DigginFood Seed/Recipe Swap

Sent off my seed/recipe today: the Balsamic-Glazed Chicken Sandwich with Goat Cheese, Red Onions and Arugula from Cooking Light and arugula seeds. they were kind of hard to find.

First tulip ever - chuffed I am.

my first tulip ever is up (as are many of it's friends). I adore this orange color - note to self - plant more of these this fall.

BBG 4-23-09

Last week's BBG class was interesting. We were split into two groups according to urban or "rural" and then Joan took the urbanites and I was in Jim's group along with others with non-urban properties.
We all went around and described our spaces and had open discussion and suggestions for plants etc. For next week we have to come up with a planting diagram for one section of our garden. I am trying ot work on the woodland/shadier area of mine as Jim said that the sunny side would be easier to come up with on my own.
I am looking through all the lists for CT natives as I would like to go that route and also have plants that encourage birds etc where possible.
Today (4-27) I made up my plant list and am trying to break it down into ground cover/shade/fringe(part shade), bloom time, height and ? (can't remember) so that I can identify areas in the plan and then match up to plants.

Douglas Tallamy

Went to a talk on Saturday afternoon by Douglas Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home. Interesting, straight-forward guy with a good sense of humour. Talked in very simple yet well-illustrated terms about how the deforestation of our nation through development and, on a local level, the use of non-native, exotic aka foreign plants can lead to a breakdown in the support system for insects, birds and other wildlife.
Although we often leave small woodland pockets thinking we are doing good, these pockets are often not large enough to support sustainable populations and thus insects and wildlife are lost, sometimes, irrevocably from our environment.
Graphically illustrated "carrying capacity" or ability of a plant to support multiple forms of life. Interestingly he did not touch on America's (lawn)chemical dependency as a part of the eradication of natural bugs and insects that do good. Talked about how we can all help to change the direction in which this is going by doing simple things and making simple choices when we plant and landscape.
He had been mentioned in passing by someone in the BBG class and I happened to see he was talking nearby. A very interesting hour.
Link to his carrying capacity chart of most plants is at http://copland.udel.edu/~dtallamy/host/index.html

Yr 4 - Day 60 ish

Spent the weekend laying and finishing flooring in Bob's office. Used up the last of the wide board pine that was laid in the LR when we bought the house. Most of it was used to floor the MBR but I had kept the decent-ish amount that was left as it was quite a lot of wood. Finally it has been put to use, we have a floor in the office that is not faux crazy-paving linoleum form 1965 and I have more space in the garage! An all-around success.
Laying went well after the very first piece which was a challenge as I had to join into the tongue of the T&G flooring from the DR. The pine I was laying had no T&G and I did not have a table router to cut tongues. After much brain racking I remembered I had a stair nose piece in my offcuts bin. Then how to rip the nose off it so that I had flat one side and keep the groove on the other. of course after much headscratching, Heath Robinson rigging with the circular saw (I also have no work bench or vise) I headed to HD in the hopes of tracking down a fence for my saw.
Of course, no chance of HD stocking something so specialized and all they had was a "universal" fence. I alwasy think that when it comes to tools, "universal" means "doesn't do the job very well". However, I did not want to be sanding the floor when Bob's new computer was set-up so I bought it. Long story short it worked well-enough and in fact I ripped down quite a few boards with it.
Nice thing with 11.5" boards is that you get a lot of coverage for just a few cuts. I laid it over resin paper and I know that there are two layers of 5/8-3/4" subfloor underneath. Even so I nailed it to the joists which I calculated from the nail holes in the 1/4" ugly plywood (yes, another project to come).
As usual it took longer than I thought. Did half Saturday and then finished it by Sunday lunch. Didn't look fab but it was still to be sanded. Of course a trip to HD was needed to find really course sanding pads - coursest I could get was 50 grit.
Then four coats of Varathane. This is a water-based polyurethane which I picked for quick drying (2hrs), low smells and easy clean-up. Vacuumed and mineral spirits prior to applying with a 4" nylon brush.
After each coat I then had to kill 2 hrs. Weather was on my side - a heatwave: 85 degrees and 30% humidity meant the floor was dry in about 1 hr 45 mins.
Got the final (4th) coat on just after midnight. It looked very nice this a.m., can be walked on lightly in stocking feet. No furniture or heavy traffic for 3 days.
Fortunately this was less than 50 sq. ft. Pics to come.

