January 06, 2008
a meeting of the landscaping committee
yesterday i pruned.
I also pruned today.
There's still more to be done.
Also, yesterday I saw Sweeney Todd, which was good, although not destined to become my favorite Tim Burton movie. Quite gross; I closed my eyes through certain bits. After the first time, I didn't need to see him do THAT, AGAIN. If you see the movie, you'll know what I'm talking about.
Conversation after the movie inspired me to watch A Room With A View tonight for the ninety-million-ith time. Both to see Helena Bonham Carter at the opposite end of her career and because it's one of my all-time favorite films.
The house is in a shambles now, but there you go. Sometimes, the landscaping committee (of one) has to meet at the expense of the housekeeping staff (of one).
Posted by spacegrrl at 08:19 PM | Comments (0)
Category: gardeningJune 02, 2007
marjoram honey and other idyllic thoughts
photos of a lovely day in june
observed while watering new plants: honey bee unable to tear itself away from the tiny white blossoms on my gigantic marjoram plant.
a pair of robins. i've been seeing them around, you know? i think they're living in my yard this summer. the female is very bold. well, i guess it's the female. she has a rusty breast, not bright red.
a white butterfly.
:|:
feline locomotion study:
click through for notes.
Posted by spacegrrl at 06:47 PM | Comments (0)
Category: gardeningMay 17, 2007
flower pretty.
a few more photos from the parts of the yard that don't suck.
we're just not going to look at the whole rest of the yard, which mostly does suck.
Posted by spacegrrl at 10:24 PM | Comments (0)
Category: gardeningApril 10, 2007
farmergirl in action
click the pic to see the EXCITING BACK YARD ACTION.
Posted by spacegrrl at 11:56 PM | Comments (2)
Category: gardeningMay 20, 2006
Farmer girl, Part 2
I went to the farmer's market in Raleigh today and bought quite a few plants. Since I'm starting my garden late (although is there really such a thing as late when talking about a cycle?) I decided that I should have a fairly large proportion of ready-to-go plants and rely less on seeds.
I got all plants and seeds in the ground, and set up a soaker hose left by a previous homeowner. The soaker hose is an experiment (actually, the whole garden is an experiment) and we'll see how well it works. I need to learn how low to keep the water flow, so the water kind of seeps out and doesn't shoot out and wash away the soil.
Posted by spacegrrl at 03:59 PM | Comments (5)
Category: gardeningMay 13, 2006
farmer girl
Before
After
I worked on the raised bed today, and it's all ready for planting. details can be found by following the "after" photo to flickr and clicking through the day's photos.
i think i want to grow herbs mostly. i may relent and put up a single bamboo teepee for a tomato and some string beans, maybe a little lettuce underneath (i have heard that salad greens don't like to be pounded by the sun too much, but i will have to check on that).
just think of it though... big piles of parsley, cilantro, and basil and the resulting masses of salsa and pesto and salad rolls. mmm yeah. twelve different kinds of mint mean twelve different kinds of mojitos and mint juleps. and catnip toys for days.
Posted by spacegrrl at 04:27 PM | Comments (0)
Category: gardeningApril 21, 2006
morning good
what i want to do: keep sitting on the sofa, all leisurely, while the cat scoots in and out of the screened porch.
what i must (and will do): put the computer away. take a shower. hurry on to work in time for the 10:15 meeting.
:|:
last night i did yard work until moseman's various caretakers came over to learn how to pill him.
in the yard, i started scalping the parts that are completely not grass, and occupied by a weed that i consider to be very obnoxious and unpleasant. d. pointed out that weeds are a social convention, and i agree, i really do– but some weeds really bother me. the kind that are covered in that sticky sap? i hate those. and there's one other one that was really starting to take over in the back. i hate that one too. but now it's mostly gone.
the cool thing about scalping with the weed whacker is that it's a self-mulching process. most of the ground is now covered in a finely chopped layer of dead vegetation.
i also started cleaning the crap off the screened porch to make way for the lovely new furniture, some of which is already there, and some of which i have yet to actually obtain, but i will soon. Things are Under Way.
i applied roundup to the raised bed a couple of weeks ago and things are mostly dead back there. a session or two with the weed whacker and it'll be nice and clean. still not sure exactly how i'll proceed with it, and i may have to devote next weekend to the front of the house, in preparation for the Tour, but chances are decent that i'll still do something useful with it.
oh, all right. i'll get up now.
Posted by spacegrrl at 09:18 AM | Comments (1)
Category: gardeningApril 15, 2006
damn i'm tired.
click the pic to read details...
Posted by spacegrrl at 05:46 PM | Comments (1)
Category: gardeningApril 13, 2006
got NEWSPAPER to get rid of?
Got a big (or even small) stack of newspaper you'd like to get rid of? I could use a LOT for a landscaping project this weekend! I'll come pick it up! Just let me know.
Posted by spacegrrl at 04:03 PM | Comments (0)
Category: gardeningBack yard renovation: photos
Yesterday I photographed my back yard in its "before" state and have created a Flickr set to document my efforts.
Back yard renovation Flickr set.
Posted by spacegrrl at 10:30 AM | Comments (0)
Category: gardeningApril 12, 2006
the task that i put off for five years has now been completed.
Six years ago, I moved into my house. There were large beds beautifully mulched with pine straw.
The next year, i knew i needed to mulch. I was lost, though. I didn't know where to start, or where to get mulch, or how much to get, or who to ask.
The beds were never mulched. They grew weedy, and the large L-shaped bed in the back completely disappeared.
This morning, I measured my back yard and the big bed-- which I plan to bring back-- by walking it. I have written these measurements in my beautiful Molskine notebook to keep for all time: 64' x 36' for the back yard, that's 2300 sq. ft. 64' x 18' for the side of the L bed, that's 1150 sq. ft. 36' x 10' for the bottom of the L, that's 360 sq. ft. I have about 1500 sq. ft. to mulch in the back.
