dancerjodi | Entries tagged with gardening

I just came back from Dale's shower http://www.flickr.com/photos/dancerjodi/sets/72157619016502246/ . She got a ton of lovely stuff and really seemed to love the Dr. Who bibs that http://christmasjedi.livejournal.com/profile made for her.

What a perfect weather day! I finally bought some plants and got them into the ground or into pots. We're going to see http://www.myspace.com/mystupidfriends open for http://www.myspace.com/misstallicaband and http://www.myspace.com/letsmaketragedyhappen tonight. We're trooping in Manchvegas tomorrow.

I'm off of work on Monday to get a new water heater installed (ours is 12 years old) and have my PT appointment for my old-lady arthritic hip in the afternoon. Party, or something. :)

A neat organization http://www.cogdesign.org/index.html is having a plant sale in Waltham this weekend. I'll drop by there to grab the things I've been looking for (herbs, tomatoes and some flowers). I need to get myself some dirt too!

Somehow the little album image on my iPod for Arch Enemy's "Rise of the Tyrant" album is actually the cover of Rachel Ray's "How Cool is Christmas" album. Could those two women be any different? :)

In completely fluffy news, we put up some 5' willow fencing (the roll out stuff, thanks Roaming for pointing it out!) on Wednesday night. The ugly chain link in our patio area is now obscured. If the weather cooperates I'll spend some time planting tomorrow.

We'll be trooping on Sunday at http://www.granitecon.com/ with Sluggy in tow. If all goes according to plan he'll go home with another member of the NEG and take up residence in his large barn out in Central, MA. The leakiness of ours isn't good for him.

I just made my adventure trip to Lexington - its lovely out! For $30 (through the city of Waltham and some kind of arrangement they made with Lexington) I got a neato composter http://www.earthmachine.com/index_r.html and a home composting wheel with lots of tips on the process http://www.ehspublishing.com/cart/product.php?productid=16140 . This is good, because I'll need all the help I can get! My Dad was very into growing vegetables when I was very young but gave up since the woodchucks were eating everything. As a result, I was never around anyone planting, so its all kind of new for me and I'm starting from scratch. I need to do some serious research on composting rabbit waste also, because as far as I gather since they are vegetarians their waste wouldn't be bad in a pile deemed for growing edibles. We use recycled paper litter and change their pan (medium cat sized one) about twice a week. If I could turn that into black gold it wouldn't be a bad thing. How crazy do I really want to go with all of this stuff? I guess I thought the same before diving into making our own cleaning products, but now that I'm used to it its very simple and it has saved us a good deal of money (in addition to making me feel better about ridding our house of all of those chemicals).

I'm hoping we can spend part of Saturday cleaning up the yard a bit. Our gutter fell off at some point so nothing has been collecting in our rain barrel and on particularly rainy days we've had water in our basement (our fieldstone foundation needs repointing too). I'm going to put the composter next to the rain barrel. I'd like to also find a home for and assemble our new clothes drying rack, trying to balance the most time in the sun possible with keeping it respectfully back from the street. I'm trying to find that nice balance between pretty but natural, eco conscious without creating an eyesore, purposeful without going crazy and consuming more and more building bits - that kind of thing.

Now I'm wondering if we should put a retaining wall in our front yard? Our front steps need patching and our driveway is in serious need of repair. I'm going to poke around on Angie's list and see if I can find someone who does all of that stuff and perhaps get some quotes. Or would a landscaper build a retaining wall and not a mason/stone person? This is conceivably all stuff we could do, but I know its not anything that Brian wants to do (I sure as heck don't know where to start with it). Either way, I'm excited about being creative outside. Each year there has been some kind of indoor project to worry about but for the first time ever, for the most part that stuff is taken care of (beyond some ceiling repairs and final painting that we've been too lazy to do in our hallways). I'd love for it to be a natural extension of our living space, because up until now we've really taken our little piece of green for granted.

It should be a beautiful week weather-wise. I'm hoping to get out walking each day. I got a ton of things done yesterday (laundry, dishes, groceries, mother's day and birthday gifts acquired). I even had a nice trip down to the local comic book shop to get the legs moving. The owner is such a sweet guy, and we talked a bit about NYC Comicon.

I have dance class tonight. I was asked to come up with another tiny piece of choreography, so I also accomplished that yesterday. From buying those Metalocalpyse show tickets I earned two free iTunes songs, so I downloaded two that we're doing ballet routines to (from the Billy Joel 'Movin' Out' show - The Stranger and She's got a Way). Costumes are in and things are starting to ramp up for the show in June.

