Wine, please!

Whew! Mom's in town, so my gardening rate has doubled. We got a good start today - got several good looking plants & bulbs from the Nursery, received a gob of compost, and almost finished digging out the new bed. Related pictures tomorrow!

- A

Me & Martha

In Bloom, originally uploaded by apkoski.

As I stood in line at Home Depot yesterday, I flipped to the Martha Stewart Living Table of Contents (by chance) and spotted something interesting listed for p.49. It was a tutorial on how to force bloom flowering perennials.
"Ah-ha," I say to Paul, "Look how hip I am." (And as Liles pointed out, I ruined it by saying 'hip.')
That very morning I had pulled from my basement a vase of carefully-tended force-bloomed Flowering Quince out of my neighbor's overflowing tree. Today they started to bloom. How nice. :)

-A

How-to here.

"After"

Oh yeah, the "after" post. Actually (again), it's more like in between. I've got more on the Flickr page too.
Sitting on the patio on Monday & Tuesday morning was very satisfying -- really great to be 'pretty much done' with this monster. I'd really love a little temporary crummy table out there on which to set my coffee/books/notebook. We're looking for 2 chairs, maybe adirondaks, and a little table to comfortably contain us. I'm still thinking about the possibility of dining outdoors, since we won't get swarmed by mosquitoes here.

A neighbor came over & critiqued our work -- said he didn't like the blunt ends on the arbor beams or the square ends on the rafter end design. I think he's a house painter... so whatever, thanks guy. I think it didn't turn out too bad for our first construction project!

-A

How was YOUR weekend?

"Ah," you say, "busy." In fact, where did the weekend go? We too were busy -- put in about 25 hours of hard work since Friday (what 'cha think about that? Huh? Huh?) I guess I'm just feeling pretty proud that we completed a task that we weren't sure we could do.
The patio pergola is done (aside from landscaping & a few more sand sweeps)! We couldn't have done it without the neighbor's tools... and advice... oh yeah, his pick-up truck... and he helped haul, sweep, etc...
I'm really looking forward to the landscaping part. Just have to prep the soil and transplant a few things (anybody need any sand?). I'll post an 'after' picture tomorrow!
-A

I-I-I-I-I'm not your:

Sing it!It's a stepping stone. After adding more concrete to the arbogola posts we had some leftovers; so I quickly dug out a spot in the garden, lined it with a grocery bag and an elephant ear leaf, and poured. This is what turned up!
Thanks for everyone's great garden tomato suggestions! I ended up making basil spaghetti sauce, tomato soup, chopped blanched tomatoes, and a tomato sandwich. Mmmmm... Now I have green tomatoes so I need to ask Mimi for her pickled green tomatoes recipe. Sound good?
-A

Ahhh, Progress!

Saturday we did the Home Depot dance: got our heinies there after lunchtime, wandered around looking baffled for a while, bought some string, and then left. We were looking for specific sizes of wood with which to build our magnificent pergola. Not defeated, we went home and looked up a local lumber yard, went there, and had a wonderful experience. We found everything we needed plus the guy helped us figure out how to build a more economical structure and agreed to do two separate deliveries on our schedule. I'm working on a sketch of the future appearance of that little corner of the yard -- maybe I'll post it later. Okay, onward! So Saturday night we went to The Bite of Oregon with a friend Karl. We all got BBQ meat from the 'Central Oregon' area, @ Jackie's Ribs. Who knew Central Oregon was known for their barbecue? After that, Alpenrose ice cream (little known fact: they have a velodrome on their farm!). Then we joined the crowed around the Iron Chef Oregon tent to watch the final Iron Chef contest. The theme ingredient was.... Lamb Chops! Paul said, "That's too easy!" The commentator reported that the semi-final secret food was rhubarb. Not so easy... The guys had to make just one entre and a side in a 1/2-hour. They were chefs from the local restaurants Oba! and Carslyle. After that ended, all of us felt pretty bagged. Paul & I had done three substantial runs over Friday and Saturday. Bedtime!

On Sunday we did more stuff - can you believe it?! I felt so useful & productive. After breakfast we went outside and started whacking our deck apart - half of it anyway. The neighbors gave us some history on it - told us that the former owners had contracted someone to build it, so that meant it was built in the last 8 years. Sorry guys. The neighbors also told us that there was a basement window covered up by the deck siding. A secret window. The deck builders did good - it was tough to get apart! I'm still sore. After about 4 hours we had removed all the screws, piled the planks and the framing behind the shed, leveled the dirt, and put a new border up around the new edge. It's ready for the next step: posts. We hope the old oil tank buried in that area doesn't interfere with that part. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Oh yeah, there was still time that evening for some stitching, sipping, and gaming, viewable on Flickr.

-A

Rusty, dirty, chipped, salvaged. Junk?

It's art if you make it so!* The flower was priced at $180.

On Tuesday I went to a Garden Art Show at McMenamins (missing an apostophe?) Edgefield. It was a really cool place, and it was packed with garden art. Vendors who made their art from greater than 70% recycled materials were invited.
The place was crawling with women - in straw hats and Mom Jeans - and their poor husbands who were used as "reserved" signs that said, "My wife has dibs on this," while their wives waited in line to pay. Sadly, it looked a little cut throat at times.
Nonetheless I think I would go again.
-A

*The word 'art' expressed in this Blog is that used by the Garden Art Show producers and is not necessarily the same word used by the individual blogger herself.

My White Trash Yard

Besides school stuff & some BBC, this is what I've been doing.
It's, well... coming along.

Before











During



















...no after

-A