Wednesday 19 November 2014

Veggie Garden Review


The Veggie Garden In Review
Even without the fence we planned to build, the garden thrived and
didn't get eaten by bunnies or deer.
 
I've been looking at the seeds I ordered and planted, and trying to make plans for what to get for next season.  Mostly I was pretty pleased with my  first effort, considering I planted quite late (May long weekend), and basically created the garden in a single day, from a corner of a former horse pasture.  
 

Bush Beans – Carson – yellow beans.  These were very productive at first, but flagged a little through the heat, but once the weather cooled they came on strong again and lasted well into the fall, probably the first week of October they finished.  I got about 12 ft of row from 1 25 g packet of seeds.   I would need at least twice that to preserve any as we ate all fresh except for some given away.

Pole Beans, Fortex Filet – these were great  green beans, they get really long, and are very tender.  They were very productive.    I also planted some seeds from my 2010 garden, which turned out to be a few scarlet runners, which didn’t do well at all, and then some other beans which I think may have come from the in-laws garden, which did better.  I would like to plant more of the Fortex Filet beans next year, especially if preserving any.

Beets were a dead loss.  I only planted the Cylindra which I bought because their cylindrical, uniform shape appealed to me.  However, the greens didn’t develop very well, and stayed very red and tough.  The beets themselves also were very small.  Very late in the season, as I was dismantling the garden, I dug up the rest and there were a few decent sized ones, but overall I would not say these could be defined as successful by any standard of measure.  Not sure if it was the soil composition, the late planting date or just not a seed I was happy with.
Lettuce, Carrots, Beets, Radishes, and Cilantro Bed
 
Carrots did well but the 2g packet of pelleted seeds I bought did not go very far.  I got a 4 ft long 4” wide swath of carrots.  I would definitely go with the pelleted seeds again, but need about 4-6 times as many. 

Corn Sprouting

Corn maturing

Corn Ready for the Pot!


Corn was a success!  From the 15g packet of seedsof Jubilee Super Sweet I got seven 6 ft long rows and yielded about 30-40 cobs of corn.  The first picking wasn’t very sweet, although it looked beautiful and had a nice firm texture.  Later pickings were much sweeter but the texture was mushier.  I would grow this again and plant earlier.  Probably better soil will help.

Lettuce .  I planted Buttercrunch and Coastal Star.  Both grew well in the early months, but the transplants didn’t do well once the heat of summer arrived and we weren’t there to water often enough. 

Onion sets did very well, but I am not sure that the tiny onions that we yielded were worth the effort.  How do you grow larger onions?  Different kind?  Must look into.
Onions and Garlic ready to use
 
Garlic and Daffodils planted together
 
The garlic was fantastic.  I grew Russian Red.  We enjoyed the scapes in the spring and the bulbs we harvested were large with enormous cloves with a nice sweet garlicky flavour.  I only planted two of the small raised beds, but have already planted a much larger crop in the main garden for next years harvest.

Parsnips flopped.  None even sprouted. 

Peas were great.  The 25g packet of Green Arrow peas planted about 20 ft of row in two plantings.  I planted these in the back garden and they were affected by pea moths, which I now realize is most likely to happen when you plant them later and they flower in June/July.  The peas planted in the raised bed planter from seeds from my previous garden were less affected because they were planted earlier.

Tomatoes – did very well, especially the early girls.  The romas were pretty good and the beefsteaks did the poorest, as the plants did not get very large.  Big yield. As in 100+ lbs.

 
Basil crop was great.  I planted some good sized plants from a local nursery.  They really took a while to get going, so much so that I bought a tray of seedlings and put a seedling in beside each of the plants.  Once the hot weather came along it all took off.  I made two large batches of pesto, yielding about 24 meals worth, which I froze in muffin tins then transferred frozen into ziplock bags.  Each muffin sized puck is plenty for one meal for two with pasta and veggies.

