The pear tree has started showing signs of life, though we’re still waiting to get fruit. I believe we planted this about three years ago but only planted a second pear tree last year. Here’s to hoping this is the year we get some little pears off of it, though we may have to wait another year or two.

In the garden, the tiny little buds of beets are finally coming up and just breaking through the surface of the soil.

The potatoes have gone from being planted in the ground, to starting to show their lush deep green foliage.

We also added some infrastructure to the garden this year to help with pests, and to maximize our space. First we put up the hoops we built (and a few more we bent recently), and covered them with Agribon. Underneath of these are our greens we direct sowed. We covered them because we didn’t want the seeds to wash away when it rained. We have since moved the center one over our cucumbers we planted. We’re doing a test where we planted the same cucumbers open, and some under the Agribon so we can see how much of a difference it makes when it comes to cucumber beetle damage.

To help save space we also built a vertical grower. The more I read about vertically growing cucumbers/squash the more I decided I really wanted to give it a try. Using some 1/2″ galvanized pipe, I came up with a basic design and screwed everything together. This admittedly is hand tight and isn’t the best way I could have put it together but it works. Once our plants are established and need training, we’ll be stringing twine from the center post and staking it down to each plant to encourage them to grow vertically.

Finally, we’ve always used wood posts to stake up our beans and tomatoes. This year however I decided to invest in t-posts. They’re really affordable at Tractor Supply (and I’m sure plenty of other places). I like them because they have hooks right on them to stringing multiple rows of twine very easy. We’ll likely be getting some more for our tomatoes. We prefer not to cage our tomatoes for easier harvest, but I really like the idea of having a t-post I can use year after year that has hooks which will make it easier to tie the plants up. We may stick with wood for the tomatoes though, as it’s pretty easy to tie them to the post.

At the time I took these photos (about a week ago) the beans hadn’t quite popped through the surface, but I can tell you that right now there are a TON of them that have surfaced. We are going to be in serious bean mode if all of these germinate and produce! The end of these two rows (closest in the photos) are a new french bean we’re trying to grow. My plan for those is to actually let them dry right on the stalks and then thresh them later on to get dried beans from. We’ll see if the weather cooperates (I don’t want them rotting). If not, we’ll eat them or blanch and freeze them.

All in all, this years garden is all about experimenting. Trying new infrastructure, diversifying our drops to help with disease and pest management, and trying to maximize our space. Our garden last year was nice but we didn’t get anything to preserve, so the goal this year among everything else is to attempt to get plenty of produce to “put up” for the winter.

We’ve already vacuum sealed and froze some green onion tops, so we’re already ahead of the game!

xo,

Heather

We started our small patch last year, and I always believed you had to wait at least two years before harvesting. Then, I started discussing it with my brother-in-law and researching it more. Multiple reputable sources were saying it’s actually okay and encouraged to harvest the first year. The belief is it may cause a denser harvest in future years. Whether this is true or not I do not know, but I was more than happy to test the theory and snap a few stalks off.

If you’ve never had raw asparagus straight from the ground I highly recommend it if you ever get the chance. I don’t mind asparagus from the store, but in comparison to the garden the taste just cannot be beat. Stalks from the store tend to be larger and need to be sauteed or steamed down to be tender enough. Straight from the garden, when picked young enough, asparagus are simply delightfully raw and taste similar to a fresh bean or pea.

Here’s to hoping all the rest of the tiny little stalks will grow up at a similar time so we can have more than a few at a time. If we only get a few at a time though I’ll still be happy as a clam in a mud flat.

I love all things garden, harvest and more. It totally is worth all of the work that goes into planting, tending and weeding on sweltering summer days. Here’s to more garden updates as the season gets underway and many more nights of getting excited as I see little shoots of different plants coming up. No matter how long you’ve done this the feeling of watching a tiny seed slowly transform into your food never, ever, gets old.

xo,

Heather

I, Heather, am totally into the now-cancelled show Ready For Love. There, I said it. I’ve been watching the season on-demand since it’s been cancelled. I don’t even care that it’s like a jacked up version of the Bachelor without any roses, plus three bachelors and dating coaches. I also think the Rancic’s are a totally cute couple even though I literally know nothing about them outside an interview I saw and the fact I watched about four episodes of their reality show in a row one time. To be blunt, this show just makes me inexplicably happy due to the love factor and the hilarious awkward laugh factor. So the lesson is this, don’t question what makes you happy, even if it’s awesomely bad TV. I sort of wish it was going to have a second season.

