2008 - Beautiful Stair Case Rugs.

While shopping at JOANN one day in 2008, my mom and I stumbled upon a book that had a picture of a stair case with really cool rugs covering up the tops of the steps.  Of course, for the sake of making the project more interesting, the stairs had some really beautiful wood work on the edge of the stairs that I wish I could incorporate as well.  Sigh.  The real reason of this post was the idea of having something to cover up our beat up natural wood stairs.  They are simple to make and with all my mom's yarn that she had lying around, it was a fairly inexpensive rehab for my worn out stairs.

My mom agreed to work on the project with me and knocked five of the six stairs out for me.  She finished them and I got really excited about them and installed them on the steps.  I stapled them for extra security.  As you can see, the top stair is bare.  I didn't finish it.  Ever.  Several months later, my mom took the project home and finished the last stair.  I got about half way and didn't finish it.  I don't remember why I never did.  I think I messed the color pattern up and got upset about it and gave up on it.

As you can see, the second step is worn and ugly.  The first step is not any better.  I love how the rugs cover all that up and make it look so homey.  I put them all on in hopes that I would be inspired to get it together and finish my ONE rug.

Unfortunately, it sat under the television set waiting to be completed.  This was late 2008 before it made it to my mom's house to get finished.  Mid 2009 is before I finally installed it with the rest.  My mom ALSO made a larger one to fit the top step where the "All Things Grow With Love" rug (also made by my mom), but sits and waits (to this day) to be glued and now fixed after someone (dog or cat) chewed the yarn in one spot.

It is so funny seeing this picture as I sat on the couch taking it.  The living room doesn't even look like this anymore.  I just bought a new camera that day and was testing the quality.  Silly me.  Otherwise, I would have never taken this picture.  Number one, it's messy.  Number two, the subject is boring.  However, I do think it's a good visual of what the house looked like in 2008 and today so to speak, cluttered and messy.

2012 - The Living Room Garden - All Sprouted Out

Twelve days later and the Parsley emerged.  They popped out in half the time the package suggested!  I think the light and the bottle created the perfect growing environment.

Left: Parsley.  Top: Cilantro.  Right: Basil.  Front: Dill.  I thinned out the Dill since it is supposed to be a bigger plant.  The rest will need to be thinned out later.

2012 - Garden Plans - Herb and Butterfly Garden

I have some pretty big ambitions for our 2012 garden and have a feeling it all will not get put into use.  Nonetheless, I have a goal and hope to obtain it.  I would really like to have a sustainable garden and believe that the backyard will have to go through some major redoing.

Until then, I believe the area where the gardening has been commencing the last three years will be the norm again this year; right out the back door off the south side of the patio. 

Last year, I fixed the path after it had gotten so overgrown with grass and weeds from the first creation of the butterfly path in '09.  This was taken in May '11.  In the butterfly garden, the plantings consist of Day Lilies, Lamb's Ear, Mums, Cone Flowers, and Russian Sage.


I will continue with these plants, but believe the heat wave of the summer killed off the Lamb's Ear.   If they do not come back I may get a new plant to restart the furry little plant, since it is a nice addition to the garden.  As usual, I will split the Lilies and hope to get more production out of them.  In the fall, I planted some seed heads of some wild Black Eye Susan flowers that sprung up on the other side of our north fence into the back row of the garden to see if they will sprout in the spring. 

Here is the main focus were I want to create a real herbal garden.  Right now the perennials in this small garden are Spearmint, Lemon Balm, Garlic Chives, Oregano, and Jerusalem Artichoke.

The Jerusalem Artichoke is cool to watch it grow and makes a really nice privacy fence.  They grow as tall as 9 feet tall and have really nice sunflowers at the top of the plant. 

