Garden clean-up and harvest

I realized this morning as I was looking out at the garden, that getting rid of the weeds and grass right around the edge not only removes the hiding place for the slugs, but it also exposes any who dare to venture up the side to the birds, one of their predators. Yay for birds! I know they sometimes can be a pain when growing things, but right now they are my friends.

I harvested all the rest of the spinach today. Most of it had bolted, many of the leaves were kind of thin and wilty, but I got a handful out of the rest. I had gotten quite a bit from that square and can't wait to plant it again for a fall crop.

I also took out one of the Winter Density lettuces. They are so nice looking. I need lots of lettuce for a meal with friends coming up, so I thought I'd just take it all. I also cut off some Simpson lettuce and red lettuce.

I took pictures of the garden, but they are still on the camera, so that will wait.

Garden clean-up step one

I let the girls play with playdough on a kid's table in the shade while I worked on my tiny garden this morning. It was so hot and sunny already, but I was determined to get it done.

Using wire cutters I cut off the extra chicken wire that had been a collecting place for weeds. Then I went around the base folding up about three inches of the wire and using a bush and hedge shears to cut down the grass and weeds that were hiding the slugs. That alone looks so much better, even if there hadn't been any slugs to hid. It looks nice and neat.

Then I worked on killing the slugs I could see. I used salt. Probably not so nice for the slugs. I shook lots of salt around the base, hoping to deter other slugs. When I get more time later, I'll probably work on an actual garden pathway around the garden, but for now I can at least easily keep the weeds and grass cleared.

I'll take a picture once it's not so sunny. Maybe this evening.

Slugs and snails and garden tales

Edited to add last paragraph.

I'm just on a posting frenzy tonight.

I've been finding what I think are baby slugs or snails on my lettuce in my garden. From what I've found online, I think they are coming from the tall grasses and weeds surrounding the wood edge on the raised bed garden. Plus, it's been so rainy here and they like the wetness. Pests are my least favorite part of gardening. I can handle ants, but slugs/snails...ewww. I'm a wuss.

I have a few possible solutions. One is that some people say they are attracted to stale beer (how do you make beer stale?) and that they will drown in it if you place a cup or dish in the garden. I could also try an ammonia/water solution (1:3 or 4) and spray it right on the slugs to kill them. The last solution is to get rid of their hiding place: the tall grasses and weeds.

I'm definitely doing the last one even if I don't do the other two. I've been combing the internet for ideas on garden pathways around raised beds. I'm either putting the wrong words in the search engine or there is not much out there. I know I'll be cutting the grasses and weeds down right next to the garden, but then I'm trying to figure out if I should dig up the grass about for a two or three foot path around the perimeter of the garden (I would like to have more raised beds, so these would end up being aisles, that's why they are so wide) and then put down something. Most people I've read say to put down woodchips, but maybe something else would look better. I also wonder if I could just put down many (10 at least) layers of newspaper or some corrugated cardboard and then put some woodchips on top of that. Any ideas? Links? Garden forums where people are talking about these kinds of things?

In other fun news, I found an inch long green roma tomato on my plant today! Yay! Very exciting. :) I'll be ripping out most of the older lettuce and spinach later this week because a lot of it is going to seed. The basil is starting to grow and I'm trying to pinch the tops to make it bushier, but I don't know if I'm doing it right. After I rip the lettuces out, I don't know if I'm going to do anything in those squares. I'll have two empty squares. I don't know if there is anything I can plant right now.

Wish I had pictures to post, but they're on the camera and I'm too beat to get up and go downstairs to get that. :)

Okay, I found something on the iVillage Garden Web Forum. But I'm still open to suggestions. I'm thinking of cutting down weeds and grass right next to the bed and then laying down corrugated cardboard and then a few inches of wood chips. Should I wet the cardboard?

Chickens?

I've been thinking about and looking into raising a small (very small) number of female chickens for eggs and meat. There are a number of good sites to look at and I was excited to find out that there are people in our area who do have backyard chickens. Now if I can only get myself invited over to their house to see their set up. There's got to be some sort of backyard chicken support group around here I can attend to get connected, right?

Anyway, there is a lot to think about when it comes to raising poultry. I've decided that it's something I (we) want to do, but not for awhile. I want at least Becca to be old enough to go out on her own to feed the chickens if I need her to. I'm afraid at this stage in my life I'd neglect the poor things.

I also want to figure out how to keep the chickens through the winter. I know I could have them slaughtered before the cold weather comes, but I just don't like the idea of killing all my chickens every year. At this point I'm really more interested in the eggs than the meat anyway.

So lots to think about still.

Places I've looked:

Backyard Chickens

Henderson's Chicken Breed Chart

Indiana Living Green Urban Chicks article

New glider

Just before we lost Little Bun we bought a new (to us) glider. It's a Dutailier wooden nursery rocker with no ottoman. I was looking for a used Dutailier and found one on Craig's List. We got it for $100. The family said it's been used through three kids, and it still rocks so smoothly and silently. I love it.

Sometimes it's kind of sad rocking in it, thinking of the baby I would have rocked and nursed countless hours in that very chair had things been different, but most of the time I'm just happy to rock my current almost two-year-old "baby" in it. I don't know how I lived without such a smooth, comfy chair for so long.

I highly recommend the Dutailier brand.

Tree for Little Bun and other plant talk

We went up to a nursery today a little northwest of the city. We spent a lot of time talking and walking with one of the workers there about trees to plant in our yard and front bed. Mostly I wanted to pick out a tree to plant when we bury Little Bun.

