Oct 25 2008

Bonfire

Published by Don under Friends, Gardening, House, Randomness

Last night we planned on having a bonfire, but since it rained all day of Friday, we decided that it would be a bit wet so we had an indoor bonfire.  We had about 12 or so people come over for a cookout, where I cooked some burgers and hotdogs on the grill and then just hung out for the rest of the night. We then burned some wood in the fireplace and played some wii and had a good time. People stayed over and hung out till around midnight.

Saturday was a busy day as well.  Corrine and I started the morning, with choir practice and then Corrine and the girls went out for lunch, and since it had rained the day before Rob and I decided that we should have the bonfire anyway and burn the brush that we had acquired for the past few years.  So we burned a lot of the tree that Rob cut down the week before, along with a whole lot of the brush that we have been building up for the past 3 years.  While Rob manned the fire Corrine and went off to learn how to make dumplings at a dumpling making class.  It was a lot of fun, and we got to eat a whole lot of them, they were pretty good.  We then came home from the class and helped Rob and John finish putting brush on the fire and then we ended up having a pile that was about 12 feet in diameter of ash and embers. Then we all came in an played some more Wii.  Great weekend of fun.

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Oct 22 2008

Cleaning up for Next year

Published by Don under Gardening

I spent a few hours on Saturday, clearing the garden, and tilling to be ready for next year.  After Paul spent time this summer fixing the tiller up and making it run like new, I spent several hours tiling so the garden is almost ready for next year.  I think I need to put something on top of the soil so it will be ready to plant for the fall, but I’m not exactly sure what I should put on it.  I read somewhere that I should put peat moss and compost on top of the soil and then as it snows and it freezes and melts the nutrients are supposed to seep into the soil to make it better for next year.  Any thoughts?  It seems a little silly that I am asking advice about compost and that sort of stuff, but its about gardening, someone should have some insite for me.

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Aug 28 2008

Our Backyard Nursery

Published by Don under Friends, Gardening, House

I’m not sure whats gotten into me this week, but I feel like posting.  And I keep thinking of different things that I want to post about, and things keep happening, so I figure I will post about them.  As most of you know our house is pretty much on farm land, flat open land, because of this it can get windy and hot.  To counter this we are planting trees.  We joined the Arbor Day Society last year and they sent us 10 bare-root trees so we planted thost this spring, all seem to be doing quite well.  I still don’t know where we will plant those in the yard, so they are currently behind the shed, so they are shielded from the wind, and they are in the garden area, so I remember to water them and take care of them.  So that is the start of our nursery.  Then earlier this summer when Annie, was out weeding her flower beds around the house, there were trees growing in her flowerbed, so she dug them up and brought them over to our house so we could plant, them.  There were two maples and an oak tree, the oak tree didn’t look too good, a little weak but thought it could survive, and the two maples looked great, one a little better then the other, but still good.

We planted the Oak in the front yard, it doesn’t look like it will make it, but maybe.  The Maple’s still look great though.  The bigger and I assume older of the two trees is probably close to 3 feet tall right now, we put it in the back yard between the pool and the shed, so in a few years it should hopefully be a good size so that it might provide some good summer afternoon shade over the pool.  And the other Maple we planted to the South end of the property just past the shed, it too is doing well.

Then a few weeks later, Annie, found one of those propeller, seed things of the maple tree with a little sapling growing out of it, so she gave that to us too, its pretty little, but currently doing well in a flower pot on the back porch.

Now I come to the reason, I decided to post this little story.  Corrine has wanted a big weeping willow tree, in our yard, and we have this nice low spot in the yard that seems to collect water so I began looking around for a nice tree to put over there.  I began talking to Paul, my co-worker and gardening buddy, about Corrine’s desire for a willow tree, and Paul happened to have a nice Willow Tree in his back yard, so he cut off a branch and we planted it in a cup of water here at the office.  It has been getting quite big maybe like a foot tall, and had a whole lot of roots so we decided to plant it in dirt.  So I finally took it home yesterday and planted it in a nice sized flower pot.  Hopefully it will do well, and I will share pictures later, as how it looks and how it is progressing.  But it looks like it has potential to be a nice tree, a few years down the road.

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Jul 09 2008

Gardening

Published by Don under Gardening

We have been spending quite a bit of time out in the yard lately working on the garden.  If you remember I have had a few posts about the garden, even a few pictures now and again.  Well we were out side last night after one rain storm before another one hit, and Corrine staked up some Tomatoes and we did some work on the beans and peas, and even did some work with the zucchini, so we think the garden might be coming along.  Here are a few pics I took with my cell phone, so I apologize for the quality.

Corrine the Gardener

Check out the difference of the Tomatoes and zucchini.

Here is a picture from last month. The first square is where the tomatoes that are in the next picture are located, and the 3rd square back is where the Zucchini’s live.

Garden in June: Image003

Tomatoes: Surprise Tomatoes from our Neighbor Zucchini : Huge Zucchini Plants & a few litte Cucumbers too

Wait till next month and I hope to have pictures of the start of the bountiful harvest..  Check back for more pictures…

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Jun 11 2008

Around the house

Published by Don under Corrine, Don, Friends, Gardening, House

We have been doing quite a bit around the house lately.  Been doing some landscaping, planting some trees.  (Rob and Annie had a big maple tree in their front yard, that has produced a few baby maple trees, so we are trying to figure out where to plant those.

We have officially planted vegetables in our garden.

Image003Image004

I took these 2 pictures this morning after I watered the garden, The one on the right is looking east and the one on the left is looking west.  The green poles in the middle of the garden, you see in the right pictures are so that i can put up a trellis or something so we can from beans and peas up there.

We are going to try and do the square foot garden, idea, so you’ll see squares.  Looking at the left picture you can see Tomatoes in the first 2 squares.  Then you will see the Zuccini in the next square, and then the peas & beans, the square just to the left of the peas and beans you can’t see them, but there is corn in that square.  Then next week, we will plant more tomatoes and probably more corn, and probably something else we find around.

Any one have ideas on anything else we should plant?

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