8 Years Later: Here's the garden

Back yard

Pathway

Lettuce

Box o taters

New front door and paint

Passion Flower vine 

Garlic 

In The Meantime.....

 Seeeeeeeedlings!

 

I've been tending seedlings in the house while I wait for the last frost date.  I did manage to get a few things in the ground, peas, carrots, beets, radishes and an assortment of lettuce, spinach and kale.  They are all making their appearance right now, after getting a nice rainfall today.  I'm going to do a majority of the heat lovers (peppers, tomatoes, basil, eggplant) in containers on the new deck that I'm going to put in next week.  It's more of a boardwalk than a deck, as it's only 2 feet wide. It's going to cover some weird flower bed that was in the yard when we moved here.  It gets full sun and the heated reflection of the house in the summer so makes the perfect environment for those hot loving plants. I fully expect a copious amount of red sauce and salsa. 

 

 

I wasn't sure the peppers would do anything, but they look great!

 

 

 

The New Studio!!!!

I'm really having a good time with this project.  This structure was about 30 feet up a tree when we moved into our home.  While novel to have an "awesome treehouse dude", it was impractical to have my tools and art supplies at the end of a rickety ladder.  Que Crazy Luke.  That guy got the house walls and trusses down from the tree using what I can only describe as caveman tactics. Mathew of the Great Dwarven Realm helped rebuild the structure on the ground, and complained the entire time about the lack of right angles in the building and the fact that the trusses... were ALL different.  The roof is ... wavy, but man it's solid.  

 

 

Here's what it looked like rebuilt on the ground.

 

R and I have been working pretty much exclusively on this project while we're waiting to get planting.  In combination with the inside seedlings, I think we're pretty on track for the garden tour in June.  I've decided to include the back yard on the tour, as R and I have some pretty ambitious plans for the art installations in the back hillside area of the yard.  I'm glad our neighbors are so cool!

 

 

Looking closer to what I had planned out. 

 

The fire pit is coming along nicely.  I'd still like to find a metal worker to work with to make a few things I have in mind.  The benches came in yesterday and are the perfect addition to what I've got going on so far.  Soon, it will be all paths and local plants.

 

I'd say we have about one week left to finish up the small details and get the fountain/pond in and then it's off to the front yard! 

 

Forced Recovery

3 Tons of Granite

This is what 2.5 tons of granite looks like.  We had already moved about .5 ton before this photo was taken.  The poor garden cart needs new tires now. 

 

 

The first of the granite went up to the front of the gate, to line the beds that we put in and stuffed with columbine and lupines.  There is also a copious amount of black hollyhock and a couple of hydrangea bushes in front of the fence, low maintenance and a 'wild flower' look.  The ditch drain is looking much better, just waiting to fill in the dirt patch with something....  it gets a lot of sun up there, so maybe something edible that walkers-by can enjoy! 

 

More Granite and 3/4 Clean Gravel

The 2.5 tons of granite is now in the upper part of the back yard, laid out in an orderly fashion so I can inventory it. There seems to be a lot more when it's all laid out.  And after moving each and every rock, I felt like a few days recovery was needed.  *phew*  A lot of the rocks have been used to make the fire ring, and the cool bed that is now home to a volunteer red leaf maple that grew from my neighbors parent tree.  It is alive and happy and has a lot of new growth, and I am quite pleased. 

 

The clothesline in its original position was completely in the way of the new path, so we leveled a square-ish pad out and moved it into a new spot.  It looks much cleaner and far less ghetto than it did before.  D was very happy, as he's always though that the clothesline looked like crap and wasn't very happy at my instance that we put one in.  Now, it looks very nice, and we just need to fill the perimeter with hostas, ferns, salal, or some other type of local plants. 

 

 

I'm thinking that sunflowers lining the fence would look nice! 

 

 

Recovering From the Heavy Lifting

 

D was traveling to the Bay Area for work, so R and I decided to tag along and play tourist and heal up from the hard work that we did!  We were forced to relax by the pool, and quite honestly, the most stressful thing we ended up doing is driving into downtown San Francisco for probably the most amazing dinner I've ever had.  Thanks, Mike!

 

 

 

I was also inspired by this fence design for the fence that we are going to be putting in along the west side property line.  Love the cut out detail, and dog ear boards!  I also really dig the color scheme of this place (The Winchester House in San Jose) as well as all of the amazing finials and gingerbread trim.  

 

Now I am just waiting for the rain to stop so I can go move the rest of the gravel and start planning the fill in garden that will run along the back side of the house.  I'm thinking that a water feature would look great from all of the back windows of the house...  I better start saving now!

 



 

New Adventures and Garden Tour

Getting Ready!

 

All dead and frozen

I'm really excited to be a part of the Highline Garden Tour this year! Garden tour on B-Town Blog

I am hoping to keep this blog a little more active in order to document my goings ons in the garden and yard and to share my experience and hopefully get some feedback from other lovers of the earth.

 

  I have a slave... I mean co-worker to help and we have a huge task list to get through in not a lot of time.  I have a feeling it will be hard work, filled with arguments and passive agressive digging, but it's going to be a lot of fun, and in the end it'll be a perfect urban oasis.

 

Raspberries!

 

I really enjoy planning and designing what goes where, and I get the opportunity to work with Joshua (a brilliant archatect and designer!)  http://www.dioxua.com/   We'll be working on a privacy fence in the back yard that transitions to a more decorative garden fence that will be viewed from the road.  I hope to reproduce the design of the pickets in the garden fence that we made last year.  That design will also go onto the facia boads under the gutters as gingerbread trim!!!!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Craft Bazaar

The City of Normandy Park Arts Commission is going to be hosting a craft bazaar on the 8th of December, and we are looking for vendors to participate!  It should be a lot of fun this year, as we are going to be part of a larger community holiday event.  That means more people, more shoppers!  Please email me at yuelcraftbazaar@gmail.com or at amberraven@gmail.com and I can get you on the vendor list! 

Day 12

Off to London to start our journey home! We'll be staying there for two nights and flying home Sunday. I'm happy to have been visiting such a lovely place, but I am really looking forward to getting home. It can't come fast enough.

At least we'll get to visit the museums again, this time with Dennis. That should be fantastic! :)

Day 11 and a Tattoo!

I got a great souvenier today!