I'm happy to say that we were able to find a tree and I feel so relieved. It was weighing down on me that we didn't have anything and that I couldn't figure out what kind of tree to get. We bought a Serviceberry (I think the Shadblow type, but I don't have the paperwork with me right now). It's a single trunk tree (most of the pictures I could find online were multi-trunk trees, more like a shrub) and already eight or nine feet tall. They'll be delivering it and we'll plant it. I'll make sure to post a picture of it.

The Serviceberry is a flowering tree, white flowers in the early spring. It also has small berries that attract birds. It shouldn't get taller than 25 feet. The bark is gray and smooth, kind of pretty. I'm just really pleased with our final choice.

We also started deciding on some other plants and trees for our front:

Black Hills Spruce: we'd like to get one of these for our yard on the left front side.

Globe Blue Spruce: I love Colorado Blue Spruces, but they just get too tall. We'd like to have something with that blue color, so we're thinking of this one for the spot to the left of our porch instead of a tree.

That's as far as we've gotten. We walked all over the nursery, way back where all the trees are, and the girls were so tired by the time we left. We didn't want to push it to look at anything else. They both fell asleep on the way home, which meant no naps this afternoon. Instead we made Nathan a Father's Day cake and had some rest time in the living room all together. I took some time to look through the book First Art by MaryAnn F. Kohl while we rested. I found lots of fun ideas I hope to try.

Anne's House of Dreams

I finished my fifth Anne book yesterday. I think this was my favorite following the first one. Miss Cornelia cracked me up. And I found I could relate to Anne's loss in the book. I thought I had read somewhere that Anne has six children in this book. Don't know where that came from since she definitely does not by the end of the book.

I love Anne. She's so real to me after reading so many of those books. I love that she is not perfect, but really wanting to be better. I love other amazing characters L.M. Montgomery has thought up. I can't wait to share these with the girls.

Other books read in the past couple of months:
The other Anne books before this one
Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto (took me awhile)
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
Tales of Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb

Landscaping current pictures

When I took pictures of the purple flowers tonight I thought I'd snap some pics of the current landscaping. It really doesn't look too bad (except the weeds) and we have a lot to work with.

The whole front, including the lovely lawn (on a side note, TruGreen (sp?) left a note hanging on our door knob today saying that we really needed their services on our lawn--I think they want to save us from the weeds--we won't be taking them up on it).



A close up of the front right--notice how weed free it is in the bed. That's my hard work (and a little of Nate's).



And closer of the front left including the weed wilderness where we want to plant a tree right by the porch behind the lilies. I hope to have someone else dig up all those weeds. I (and Nate) will be pulling weeds to the right of the lilies.



Now I've just got to figure out what to put where and hope it looks good in the end. :)

The purple flowers

At Laura's request, here is the picture of the flower. Thanks for you thoughts, Laura. I have more to think about now. I went out and drew a diagram with measurements of the front beds and now I can figure out what to put where.

Landscaping

Nate said that he wanted to get the front bed weeded. I was out there tonight with the girls and got a bit more done (Nate was out demolishing a friend's kitchen). I'd like to get some things planted in there too.

Plants:
Two boxwoods on either side of the steps already. Maybe add more boxwoods.

Hostas--I see these all over and love their big leafy look.

Daffodils--these make me so happy and I want to have some coming up in the spring.

Lillies--I don't neccessarily want these, but I tried to rip them out last fall and they came back. They are tall yellow lillies, one patch of them. I guess they are pretty hardy.

Some purple flower--Don't know what this is, but we have two patches of it. Maybe we'll plant a hosta in between them. I want to find out the name.

Pine tree--we want a tree to the left of our porch and Nate said he wants something with needles on it, so pine it is. We like the Christmas tree looking kind. We'll have it delivered and planted. That are is so weedy that it needs some professional work, I think. :)

Roses--I didn't think I wanted these, but Nate's parents are sending us one in remembrance of Little Bun. I'm excited to get it and I think I have just the place to plant it.

Ornamental grasses--Don't know if I'd do these or not, but a few small patches might be nice. I see them around the neighborhood and they look nice. Not the really tall kind, but the 1-2 feet kind.

Ally update

It's lacking many pictures, but I did a 22 month update on Ally over on the girls' blog. I hope to have more pictures up next week sometime.

Skirt

Updated to add pictures:

I finally made a skirt that I like. I mean, I have skirts that I've bought that I like, but this is the first one I've made that I like. It feels so therapeutic to create and sew right now. I've had this need the past few days to make things.

I followed the Five-minute skirt tutorial, but then had to rip out everything (elastic and side seams) to make it narrower at the waist and to make the bottom not flare out so much. Oh, and I used newspaper taped together to make the pattern. Not the greatest thing to use, but it was free, so I tried it and it worked well.

I watched this video to learn how to sew on fold over elastic, which I bought from Sewzanne's online store. I will never use elastic in a casing for skirts again.

I watched this video to learn how to use bias tape to do the hem on the skirt and I love how it turned out. It really makes the bottom look nice and finished. And it adds a little weight to the light fabric that I used.

Pictures:

A Sad Announcement

Right about now we would have been announcing some happy news to many of you. Some of you knew our news already. Now instead, we have to share our loss.

Yesterday we lost our baby. I was twelve weeks pregnant with our third child, due in December. We only knew something was wrong since Sunday. I had a miscarriage at home yesterday morning.

There is so much to say, and yet, this doesn't always seem the best place to say it. We are sad beyond words to lose our child. Little Bun (as we call him/her) was so much a part of our family already and it breaks our hearts.

This is all I will say for now. I wrote out a long post this morning, which I posted on my pregnancy journal (a password protected site). It contains many details of our experience and my thoughts and a sort of farewell. If anyone (whom I know) would like to have access to it, please email me and I will send it to you.

For now we grieve and rest in the shelter of our heavenly Father who is our comfort and strength and who meets us in our suffering and bears us up. If you pray, please keep our family in your prayers.