 

 

 

 Red Currant Bush

 Red Currant Jelly in Progress
 
The red currant bush was loaded again this summer.  I used some of the frozen currants from last year along with some of this years crop to make jelly.  Then I carefully froze each successive picking in a big yogurt container which I then stupidly left out of the freezer by accident ruining all of them. So we are enjoying the jelly sparingly as it will have to last us for at least two seasons!
 

 

 
 

Tuesday 18 November 2014

Sunroom

I finally found the perfect furniture for the sunroom!


I have done very little buying and selling on Craigslist, but I am an avid "looker" at the listings.  One of the things I have been searching for is wicker furniture, and while many listings have come and gone, nothing really caught my eye until this one:

"Pier 1 Azteca wicker furniture, lightly used, settee, chair, ottoman, coffee table, and  side table $500."

Wow!  I love Pier 1 stuff, and since this Azteca furniture is still part of their line, I went to the local store to have a look at it and test it for comfort.  Price new, including cushions and tax for all the pieces in the ad was almost $2200.
 
The new furniture in the sunroom

I emailed the seller, Val, and we had a few chatty emails back and forth.  She was selling because she needed a hide a bed in her living room as she is waiting for a hip replacement and won't be able to get upstairs in her condo for 6 weeks  after the surgery. She bought the Azteca furniture as a treat to herself when she first bought her condo a couple of years ago. 

I told her I really didn't want the large coffee table, but I would take it to get it off her hands.  She said if I took everything she'd drop the price to $400.  I LOVE CRAIGSLIST!!

So I rallied my son to give me a hand and we went and picked it up. It is in perfect condition.  The cushions are slightly worn, so I may replace them in the future.  But I am happy, happy, happy with the way the sunroom looks now, including a newly framed painting done by my Dad and a little area for my guitar practice.

 
Dad's painting


 
Guitar Practice Area
 

 
The coffee table I didn't want is a great home for Mom's Christmas Cacti that are blooming like mad!
 
 

Thursday 7 August 2014

Wedding Day Approaching Fast!

 

 

 


Workshop reno as seen through the corn patch

This summer has been busy, besides the workshop renovation, which is coming along, two other things have kept me on my toes.

Mid July my Mom and Dad moved from their condo on the sunshine coast to an independent living community near the country estate!  This is very exciting news!  On the sunshine coast they were a BC Ferries ride away from me, with the inherent line-ups, missed sailings, expensive fares and the completely inconvenient sailings times.  It was an effort to get over there to see them, and an effort for them to come over to see us, especially now that our home is an hour away from the ferry terminal.


Now I see them every week, and they are able to sleep in their own bed each night, rather than coming to visit and having to squeeze into a smaller bed.

Their move went pretty smoothly, all things considered.  My sister came to help with the final packing and unpacking and she was there to ensure the day the movers came to pick up the furniture there were no glitches.

We both were there for the unpacking and our goal was to get everything put away so their new space wasn't clutter with boxes.  Of course,most of it was no put where Mom and Dad wanted it, so here we are three weeks later and they are still looking for things, moving things and sorting out.  However, each day seems to be better, they are settling in and meeting people.  I think in a couple of months they will have developed a new routine and all will be well.

The finished horseshoe chair, in it's final resting place.  Remember back in November when I blogged about it here?

The other big thing is that my son Jason is getting married August 16th in our garden!  It has been a family affair getting things ready for that. 


Dad is painting signs to direct guests to the parking area out back.

We have painted, built, mowed, sewed and scrubbed our way towards the big day which is coming up very quickly now!
 
Jason, Julie and Chuck building stairs onto the lawn from the deck.




Julie, the bride to be, is making a lot of the food herself, bless her heart.  We have tailored the menu to keep it as simple as possible from a serving standpoint, while still showing off Julie's talents in the kitchen.

Chuck setting up the new barbeque

 
 

 
 
Lawn furniture and the old bathtub getting their paintjobs!
The bathtub is going to be filled with ice for bottled and canned drinks.  After the wedding it will become a planter as I mentioned in this previous blog.
 