Seed/Recipe Swap

So I was cruising a few gardening blogs and came up with a seed/recipe swap that was being organised by a blog new to me: DigginFood.com (see the article here: http://www.digginfood.com/2009/04/reminder-sign-up-for-the-recipe-seed-swap/)
The idea is that you swap a recipe and the seeds to grow one of the ingredients. Sounded like an intriguing idea.
I just found out my swappee to whom I am sending so I goggled her name and came up with a blog (http://daxiang.stefmike.org/). My motivation was to find out if she was vegetarian. This seems to me that it could be my swappee and instantly I am gripped by intimidation. I see she is growing already what I intended to send her. Hmmm. I will not let that put me off. I also see that she shares my affinity for galvanized containers. I like her already. i have already decided to send two recipes, one will be a personal fave that I have found in the US and one will be a personal fave from the UK/my own cookbook.


On the homefront, I transplanted my eggplant seedlings. They are looking good although I am still holding my breath a tad. How hardy of them to survive my "care". Also, tonight is the second class in BBG's Your Garden Tutorial: Right Plant in the Right Place and I am behind on my homework.

The Zen of Stacked Wood

Although the temptation when log splitting is to do pie slices or triangles, I quickly learned that these do not stack well. The optimal shape for me is square. We cut the large logs into halves and then "slabbed " the halves so that we could then split the slabs into square logs.



Then the stacking becomes a lincoln log project rather than an engineering project.
We only split about half of the wood, keeping the larger pieces for seating. Gawd knows where we would have put the split wood had we kept going. The large pieces - 18" long by 18"-24" diameter give enough wood when split for one of the piles up against the fence - a lot of wood.

Not exactly gardening ...

... log splitting to be precise.

We have had a stack of large logs left from the white oak that we cut down and it seemed time to tidy things up and get them split. We rented a log splitter from Keogh's Rentals in Ridgefield. Man, that thing is unbelievable and kind of scary at the same time. It will split, cleave and generally crush a large piece of white oak like it was nothing. We very quickly learned that we had to operate it seated and it helped to have one person wrangle the wood and one person operate the lever, run the wheelbarrow full of split wood to the pile, stack and generally do all the other stuff.







Bad technique


Good technique - you can fly doing it this way.

BBG 4-16-09

Last night was the first class in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden class "Your Garden Tutorial: The Right Plant in the Right Place". I indulged myself by getting there early so that I would have time to walk around the garden (and grab dinner in the sunshine at the cafe, nice!). The cherry esplanade is not in bloom yet. All the trees over towards the 900 Washington entrance are out - some early flowering cherries? and magnolias and alot of bulbs and the daffodil hill was lovely. I also loved the swath of grape hyacinth? under some bushes up towards the Osborne Garden. I did not go up to the Osborne Garden: I want to have some parts left that are new to me when I bring Bob down here.
The class was good - a lot of "theory" - and background knowledge to give us the foundation to move forward and reseasrch and make successful choices. there are 12 people reg'd and 10 showed up so quite a lot of folk. There are 5 of use who took the first half of the class. Some "homework" - reading handouts, beginning a plant inventory of what I have, a form for individual plant research and an example of a spreadsheet of plants that would work in the space (the big palette). All good stuff.

Little lavender

I just watered my inch-or so high lavender seedlings and I could smell lavender! I know this should not surprise me but it did - these tiny seedlings already smelling like a huge lavender bush. Eggplant seedlings need transplanting but i am out of newspaper to make boxes. Yarrow also needs transplanting - that is a gangly plant - all over the place. I remember when I bought some plants last summer they were staked. Lupines are doing great - soakers lag behind the scarified seedlings but they are all up - I have 27 lupine seedlings!. The annuals come up straight away - zinnia and mexican sunflower are looking good.

Bee balm, of all things, did not do well. Nothing has happened since a couple tiny green specs - this plant grows like a weed in the garden! Salvia also not good germination - some. Globe amaranth about half. lavender reasonable.

