osprey94's Blog

new bed!
Mar 31, 2008 | 4:28 PM PST

Well, the new deck bed is in place, mostly. I still need to add a leeetle more topsoil in a few areas and edge a little between the soil and the lawn, and I'm ready to plant. I made it so wide that I'm going to have to use a board to stand on while I plant so my weight's distributed better. Thanks again, Sweetlebee, for helping me along in this process. I'm such a newbie, it's pretty pitiful.  The comments were so right. 42 cubic yards was WAY too much. Anne Lovejoy in her books recommends a VERY thick mounded bed and I was going by those calculations, plus I must've made some sort of mathematical miscalculation. I ended getting about 25 cubic yards of topsoil and it was, as you'll see, more than enough. And, it was only (ha! only) $480 or so.

Today as I was tearing the muddy lawn up with the tractor, carting soil from the pile to the site, I realized I was pretty low on gas. I stopped, examined the THREE gas cans D has and decided to call him instead of guess which one was the correct gas (could've been mixed gas/oil for the chainsaw, could've been diesel, could've been regular, who knows!). He didn't answer his cell, so I decided to be independent and handle it myself so I grabbed a can, figuring we had the right kind for the tractor on hand and filled 'er up! Well, a few minutes of driving it around and it just stopped working. I knew deep down I'd put the wrong gas in it, but I didn't want to admit it. Finally I called D and asked him if stalling might have anything to do with putting gas in the thing. Well, he shared (in a calm, collected way) that gas I'd used? It was "NOT DIESEL! THAT TRACTOR TAKES DIESEL!" And I believe he also said "OH MY GOD, CALL THE TRACTOR PLACE RIGHT NOW!" I fervently wished I didn't have to admit this to the manly guys at the tractor dealership (who I know already think I'm a dingy city girl when I call with my ridiculous tractor questions), but I had to do it. They were nice and waited to laugh at me until I hung up, I'm sure. They said that it wasn't a big deal, but they would have to drain the gas out and change the filters. So, now I've gotta wait for them to pick the thing up and service it AND drop it back off again before I can keep working on whittling away at the topsoil pile.

So...here it is...ta daaaaa!

 

From the front - makes the bed look really skinny, but it's NOT.

 

And, here's how much soil I have left over!

 

And, see that strange brightness in the pictures? That's sunshine. I know, I know, it's rare, but that really is sunshine! And it lasted all of 5 minutes before the clouds came in AGAIN. I'm anticipating some more hail and a snow shower before the next showing.

deck bed...
Mar 31, 2008 | 9:14 AM PST

I just did some topsoil shopping for this new bed I want to put in around our deck. For 42 yards, the cheapest I found was $18 per cubic yard. That's going to be nearly $800. I almost choked when I heard that number.

I don't know what I was expecting. A couple hundred, maybe? Yeesh. D is going to have kittens when he hears how much it'll be. I haven't even bought the plants yet. That's going to be another thousand or so bucks. Gulp. We just bought tickets for a trip to Yellowstone this summer. Sigh. I'm actually considering calling and cancelling the delivery.

I've been planning this bed for so long. It will increase the value of our home. The deck looks terrible as it is. We need some habitat for  more wildlife. I'm just going to jump in and do this. I don't have to put in all the plants at once. I'll put them in as I can get them.

Justifying my spending is an art form. I've gotten very good at it.

Anyone else have this kind of experience bringing topsoil in for a bed? I'm literally freaking out right now. I know the eventual garden will be worth it, but ugh. I feel awful. Each plant I plunk down the money for will make me feel even worse.

 

 

hail?
Mar 29, 2008 | 6:19 PM PST

I was eating lunch near the windows in the living room, watching the clouds overtake the sun, thinking the only thing left to see today would be hail and by god, it started to hail. This shouldn't have surprised us. It's been freezing, wet, miserable and crazy weather the first few days of spring.  This morning I actually had to clear snow from the holes on the hummingbird feeders for the hummer to get his breakfast.

I didn't even inspect my lettuces and peas. I don't want to know what the hail has done to them. The other day, I checked on the peas, wondering how they were doing under the onslaught of nearly freezing temperatures and constant precipitation. They were just starting to poke up through the soil.

We're going to hire someone to help us build the greenhouse next week. HOPEFULLY, the weather will cooperate a little more then.

Pretty boring post, but there ya go! More later when it's finally acting like spring, maybe!

 

A tour...the before photos
Mar 21, 2008 | 1:52 PM PST

Weather update. This morning there was frost. Might be the last one, though.

I thought since the look of my property is going to change (hopefully A LOT) in the future, it'll be nice to keep a record of what it used to look like. Come along with me on a tour. I warn you. It's not pretty, organized or neat. But, it does have potential. Prepare to be bored to tears!