 
My boys taking a break

 
Family relaxing in the shade

It is going to be an amazing wedding, small and intimate with 50 guests - close friends and family - in attendance.  Fingers crossed that this lovely weather holds, or at least comes back (a couple of days of rain would really freshen things up) by Aug 16th. 

 
Driveway garden in its current incarnation.
 

Tuesday 27 May 2014

Gardens Shaping Up


When we come out to the country estate, time whizzes by at the speed of light.    Notice I said "come to the estate".  First words of the blog ever written while actually at the country estate!  A combination of using my cellphone as a Wifi connection and a rainy period between garden work and dinner prep created the perfect storm of opportunity to write while here!

Remember the Suzuki?  Hunting buggy and gardening machine at the country estate?  Well, it's gonna be sold, because Chuckles has found a newer, better, road worthy Jeep that he bought for a song and spent a few hours tinkering with to make it run well.  Well, after weeks in the city being prepped for it's first highway drive, Chuckles drove it out to the country estate last Friday.  It will be so handy to have a second insured vehicle at the property, without having to drive both our vehicles out weekly - which we rarely do as it costs a fortune in gas with our gas guzzlers.


 
 
The Jeep is here! 
 

 

 
 I have been very fortunate to be the recipient of many of the plants left over from the WI plant sale in Pemberton since Chuckles parents are very involved with that (and many of the plants for sale come from their garden in the first place!)  This year I got a lot more hostas, hens and chicks, flowering red currant bush, soloman's seal, iris, and probably more that I have forgotten.  I created the bed pictured below for most of the hostas.
 

 

 

 New Hosta bed
 
 

 Unrelated to any text in this blog, here are my first two poppies blooming.  I have always wanted a poppy and it was my good fortune that there was one in the driveway bed.  Although it was sickly when we moved in, I have amended the soil in this bed with the lovely composted horse manure we also inherited with the property and voila!!
 
 



We borrowed a friends bobcat a couple of weeks ago and have used it for raising the walls on the shop, filling up new beds with composted manure, clearing the garden area and putting load after bucket load of composted horse poop on that area too.

I now realize that I have been waiting my whole life for a Bobcat to come along.  Who knew that a Bobcat could be so fulfilling?   It is a fantastic tool that does many things, quickly, and with no muscle required!   Chuckles has been using it to move around piles of wood that have come off the barn and will be used in the re-construction of the shop.


 
The wonderful Bobcat.  With it, just two men were able to raise these wall panels and put them in place!
 
 

The bobcat hard at work clearing the veggie patch.
 

 
The raised beds built by Chuckles, filled by the Bobcat and planted by yours truly with tomatoes and peppers
 

The veggie beds are shaping up!  Now we have tomatoes (early girl, roma and beefsteak) peppers (red and green so far) garlic, peas, cilantro, lots of lettuce in varying stages of development - we are eating our first head now; pole beans, bush beans, radishes, multiplier onions, beets, carrots, corn, potato (1 plant from my mom - she said it was a chrysanthemum but now there is enough foliage to confirm - a potato!

 
Garlic to be envied - Chuckles Dad (the gardener whom I respect most!) says our smallest garlic plants are bigger than his largest ones!  (It's the manure)



Another friend brought by a machine and dug the trench for the water line from the barn to the garden area and Chuckles mounted a tap on a post.  It's fantastic that we have water right there at the garden, it's the only way we could manage a garden this size living here only part-time as we do. 

I have been keeping a garden book  and documenting what is planted where, and what things are blooming when.  Note to self - must learn more of the names of these plants, bushes and trees.

 
A recent entry in the garden book

The rhododendrons are just spectacular right now, as one finishes another begins blooming and there are at least 10 of them along the driveway and in the front yard.  Every colour is represented!  As well, there are three Laburnum trees with their yellow blossom bunches in full flower right now, so
stunning.


