Green and Blue

  In our last post we talked about our fledgling garden and all the wonderful things that we hope to get from it.  My goal this summer is to learn how to can so we can enjoy our bounty (as well as farmer's market bought fruit and veggie) all year long.  In, perhaps overly optimistic, anticipation of my soon to arrive cans and jars of amazing, my attention fell upon our little used 'panty'.

  There are only a few places I fear to tread in my house and this is one of them.  So far we have been using it as storage for odds and ends since it was too gross to store food in. A previous owner decided that fake wood grain sticky paper over the actual wood shelves was a good idea. And I think there are mouse droppings with hanta virus somewhere in there but I digress.  The width and height of the shelves seem perfectly suited to store canned goods. Which makes sense because our house was built in 1909, back in the old days when canning was a normal household activity. 

  So step one was to strip the really nasty shelving paper off and then put down a base coat.  Stripping off the paper took a couple hours as it did not peel off very easily.  Parts I had to pick off with my nails and everything was really dirty.  But painting went a lot faster although getting in the cracks and edges was a little tough. I ended up with paint in my hair but whatever.  I used a base coat called Gripper but you can also use stuff called Kilz. These are both products that keep stuff from bleeding through. What stuff? I have no idea. All I know is that when I don't use it (and even sometimes when I do) dark brown spots bleed through the paint. If you know what it is, please let me know.

  After the base coat the green paint went on.  I chose green because I painted the inside of my other cabinets green.  Why? I don't know. I guess I thought white and green were nice retro and bright colors.  Add a funky yellow counter and you have a very bright and cheery kitchen. At least I think so.

  And voila! The perfect place to store homemade cherry jam and pickled cauliflower. I finished the shelves off with clear shelving plastic so you can see the paint but it is still easy to clean. Someone else will have to pull it off in 20 years but that is the cycle of home improvements.   Total cost for this project: $0. I already had the paint and shelf lining so it was just a matter of time.  But if you did have to buy supplies I would estimate the cost at anywhere from $20 to $50 depending on the quality and quantity of supplies you buy.

  Now, onto the blue bucket. We are always trying to find ways to save money and if at all possible help the environment.  Many many years ago on some tv show someone said that they have a bucket in their shower that collect the water that gets wasted while you are waiting for it to warm up.  I randomly remembered that they other day and picked up a little blue bucket at Lowe's for $3 of something like that.

  You can see the blue bucket in the upper left hand corner of this photo.  For one shower to warm up it fills about half the bucket. If Matt and I both shower in a day then we have a full bucket. I then pour the bucket (get one with a handy pour spout like mine has) into my watering can which holds one bucket full of water.  That will water roughly one garden bed of plants.  I have two beds and some plants in the front so I usually need three watering can trips to get everything. So the blue bucket helps me save one third of my plant watering costs. It way not be that much but every little but helps. Next year I need a rain barrel!

Order in the Garden

   Matt and I have been working very hard over the last few months to get our first veggie garden up and running.  Neither of us have ever really done with before as Matt is from Arizona and I am a nomad.  However, it is looking pretty good!

  First we started by building two raised beds which are 8ft by 4ft.  I read somewhere this was about the biggest you could make it while still being able to reach into the middle and not have to step in it.

   We then covered the area with black plastic to kill the grass underneath.  It took a month or more for the grass to die and then we tilled it all up.

  This process was the least fun but it aerated the soil and helped break up the ground. Our soil is really bad so we had to add bags and bags of compost and top soil to make it good for the plants.

 

  Since it took so long for us to get the beds ready we were not on top of starting everything from seed.  We bought some tomato, onion, broccoli, eggplant and pepper plants just so we knew we would have something.  That is the first bed on the left. We also just added some basil and thyme. It really amazes me how much can grow in such a small space. 

  And this is what it looks like two weeks later. The tomato plants are starting to get big so we had to get supports for them.  We also noticed some cat/raccoon activity on the other bed so Matt put up some green plastic fencing to keep them out. Cross our fingers it works!

  Besides the two beds we made in the front yard I also cleared a little area on the side of the house.  Right now I only have sugar snap peas there.  Again, this is my first attempt at this so I may have done it horribly wrong. They seem to be pretty happy though.

  I did manage to start some plants from seed.  I got the idea from Pinterest to put the seeds in egg cartons so they have their own individual spots. This worked good but getting them out of there can be a bit of a pain.  But over-all I would recommend this as a cheap and environmentally friendly way to start your seeds.

  We are also happy to report that our dwarf cherry trees have tiny green cherries on them!  The two that we planted last year are doing so well we are thinking about putting more along the side fence.  The idea of homemade cherry jam is a huge incentive.

  All-in-all we have no idea how much food we are actually going to get for all this effort.   I can't say this project has made our house any less ugly or increased the value but it has made up happy and excited to see what will grow.

 

Banjo and Mushrooms

As I mentioned in my first post our wonderful dog, Haggis, recently passed away. Although we miss him greatly and he can never be replaced we still had a hole in our hearts and home. This ugly old house just doesn't feel right without a dog so a few weeks ago we adopted Banjo.

  He is a Belgian Shepard / Australian Shepard mix. We found him on petfinder.com and although he has a few social issues I think he will end up being a great dog.  But he is a little more unpredictable than Haggis was so it has renewed our determination to create a solid fence around our house.  There will be another post on our foray into fence building later on.

  Now onto the mushrooms. For the holidays Matt's sister gave us a grow-your-own mushroom kit. Matt loves mushrooms so we were excited to try it.  The first attempt was a failure. We watered it like the instructions said but then we had to go away for a few days and they dried up. Luckily we still had the other side.  The second tried produced the mushrooms in the picture below.

  A couple days after this photo we had a lovely mushroom sauce over pasta for dinner.  After doing some research Matt found out that this kit is filled with coffee grounds and mushroom spoors.  He is playing around with the idea of making a mini mushroom farm on the dark side of our house.  I am not opposed to this idea. But we have lots of other projects doing on right now so that will just have to wait.