This is the back of the house, facing an expanse of boring lawn and the 10 acres of our woods beyond. One thing I'm trying to do is tie the woods into the lawn more and reduce the lawn with plantings. This is the deck I want to plant around. Look how boring it is. You can see the ugly foundation of the thing and the trash cans are a lovely addition. There's the daybed I bought minus the cushions and the shade cloth.

So, going around to the corner of the house, you can see a bit of a camellia there next to the house. I have 3 there. They grow very slowly, though and I wonder if they would like a different location better.

Walk around the end of the house there (the end with the trash cans) and you will see our 4 hydrangea bushes. There's one on the very end cut off in this picture that didn't come back last spring/summer. If it doesn't come back this spring, either, I'm pulling it out. It was my favorite, too. The flowers started out white, turned pink and finally, greenish before the end of the summer.

 

Okay, keep walking a few feet, and you see our side door. That's a lilac next to the door and boulder and a rhodie below it. This is the northwest side of the house. See all the moss?

 

Around the corner is the front of the house. We have 3 different kinds of rhodies planted here on either side of the front door. Not very exciting.

To your left is a plot of land we've used for wildflowers and most recently a big pumpkin patch. It's covered now (for the winter) in black plastic to kill the weeds that are constantly threatening to take over. I don't know what we'll do with it this year. Probably pumpkins again.  My birdfeeders are in this area because they are easily seen from the dining room/kitchen area.

Here's a shot from the other direction. You can see our detached garage from here. I want to remove those "boxes" near the birdbath in favor of large, more naturally shaped raised beds.

If you keep going around the third corner of the house, this is what you'll see:

More, weird, geometric boxes that I want to get rid of as soon as possible. The birds love those big green California Lilacs in the middle of the pic. They grow like crazy and don't need anything to flourish. The blue flowers are RIDICULOUSLY pretty, too and each bush is absolutely covered in bees while in bloom.

To your left is the shop and the veggie garden. The shop is to the right of those whiskey barrels. Those are butterfly bushes in the whiskey barrels. They're just for the hummingbirds. The rectangular box behind them is coming out, too.

 

And, here is the veggie garden. The footprint for the greenhouse is in the foreground. You can see the railroad tie-like timbers there that will form the foundation of the greenhouse. Beyond that you can see my raised beds for veggies and beyond that is the berry patch (12 blueberry bushes, tristar strawberries in containers and 3 raspberry bushes).

 

And, that's the tour. Are your bored to tears? Ready for a nap? I am. I'm stuck in bed with this cold. When I drift off to sleep, a coughing spell wakes me up. Lots of fun.

D bought about 30 mason bee cocoons and a mason bee house today. It'll be fun to watch their lifecycle. He put them on the west-facing shop wall. Pretty soon, they'll hatch and the females will lay their eggs in the house, cementing them in with mud. I think they'll find that we have PLENTY of mud for them here.

The hummingbirds (two males, now) were very active today. Going back and forth between the two feeders over and over again. A nuthatch kept flying from the woods to the feeder. Every time he'd fly back to the woods, he'd fly RIGHT over our heads, "yanking" the whole time. I also saw one pecking away at our fence like a legitimate woodpecker.

The chickadees seemed to be chasing each other (courtship?) today, too. We ALSO saw harriers soaring over the pastures nearby.

Very active bird day. Wish I felt better. Dangit. Oh! D also bought a spotting scope. We watched a nuthatch from a good distance and could see it in the scope as though I was standing within one inch of it. Amazing.

 

 

not rain, but...
Mar 21, 2008 | 7:56 AM PST

Woke up this morning to...wait for it...SNOW! Just a dusting, but geez, enough is ENOUGH. I'm not going to get much done in the garden this weekend, either, because I'm coming down with the "crud" finally. My throat is so sore that it kept waking me up last night. It always seems like I make through cold and flu season just fine and catch a bug right in March when everyone else is fully recovered. Hopefully, this won't go into my chest like it did for my husband. I need to get out in the garden pronto.

My big project this summer is to plant a large, raised bed in front of the deck. Since the trash cans are right by the deck, I want to plant clematis up that side to hide them from view. I found a plan from a book on garden designs that I think would be really nice. I'm going to have some topsoil trucked in and pile it up right on top of the existing ground. Our soil is too rocky and clayey to bother planting right in the ground.

Here is the plan for the deck garden from Northwest Home Landscaping by Creative Homeowner Publishers:

 The descriptions of the plants sound good. They all should do well in our climate, so after they're established, I hopefully won't have to do much fertilizing/watering/pruning. I'm trying to think of Ann Lovejoy's theory on gardening. She likes her garden to be full of native plants and their allies so that after her garden is established, she's spending more time enjoying her garden than slaving over it. I don't want to fight nature. I want to work with it, like Ann does. I've GOT to take one of her classes on Bainbridge Island one of these days.

