellow (25)
Jalapeno
Eggplant

Back right box
Common chives
Rutabaga
Cilantro (last year's seeds germinated this year...)
Dill or fennel (came up from last year, can't tell yet which it is!)

Back left box
Curly parsley
Cucumber
Lettuce
Spinach

Front right box
Peas - super snappy
50 American Marigold Bali Orange
Carrots (last year's seeds germinated this year...)

Front left box - these plants have been in almost all winter
Rue
Pansies
Thyme
Cilantro - (mutant plant, can you see it?  Huge.)

I have butterfly perennials popping up in several places in the yard, front and back.  In the back, one borage plant is about a foot tall and just covered in blooms!  It's beautiful.  My lavender is also in bloom - both beds.
 
Happy.

Love is in the Yard

Happy (almost) Valentine's Day!

I whipped together a little  project to show some Valentine love this weekend using an old fence panel and some paint that I already had on hand.  (Disclaimer:  This wasn't my original idea... I saw it on Pinterest.  Kudos to the crafty one who came up with this first; if I knew who you are, I would give you due credit.)

I started with this old fence panel that I pulled out of the trash:

I pulled off the dead vines growing in between the planks.  Then I reinforced the planks with some new support pieces in the back, and cut off the ends to give it a uniform shape and size that I wanted.

Next I hit it lightly with a sander, and brushed it off. 

Then I made a stencil out of a roll of painter's brown paper, and taped it into place to paint:

I let it dry for a few minutes in the sun under the ceiling fan in the guest room.  I removed the stencil, mixed up some black and white acrylic craft paint to make a gray shade that I liked, and painted "love" on it.  (That was the hardest part, but it wasn't as difficult as I expected it to be... I actually contemplated calling an old neighbor who does calligraphy, and then I got a hold of myself and gave it a try myself.  It's just a freebie craft project, right?)  And then I gave it a light dusting with an aerosol polyeurathane to protect it from the weather.

And -- voila!

I put a picture hanging D-ring on the back, and looped some lightweight wire through it and around the tree so that the wind wouldn't blow it over.

Happy Valentine's Day!

A Project-y Weekend

I had a great weekend in the project department this weekend!  I dabbled around with a variety of projects, just enjoying that I didn't have anywhere that I needed to be. Even the cold didn't deter me this weekend!  Not sure what that is all about.

Saturday Red and I went and bought plywood for our Habitat for Humanity sign that we build every year for the Dallas Bar Association's build.  I found a piece of 1/4" plywood at Home Depot that was damaged, and negotiated a half price deal on that.  Score!  We also picked up a fence post for support, and some rope for ... dreadlocks.  I know - sounds weird.  The house street name is "Jamaica" so I'll leave it at that for now.  More details as construction progresses.  We have to have it ready by Saturday, March 3rd so it won't dangle too long.

Then I puttered around with a Valentine project.... I'll write that post next...

And THEN I picked up on the infamous door frame project.  I worked on it briefly last week but didn't make enough progress to merit a post.  After this weekend I have the first three pieces of wood up that form the doorway itself (I always struggle with terminology -- is that the door frame?  The door jamb?) installed.  I was short one stained piece, so I stained that Saturday and installed it on Sunday.  Then yesterday I was holding up the pieces of door trim to see where they would fall width-wise. and realized that I needed to sand off the bead of old glue (?) where the edge of the fabric for the vapor barrier had been affixed.  The trim wouldn't cover it up, but it would be difficult to sand it off once the trim was in -- too close to have room to work.  Here is a work-in-progress photo on that:

(I'm sanding off the white vertical line.)  Once finished, the sanded area didn't look much different than the surrounding areas, so I think when I oil the wood it will disappear all together.  At least I hope...  The sanding didn't take as long as I expected it to, and I was doing it manually with a 100 grade sandpaper.  I have an electric rotary sander, but I knew that would kick up a ton of dust and I wasn't willing to drape everything for that small project.  When I was done sanding I wiped the area down with a damp rag. 

Also in that photo you can see the edge of the door frame installed.  I neglected to get a full-on photo of that.

I also had one remaining area of sheet rock to remove -- it was behind my shoe shelving, and I got that removed:

Here is a photo of the sheet rock pulled down, revealing a layer of paper, and then the vapor barrier fabric peeking out behind that.  I don't know if the paper is just some other layer of materials that served some obscure purpose (let me know in the comments if you have a guess) or if it is just the world's most boring wallpaper...

Then I was ready to install the trim on the bedroom side of the wall.  And that's where my day came to an end.  I didn't get install the 2x6" properly, and now my trim will not lay flush.  I was a little frustrated, but holding the trim up just to see what it will look like (fabulous!) was so exciting that the frustration took second place.  Getting the first planks installed, and getting that hideous line of glue sanded off made such a huge difference visually that I was pumped up once again about the project.

I haven't decided how I will resolve my problem -- will I have to rip out what I've done, rip the planks narrower and reinstall?  Can I use a planer and just shave off that 1/8 - 1/4" that is protruding?  I don't know.

Also, I still need to make the plinths to go at the base of the trim... and I need to figure out what I want the finished top of the door trim to look like.  I keep changing my mind about that.  I think I need to go to the library and flip through some books of 1929 Tudor styles.  I've read that the trim in that period is narrow and lighter, but I need more guidance than that!