The good people at Barnes Supply on 9th St. tell me that one of their bales will mulch 100 sq. ft. to a 2-3" depth, so I have ordered 16 bales to be delivered Friday. Any extra will be put to good use in the front beds and elsewhere.
Now, why did it take me five years to figure out how to order mulch? I guess when it comes to gardening, I'm in the slow group.
update: The Barnes delivery guy, Gary, called me around 1pm in the truck with my mulch, unable to find my house. I hope my co-workers were entertained by our ensuing conversation, in which I lead him from the intersection of Duke and Markham all the way to the little white house with a silver Beetle parked in front. Gary was pretty entertaining to talk to. He felt the need to extoll the virtues of their mulch over that of Lowes during the lulls in conversation. I guess Barnes feels the pinch of the big box stores.
Posted by spacegrrl at 11:25 AM | Comments (3)
Category: gardeningApril 10, 2006
the many options
current obsession: lawn. garden. weeds.
many options discovered and researched lightly, like the kind of watering that encourages shallow root systems.
- the chem bomb option: weed and feed and seed. see what happens. inspired by a trip to lowes with the man, where we noted bags and bags of tall fescue for sale. tall fescue is the only fescue option that would really work well around here, and is probably the only thing that works here that can be planted with seed.
- the fully organic option: might include cardboard, a truckload of compost and topsoil mixture, powdered molassess, and a sense of smugness that i haven't felt since becoming a meat-eater.
it was pointed out to me this weekend that my back yard does not get full sun. maybe seven hours tops during the longest days of the year. so vegetables won't be as happy and productive as they could be.
i really like this article about cardboard vegetable gardening. no, not vegetables that taste like cardboard, but grown on top of or just under it. i happen to have a pretty impressive collection of heavy-duty cardboard that i was saving for just this sort of thing.
an interesting place that came within my purview last week: B&B Topsoil Mine here in Durham. one neighbor gave them a positive recommendation. they deliver mulches and various mixes of compost and topsoil. i forgot to ask if they also deliver straight sand, something that i'll probably need in quantity later this summer.
brain. full.
Posted by spacegrrl at 07:16 PM | Comments (2)
Category: gardeningApril 04, 2006
zoysiamania
in the process of researching grasses, i ran across this tidbit of insanity:
Q: Is Zoysiagrass any more or less sensitive to the effects of dog urine?
A: Zoysiagrass is more tolerant of female dog urine (the worst kind) than any other grass. If your dog goes in one particular spot it will probably turn the grass of color and if the lights were'nt on, get out? Yeah. Eventually if left untreated the thatch build up acts like talcum powder and causes the water and nutreints to run sideways. Then if it id going to have clippingsSpread around the grass should recover, however as an added measure leaching out the area with a good quantity of water will help enormously.
zoysia grass is the current front runner, if i really do go ahead with renovating my lawn. it's a warm season grass that is drought tolerant and disease resistant. it takes work, but requires relatively little nitrogen (fertilizer) and water as compared to other warm season grasses. warm season means it'll be green all summer, and i can plant it any time this summer.
i was getting excited about native grasses, like buffalo grass, but it appears that we get too much rainfall for those grasses to do well. kind of ironic given the drought we had last year.
to prepare the lawn, one likely technique would be to rent a sod cutter, cut strips in the yard, and flip them over, then plant the zoysia plugs in the flipped-over strips. wacky, eh?
Posted by spacegrrl at 09:11 PM | Comments (8)
Category: gardeningApril 03, 2006
plantopia
for those not in the greater durham area, we had some fairly massive rain today. which was cool, because my new gutter extensions got a pretty rough field test, and they appear to have done well. kudos to the young man who loaned me his rivet gun-- it was the perfect tool for the gutter job. not to mention that this job would have been impossible without the coping saw he gave me. tools are awesome.
so at lunch i went to the big blue home improvement store and bought more gutter equipment, and then went a little nuts in the garden department.
this year, i'm just going to buy the plants i like, and i'll find places for them. i've always held back on buying plants in the past because i knew i would never get them in the ground. but this year is already different. with no roswell hanging over me, no other projects tugging at my hem, and a hell of a lot more research and knowledge under my belt, it's a pleasure to work in the yard right now. with the time change, it'll be even easier.
so today i got:
eyeball plants! sarah and georg gave me one last year, and i managed to kill it, which has bummed me out ever since. not only was it a very cool plant, but it was a gift, so i both felt like a jerk and sad that i didn't have it anymore.
pterodactyls. ok, the real name of this plant is, as it turns out, setcreasea, which i did not know before today. it has pointy purple leaves that look, to me, like pterodactyl beaks. this is one of my favorite plants, so i'm pretty psyched.
dusty miller. i really like plants with oddly coloured foliage. dusty miller is one of those plants that looks like it was dusted with baby powder.
asparagus ferns. my mom had these on the front porch in hanging baskets when i was growing up, and i've always loved them.
i need to find some pretty hanging containers for the ferns, which i plan to hang from the shepherd's hooks at my front door. i think i'm going to get a pair of the nice vietnamese containers to go at my front door, and the eyeball plants will go in there. and i think i'm going to try and fit the pterodactyls and the dusty miller in the window boxes.
my window boxes look decidedly odd and they don't quite fit with my house. but that's ok. i won't say that i don't care, but i'm not going to worry about it too much.
update: gah, looking at pictures online, i don't think setcreasea is the plant that i was thinking it was. very cool looking plant, but not pterodactyls.
Posted by spacegrrl at 08:03 PM | Comments (0)