Back to the plan. My concern now is how to find all these plants. I know I won't be able to buy them all at one time, but that sure would be nice! I'm going to try to buy the trees first and get them in. The planters can be done much later, and the rest, I'll fill in as I find them, I guess.

I found the most beautiful and yet useful outdoor daybed to put on the deck. I'd been searching since last summer for a piece of outdoor furniture that we could lie down on and be shaded by on the hot, sunny deck. That deck just never got used because it was too hot and had no comfortable seating. Now, with the daybed and the garden, I should have a really liveable deck.

This is the daybed...

I found it on Walmart.com after seeing it in a Better Homes and Gardens gardening magazine. The second I saw it, it was like someone read my mind when they made it. Perfect. It was pretty easy to assemble (only took maybe 40 minutes or so) and looks so great. It's just waiting out there for the warm weather. I'm TOTALLY napping on this sucker this summer. The hammock out in the yard will be lonely, I think.

So, that's the plan. Conceal the ugly trash cans from view of the deck and plant shady, beautiful vegetation all around the deck. Might take me a couple summers to complete it, but that's fine with me!

 

signs of life
Mar 19, 2008 | 5:53 PM PST

I checked on my spinach, mesclun and butter lettuce plots yesterday and 2 of the three were speckled with tiny green "babies". No sign of peas, yet, but I think it'll take another 2 days or so. I can't wait. There is something so intensely satisifying about seeing the dry little seeds you sowed begin to transform into beautiful and useful plants. I never get over it and it never stops being exciting. In fact, it's funny how every time I plant a crop of seeds and something actually grows from them, I'm almost surprised. Part of me thinks they might not perform their amazing little trick, even though I've seen it happen over and over again. it's just amazing.

I'm daydreaming about my first bowl of mesclun or spinach salad already. One thing that's always been annoying is that my greens ALWAYS have  little holes in the leaves before they're big enough to harvest. I guess I just assumed they were from slugs, but I don't see the slug trails that I'd assume I'd see if that's what's doing it. I never see any creature actually ON the leaves, doing the damage. Wonder what's going on? I still think it must be slugs. Maybe the tiny young slugs. Since slugs mostly hide during the day, that's why I never catch them at it. I should go out there in the dark once and see if they're there.

Anyone else in my area (Puget Sound lowlands, Washington state) have any insight on the tiny holes?

Unrelated news - The hummingbird has been sighted a few more times drinking from the new, fancy feeder. Yay!

Can't wait till they start doing their courtship dances for the girls. My favorite!

 

rain...
Mar 17, 2008 | 5:16 AM PST

Well, if it EVER STOPS RAINING, I could maybe start putting that greenhouse together and start some other projects I can't wait to get to.

Also, none of the crops I planted 6 days ago have come up, but I won't worry until 10 days post-planting.

Also, I click on the comment to the last post, and I get an error screen. Hmmm...

More later when my yard isn't a mudbath.

Back again...
Mar 10, 2008 | 9:06 PM PST

Well, spring is "springing" and I'm feeling the need to start keeping track of my gardening experiences on this blog again.

First of all, today, we saw our first hummingbird. By the first few days of March, I had my old feeder out. Just this past weekend, we bought a large flowering pansy in a hanging pot just to further attract the little guys to our feeder. I had just read that the males come first around the first week of March to our area to scout things out and the females come a few weeks later. Today, D was on the porch (it was a balmy day, but overcast) and came in all excited. "First hummer!" He whispered and right behind him, I could hear that wonderful whirring sound of a hummer in flight. There he was, with his little red throat glowing. He drank and drank from the feeder. I've ordered two new Aspect feeders and they arrived today - coincidentally! They are dish shaped and seem much easier to clean. They also have a lifetime guarantee!

In other exciting news, D ordered me a greenhouse for my birthday. It's a Sunglo from Costco - approximately 8' by 12'. We decided to put it right in our fenced veggie garden space. There's more than enough room for it on the right side where our strawberry patch used to be. We got rid of all our strawberries except for our Tristars and put them in containers. We dug the footprint for the greenhouse and bought the timber to create the foundation. Now, as soon as it gets here, we're ready to start building it. It's coming complete with benches, lights, misting system, thermostat, and heater.

It'll probably be too late to start some tomato plants when we finally get it built, so I guess I'll have to wait for that for next spring.

I did plant some sweet peas, snow peas and sugar snap peas along the fenceline of the veggie garden and spinach, mesclun mix, and butterleaf lettuce in one of the raised beds.

I also planted an inside herb garden with flat-leaf parsley, cilantro and basil. I want to have it in the windowsill of the kitchen eventually, but right now it's locked away in the laundry room until the little seedlings get bigger and can withstand a little gnawing by the cats.

And the countdown 'till summer break begins in earnest!