Whew! I am so glad I got that off my chest. With that said, let’s get into the renovations! As you know we finished the living room and we’ve pretty much just been enjoying it since, with little work on the rest of the house. That doesn’t mean we’ve been sitting around though. We’ve been working on the garden (update to come next week!) as well. With all of the enjoying and planting going on it doesn’t mean we can stop working on the house for too long. With that said, we need to get these darn stair parts finished and out of the master bedroom so we can lay flooring and move up there already!

Over the last couple weeks or so I finished up the stair treads and finally was able to take them off the scaffolding and move them aside so I could start the balusters, trim and a few other boards.

Once the stair parts were moved out of the way, I used the scaffolding to set up all the other parts. You never quite realize how many stair parts there are until you’re prepping them all!

I think total, between the balusters, trim, risers and other wood parts Andy asked me to take care of, there were over 50 parts I was priming. Yep, you read right, priming. Believe it or not we do paint wood, just very selectively. All of this wood is poplar which was both free for us (sawed from our woods),  but it’s not exactly the best wood to seal and let the natural shine through. I actually asked Andy to keep them natural but he really wanted them white. Truthfully, I’m okay either way. I’ve learned that Andy’s ideas are often beautiful. While he’s almost always against painting wood, he absolutely loves contrasting staircases that allow gorgeous wood to shine. By painting the “meh” poplar white, we will be able to showcase the walnut rails and the beech treads. Don’t expect to ever see white trim in our house though, you would be just as shocked as me.

With the stair parts finally primed, we’re ready to paint white! While we aren’t there yet, we will be soon. I’ll be picking up basic bright white eggshell paint this week. We’re going eggshell to allow the white parts to “sit back” from the glossy wood we’re trying to accentuate while still allowing the white parts to be easily cleaned. Update: I bought the paint and we’re going with satin since it has a soft sheen to it, and is easier to wipe down than eggshell. After researching it more I realized that eggshell was a pretty bad idea for high-traffic surfaces. We’re not painting the stair parts Dover White like the rest of the main downstairs area simply because it isn’t bright white. We really want it to be a classic white just in case we ever decide to repaint. The Dover White we have from Sherwin-Williams is a beautiful white but it does have a slightly yellow undertone, which we don’t want. It will also be best if we ever decide to change the wall colors, so we’re not left with a staircase with a slightly yellow undertone which could clash dependent on the color we re-paint. We’re certainly not intending to, but it’s a lot easier to repaint a wall than repaint stairs!

Balusters in process!

That’s all for now in the stairs department. With the treads and railings finally done, and all the other parts close, we’re still making progress.

Though, I do have to admit, it’s pretty hard to keep progress going when all you want to do is stay outside planting your garden until dusk and then sit in your living room you’ve been waiting years for. On and up though! Next milestone goal: Move into the new master bedroom!

xo,

Heather

Let’s face it friends, I’m classy. It’s been quite a while though since I’ve put out into the internets a tutorial on how to be classy like me, so lets delve right in.

The first thing you need to know is that anyone who’s anyone calls this online world of ours The Internets. “But wait Heather,” you say, “my grandparents still call it The Internets”. You’re damn right they do. They’re classy. Take a lesson or two.

Secondly, I am fantastic at building, which is what today’s lesson is on. In fact, building things is potentially one of my biggest strengths. You’ll see just how good I am at building by the end of this. I promise you will be impressed. It was part of my classy-lady training in my wee years. So, let me impart on you this wisdom so you too can build a box to grow potatoes in, or a compost box if you want to get fancy you saucy minx.

Step One

Decide how large you would like your potato box to be. Generally they are between 2 and 4 square feet. I decided to make mine approximately 3 square feet. Why? Because that’s the classy amount, and because 3 feet happened to be the size of the majority of lumber we had. I mean, bought. We absolutely did not build this entire thing out of scrap lumber. I would never do that. It’s just not…classy. To that tune, let’s move onto step two.

Step Two

Acquire the finest, and most currently in style, lumber known to man. Money is no object. Except that it’s literally an object, but that is neither here nor there at this moment. Don’t get caught up in the semantics. To acquire the lumber for my potato box, I visited a local high-end barn which specialized in reclaimed beat up pine. They even store it outside under a piece of corrugated roofing and plywood, how classy.

