Garden Design
August 13, 2007
About a month ago, a garden designer came over to my house to help me with creative ideas on what to do around my new deck as well as identify the existing plants around my property.
Here’s how things look right now (facing south) when you enter the backyard from the side gate:
His biggest suggestion was to install a 14′ wide x 7′ high privacy screen on the eastern side of the deck. The houses to the east and west both have high-sitting decks and there is another house on the eastern side that, due to a severe erosion wall in our neighbour’s yard, sits even higher.
He suggested building the privacy screen out of small cedar tree trunks about 2″ in diameter to give it a rustic look. Also, I’d move the arbour from its current location beside the middle part of the deck to the beginning of the deck, perpendicular to that giant hosta on the bottom left.
I liked the idea of building a privacy screen, however, trying to find the wood seemed a little daunting. I thought the project would be put on hold for a while, maybe even a year. It wasn’t until two weekends ago, when I was helping to dig out the iris bed, that I was graciously given the arbour and truck it home to my garden. Here is what we were dealing with:
First we had to figure out the best way to take it down. We had brought a short step ladder, two shovels, a crow bar and a pry bar. Using the step ladder and the pry bar, we managed to take the top part down.
I kept getting little bits of bark in my eye as it was really difficult to pull apart the upper pieces. We started loading them into the truck.
The shorter pieces on the top of the arbour were 5′ long and the longer, vertical pieces were 10′ long and were sitting in the ground about 3′ deep. It took a long time to dig them out.
After an hour we were finally done.
I now have six 10′-posts and eight 5′- rustic cedar posts. I’ll be setting them up beside my 14′-wide deck as a trellis. I want to find some Arctic kiwi and clematis to climb up and create some interest and privacy. I’m also redesigning the backyard to extend the perennial beds.
Right now I’m really conflicted on how to prepare the beds which has ground the whole project to a halt.
Hunting for Rocks
June 12, 2007
I’ve been wanting to improve the border on my flower beds for over a year now. I really like the look of stone and the existing stone wall in the front yard looks very natural and appealing to me. After admiring a friend’s front yard garden, I decided to go hunting for rocks. Here are the rocks that started it all:
I was told that it took five loads of rock at $5 a load in the back of a Subaru to put all this together (it extends to the other side of the stairs too). Of course that was about 20 years ago. What a pretty bed for $30!
Posting a “wanted” request on the Kemptville and Ottawa Freecycle gave me two offers: one in Aylmer and another near Franktown – both a lot farther than I was wanting to drive. One my way home, I took a number of different routes through farm fields and construction sites but I was too chicken to ask if anyone was giving away rocks. I read up on where people go to find good rocks and to tell the police that you’re part of the Rock Relocation Program if you’re caught. I really don’t want to steal rocks or involve the authorities on any suspicious behaviour. I stopped by a stranger’s house and asked where they got the rocks for around their drainage pipe and he didn’t know as they had just bought the house. I asked the guy at the local dump who said they don’t get rocks. I stopped by the place where I had bought my patio stones for my front walkway and saw these:
At $3.66 a ton for one and three quarter inch Kingston Buff flagstone, I had no idea how much I would need or how much it would cost. They looked a little too nice.
I drove past a quarry with a guy sitting in a dump truck, mustered up the courage to talk to him, turned the car around and found out that I could get stones from the Kemptville Quarry just down the road. I drove in, talked to the receptionist and found out that I could pick up a load of rock in the back of a small truck for about $10. I drove my little car down into the huge quarry and had a look:
They looked pretty good and it was a big enough pile that I would have a lot of selection. Checking out the other local quarry, I found out that I couldn’t go down into the quarry for another three weeks as there is a crushing crew working down there. Also they estimated a load would cost between $15 and $25.
I think I’ll be going to the Kemptville Quarry.
27 Spaces To Go
June 1, 2007
I’ve put in every plant that I want in my square foot vegetable garden and I have 27 empty spaces left. Here’s the layout:
(Click to see a larger picture)
The two big gray areas are the walkways. I still have four types of carrots, spinach, turnip and some herbs to plant.
