Backyard "Farm"

Right after we moved in the hubby and I looked into finding someone to help us start a small veggie garden. We contacted a local company that looked most interesting to us, but never heard back.
The other day I tried again while we were out and got a hold of the main guy and he invited us over to talk about what we wanted to do. They have a great business going on and I was very excited about having them come in until I saw the price. That pretty much choked the excitement out of me.

When we got home I ended up on Costco.com and found this awesome "greenhouse" by GrowCamp.

It's a couple hundred cheaper than the gardening group was asking and it looks so cool and fun to work with. The Hubs wasn't all into the idea, especially as I haven't been able to keep a house plant alive yet, but I am bound and determined to make this work. The thought of going out into my yard and picking my own veggies and fruits for meals makes me so excited! The money and gas saved not going to and buying stuff from the market will make the work and the waiting totally worth it. The possibility of sharing my harvest with family and friends, and of course, the green aspect of it makes it all the more enticing. The GrowCamp may not be ending up in my backyard anytime soon, but if I can prove myself I may see it back there in the future.

Unfortunately 95% of of our yard is made up of concrete and a large pool, but on the left side of the garage, there is a long wide planter that will be perfect for starting up. 

As you can see, it's a nasty mess right now, filled with junk, weeds, rocks and a big ugly plant. On Saturday my friend/Handyman Erik will be joining me bright and early to clean the area out. The dirt out there is not at all conducive to growing plants, I know that without even trying to dig in it. Once we can move on to the next step of constructing a raised bed. I'm thinking we'll go with this cost friendly version at Home Depot by Scenery Solutions.

One of the great things about these kits are that they're expandable. And from reading all the great reviews, it's easy to put together, you just have to be very thorough about it to prevent the center from bowing out. I can buy new soil and put it in there and won't have to deal with the bad soil whatsoever.

Once I do get this garden up, I'll have to make sure to tell my pool man to clean the filter out in front, as I do not want even a drop of pool chemicals to get into my vegetable beds. Same with other chemicals, I plan to use all organic products for growing my plants.

Directly opposite of the carport pad where the growing area will be, is a mess of our trash cans and I plan to move them around the corner, under the deck (see third photo). Plus I gotta figure out where the rest of the junk is going.

In the meantime, to get myself started I picked up a Buzzy herb growing kit from CVS.

After I've been able to produce some veggies, I'm seriously considering getting a few hens for my own eggs! I picked up a great book on raising chickens ( Homemade Living: Keeping Chickens with Ashley English: All You Need to Know to Care for a Happy, Healthy Flock by Ashley English ) and have been reading up online about breeds, building a chicken coop and run and anything else that catches my eye.

I treasure the idea of hearing 2 or 3 lovely ladies chirping below and having fresh, delicious and much more nutritious eggs. A lot of responsibility comes with keeping chickens, but I am ready for the challenge. 

I am so excited to begin this adventure and I hope you'll enjoy reading about it and possibly getting the inspiration to do the same for your own home. 

Lastly, after all a hard days work of taking care of my garden, I hope to eventually find myself relaxing in one of these, reading a book/magazine. 

It's called "The Dream Chair" and that's exactly what it is! My birthday is coming up... heehee

edit* Looks like we may have some rain coming this weekend. Fingers crossed that it doesn't mess with our garden clean-up plans.

Plus, here's a few photos of the pool just for fun.

Rain, rain go away...

I know very well that CA needs all the rain it can get, but I've had enough of the rainy chill. I'm aching for summer to get here! And it will be wonderful as we have our pool and our eco-friendly Coolerado air conditioning system.

I'm going to do my best to post on here more often. I just get so bogged down with school, the job search, keeping the apartment clean and well... life in general.

I have a job app to fill out and take in at the mall and while visiting a cute little stationary shop in Downtown Claremont I filled out a job application there. I NEED A JOB! Me and a few million other people... but let's not go there. lol

As far as I can tell I'm keeping my grades up pretty well at school, but I am a tad frustrated as I feel like I can't focus on the "book" that I'm hoping to write, what with all the english essay stuff I have to keep up on. I need to learn to be better focused. The story I plan to write is beating around constantly in my brain and I bought a cute little journal book to write in... I just need to put pen to paper. And keep on top of my homework.

Originally this blog was to be about our decorating of our apartment and then the eventual transition into the main house and the decorating projects of that. But money is tight, and there's not much decorating one can do on a near non-existent budget. So I think this will just be a blog where I talk about everyday things, inspirational things, music I like, books that catch my fancy and eventually when money is not so hard to come by we can talk DECORATING!

Well, I'm off to more, never ending house cleaning. It's amazing how two people can constantly keep a small apartment messy, but we need to get our organizing and a daily cleaning and upkeep plan in place.
Have a wonderful, happy weekend!

Gin