Garden Wednesday

I woke up yesterday morning to find that my parsley seeds in my herb set has finally sprouted. I thought for sure something had gone wrong. That I might have overwatered and ruined the seeds, or that maybe the seeds had been burned from possible sun overexposure. But there they are!

You can just barely see the little green sprouts in the middle pot

In other gardening areas, I plan to finish up cleaning out the front ground planter of weeds and hope to put in a stylish border between it and the lawn, plant two Hydrangeas (the hubby's and my favorite shrub) and plant some pretty, low water needing plants. There's a hose bib at the end of the front planter and we're going to put a drip line system there to make sure everything gets sufficiently watered.

As for the backyard veggie garden, we're still mulling over what we want to build the beds with and after looking through a backyard planning catalog I found a great plan for building a bed with rock. I've still yet to go out and do pricing for even the wood, so now I must make sure I get out to do some price checks on both to see where I stand. My Dad is planning to help a bit and I am so excited to get the garden started.

Seeing that I am so far successful with growing herbs from seed, I hope I can do the same in the veggie garden, though I may still go with transplants for some veggies.

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.

Rude Awakening

Signs went up yesterday warning of city tree trimmers coming by today, but I didn't think they'd start at 7AM! Today was my day to sleep in a little, but it was pretty impossible to do so. I think I'll be taking a nap some time today to catch up on some Zzz's.

Still need to hit up a home improvement store for items to finish up the main house in preparation for our tenants/roommates to move in. We'll probably do that tonight as we have a lot of things happening in the next two days.

I'd been sad at not having any fresh flowers in the house the last two weeks, so I grabbed up a few stems of Asiatic Lily's when I was doing my grocery shopping this morning. I had hoped to get some Stargazer Lily's as I love their scent, but these bronze ones I got work well with my transition into "fall" things and scents around the apartment (currently burning Slatkin & Co's Caramel Apple).

Whenever I'm in the fruits and veggies section of the market I find myself wishing I was at a Farmers Market instead. Our local Farmers Market is on a Thursday, which isn't all that convenient in comparison  to Claremont having theirs on Sunday. When we lived in Venice, the Farmers Market was down the street and was on a Sunday as well. Oh well, I must get to one of the Sunday ones in Claremont and start buying my produce that way.

I've long entertained the idea of having my own veggie and herb garden and as things get better money wise around here, I think I'm going to give it a try.