 
There are several rhodos around the perimeter of the front yard in various stages of bloom

 
This rhodo on the edge of the driveway reminds me of cotton candy


Thursday 24 April 2014

The Shell Cracks

It's no joke, this life transformation is hard slogging sometimes.

Even with the addition of Bogey into our life (love, love!) it is not always easy to stay positive when our life seems like a bit of a train wreck. We are virtually camping in our little factory during the week, and working our asses off each and every weekend at the country estate.  And progress is slow. 

Most days, I am weathering the storm.  I don't have to look very far to find folks in far worse circumstances than ours.  And ours is of our own making, so boo hoo to us.  And eventually it will all be done, and we will be moved in full time. 

I know I have neglected the blog. I guess I feel like my blog should be upbeat and full of positivity all the blooming time, when lately, I gotta say, I have been feeling anything but upbeat and positive.  But today, I can see some humour and a few things you might find interesting.  So here we go:

At the shop we sleep on a futon which is the size of a double bed.  It's extremely small for two people who exceed 6 feet in height with corresponding widths!  At first, it was one of my biggest beefs - `the bed in the shop is too small``  I would lament to anyone who would listen.  I now realize that when we get home to the big king sized bed that is soooo comfy-- it seems huge!   I am always freezing in it since my Chuckles is miles away on his side and I don`t benefit from the lovely heat he radiates that I have become very accustomed to during the week sleeping on the futon!  In order to cosy up to him, I squirm my way over towards the center of the bed - and encounter the hump created by the two box springs underneath the mattress!  Hmmm maybe we need to downsize back to queen size when we move in full time.

It`s astonishing how simply one can live.  During the week we have a microwave, an electric skillet, a toaster oven,  a slow cooker and a single burner propane stove (rarely used.)





 
















Pictures of delicious meals prepared in our minimalistic weekday kitchen!

We have 3 full size plates, several small ones, a few mugs, a minimal amount of cutlery, and a three glass baking dishes of varying sizes, of which we use two often and one rarely.  We eat amazingly well, and I use the slow cooker most of all.  I make soups, pasta sauce, chili, and various other concoctions such as the one today which is cut up chicken breast, with rice, mushrooms, onions, red pepper, peas and carrots and a can of cream of celery soup and some broth thrown in along with two whole dried chili peppers.  Add a side salad, and there is enough for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow.  We cook rice and pasta in the microwave.  Being campers no doubt helps, this is like deluxe camping I suppose!

Our clothing choices for the week are made in about 3 minutes flat at home once all the laundry is done.  Two pairs of jeans, three shirts, and a couple of sweaters or sweatshirts does it for me.  They all go in a plastic bin at work so I just pull off the top.  I`ve never been a fashion maven, but this is simplicity itself.  It`s brilliant really. 

It has also been great getting Bogey before we moved to the country full-time.  In the city it has been imperative to expose him to traffic, and teach him rules of engagement with people and other dogs.  At the country estate, he runs amok on the property and if we took him only there, he would never have learned to walk nicely on a leash, come when called, the various hand signals he now knows or manners around other people.  Not saying he`s perfect, by the way, but he is learning!

Since I blogged last, we have poured the concrete aprons on either side of the barn and last weekend we pulled the roof off, as we are changing out the roof for a trussed style with a steeper peak to accommodate a room upstairs.  (The man cave, as I understand it!)

When I arrived with Bogey at the country estate, there were two ducks absolutely sound asleep beside the pond.  I drove up, crunching across the gravel driveway, and they still had their heads tucked firmly under their wings.  I do mean SOUND ASLEEP.  They likely had been using our pond all week long with no interruptions, so they were not guarded at all.  When they finally woke up, shook their heads, and stared at me, it was with a `who the hell are you`expression on their faces.  All weekend long they managed to co-habitate with Bogey and the other dogs.  A couple of times a day we would hear them honking and see them fly off, then we`d know that Bogey had decided he felt like a swim.  But they would return when he was finished! 