Then since I had my compressor and nail gun in the house, I decided to throw some dividers into my silverware drawer.  I loathe those plastic silverware trays -- plastic is gross -- and every time I open and close the drawer the tray slides around in the drawer.  It just bugs me.  So, this goes into the category of a quick and dirty fix, knowing that it is temporary (because really, how long can I resist ripping out those cabinets?)  Here's how it turned out...

Not glamorous, but very functional -- but look at the drawer I started with -- even it has two or three different colors of paint on it!  So this is an improvement for me; it just gives me a little mental space... Ohhhh, it's the little things, isn't it?  : )  And the happiest part of all of that is that the plastic tray is in the "take to Goodwill" bag by the back door.

And, also in the kitchen -- I've discovered that a yoga mat* tucked under the fronts of my washer/dryer inside the laundry area doors is a stellar draft stopper.  I also rolled up a little rubber-backed rug and tucked it down in front of the dishwasher... and I'm just going to say:  My kitchen was a LOT warmer.   Score one for the home team. 

* http://life.gaiam.com/article/50-ways-reuse-your-yoga-or-fitness-mat

The Dig

I found myself with a couple of free hours this afternoon and in a fit of motivation decided to go under my house and see if I could determine what the issue is with my front hose spigot.  It has had low water pressure since this summer and two weeks ago when I was under the house for a kitchen investigation I saw that the dirt around the spigot pipe was damp.

Growing up I often thought it would be really cool to be an archaeologist, so I tried to reframe this as an adventure.  I zipped up in my zoot suit, donned my work boots, got a big light, a shovel, a hand trowel, put my cell phone in a Ziploc bag and down I went.  This is what it looked like before I started digging; from the slope of the dirt it looks like I am not the first one to dig out around this pipe.  So much for any cool archaeological finds...

The top of that pipe sticks out on the surface side and is the spigot.  You can see how the dirt at the base is a darker color due to dampness.  The good news is, damp dirt is really easy to dig into to move.

Most of the horizontal pipe leading to the vertical was already above ground.  I had maybe 3 feet that I needed to excavate and the most that it was underground was about 6 inches.  I alternated between my hand trowel for the detail work right along the pipe, and the shovel for sloping the steeper sides.

My first impediment were some tiny -- about the diameter of a pencil or less -- tree roots.  Ah ha!  I thought... that's what's going on.  As I uncovered more the pipe I also thought maybe the whole pipe was just corroded and sort of oozing/leaking.  As I dug, the dampness extended further up the pipe away from the foundation than I had realized.

The soil was cool and it smelled damp and earthy - just like our fruit cellar growing up where we used to go hide out during bad weather -- with the whole family there with you it was sort of a party.   (Or, the sort of scary place where you had to go to get onions and potatoes for mom at dinner time when you couldn't bribe an older sister to go in your place.  I always grabbed whatever potatoes were closest to the door -- never caring if bigger and better ones were at the top of pile.)  And again, nothing creepy crawly made an appearance - for which I am always very grateful.

And then as I followed the pipe towards the foundation and looked where I was headed, I realized that um, these two pipes are not going to meet:

So the next logical thought is that there is a horizontal pipe there at the base of the foundation, right?  Right.  Except not.  As I dug more, no horizontal connector pipe was appearing.  And then I stuck my fingers back behind the horizontal pipe at its base... it's a sick joke right?  The pipe has a 90 degree angle all right -- and it goes under the foundation, away from me.  The connection is on the outside of the foundation, not inside where I was digging.

The good news - because I try hard to be a positive person - the good news is that I didn't hit a gusher.  (Well not on THIS side anyway...)  And, more good news is that the leak was probably really good for my Japanese Maple and my Yew on the other side during the summer drought.  Talk about deep watering of the tap roots...

But I do think that what I presume is a crack in the pipe was caused by a tree root.  A slow, gradual crack is going on is my guess.  Here's a close up, and I can see a lighter color horizontal tree root there between the pipes.

I guess my next task is to dig on the other side.  And that's going to be a whole lot more digging than this was - but hey, at least I'll be topside when I do it!

Follow Up Post - My Cold Kitchen

A few posts ago I blogged about Red and I getting under my house and adding some sheets of insulation in an attempt to remedy my kitchen always being cold. 

Last night was the first night since then that it has been chilly; this morning my kitchen was cold. 

I'm sure the insulation helped some, but there must be more that needs to be done.  I already know one problem area -- it's behind the dishwasher.  I've insulated the exterior wall under the sink, and I tried to insulate the area behind the dishwasher, but I couldn't reach back behind it well enough to really get the insulation taped into place like it needs to be.  When I stood in front of the dishwasher this morning in bare feet my feet were instantly cold.

When I saw Red this morning I related the kitchen "fail."  We talked about the dishwasher space, and what that exterior wall looked like when we tore the upper cabinets out, and how thin the wall was. (I could see exterior brick in one place!)  Well you KNOW where that conversation led to -- fantasy talk of ripping out the lower cabinets.  Really.  Just give me a reason.  I told him I don't have very many things stored under there... and that I seriously could use some 1x12s on saw horses and a mud room/utility sink until I remodel my kitchen and I would be happy.  The frightening part?  He wasn't even surprised.  Uh-oh.