Outide, the forsythia is in bloom, the cherry, apple and dogwood are budding nicely and the second part of the BBG class starts on Thursday. "Garden Tutorial B: The Right Plant in the Right Place"

The master garden plan (5th go-over) is just about done and shaping up nicely.

Garden plan #5

Taking comments and input from the last week of the first class, I have been working the garden plan again. It's an enjoyable process for me and I think it is coming together. Still have that one vague corner that needs a little definition.
The lawn is smaller. The veg/flower border is defined nicely with the 4ft galvanized fire rings as raised beds surrounded by lower plantings.
The design started with the path out of the screened-in porch and I also didn't want to have a huge patio just because there's space as that just adds cost. We eat in the screened porch all the time so I have made the patio 14' diameter which is enough room to take the table and chairs should we wish to go out there but bascially it will be a space for lounging and sitting. The BBQ area works as well: it's close to the house as Bob wanted but seems to work with the patio layout.
The stock tank pond is potentially back but this also could be the low shallow Keith Davitt-style brick-edged reflecting pool-type water feature - very shallow with a layer of river stone and then 2-3" of water.
This second option would give us a water feature without the challenges of an above ground, metal-clad pond in a New England winter! (Unless of course we wish to make the world's largest hockey puck!)
So I'm happy with how it's going. There's a weeks respite before part two of the BBG class starts ("The Right Plant in the the Right Place") so I have a little time to ponder and work on this still (and show it to Bob too.)

Never doubt a soaked lupine seed

So ... soaked lupines seem to have gone a bit mad over the weekend.

Scarified: 10 of 11 pots for 19 sprouts.
Soakers: 10 of 10 pots! for 16 sprouts.

Slow-developers. Late-flowerers and other such cliches.

Office Stairs Before & After

Before










After
I also opened up the space under the stairs. It was a small bookcase, it is now space for two file cabinets. Just the floor to lay in this room and paint the walls (oh, and paint the window trim - always something, eh?)

Office desk before & after

Before










After

Office

So ... did a project and managed to take some pics and get them up here same day! Bob is ordering a new computer and seeing as the office is pretty much untouched since the day we bought it, I thought I would put some effort in there this w/e to make it a nicer place for him and his computer to be. I painted and added new hardware to the desk. I removed the off-center shelves, blocked the studs so I could remount the shelves centred and painted the stair risers and trim gloss white. Not bad for 3 days slog. I also added a nifty shelf under the desk high in the footwell so that the modems and routers can go under there and all the cabled will be invisible!
Fortunately I had all the paint I needed. I used an exterior paint on the desk - semi-gloss - because it was the color I wanted. We painted the porch and the front door with this paint last year. Hardware was $35 from HD. I had 2x4s in the garage. The bitch on that one was removing the 1/4" plywood fake panelling when it was installed before the desk. I have a secret technique for that. Stairs were painted with primer and gloss white. Photos above of the office the day we viewed the house!

Happy now Steve?

Landscaping Class #4

A really fun part of this class has been seeing the spaces, challenges, ideas and solutions of the other people in the class and how we have all critiqued and offered suggestions to each other.
Last night was the last night of the class and we had to do an informal presentation of how far we had got: differing levels of completion and very different challenges -hot, sunny roof space; surrounded brownstone gardens and me with the suburban sprawl.
The "vision" as they call it, and the plan has come a long way in just the 3 wks of the 4 classes, further than you would think it could.
I had worked a bit of color into my plan as the drawing was getting too ill-defined. The color helped beyond just showing areas, it actually made me think about colors of materials etc. Good exercise.
Excellent constructive criticism from Joan, Jim and the class on my space - make the lawn smaller still, make the river stone areas less expansive, enlarge the woodland area by the bird feeder to create a sense of 'entry'; bbq area near house ("Bob's corner") is very scrunched - expand it and let it breathe; re-work "wave forms"/bricks in the gravel; think of ways to break up the gravel expanse.
Still (of course, (laughing)) more designing to do but my mind was goin on the drive home and I even got some ideas flying up I-684.

This class has really been fun and worth the $$, time and effort.

First daf from 4/1

Brave wee soul.