Some of the lumber is already painted with nail holes in it. Some of it’s ripped apart and missing entire sections. It’s the newest thing in lumber. Don’t question the fact it’s what some might consider “low-grade” lumber. If you listen to me you’ll realize you are ahead of the trend and then when you’re friends catch on, you’ll be all, “I’ve been doing that for years already”. Even hipsters don’t know yet that this is so uncool it’s cool.

Step Three

Take your awesome saw and cut through each piece so they are all the same length. Once you figure out your height you would like, cut it down by two feet. Why? Because you realized you really only have enough lumber to make it about a foot shorter. That’s fine, you really only wanted it this height anyway.

Step Four

To assemble you’ll need a screw driver, a bucket of the finest screws, and a square. Make sure your bucket of screws is only of the highest quality.  One must always have a golden screw. Ignore your significant other who is humoring you by staying out of the way and letting you do this all by yourself, while looking on with an amused and yet skeptical eye. Do I want a level? No I do not want a level. I do not need a level. Leveling is for those who are not confident in their exceptional building skills.

Step Five

Square your boards up on each edge and screw as you go. We do not level, but we do square up. We are making a box, not a rhombus. Be classy and know your shapes.

Step Six

Take the boards you found that were slightly shorter than you hoped for and attach them to your non-rhombus frame you just built to act as the posts. Make sure the posts are more or less flush with the bottom of the frame. Again, you do not need a level, just feel it out. You need these posts so you can add further boards as your potatoes grow and you add more soil. Do not under any circumstance accidentally trip over your frame and almost take a face first digger. You are classy. You do not take diggers.

Step Seven

Build up a few more courses of boards on the sides by screwing directly into the posts. Do not take into account the weight of this structure and how far you will have to move it before you do this. Classy people realize this issue but then convince themselves they will be totally fine and able to muscle it into place.

If you have a tractor with forks that can move the finished structure you may be okay. However, be prepared to have a significant other on the tractor laugh at you and remind you that you wanted to do this all yourself. Telling them to get off the tractor so you can move it then results in them laughing and continuing to move logs. This leaves you to your own devices since you made it clear earlier on this was your project and your project alone. Classy people also then come to their senses and realize they really do need to move the box into place before they build it any further, lest they want to have multiple visits to the chiropractor. As you may have deduced already, classy people do not go to the chiropractor. They are perfect and never need a doctor of any kind. Most definitely not a team of people to keep their back in line at least once a month.

Step Eight

Now that you’ve decided to move your base over with only a couple coarses of boards you must keep one thing in mind: Absolutely under no circumstances are you to be caught swearing while carrying it across your yard. Classy ladies do not say things like, “Bleeping bleep bleeper”.  You get it put perfectly into place in the garden and make no mention of how you perhaps should have leveled it first. Thankfully it’s perfect because you’re perfect, and you do not have to press it into the soil more on one side and back fill it so it sits level-ish. That definitely didn’t happen.

Step Nine

Now that you have your box in place which was perfect the second you put it down, take your gardening fork and turn over the soil. I will hear none of the fact it would have been easier to till the soil pre-putting the  box down. You know good and well it is much easier to till the soil when you have four sides of wood blocking your fork when you pull back on it. Do not contemplate moving the potato box so you can till the soil properly, classy people do not second guess their decisions no matter how poor they were. Then again, classy people never have poor decisions.

Step Ten

The final step is to continue to screw the rest of the boards into place pre-planting if you would like, but leave a couple boards off the front so it’s easier to plant. The other option is to leave as is, plant, and then add boards as your potato plants get higher and you add more soil.

That’s it! You have either just made the best damn potato box or the best damn compost bin in history. This is a fact. Do not Google it. Classy people don’t Google to realize a blog writer is full of shit.

Crap. Classy girls don’t say shit. Or crap.

Crap.

xo,

Heather

I had to sneak to get these shots out the window with my macro lens. Normally I only use this lens when I have a tripod since it has no vibration reduction on it, but I had to attempt to steady my hands, and not spook her through the windows. She waddled down, and then stopped and took a look at us.

Then she turned around, ate a slug, and waddled right back up the hill into the pond.

It’s the little things in life, I’m telling you.

xo,

Heather