However, after a severe summer storm comes through, it knocks them over and it crushes me to see them bent over and broken.  Last year was the third year we had these things growing.  The first year, they were small due to the deer pretty much eating them up and we didn't get any flowers.  The second and third years the straight line winds got to them and several of our walnut tree's big limbs.  Evan and I end up tying them up and it looks ghetto and we barely get any flowers on top.  I often think of what the neighbor's maybe thinking of why we are growing such a gigantic weed for.   The flowers do not emerge until late September.  So from late April, to mid September, we have these crazy tall green stalks growing.   Instead of an actual sunflower, they are what is called a sun-choke.  The plant grows off of a root similar to a potato that people harvest.  Supposedly, they are supposed to taste like water chestnuts, but make you fart a lot.  I mainly wanted them for the privacy and sunflower factor.  Our backyard has no privacy to our neighbors.  We can pretty much see straight into our back neighbor's back door and such.  Unfortunately, this natural fence will not work this year.

To obtain this herbal garden, I am going to have to up root ALL the Jerusalem Artichoke roots.  Otherwise, they will take over the new garden.  Trust me.  I started to reduce the amount of sun-chokes last spring and boy-o-boy did they multiply from the year before.  I can only imagine how much they multiplied this year.  I really do not want to deal with them again this year.  Last year as I was cleaning up the spring garden, I moved some from the herb garden to the fence on the north sided of the yard to give them some room to grow there.  The deer seem to like to munch on them and will help keep them at a minimum there.

For the new herbal garden, I need a raised bed and think it will look really nice to tie the whole garden together.
Here's why:  We have moles and rabbits.  I hate the destruction they do to my garden.

I found this raised bed at Lowe's.  I'm super excited about it.  I have had my eye on it since last year.  Money has been a common factor in my venture of making my dream garden be semi-non existent and hope this will be the year to get it put in.  It is roughly four foot by four foot.  I will line the bottom of the bed with chicken wire or similar to keep the pesky moles out of my precious garden.  One thing I have not decided is which way I will have the trellis turned to have something crawling up the backside.  I want to have beans and okra, which will work nicely on this trellis.  I will divide the area inside to house, Dill, Basil, Spearmint, Lemon Balm, Oregano, Thyme, Cilantro, and Parsley.  On the outside, I will plan on having Chives and Lettuce.  Of course, this may change as I see that the idea is not likely to work as it is laid out on computer screen.  Merely a rough draft of my vision.

Time will tell.

2011 - Garden Walkways

Once the 1970s a/c unit was replaced with this enormous one, the path to the deck needed help.  The area was rocky and hard to mow without throwing sharp objects all over the place.

Late April we decided to make an area where we would not have to worry about mowing anymore.  A curved path would be much easier to mow than the area that sat by the a/c unit.

The beginning of May, we wanted to make the path as wide as possible to diminish as much mowing as possible.  After all, the mower is electric and I will take any subtraction of mowing that I can take.

The path was shaping up with the new stone border and flattened out path.

We then divided the path from the whole portion to make two separate areas.  The stepping stones will have a white stone and the area around the a/c unit will have red lava rocks.

We laid out the steps in equal walking distance so that the walk to the deck would be natural.

Evan came up with this cool design and echos in the steps.

Our finished path.  It is so nice to have.

After a few years of neglect and too much rain, the butterfly path had become overgrown.  And since we were on a roll with the other path, I tackled this one on my own while Evan cooked on the deck and kept our fire pit going to keep me warm while I worked.  The steak was so tasty, we didn't get it pictured, but have the sides in all their glory.

The path has rocks and stepping stones laid out on it, so I can't just mow it.  I have to hand pick out the weeds and grass to keep it looking nice.  Once we found the weed barrier sheeting that we used on the path to the deck, I decided to redo the butterfly path to keep the weeds out of it.

So I had to remove all the stepping stones and rocks.  The rocks did not get salvaged.

So with my trusty shovel, I dug up the weeds and laid out a new path for the weed barrier to protect it.

With the weed barrier and small underlying stone down, the path was shaping up nicely.

The stepping stones were replaced and the gray rock then put in to fill a round it.

