Dirt 'N' Plants

While the month keeps on kicking my arse in various ways, I seek comfort and calm in dealing with our garden and plants. :)  Something about taking care of a living thing that doesn't scream at you is rather nice. hehehehe 

We got our shipment of dirt in and....wow...it was a lot of dirt. Shana rounded up and it ended up being a rather large pile. We have ideas and we're going to end up using it eventually, but it created some interesting situations for us to deal with for sure.



Storing the dirt was one thing. We had to put it somewhere, so I managed to get a spot that was out of the way. But, I need to roll back in when the spoke clears and pull it away from the fence so it doesn't damage it over time. I just had to get it out of the driveway! heheheh

The kids love helping!

Shana looked into SQUARE FOOT GARDENING and we talked it through and thought that it would be a good idea for us. Basically, there are sites that call out how many plants you need per square foot for good growing conditions. 

http://squarefootgardening.org/square-foot-gardening-method

It really made sense to us, so we went for it and came up with a plan. 

Not our final, but close :)

Once we had things laid out, we headed to EAST BAY NURSERY and made our purchases. We had to think through the current water crisis as well - leaning away from items that needed a lot of water. We're going to do another round of conditioning where we use items to help keep the water in the soil as much as possible.

We popped the plants in their spots and started shifting things around until the plan seemed right, then we planted them and set them in.

Super happy about this. I've made some mistakes along the way for sure :::grin:::, but there's nothing like hanging out in the yards with the kids. It's a true, family based activity that also helps the overall feel of the house itself. I love it.

I'm going to document the goings on in the front later. The back is shaping up nicely. Our apple tree has finally started to bloom, but I'm not sure we'll get the amount of apples we got last year. We did purchase the same bug boxes and I'll spray with the natural oil to keep the pests down, but we might not have the same volume.

We've invited my brother-in-law up to help with the olives this year so they don't "die on the vine" like last year. He's a "foodie" and enjoys various food processes, so he'll take on the olives and maybe even our figs. Very cool.

And we're seeing good progress on our blood oranges! (...so far...)   It looks like pampering them worked - we're getting many more possible fruit buds this year!

A lovely moment of zen, looking at all of these photos and making future garden plans. Much needed. :)  If you're feeling a bit burnt, maybe you should run down to the local nursery and snag a plant or two to take care of. It might do you some good! :)

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A busy March and April

A photo overview of the progress of MARCH and APRIL.  In order....kinda...  :)

The plan of action

All the wood and supplies...into the Yaris. :)

Time to dig!

Fairy garden started.

We're going to plant a climbing vine in the base of the tree.

A little patio space

Tomato bed

Super helpers

Another HOME DEPOT run - sadly, I had one item too much

Bring on the DIRT!

So....the dirt arrived....

...a LOT of dirt. 

I spent hours shoveling dirt and moving it to the back. Well worth it - it's awesome dirt and I can't wait to get plants into it. But....yeah...it was a lot of dirt!

I filled the box and we had another box full left...that I'm still moving to the back yard. heheheh

Shana said, "Maybe we should build another box?" This sent me thinking about buying more wood for another box, then having too much wood left, so we buy more dirt....   :)

I started plotting out the Fairy Garden area as well. Talia and Seneca and interested in it, but not part of it yet fully. We'll see how it goes in the future. They might be more into it when there's more stuff for them to play with. 

Next step....plants!

Fairy Garden for my Daughter

My daughter is four and loves Fairies. Some of this love is just the love of little, tiny precious items to tuck away on special shelves and boxes. :)








We made a trip to Michael's Crafts yesterday and she saw these little fairy garden kits. Again, precious little items boxed for your convenience at a mere $30 each. hehehe  Single items - $2 to $5 each. If she were older, it might make sense to get a few, augment with found items and create a little potted fairy world for her. However, I tried it in the front for her last year and the little creation we worked on was far too small. She tore through it like a kaiju monster from Japan - ripping it all up and moving things around. This was fine - she's just playing, but I was going thought to larger items she could do this with in a garden she could actually explore.


So, I started making a game plan for something her and her sister could play in and around that had a Fairy feel. They have a little house they love to play in already - a big white plastic number we got from a dear friend. So, why not use that as a little base of operations for them, moving it towards the back of the "grass space" (...now mostly dirt and weeds to the the drought and tiny, stomping feet)  by our apple tree.

Now, spiders are all over the place here in Oakland during certain times of the year, so I have to make sure I don't send them off through webs and little red biting spiders for fun. I'd keep the space more towards the front of an area we're not making much use of currently - the space around our apple tree.

The tree is actually dead, but still producing fruit. It has a rather large hole area in the trunk. This will be perfect for little fairy goings on. I want to build a door into the base of the tree - custom and lovely with lots of flair and sparkly bits built into it. Shells, rocks and other items can be used around the area along with all the pine cones we have around behind the shed. They'll be able to move items around and play, but it won't be so tiny and breakable. URBAN ORE  will be looked through for some key, cool items.

I like the look and feel of this space. Great for a two and four year old girl to explore!