Here’s a pic of the left side:
The middle part:
And the right side:
I also have a lot of plants left over that I’ll be giving away at a plant swap this weekend. These include:
- 6 Suyo Long cucumber *
- 1 Black Beauty zucchini *
- 1 Sensation zucchini
- 3 Butternut squash
- 4 Caribbean Red pepper
- 4 Long Red Cayenne pepper
- 4 Amish Paste tomatoes *
- 3 Chadwick’s Cherry tomatoes *
- 1 Gardener’s Delight tomato *
- 6 Pomme d’Amour tomatoes *
- 1 mystery tomato (label came off, who knows!)
- 3 Mr. Stripey tomatoes *
- 1 Big Beef tomato
- 2 Juliet tomatoes
- a whack-load of lettuce
* heirloom varieties
When I first started planting vegetables by seed, I had no idea that it would be so successful. I planted 10 of each variety and crossed my fingers. Next year I will definitely cut back on the number of seeds I start so that I don’t end up with so many extras.
The Garden
May 8, 2007
This is my third summer at my house and this will be the year that I have a bountiful crop of vegetables. Last year my tomatoes and beans were dismal and my mom took one look and said that there was so much space left over.
This year, I decided to have a plan. I found a book called Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew and thought that it would be great for my space. I was really intrigued by the trellising of cucumbers, melons and summer squash. I bought the book and started reading.
Looking at my 8’ x 16’ garden, I had a potential of 128 squares to work in. I could set up a wire trellis along the east side of the garden (I know trellises should be on the north side but I wanted more than just 8’. I’m hoping that this will be okay.) Needing space to weed between the squares, I penciled in two 2’ x 7’ walkways where I’d lay down wooden planks. This would create three 4 ‘ x 7’ areas with a 1’ x 16’ continuous area along the east side.
I now have 100 squares to plant my vegetables. That’s a lot of green stuff. To create my organized garden, I went out and bought:
- 4 bags organic sheep manure
- 3 heavy-duty t-bar posts, 8’ high
- 2 pieces of concrete reinforcement mesh, 4’ x 8’ with 6″ x 6″ holes
- bag of zip ties
- wooden planting stakes
- twine
- 3 ½’ wide mini blinds
- craft brads, tape measurer, Sharpie
- tomato fertilizer
I had been using cow manure but was told that it contains more weeds, as cows are not as discerning as sheep in what they eat. I spread 2 bags of sheep manure over the top of my 8’ x 16’ vegetable garden. Using a pitchfork, I worked my way from one end to the other by digging up a foot of soil and shaking it through the pitchfork to work the manure in and to break up any hardened chunks of soil.
Using a metal mallet, a level and a ladder, I set the posts 1.5’ inwards from the north and south sides and 4″ from the east side and bashed the t-bars 2.5’ into the ground, leaving 5.5’ of post to attach the mesh. I attached the mesh to the posts with zip ties.
Next we made the 1’ x 1’ square grid to put in the three 4’ x 8’ planting areas. The mini-blinds that we were given were 3.75’, just shy of a perfect 4’ width. Stacking the mini blinds, we drilled holes at the ends of each blind using a 7/64″ drill bit. We attached them with metal craft brads into one long piece. To create the horizontal strips, we measured out seven 4’ lengths and three 8’ vertical strips. We measured out 1’ intervals, stacked them up and drilled more holes. We created the grid by attaching more metal craft brads. I also measured out the 2’ x 7’ walkway for which I still need to find some planks.
Here’s the almost-finished garden:
I soaked some pole bean, bush bean and pea seeds and planted them along the trellis and in two squares on the front. You can see the two darker areas where the soil has been watered. Here are the seeds soaking:
I’ve also started to harden off my plants. They went sightseeing yesterday:
Tonight I’ll be planting some carrot, spinach and herb seeds directly into the garden. I feel like I’m really behind on that.
