Who is the moron driving through my garden?!?!

So, the other day, I came home to find that somebody drove through part of my garden. I would like to think that nobody saw my reaction and how I wasn't able to contain myself, but if anybody did, oh well.

I'm not sure who it was or how it happened but I do know that the person that did it knew it was happening. They managed to drive over large rocks at an angle to crush three of my spirea and four of my Rainier strawberries. It was really upsetting.

I have since created a border of obstacles to prevent this from happening again. I have placed a LARGE cottage stone at each end of the damaged patch and inserted very tall bamboo stakes to be visible to any driver. As far as I can tell, nobody is going to be able to destroy my garden again.

When it comes to healing my poor, damaged plants, that is taking some time. I have trimmed back the broken branches of my spirea and tied them up, trying to get the branches to graft themselves back into the trunk of the bush. They don't seem to be taking this well, so we'll see what happens after another week or two.

My strawberries took a beating too. They were just getting to the point where the fruit was going from green to pink. The leaves were beautiful and reaching for the sky...and now they are smashed. I will say though, after trimming back all of the damaged bits, they are making a steady recovery. Hopefully the berries will be even sweeter due to the tribulations they've faced.

Yippee!! Things are growing!

It is amazing what just a bit of direct sunlight will do for plants and seeds. I can't hardly believe the drastic improvement in my garden over the last week. It's almost like a different place.

I feel like the best way to describe the amazing changes and how happy my garden looks is just to post the pictures. So here they go:

Mullien--it is thriving and amazing in the sunlight

Strawberries--all three varieties have berries...and they're changing color

Squash and Zucchinis--the leaves are reaching for the sun and there are blossoms

Green and Wax Beans--they pushed up the soil and are growing, what seems like inches, everyday.

Radishes--they have hit the point that I need to thin them out or they are all going to look weird like pink carrots

Lavender--it is sprouting and growing into an amazing bush

Out of garden space? Build some!!

My next door neighbor is brilliant! We all know how small my garden space is, but imagine having even less! That's what my backdoor neighbors have to face. It's amazing what they've done though. Around their patio, they've made a small vegetable garden and then at the entrance to their walkway, they've made raised beds from horse water troughs. The most inspiring addition was the built in planter boxes.

Removing a few cottage stones, they were able to create a perfect, sunny void that could be filled in with soil. A front to hold the dirt was constructed and wedged between the cottage stones, and a little protection was placed at the base of the fence behind to make sure the wood didn't rot. Add some soil, some bean trellises and some beans, and you've got yourself a vertical garden.

This amazing and simple construction job was all to inspiring for me... I had to follow their lead and build my own beds. I'll be honest, I got a little out of control. In total, I built up 6 new beds. This displaced a few cottage stones that I now need to find a use for. I'm thinking that I can put them together in my patio area to plant some sort of shady vine or shade flowers. I'll keep you posted!

Here comes that rainy-day feelin' again...

This is killing me. Seattle is just a pit of rain right now. That's wonderful for all of the evergreens and laurels and water gardens, but my newly planted seeds and vegetables are just not happy.

The tomatoes are just kinda sittin' there, waiting for some sun. The pimentos are praying for a warm day to let their little fruits grow and ripen. The curry is wondering if it was planted by mistake. The beans have poked through the soil, but they haven't decided if it's worth their while to set up camp. The butternut squash, it has decided that if the sun shows its face it will get comfortable, and you can see it in the way its leaves are spreading and pointing out their direction. It's the same situation for the zucchinis.

The radishes could care less though. They are growing like they don't know any better. Both types that I planted are flourishing. The English lavender has really taken to the soil too. It perked up right away and its branches have really gotten strong.

The other little bit of farming that I've started is in little pots. I've started, from seeds, broccoli and Brussels sprouts, basil, lavender, flax, sage and catnip. The brocs and sprouts have officially germinated and are doing what they should: growing and making ready to be transplanted. The other seeds are still sleeping, hopefully they will come to life soon.

So, all in all, we need some sun. The poor plants need some encouragement and I don't want to be discouraged in my first agro attempt myself.

My vegetables are in!

This has been so exciting. I've been so busy that I haven't even been blogging about what I've been doing.

So, it started with taking out the grass and then tilling the soil and then planting my seeds and starts and then waiting.... I'm bad at waiting and just had to be active in my garden, so I decided to add some structure around my new addition. I built up the vegetable beds a bit more and then had to re-work my brick. What I came up with is a great garden space that I can work in without smashing down the soil.

First, I dug out the borders of each of the berms to be able to lay my brick. Digging about three inches down was perfect for laying my bricks. I also layered rocks under the bricks to provide a bit of drainage and hopefully prevent puddling on rainy days (I pray I don't find out if this works until the fall). Once in place, I rubbed soil into all of the crevices in the brick border and then rinsed them, giving them an established look and helping them settle into place. I think it looks pretty amazing for being constructed of recycled material in a very small space.

The next step in adding some more form to my vegetable garden: stepping stones and plant labels.

My urban farm

I am so excited. I put in a vegetable garden! It's very thrilling for me because I didn't think that I'd ever get to have one. I have a very small yard, so putting one in was a big decision. It required removing the only little bit of grass that I had. I'm okay with that though because grass, when it's as small of an area as this was, is a waste of space sometimes. Also, since my house is the front of our little pod, I'm going to have to make this new plot of dirt look good all year round, so it's an extra challenge.

To start, I had to remove my grass, which could only be described as the crapiest crapfest of crap ever. It was this horrible layer of sod that set like cement on top of the hardest soil on earth. Once I was able to pull away the mesh/clay/grass crap, I had the pleasure of busting up the wretched mixture of dirt, concrete chunks, rocks and roots that lay beneath. After three hours of tilling the soil and turning over the hard clay, I was able to mix in enough compost/potting soil that the ground now looks like a garden. It's beautiful and smells like...dirt.