 I'd love to work on some fairy homes with the girls as well. I found a fun article on some DIY Fairy Homes I want to try out. Again, what a great way to play in the garden space and work on projects with the kids! 

http://inhabitat.com/diy-how-to-make-garden-faerie-houses-pixie-towers-and-toad-homes-from-reclaimed-materials/forest-fairy-house-lead/

Getting away from buying little pre-made items thrills me as well. I do the same when I can when I'm working on my train layout. I used to get boxed buildings that you simply unbox and drop on your layout. Not thrilling for me. I moved on to building out the building interiors and that was a lot of fun. Now, most of my buildings are built from paper or plastic kits and I'm planning to build a few custom buildings from scratch soon as well. Making use of found objects and things you dig up at places like Urban Ore is fun as well. The space you create is yours and unique. If you have the desire and energy to do custom work, why not!?

We'll see how this plan goes.

I think when they are older, I want to get into building some of these broken pot spaces. I love the look and I think the girls would love taking care of little spaces like this when they get to be a bit more mature about things like this. :)

Can't wait to get started, but the main gardening work comes first! :)

Garden ReStart

Kale flowering

Well, spring is in the air here at the Oaktown Oasis and the garden is calling me. :)

We've done some heavy planning and have been thinking through what worked well last year and what...didn't. heh  The blog has helped there - keeping track of what's what and what we liked about the garden last round.

We want to be able to actually use the items we're growing, to manage the gardens in the front and back, to present something nice in the front garden area and to have something the kids can use and explore. I think our plan is sound so far.

The main thing we want as far as big changes go is to get more dirt into the mix. Deeper beds for the plants to grow in. I think this is what really nailed us last year. We just didn't have the dirt to support proper growth. At least that's what we're assuming based on some tests we did with beans.

We planted beans in both a deep pot and our beds to see what would grow bigger and better. Our veggies were all dwarfs and we didn't know why. Well, the beans in the pot and the beans in the ground both sprouted at the same time, but the ones in the ground stopped growing at speed after about an inch while the potted beans shot up at an alarming rate! They topped out at around 7 feet while the ground beans never got past 5 or 6 inches. Amazing to see.



So, the plan is to combine the two larger beds into one, removing the bricks and rebuilding them into one bed with wood sides. The depth will be somewhere around 13 or 17 inches or so. Not 100% sure yet. We're going to have dirt brought in - a growth mix packed with goodness. We're also going to enlist the building assistance of a friend of ours who went this route last year. We're hoping that this gives us the space to really get some good stuff going. Carrots, onions, kale, chard and some other items we're going to be able to put to use for sure. We'll reuse some of the brinks in the center to create a walkway snaking path through the center of the bed for access.

I also want to get more strawberries going, so I'm going with the strawberry gutter idea I saw, planting the berries in gutters mounted on the side of the deck. This will allow us to block them off from squirrels and have them hang down so they don't go to mush on the ground.

There's a great "How Too" here:
http://www.onehundreddollarsamonth.com/how-to-grow-food-in-a-greenhouse-planting-strawberries-in-gutters/    Seems rather simple. I think we'll try to find used gutters, but we'll see - I want them free from hazards like bad paint.

Two rows of strawberries on the sunny side of the patio area.

We had a fantastic area with big, bushy flowering plants on the side of the lawn, but the broken sprinkler we had stopped us from using the timed sprinklers. (Well, that and the drought!) So, they died out a bit and never really came back to full. They used to block the fence and be filled with lovely, red flowers. Now, they are host to angry wild roses and a few flowers here and there. So, I'm going to take one group out for more planting area. Maybe even a Fairy Garden for my daughter to work with a small seat and some accent pieces. I mentioned it yesterday and she was so excited by the idea that she almost jumped out of her seat. :)

The area by our shed will be upgraded as well with another higher set box and some shed side stabilization. This will be our Black Krim area - tripping the plant that we had last year.

I'd like to build a planted area like the one I saw as well. I'd keep this side high to allow for the tomatoes to grow, then I might do another on the right side of the shed door with more boxes. We'll see - this might be a PHASE TWO for next year, though...if I'm already building things....why not?

The front yard is a wild place right now. However, I think we can get it looking managed and tamed with a little work. Our neighbors pay folks to come in and manage their yards, but we don't want to spend that kind of cash on that. I'm fine putting the time and effort in. What better way to enjoy ones home!? :)  (And...if we're paying anyone to do things like this, we'd rather pay someone to come and clean the INSIDE of our place! heheheh)  So, what I want to do is a little plant management.

• We're going to plant Salvia in the front - nice purple plants that can fill in some of our dead spaces.
• I'm going to finish running out drip tubes to make watering easier and more efficient.
• The plants that are there currently will be manicured and trimmed - keeping them less wild looking.
• The "grass" in the very front will eventually be torn out with the stones that are there at the moment. I'll lay down more dirt, replace the stones, then place a low water ground cover there to cut back on weeds and maintenance.
• The only other addition will be an herb garden in the front. This will have oregano, thyme, rosemary and maybe some mint. This was a request from Shana and it makes a lot of sense. We had herbs out in the back, but the kitchen is in the front. Walking all the way back, out to the patio and down to the herbs is not as efficient as just walking to the front door and down two steps. The herbs were not used much from the back, but they'll be great in the front. We're also sharing some with a neighbor that lets us snag lemons from her tree, so it will be great for them as well.

I want to make sure we're mixing up the plants in the back and using this COMPANION PLANTING chart I found. I'd also like to break away from the traditional row planting a bit. We have relatives down south who have done it and it's a really nice look - various veggies and flowers growing in lovely patches.  We'll try it out.

Go team NEGIN / JOHNSON!  :)     @}---->------------