Garden Part 2

With the fence up we now have a dog secure area and can start on the beds. I have seen so many types of beds in my neighborhood and online. I learned a few things about building beds. 

 - Treated lumber has chemicals that might be bad for you and the earth. It lasts longer in the ground as beds - but are they worth the risk.

- Redwood is preferred by most but is expensive. We are in a rental so we decided on untreated pine.

I used this tutorial on the Sunset website as my guide. We decided to go with 6" high beds knowing we were going to dig into the dirt at the site. I loved that they had instructions on how to put on row cover holders. Row covers are new to me. When I had a garden in Southern California there was never any need to cover the beds. We decided on 3 beds that were 6'x3'. That width allows me to easily reach into the middle of the bed. The guys at Home Depot again cut all our wood for us. I put the three beds together with our screw gun on the porch one night when Mr. Ramon worked late. 

Mr. Ramon had the hard part ahead. He had to dig out the beds in the grass to place the beds in. What a job. This resulted in a lot of sod. I had a great solution for that - we had the two large ditches in the front yard from where the junipoers used to be. We did a sod transplant and filled in the ditches with sod and watered heavily to get it started. Hopefully it will take. 

Once the beds were dug out we pounded in the bed frames and leveled them. Now we just need dirt and compost to fill them up completely. 

We are well on our way to having a garden!  

The pallet gate

I was cruising the parking lot at Lowe's last Saturday looking for a parking spot when I spied an unusually small pallet. We had just finished the fence around our garden and needed a gate to close it up. We spent a morning looking at the salvage yard looking for the perfect "gate" but found nothing. I tried to find someplace to get a basic picket fence style gate and was out of luck. As I sized this pallet up in the parking lot I thought it might make a great gate. 

A quick phone call to Mr. Ramon and I squeezed it in the back of the mini cooper and hauled it home. 

Mr. Ramon was pretty stoked and got right to work on the pallet. He cut off about 6 inches of it to match out 4 foot fence post height and then reinforced it in a couple of places with some scrap wood so it would hang sturdily.

I had picked up hinges, a closure and a handle at Lowe's.

About an hour later we had a gate. Not bad for picking up someone elses garbage. 

Garden Part 1

Growing up we had a garden most years. I loved the tiny baby carrots fresh from the dirt. So sweet and tender. My mom grew these amazing strawberries in a rock garden and we had several rhubarb plants. I am sure this is where I learned to love dirt. The loamy feel of it in my hands, the earthy smell surrounding me. Moving into this house has opened the opportunity for us to have our own garden. Mr. Ramon has never actually grown anything before so this is going to be a fun adventure for us. I am so excited. 

We watched the sun in the backyard for several weeks to determine the location that would get the most sun. With the three dogs I knew we needed to enclose the garden or risk them running through and digging up the plants. 

I did some research on building a fence. The key it seems are the posts. Making sure you bury enough post and secure it with the right type of concrete. We mapped out the space and decided on 5 posts and using the current fence as an anchor for the wiring. 

We are without power tools so it is nice that the guys at Home Depot will cut your wood for you. This made it easier to get into the mini cooper as well. We also picked up the concrete - quick type. The next weekend while I was at the shop Mr. Ramon dug the post holes, leveled them and set the posts with concrete. I was super impressed. The fifth post he will put in once we decide on a gate. 

Sophie decided to help dad dig!

This is a good size area that will work for the size of garden we are planning on planting this year as well as give room for growth next year and then down the road for whoever gardens in this space. 

We decided on open wire fencing. Really affordable and nice looking. We bought a roll of it and I used large staples to secure it to the posts. 

I am excited about the progress so far and looking forward to finishing this part so we can get to the exciting part - the planting!

Planting the Roses!

When we moved in to this house I found 6 sad, uncared for roses. I love roses. I think people don't expect me to be a rose girl. Don't old ladies grow roses? I have had a rose thing for a long time. In California I grew lots of old roses. Big blooms, tons of petals and big fragrances. So romantic. So finding these in the yard made me want to add more.

These sad roses barely made it through winter. In fact we took out a couple that looked like they would never come back in a good way. I held tight until March when the Seattle Rose Society said I should cut my roses way back.

Now we only had to order the new roses we wanted to add in. I found Heirloom Roses out of St. Paul, Oregon. They sell own-root roses which are first year cuttings grown and shipped in special pots. The pot allows a strong root system to develop and the rose will not experience the transplant shock bare-root roses do. The own-root roses are smaller than budded roses and grow very rapidly. Once I read all about the own-root roses I knew that this is what I wanted.

They would not ship to use before the fear of frost so we were slated to get our roses at the end of March. We ordered early as they sell out of the popular roses pretty fast.

We decided on 6 roses including one climber. Pink roses are my favorite so along with pink we picked some peachy roses. We also used the Seattle Rose Society rose guide to make sure we were picking tried and true roses for our area. This is a super handy guide. Here are our choices.

Mary Rose - David Austin English Rose - This is one of the most outstanding of the English Roses. Luscious, old-style, double 3 1/2" blooms with 70+ petals of a pleasant shade of medium pink give forth a strong, heady perfume. The quality of the blooms and great fruity/myrrh fragrance are matched by the quality of the bush.

Zephirine Drouhin - Our climber. We planted her in the back yard on the long fence. A climbing Bourbon that may be the most consistently blooming, large flowered climbing rose, with the added benefit that it is thorn-less.

Portlandia - Shrub Rose/Heirloom - This outstanding continually blooming shrub rose has an old-fashioned look. Its many petaled 3 1/2 blooms with 80+ petals with a rich golden apricot center which shades to pink and cream. The blooms have a fruity fragrance and are produced in good sized clusters on long stems.

Brilliant Pink Iceberg - Shrub Rose -The 3 1/2" bloom is a brighter pink and white blend distinguished by very dark pink stamens, having a mild fragrance. Continual blooming.

Touch of Class - Hybrid Tea - Rated by the American Rose Society as the finest hybrid tea rose in the world. Its most perfect buds open slowly and spiral into one of the most perfect and beautiful of all roses. The long pointed buds are a blend of the colors pink, orange and cream and finish a lovely shade of coral pink with cream highlights. The 5 1/2" blooms come on long cutting stems.

Kateryna - Shrub Rose/Heirloom - A beautiful little shrub rose with delicate, 2 1/2" blooms of soft, shell-pink produced in large clusters on a compact repeat blooming spreading bush with glossy, dark-green foliage. Excellent for the front of the border in perennial gardens or as a landscape specimen plant.

I was really surprised to see how small they were when they arrived.

We waited until a clear weekend and got out in the yard to plant them. It was a big job. Mr. Ramon digging the big holes and mixing in the compost and bone meal. I made protective rings from chicken wire to make sure the dogs would not crush them.

It was a long day of good work. I think we finished sometime after dark. It feels really good to be out in the dirt. I am excited to see how they grow as the season warms up.

No More Junipers!

No more Junipers - I feel like a scene out of Mommy Dearest. I detest Juniper trees - they make me crazy. They are lazy landscape options that smell bad and are a great home for nests of spiders. 

We moved in to a beautiful newly remodeled home with a badly neglected yard. This yard may have not had any attention for several years. The first thing I needed to ask Mr. Ramon to take care of was the front walkway Junipers. Six of them lining the walkway and cutting the yard in half. They had to go!

He really is a great guy - he took this project on one afternoon that soon became night with chainsaw and shovel. The down side is we have big dirt holes now that the dogs love playing in. We will fill them with sod in the spring to solve that problem. 

Now we have a huge pile of limbs to discard. But project number one is done!!