When there’s a spring storm coming and you spend a ridiculous amount of time and effort trying to protect the $20 worth of plants you just planted yesterday from the high winds…..
… and the storm just completely passes you by… 🤣🤣🤷♀️🤦♀️
Tag: home ownership
Into the Garden I go…
To lose my mind, and find my…. Something? Lol
For years I’ve toyed with the idea of “suburban farming” – growing my own produce in raised beds of some sort. I love spending time working with the decorative plants around my yard but just never got around to the whole vegetable/fruit part of the equation. There has always been some other pressing home improvement project that bumps the raised bed gardening down lower on the list and we just never really gave the idea much traction.
This spring I began mentioning it to the hubs again, and for some reason this time the idea took hold in his head (maybe it’s his growing love for a nice ripe tomato slice on his hamburgers? 🤣) This past weekend he built me a little prototype raised bed to see how I liked it based on some designs I sent him that I liked and a few other random ideas that popped into my head for maximizing the not-huge space we could allot to it.
We decided to level them out and step them down the fence line here to allow for easier netting should we need to keep the critters out. First things first, however, was fixing the mud pit that over half our backyard had become (it’s always something, isn’t it?)
We were supposed to be off work today to help with a fish survey in the neighborhood lakes, but due to circumstances beyond control those plans got scrapped and we decided to go ahead and get this huge project finished off. Two and a quarter pallets of St. Augustine sod, 28 thirty pound bags of beach “pebbles” (they’re ROCKS people, calling them pebbles doesn’t make them lighter), and a crapload of sweating, swearing, and me having to crawl under the trampoline several times later, we have a completed backyard project. It’s funny, I knew the muddy mess in the shaded areas under our huge bald cypress trees looked bad, but I didn’t realize exactly how bad until we got the sod and the dry creek bed done and it looked freaking amazing!!!
So I got to work hand-watering all that sod, and hubs set to work installing the bed and making sure it was completely level by digging out the ground underneath. When he got it level we placed some cut branches in the bottom to help with drainage (and also to cut down a little on the amount of soil we’d need to fill it) and filled it with good quality gardening soil. First one is in!!!
We did some calculating and planning and decided on a total of 6 boxes for this first phase, 5 of which will be stepped down this fence line, and the other will be placed beside the kids’ playhouse cottage as the “Children’s Garden”. Of course I couldn’t wait to put some plants in this so I went out and bought way more than would fit and we probably can’t get the other five boxes made for 2+ weeks 🤦♀️🤷♀️🤣.
This box got three red beefsteak tomato plants with supports and I read on Pinterest that basil makes a good companion plant to tomatoes so I planted two of those in the front of the planter. Waiting on the sidelines now are one more tomato plant, four big Bertha green bell pepper plants, and two good-sized strawberry plants. Hopefully they’ll make it until we can get the additional boxes made, though I may put the other tomato plant in a large pot with a support and see how it does there. Why not experiment, AmIRight? 🤷♀️🤣
And of course, I had to go back and get a second sweet basil, because there MUST by symmetry or my brain will start screaming, so here I am at 10pm at night putting another plant in… 🤣🤦♀️😜
I hope to catalog my “journey” here along with trials, successes, and failures to share with others who may be interested in growing some of their own produce in a smaller, more confined place. More power to the suburban farmer!! ❤️❤️❤️ Updates coming soon (and hopefully more frequently than I’ve been posting in the past 🤷♀️🤣)
Happy Gardening!!!!
Restoring Galveston
One of the interesting things in particular about this trip… We arrived at our AirBnB to find the street in front almost completely clogged with parked cars and construction crews. There was a lady standing almost in front of the house we were staying in so I hopped out of the car to see if there was any issue with yup parking there.
I learned from talking with her throughout the weekend that they were actually filming a show at one of the houses across the street!! The show was originally called “Big Texas Fix” for the first season, and was showing on HGTV! Seasons 2 and 3 were rebranded “Restoring Galveston” and is airing on the DIY Network.
The little house across the street is one of EIGHT they’re working on throughout the island right now, and they were finishing up this one over the few days we were staying here! According to the owner of OUR house that we were staying in, before they started this house was considered “unsalvageable” – so the transformation has been amazing to say the least!!
Today they’re working on shooting the BIG REVEAL, and it’s been interesting to watch the stars of the show, Michael and Ashley, and their multiple takes from different angles. My dad in particular has been fascinated by the progress and the flurry of activity going on all day and night.
