{Garden} Veggie Garden

One of the items on my 40 before 40 list was to change out rock garden into a veggie garden. So we did and I'm happy to say that we have produced enough lettuce to feed our entire family (and then some), the broccoli is pretty much done for the summer, and our tomato and tomatillos are looking really good!

As for the items on my list, it ended up that we combined 17 (plant a veggie/fruit garden) and 18 (rescue cactus garden) into one. We still need to add more plants so it includes more fruit, but for now 17 is basically done, or at least in progress as the side bar says, and 18 will be considered done as we completely removed our cactus garden. I'm ok with it being gone as many of the pots have been reused throughout the rest of our yard and many were planted with annuals to brighten up Lily's garden this spring.

Just to show you the progress of the space, here's what it used to be:

It started out being a fenced in garden that only housed the prickly pear cactus. That cactus took  up a good portion of the garden area but we cut it out and only kept enough to fill two small planters. Those are now overflowing, but that's another issue.

Here's the garden looking a lot better. We had just finished making it our rock garden in 2008 and it was turning out to be a great space. Everything in the ground was able to winter over and everything in pots (except the prickly pear in the back left corner and the hens and chicks in the bottom right) had to be brought inside. After successfully killing all but the giant cactus that first winter, and then also becoming pregnant with Lily, we realized the rock garden wasn't a match for us. But wasn't it pretty?

So, fast forward to today. The area is a decent size with lots of light, so we knew a regular veggie garden would be good for this space. We have a smaller area in our yard where our raspberries and cilantro are. I may rip out all of the cilantro and do an herb garden somewhere else but that's for next year.

We did have to fence it in. Krypto enjoys digging. A lot.

After the summer ends this year, I may do things differently next year. We're trying out different plants as we go along and although I'm pretty sure we'll be happy, I may rearrange the garden differently next year. This year we didn't plan all that well but focused on getting specific things in when we had them. We had bought some of the plants and were given others by my dad.

I'm also afraid of weeding in there because I think there are a few baby plants that may be peppers or tomatoes. After Doug mows the lawn, he puts the grass clippings on top. This helps keep most weeds away and retains moisture.

We do have plans of using more of our yard for gardens in the future. I'd like to get some sort of fruit tree, possibly two or three, and put them in our front yard or back yard. A few more berry bushes will happen too. My parents have a huge garden, so I'm not stressing over producing a lot but everything helps! We love to eat fruits and veggies and going organic, producing our own products, and showing Lily how to grow plants is definitely worth the time and energy. And now it's off to go water. We haven't had much rain here and I don't want things dying! I'll keep the blog posted when we get some good produce out of here (besides lettuce, that stuff needs NO help!)

{Home} Before Photos

At Lily's birthday party today (pics to come), I realized many people in our family had never seen the before photos of our house. One of my friends said that I should make a coffee table book. That would take some more time and finding the old photos of everything, which I'm hoping are on my old computer. But anyway... here are some photos from the house before I got my hands on it!

BEFORE - the hallway bath. Brick red ceiling, aqua blue walls, shell border around ceiling and cut out detail, pinkish tan painted trim, tile halfway up walls, wallpaper on ceiling.

BEFORE - old bath area in front of window was converted to shower area too (with the new "wall" to house shower pieces.

BEFORE - bathroom - circle medallions match those found in dining room (all cut out of larger wallpaper pieces).

BEFORE - columns in living room. Two tone with glaze.

BEFORE - living room into dining room (house is a mess while painting started). The living room had already been painted, dining room is still a dark red.

BEFORE - dining room side was solid brown with glued on decals.

BEFORE - living room - "antique" (according to previous homeowner), wallpaper (that's the sheet that was cut out for all borders and circle medalions), corner pieces from wallpaper, hand painted border (wallpaper), dark red (with black glaze) walls, brownish ceiling.

BEFORE - dining room - just another shot of the darkness and random details.

BEFORE - dining room - showing off the hand painted (NOT by me!) wallpaper border.

BEFORE - that's a lot of work - glad it didn't take much to remove it all!

BEFORE - dining room - wallpaper on trim. Why?!?!

BEFORE - door. The true before would show the old hardware, but we replaced that for a new lock and dead bolt within weeks of moving in. Security first people!

BEFORE - kitchen - OMG was this bad! And yes, those are grapes that are climbing up to the ceiling.

BEFORE - kitchen - oh the green ...

BEFORE - kitchen - up close - and in progress, the black is just a temporary fix until we can afford a true makeover

BEFORE - Lily's room - two closets, poop brown trim, stenciled gold medallions

BEFORE - Lily's room

BEFORE - Lily's room detail of the stencils on the walls

BEFORE - living room - dark brown trim, mustard walls (with glaze), wallpaper (hand painted again), two color door, "ornate" (?) switch cover, dark green curtains with tassels.

BEFORE - living room - wall paper on ceiling

BEFORE - living room

BEFORE - living room - trim on bottom and top of walls. Green thing with strings is the curtain and the tie back (that's looped up so I can start cleaning and removing wallpaper).

BEFORE - living room - window decorations

BEFORE - fireplace

BEFORE - living room - more wallpaper!

BEFORE - upstairs office (look at the belly!!!)

BEFORE - our garden area

BEFORE - was after - of garden area (and also pre-fence too)

BEFORE - upstairs - two different colors of trim, wood trim everywhere (instead of properly finishing drywall), wood paneling on vertical surfaces

BEFORE (kinda) - upstairs. This shows teh color, wood trim, stair carpet, brick walls that were on all four eaves

{Back Yard} Cactus to Veggie Garden

Hubs has been busy over his Spring Break. Maybe some day we'll have the same week (or a few days as I work for a district that doesn't take a full week off) off and can go away for a vacation. Anywho... he was busy. This doesn't show the current state - everything is gone except the big pot of prickly pear cactus. That thing's a big beast and a pain in the butt to move. Well, hand... those things are sharp! The water "feature" (ha!) has been removed and all the rock has been relocated to other beds. We are now ready for the ground to be tilled and planted with veggies! Let's hope the future veggie garden is more productive and longer lasting than the cactus garden. 

PROGRESS!

A walk down memory lane will show us what it looked like in 2008. A year after we moved into the house (how has it been 5 years!?!), we pulled out all of the fence except the fence post that's in concrete. Everything in the ground are plants that will survive our winters and everything that was potted had to be wintered over in our house (except the prickly pear cactus in the big planter in the back - see above). It worked well until all the plants died. Did you know that cacti can rot even when you don't water them very much? It was nasty. The plant in center left (the tall guy) was gross. The arms all rotted off and then the center piece fell over after it rotted from the inside out. GROSS! 

BEFORE

Detail shot of the prickly pear. Man has it grown in the last 6 years! This was actually the only thing in the whole garden and we ripped up most of it (it's super aggresive) and planted some pieces in the pot to help control the chaos.

The TRUE BEfore... Rotting, nasty fence and super overgrown prickly pear.