 
The ducks at home on the pond, between Bogey`s swims

 
Easter weekend is traditionally our first camping trip of the season, and I was bummed out that we were home working (again) with no other plans for the weekend.  So it was a fantastic surprise when young son and his girlfriend showed up from the island.  Together with Chuckles and older son, and some friends who showed up to help we got that whole roof taken off and the mess cleaned up.  That was a big job and very satisfying to see it behind us!
 

 

 

 


Above and below, the roof comes off!



 
Roofing material off, lots of mess to cleanup!

 
Above the roofless barn viewed from inside
 and below, our friends daughter pitched in and worked hard at the cleanup


 

 
My son`s girlfriend mowed the lawn with the ride-on lawnmower, supervised by Bogey

We also had an impromptu bonfire and barbeque with the kids and their partners and dogs,  which was a lot of fun and stress free.  Another example of how simple life can be.  No planning, no stress, they just showed up, we pooled our food resources, lit the barbeque and had an amazing family Easter. 

 
Bogey couldn`t keep his eyes open any longer by Monday afternoon!
 
A friend posted on Facebook the other day a verse that seems appropriate to both the barn project as well as life in general:
 
For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone.  The shell cracks, its insides come out, and everything changes.  To someone who doesn`t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.  Cynthia Ocelli.
 

My garden is taking shape!  I now have lettuce, peas, onions, garlic, parsnips, beets and carrots on the go.  I have dug up two small beds so far, side by side, each one has been a lot of work.  Stripping off the grass and roots, then digging out 6-8 inches of clay below, adding in 6`8 inches of composted manure, all by hand, me and my wheelbarrow, with a little unwelcome help from Bogey.  He sees me digging and thinks it`s a fun game!



Although friends have a bobcat they offered to bring over so I could prep the whole garden area at once, I have decided keeping it small for this summer makes sense.  With only being there on weekends, and the water shut off to the barn until the reno is complete, it would be hard to weed and water a large garden this season, so small is manageable. 

That`s it for now, I am making a renewed commitment to the blogging, be it happy news or simple desperation, you are getting it all from this point forward!





 

 

 

Thursday 3 April 2014

Spring

Spring.  It's here.  Or is it?

At the country estate there are signs of spring - blossoms, buds and blooms.  The grass is greening up and almost needs to be mowed.

Colour!
 
Bulbs up in the driveway garden
 

But the weekend weather hasn't been super co-operative so far!  It seems we have mid-week sunshine and rainy days on the weekends.
The raised bed gardens have daffodils, garlic, peas and lettuce all up now.

We are doing what we can, but building and mowing and pretty much everything "outside" is a lot less pleasant and even impossible when it continues to downpour.


Last weekend, between and during torrential rain, I dug up one small section of my garden area and planted peas, two types of lettuce, onion sets and parsnips from seed.  Not sure the parsnips or any other root veggies are going to do well for a year or two, as the soil has so much clay in it.  It has now got a lot of well rotted horse manure added into this section.  Below, my muddy buddy Bogey, who thought he was very helpful digging alongside me...

Fingers crossed that the weather changes soon - the forecast for this weekend is changing to sun on Sunday and then staying sunny for 4 or 5 days - not that we will get anything done at the country estate after Sunday as we are busy working in the city still.



When we aren't working we are completely wrapped up with Bogey.   We are still juggling to fit in all the walks and training with our swimming schedule (swimming is suffering!).  His manners have improved so much, he jumps into the vehicles now (well, he still needs SOME coaxing!) and he doesn't jump on people so much.  The best part is that he suddenly realizes that his place is with us, and he no longer needs to be tied up, he stays outside the back door on his bed in the sunshine, or follows us around the shop while we work.  He is such a love - so affectionate and cuddly.
 


Bogey on the beach at the doggy park near work

He has made all kinds of friends in our work neighborhood, so people are always dropping by to visit him, from the handicapped clients across the back alley, to the girl that works at the daycare kitchen next door to the couple who own the pots place down the lane.  Bogey has a busy social life!