It really does feel like spring. I cleared a bit in the yard yesterday and put out our porch chairs and table. This weekend the shovels and ice-melt will make its way to the garage. Brian's going to start repairing Jabba from the damage he incurred at Arisia (its been too cold for glue to dry out there) and gardening will begin soon. The bulbs that I had ordered from a coworker are in. I can't wait to start digging in the dirt. I can't believe that its almost May!

Quote of the day: When everything feels like an uphill struggle, just think of the view from the Top (Thomas Vilord).

OK, the spring bug has definitely bit. I think its mostly because its sunny outside, and that in a little over an hour I'm leaving work and won't be back here for a week!

I'd like for us to have some more privacy in our yard this year. Here's our back patio area (with the yellow house behind us right on top):
http://www.marmontianderson.com/photos/displayimage.php?album=21&pos=13

We have a good deal of pressure treated wood in the garage leftover from when we repaired our back porch. Should we try and build some kind of privacy panel/fencing behind our table area? We're creative and have the tools. Maybe something with trellis? Buy a chunk of fencing? This area along the fence is incidentally where the tomato buckets will go (and you can see the herb bed next to the garage).

Privacy behind our 'Dagoba' tree would be problematic http://www.marmontianderson.com/photos/displayimage.php?album=21&pos=5 . Its kind of fused with the chain link in back there! We're in bad need of my cousin the landscaper or a tree doctor to check both of these out, but I digress. I'm not sure what the deal with the tall wood section to the right of the tree is (iirc, its because for some reason there isn't any chain link behind there in that one tiny section). The former homeowners were so odd, and this fence was definitely a special of theirs. Brian's old boss (and our around the corner neighbor) told us that the fence was installed by the previous homeowners not too long before we moved in.

I'm trying to balance being comfy, being private, being pretty but not sterile, not being too wasteful and being cost effective. I know that this is all a tall order, but with planning and creativity I think we can do it. I love tweaking things around our house and since the indoors is mostly resolved I'm looking forward to poking outside. :)

Our Smart Strip came in the mail yesterday. I'm excited to see if it has any kind of impact.

As a Waltham resident, we can buy one of these for $30 http://www.earthmachine.com/how_to_compost.html (though, we have to go to Lexington to get it). It sounds fairly simple and not too invasive. I know it would take a bit of time to get some compost out of it, but perhaps we could get some going for fall? I'd feel better at least to not be throwing things down in the disposal.

I bought us a rain barrel through a similar city arrangement last year, and we used it for most of our watering (plants and washing the car). I do need a larger watering can to make this easier, because I kept using the only one I had - one meant to be more decorative and not too large (I kept using the hose for the front because multiple trips with the tiny can weren't so easy). There's not enough pressure in it to use with a hose/pressure nozzle unfortunately.

Plans for this year's gardening include:
Removing mulch from the front and trying to get some wildflowers to grow there
In the front of our side yard, planting edible things that need sun (we have two large trees in our small yard, so we don't get a lot of full sun)
Tomatoes in 5 gallon buckets in the back of the patio area
Herbs (as usual) in the side of the garage

The clothes drying rack arrived - its quite light (aluminum)! The next time we're home on a weekend and will get some sun for an extended period I'll put it out and hang on it and see how that goes.

We've been on a waiting list for the CSA at http://www.chestnutfarms.org/ and should be able to join in May - yay! The farmer's market in our city http://www.waltham-community.org/2008FarmersMarket.html starts up on 6/14, and it will be neat to try and walk down there each weekend for locally grown goodies.

I'm getting excited about the spring arriving and I'm hoping to spend more time outside this year, both relaxing, entertaining and gardening. We have limited areas with full sun so we may try to grow some edibles in the front yard (that space really need some love and some more interesting growth). We're also going to try tomatoes in pots, because I'd love to have more of my own and our shallow herb garden bed isn't deep enough I think to get good growth. We'll still do herbs next to the garage, and I'm hoping to clean up and plant some in our main yard on the side of the house. Our rain barrel came in really handy last year. I may think of setting up some kind of composting process but I'm not quite there yet and need to do a lot more research on it.

A coworker is selling some plants for her daughter's school fundraiser, so I ordered some for borders: blazing stars, bleeding hearts, day lilies and persian buttercups. It going to be a while until I can plant anything outside and I don't have safe space away from cats to start anything inside of the house but in the meantime I can do some planning and once it gets a bit warmer, some clearing.