The house is TINY, but it’s super cute! Looking at it now it’s hard to believe it was scheduled to be demolished! My crew member (remember the lady from the first day?) “insider” was telling me they specifically buy houses scheduled to be demolished and completely redo them. Can’t wait to see this air on the show, which of course we have to watch now!! She said this will be Season 3, probably episode 2-3, and it’ll air sometime in the fall, so that’ll give me plenty of time to catch up on the seasons I didn’t know existed! 😉
Restoring Galveston
One of the interesting things in particular about this trip… We arrived at our AirBnB to find the street in front almost completely clogged with parked cars and construction crews. There was a lady standing almost in front of the house we were staying in so I hopped out of the car to see if there was any issue with yup parking there.
I learned from talking with her throughout the weekend that they were actually filming a show at one of the houses across the street!! The show was originally called “Big Texas Fix” for the first season, and was showing on HGTV! Seasons 2 and 3 were rebranded “Restoring Galveston” and is airing on the DIY Network.
The little house across the street is one of EIGHT they’re working on throughout the island right now, and they were finishing up this one over the few days we were staying here! According to the owner of OUR house that we were staying in, before they started this house was considered “unsalvageable” – so the transformation has been amazing to say the least!!
Today they’re working on shooting the BIG REVEAL, and it’s been interesting to watch the stars of the show, Michael and Ashley, and their multiple takes from different angles. My dad in particular has been fascinated by the progress and the flurry of activity going on all day and night.
The house is TINY, but it’s super cute! Looking at it now it’s hard to believe it was scheduled to be demolished! My crew member (remember the lady from the first day?) “insider” was telling me they specifically buy houses scheduled to be demolished and completely redo them. Can’t wait to see this air on the show, which of course we have to watch now!! She said this will be Season 3, probably episode 2-3, and it’ll air sometime in the fall, so that’ll give me plenty of time to catch up on the seasons I didn’t know existed! 😉
SNOVID-21
Well, it officially happened last week…. Hell froze over.
The snow started last Sunday evening and it all went to heck in a handbasket from there. SO MANY lost power and water, including my In-laws who finally gave up after three sleepless nights of below 40 degrees in their condo and braved the roads to make it here where we were lucky enough to have not lost power. The lakes froze over so thick people were actually ice skating on them. Stores, if they were open, quickly ran completely out of milk, eggs, water, bread, and meat. Maybe y’all think we’re a bunch of weenies if you live up north but the fact of the matter is Texas is, as a whole, completely unprepared for this kind of disaster. Tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, fires, we have the resources to deal with those. -2 degrees and a snowmaggedon? Nope. It just never happens down here, until now.
Wildly enough, the snow began to melt Friday after over a week of sub-freezing temperatures and by Saturday afternoon is was mostly gone… leaving behind a path of destruction in the form of previously frozen water pipes bursting like balloons. It’s not good…. so many homes and businesses are still without water, or have had to shut it off to minimize the destruction. It’s insane. Also insane? It hit 73 degrees here today.
Can’t go -2 degrees to 73 in one week, you say? Texas says: “Hold my beer.”
In the meantime I entertained myself by working a 60+ hour work week completely in panic mode alongside my team (also in panic mode), arguing with my kids who were batshit crazy from being cooped up, and taking pictures of the cats snuggled up together for warmth.
But today it was positively decent outside, and we started to assess my succulent gardens, which I’m super sad to say did not survive. I’m going to have to completely redo them this year. Honestly though, in the grand scheme of things we’re extremely lucky to have had heat and water the entire week, so there’s no way I’m going to complain.
And now I’m back to planning a normal week full of grocery runs and swim / art lessons and it’s weird, honestly, after the cluster that was last week but here we are, and it’s Texas, and like they always say….
“If you don’t like the weather here, wait 5 minutes…”
Random tidbits
Still working on the Keto thing, but so far I’m really proud of myself for giving up carbs and sugar. It hasn’t been easy but I’ve stuck it out so far! I’ve been having fun experimenting with different foods and recipes. Last night I made salmon and asparagus foil packs and it turned out really well! I’ve never cooked salmon in my life so I was super pleased I didn’t screw it up!