Once the back-breaking toil was completed, it was time for the planning and planting. I had to think hard about what sort of vegetables I would actually use if I had them available. It came down to peppers, tomatoes and little squash types. Those and some herbs...oh and green beans...oh, and radishes...and... I must be stopped.

The next steps are under way. These include a bean structure, stepping stones and borders. I'll post pictures soon!

Thank you Mom!! I love my ferns!!

This Mother's Day weekend we visited my mom up in Bellingham, WA. It's a great place with even less sunshine than Seattle, but somehow or another, she's managed to make an incredible garden that grows like...a weed.

She has everything in her garden and she's happy to share it. As we walked through, she was like "Ooh, do you want that? or this?" I'd be a fool to say no to free plants! I left with two great plants that I don't know what in the world they are and then three tufts of painted ferns. I can't tell you how excited I was for the ferns, but they were the trickiest bit.

Ferns typically grow in the shade, deep in the forest where it's cool and dim...not out in the open. True, living in Seattle is like living in the shade, but that's more of an emotional truth than a reality. To ferns, sitting out in the open in Seattle is feels like being planted in the desert. My solution: find the shadiest part of my garden and strategically plant taller vegetation around it to create a canopy.
To do this, I transplanted some of the millions of hostas from the abandoned neighbor-yard and an enormous columbine from behind the shed. Those, mixed with the tall mystery plant from my mom, made a great environment for my new ferns. Hopefully the nearby euphorbia and rhododendron will provide some shelter as well.

I started this new section of my garden in an unusual spot, right between my cottage stone wall and fence. I had to be careful when setting this up as I don't want my fence to rot. Lining the area with rocks and sticks, I created a great drainage system. The slats in the fence help too. On top of this, I added soil and formed small canals around the cottage stone to help standing water move. At the end of the bed a built a small rock wall to hold up the soil as well as allow the necessary drainage. I think it looks pretty amazing myself, but then I'm prone to enjoy my projects more than others.

I can't wait to see how my new ferns take off! I think they will do pretty well assuming that I have provided enough shade. Wish us luck!

A sustainable artist: Cindy Mangutz

This weekend is Mother's Day. We spent a great day with my mom and then came over to Port Townsend to visit Chris's mom. It was really fun to hang out with the fam, spend some time in the sun and the go mingle with the locals in downtown Port Townsend. Right off of the main drag, Water Street, there was an arts and crafts fair going on. All sorts of stuff going on from jewelery makers to oil painters working live in front of you.

One of the artisans we came across was Cindy Mangutz. As it turns out, she was Chris' neighbor growing up. I've got to say, she is the most welcoming and amazing person to talk to. You're thinking, "what in the world does this have to do with anything?" Well I'll tell ya: Cindy and her husband Steve create sustainable art. In her own right, Cindy is an incredible artist with a huge expanse of work. Today, I saw a different side. She and her husband take art, function, sustainability and horticulture and blend it all together to make some incredibly unusual pieces.

Using wood coming from their property, they've created some amazing things. What caught my eye the most were two chairs. One was a beautiful maple chair, meant for the indoors, that was perfectly crafted and begged to be sat in. The other was a chair with a flowering seat. Thin cedar branches woven through the structure, this piece of furniture was also home to a living bouquet. The chair was structurally sound and visually appealing, but meant for the garden. I was jealous that another visitor made the purchase before we could, but we'll see what the future holds...

Desertscape shout out: a what-what for my CA and AZ peeps!

I just wanted to throw some encouraging words out there to my ladies in the hot lands to the south.

Kelly, don't go pulling weeds in the hot sun when there is raging bees' nest in the yard next to you. That sounds a bit daunting and dangerous. I would recommend spending some time as the sun goes down when the bees are inactive. I also, and don't laugh, recommend approaching the area near the bees with a tennis racket. It sounds cruel, but it is your best defense against the stinging neighbors. Also, in some areas, you can reach out to your local authorities if the neighbors' bee problem poses danger.

In the mean time, http://www.abolishpestcontrol.com/ would be a great recommendation to give to your neighbors. It's like a private sector animal control.... Just a thought.

Melissa, I have high hopes that you're bird of paradise is still alive and doing better. I haven't seen any update from you. Don't be discouraged if your plant isn't doing better. I'm sure that if what you've done so far hasn't helped, talking with it daily will. That's all it takes sometimes: communing with your plants. I know that it sounds cheesy or dumb, but it works.

Best of luck to you folks who have to brave the extreme heat. Know that I'm jealous of you. Ooh, and if you get a wild hair to plant something on my behalf, please, make it a bougainvillea!!

Sprucing up the address: a little mosaic goes a long way

When we first moved into our house, our address numbers were boring, plain and excessively standard. They also weren't the best quality: spray painted wood. I decided that it's time to fix this and move the eye-catchingness of the garden up the house. How will I do such a thing?

I have created mosaic house numbers. I think they are looking pretty amazing. They are flashy, one-of-a-kind and hopefully pretty durable.

I started with blank wooden tiles. I drew out the numbers on them and then tried a few different color combinations. I decided on solid colors around white numbers. The numbers really pop! From there, I started to lay out the broken glass to fill in the space. In fear of making a big mistake, I laid each of the designs first before adhering them to the wood. Once I was certain of what I wanted, I used an amazing tacky glue to hold them fast. It wasn't messy and it cured very quickly.

Today, I am drilling holes to hang the new tiles and then staining their edges and grouting them. I'll post another blog about that once it's completed. I really enjoyed putting these mosaics together. It was an exercise in patience and a stretch in creativity. Glass is really a lot of fun to work with and once this project is completed, I've got another in mind.