Garden Wednesday

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday morning when I went out to the deck to water my herbs to see that the seeds were finally, actually sprouting!

I was sure I would end up having to buy transplants when these never sprouted, but I guess I do have a little bit of a green thumb!

I think this is the basil, I can see that the chives are starting to sprout too, but my other herb... I don't know if the little guy is gonna make it.

But hey! Two out of three, not bad.

As for the larger garden project, Erik and I finally got all the rocks and debris loaded onto his truck and he took it off to the dump. The area was swept and now I just need to clean up all the junk piled against the garage wall. We are gonna start drawing up the plans soon for the enclosed garden space and I'll be going out to price wood for the raised beds. The hubby is suggesting I go with railroad ties. I don't much love that idea, but it is on the list as "last resort". 

Erik won't be able to come by for two weeks, so in the meantime, I'll be focusing on cleaning up the beds in the front yard around the house and weeding. Planning to get out there today once the sun moves over to the other side of the house so I'm not in direct sun while trying to work out there.

Other than that, I have house cleaning to do and just got back from a meeting with my rep for a new business I'm starting, that I'll be very excited to talk about once I've gotten my certification done.

Hope you're enjoying warm, sunny weather as I am!

xGinax

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.