Tonight I decided to try making a chocolate avocado pudding I saw online and it ended up being pretty good, though still a slight bit avocadoey- I read if you refrigerate it that minimizes that, so we’ll see how it tastes tomorrow. 🤣
Otherwise it’s been kind of a boring week with the exception of a couple things.
1. I got bit by a green anole the other day. I was trying to grab it and save it from the cats (which I’m sure would have been hilarious to watch because those damn heifers are fast) and when I finally grabbed it the dang thing bit me on the arm for my trouble. It’s not like it hurt or anything but it caught me by surprise because it basically grabbed a hunk of skin and shook it like a dog. 🤣🤣 Who knew?!!
Then today my daughter insisted we let the cats nap with us, which is fine if they’re sleeping and not acting like fools. I woke up to see this…
If you look closely you’ll see it’s actually two cats. Beans’s head is down by her hand, and his feet are actually propped up on her face. Look between her face and his legs and you’ll see Raisin, happily sleeping stuffed in there under the covers. Lol!!! I can’t believe it lasted long enough for me to snap a photo!
Monday we start a huge home updating project, Phase 1 – we have a TON of higher end wood paneling and trim in our home straight out of the 80s. I’ll be adding some before pics this weekend and also progress pics through the week! Although it wasn’t my choice to update all this I’m trying to imagine the pretty modern farmhouse look we’re going for and I think I’ll like it in the end. Guess we’ll see!!
DIY Landscape Design… fulfilling, yet also kind of stupid.
I get motivated to complete projects in the strangest of ways. Really, my hubs decided it was time to get the driveway concrete replaced, and so the crew arrived this morning and started the daunting (and crazy noisy) task of ripping out the old one and hauling it away. We have a TON of driveway so this is a fairly large project.
I see all that crap getting torn out and for some reason it gets me excited and motivated to start a project I’ve been avoiding for a couple months now – my flower beds. A few months back I got randomly motivated and completed all the current beds in the backyard by ripping out the 10 years of mulch the previous owners left behind coated in weeds and replacing them with nice stone edging and river rock. I have potted plants and container gardens strategically placed throughout. We still have two beds yet to be made or in various stages of half-assed back there, but that’s a project for a different day.
I decided to go ahead and start the front bed, specifically the large cut in portion by our front door and in front of our living room windows. We get a lot of water there so we’re working on the drainage, and I decided to do a wavy rock garden with some of the river rock we had left from the backyard project. Keep in mind this 1.5 tons of rock is currently housed on the back of our 0.75 acre lot, they’re ripping up the driveway right beside where the rock is being stored, AND the bed I want to work on is in the front yard. I spent most of the morning stripping out all that nasty mulch and this scrubby little ground cover plant that never took off and HOLYCRAP was that a lot of material to rake up and shovel into bags.
Got that finished and laid down the weed cloth, then started putting the rocks in. I puzzled over how to move them basically around the house crossing basically 3 sides of a 0.75 acre square and settled on small buckets pulled by a utility wagon. Smart, yet stupid.
That’s a lot of rocks. A LOT OF ROCKS. I made trip after trip after trip, dumping and spreading my rocks, then heading back the long way around the house for more rocks. Halfway through I start muttering to myself, and 3/4 of the way through I’m downright flat out bitching to myself. “WHAT stupid moron decided that an effing rock garden in the front beds would look good? Eh, Jamie? Oh yeah, it was YOU, you crazy delirious heifer. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING”
Luckily we have no neighbors within earshot on all three sides of the house that I was traveling so there was no one around to pass judgement on my sanity. My hubby made some sort of comment and I responded with something about my soft squishy mom body. I’m not even sure now what I was talking about, pretty sure I was delirious.
I FINALLY got it all done, after modifying my “design” a little on the fly to accommodate some issues I didn’t think through or map out before I started. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, and VERY happy I probably won’t have to do this much work on the rest of the beds. (Not doing NEAR the rock work in those) – my current plans for this space call for some really large, low, round “dish” containers/pots to do some succulent container gardens in, a few small potted plants, and most likely a garden bench with flagstone stepping stones across to it.
What do you think? Do you love DIY garden or home projects! I’d love to see some of your work! Leave a comment and let me know what you’ve done!!!
Stuff I Love!!!
Just updated the Stuff I Love page on the website! Some really fun new things, so be sure to check them out!
What kind of stuff do YOU love?? I love learning about new STUFF so be sure to comment and let me know!!