The Butterfly Garden was happy after this transformation.

2009 - Our First Herbal and Butterfly Garden!

Our first garden was small, but we managed to break ground and have a garden.  The plan was to have it out from the patio and be a lot larger and sit on the small slope.  It was going to be a stepped raised garden on the slope.

We went to a local garden store and bought up some plants and started some seeds in a Jiffy seed starting kit.  Our kitchen was a garden factory for a few weeks before the last frost.  We had basil, parsley, oregano, sunflowers, cherry tomatoes and cilantro growing on our kitchen table.

Cherry Tomatoes started from seed in a hanging basket.

Our vision for this jungle of weeds next to the stairs is hard to believe what it has become known as the Butterfly Garden today.  Thistle, thick grass, hard clay, rocks, rose of sharon bushes, and various other plants that I could not make out had to be removed, root and all.

My mom suggested we keep the small bush out from the house.  I sure was glad we did!

Evan salvaging soil from weeds.

Once all the weeds were gone from the corner, the dirt was smoothed out and leveled to house our new plants.

Evan lays out the garden path.

Lamb's Ear, Day Lilies (Red and Gold), Butterfly Flowers, Clover, Coneflowers, and some ground cover filled this Butterfly Garden.  We started the path, but never finished until later.  I believe I wanted to make it go somewhere else, but ended up just curving it around the garden.  After a few rains, the garden had to have a retaining wall to keep the dirt and plants from washing away.

Here is the rest of the garden in picture review:

Our first Strawberry!!!  Oh so tasty and small!

The small town of Smurfs just outside our herb garden.

Look at those tomatoes go!

As the dill, basil, mint, and various other transplants grew, we added a green pepper and tomato plant to the mix.  During this summer, our grass grew out of control.

Bloom baby Bloom!

What a happy contrast to what was before.

Insert 'Jaws' movie theme song here.  Not wanted in our garden, but fun to see munching outside our fence.  Again with the grass. The deer LOVED our lush grass as well as all our yummy garden items.  In some areas the grass grew two plus feet tall and it took four days to cut it and had to start all over to keep up with it.

Mini herbal garden test.  It failed.  It was too hot on the patio and did not get enough water.  Even though we got plenty of rain this year.

Strawberries on the Left - Cherry Tomatoes on the Right.  The Tomatoes in the hanging basket did not make it's appearance in the next years, BTW.  There is that tall grass again.  Boy-o-boy was it so tough to keep it down.  Rain, Rain, Rain!

Beautiful Rose of Sharon (that my mom told me to keep) tripled in size and blooming, made a great privacy barrier from our next door neighbor.  Look how big the Lamb's Ear got!

These were very unhappy driveway sunflowers that originally started on our kitchen table.  They were stunted by the deer's hungry appetite.  So sad to look at.

We learned from our mistakes this year and hopefully we will improve on it for the next years to come.

2012 - The Living Room Garden - More Sprouts

And on the seventh day, the dill and cilantro arrived as promised!


Amazing!



The dill shown here on the left is already an inch tall for just sprouting.

While the cilantro is still emerging, it is all so neat to watch these guys go!

2012 - The Living Room Garden - Basil Sprouts

  


We have BASIL!!!  Five days after sowing the seeds on Monday, the seeds sprouted on Saturday.  I can't believe it!  


The house is fairly cool.  We keep the thermostat at 67 to keep the cost down.  Fortunately we have been lucky with mild temperatures this winter with a few bursts of blustery cold temps.














 
That being said, the greenhouse effect was not occurring with just the sunlight hitting it during the day and I don't believe the soil I purchased is the best at retaining water either.  


In came a clamp light that I found to help heat the bottles up and create some humidity in there to boost the environment for promoting growth.


All-in-all, I was super excited to see the little guys growing!  


Now I anxiously await the next two, cilantro and dill, to sprout on day 7.  The parsley should break ground on day 21.