Tag: little blue house

Garden, Grass, Squirrels, Clover, and salt

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My garden continues to grow, but I’ve never grown broccoli before, and did not stake them. We had some wind and they are all falling over and I will have to see if I can stake them this weekend.

It’s not terrible, but I need them to grow up due to my limited space.

I did tie up the jute twine for my tomatoes. I am using tomato clips. I think I got like 300 for a ridiculously cheap price on Amazon.

You just clip them on the twine and the tomato and you are done.

I am also fighting the animals. Squirrels dig a lot of holes in the dirt in my yard. Since it’s not full of grass, they really go to town.

I do it to myself because we have so many bird and squirrel feeders around.

We have several of those black basket peanut and corn feeders. We get a lot of crows with them. I love crows and they won’t eat out of a feeder, and honestly I love the squirrels too. We have an enormous number of squirrels all over.

When we redo the deck, I will make a more permanent set up for them. This is just until then.

Below is the disaster that is my front lawn.

My lawn is half dead because they got it green enough to see the house, and it’s just dying. That crap fill dirt is the same in the front of the house. It’s filled with rocks, glass and rusty nails. I don’t like grass anyways, so I am re-seeding with clover. It’s actually starting to work.

I think it’s doing better than the dying grass. I have seeded twice, and will do it again in July here. It doesn’t grow as tall, and is way greener.

Then I have this problem:

The driveway and front walks have a bare inch of gravel and no landscaping fabric was laid down. I had thought it was weird there was like a gallon of heavy duty weed killer in the shed when we moved in. I guess that was their solution. I am not so keen on that. I don’t want to put damaging chemicals in the ground.

Instead, I am trying rock salt. Just Morton’s rock salt. I have mixed it up in solution of 2 cups for a gallon of water, and sprayed it with a hand held sprayer, but this last time I got tired of carrying it so I just sprinkled rock salt all over. I got more salt in, and then watered it in. It’s working, but slowly.

You do have to be careful to not get it in your lawn. It will kill anything. I am hoping after several treatments, this will make the driveway and walk ways ungrowable. the walkway is kind of temporary?

We do plan to install a large fence when we do the decks, and change the walkway layouts. We will add another walkway straight to the road, and straighten out this one in the picture to the driveway. I will probably do like I am planning in the back, and make a wide gravel walk, done right this time, with big 2′ X 2′ pavers for stepping stones. It will carve out more grass out of my small lawn. The less grass the better. It’s not ecologically a good ground cover choice.

It’s just so novel for me to be able to work on these things and make a difference. I am not used to this, having been a renter for so long. I still feel grateful every day we managed to get into a house.

It’s Official! I Have a Garden!

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The closest I have ever come to having a garden, was once when we lived in a trailer park, I planted tomatoes in a raised concrete bed. It worked out well, but the internet was not as good as it is now for hobby information, so I had a few flyers, and my grandmothers garden wisdom. Spoilers: My grandmother was not exactly a successful gardener.

I think that beauty bark was the best, most economical idea. I don’t have any issues walking on it, and it’s protecting the landscaping fabric.

I really like the layout here, but I think I am going to buy some garden bags, and plant potatoes in them and put them down the center next year. I got some potato seeds, like honest to god seeds for potatoes from Botanical Interests, and I am going to try those, as well as normal potato slips.

So far the chicken wire cage has kept all manner of critters out of things. We have feral cats, possums, squirrels, and whatever else. I am pleased with how well this has worked. I was worried I’d overdone it, but so far so good.

Above I have 4 sunflowers growing on the left side, then dill, parsley, and basil. I am kind of hoping the birds don’t demolish the sunflowers, but they can get into the chicken wire pretty easily. Just a tiny sliver of the herbs are visible.

Above, the green onions that are biggest are actually grocery store green onions I planted after I used up all the green parts. I have this fodmap thing with garlic and onions, and green onions don’t seem to mess with my stomach, so I use them a lot. The Tokyo Whites in the squares closest to the straw are just not doing as well. I didn’t get as much germination as I was hoping. I will replant some of the areas that missed tomorrow.

The broccoli has really taken off. I had to replant one square, but the rest are huge. I don’t really know when you harvest broccoli? I guess I am hoping I see it and get it before it flowers.

These are 55 day tomatoes. I think I planted them a wee bit early, as the weather has been on and off. I have the tomato cage set up, and I will train them up on twine. I need to rewatch a Gardner Scott Youtube video on how to remove the suckers on them. That one time I grew tomatoes I planted half a billion seeds and just let it go wild.

Above is my red cabbage and my strawberries. I bought the strawberries from Scenic Hills Farms on Etsy. I am very pleased. I ordered 10, and they gave me 12, and they all survived beautifully so far.

Above here is my cucumbers. I have four sunflower on the far right, but the rest are cucumbers. I chose a version called Homemade Pickles. It’s a 55 day version. I wanted as short a growing cycle as possible.

Above is my rhubarb. I know normally you split a plant and do it that way, but I know nobody in my city. I just bought seeds off of Amazon, and planted them. The seed package was less than helpful. I planted four sets of seeds in the 2 foot circle planter. One set did not take. I will replant that. I can always thin them back. Rhubarb always grew like a weed in the rental houses from my teens so I have no idea how one optimizes the environment. I have googled, and it seems like most articles spend time on how long the plant lives not on planting from scratch.

This is the mint planter that the feral cat got into, before I had a chance to wrap them in chicken wire. There is the teeny tiniest bit of mint starting. I am not too worried about the mint, because as the tag says, it’s garden herpes. I have this planter on the far side, away from anything else, and near a gravel driveway, in a raised bed. Containment is hopeful secure.

I did switch from some pretty copper name plates to white plastic ones. I found after a month, the copper ones corroded and were illegible. I didn’t want to use plastic, but pragmatic needs such as readability trump pretty.

I am very much looking forward to cooking with my own vegetables. I am able to harvest the grocery green onions, but the rest are still growing.

Everything is Planted & I hurt

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My normal work schedule is Monday through Friday. I took off Thursday, and my wife and I made three trips to Lowes. We got 24 bags of dirt, 12 at a time, and 5 huge bags of beauty bark. As you can see in the pictures the beauty bark filled out the rest of the hoop house aka the Squirrel Interdiction cage.

The problem with having a physical disability is you like to forget and think you can do things you used to do 30 years ago. I am in rough shape. I not only filled the raised beds, added the bark, but I mowed the lawn.

My lawn mower saga is now over. I had ordered that lawn mower from Lowes, and they no-called, no-showed me three times, so I canceled and ordered a Makita battery mower from Amazon.

I was just going to test it to make sure it worked, so I could break down the box, but it was so cool, I mowed the back yard. My grass is only in tufts becuase they used nasty glass and garbage and rock filled dirt to level the lot, so it’s a bumpy nasty yard to mow.

We also have an issue with the driveway as they only put a bare inch or so of gravel over the crappy fill dirt, and it is growing so many weeds now. We are opting to use 2 cups of rock salt in 1 galloon of water to kill the weeds. I have sympathy at trying to get a house ready for sale, but a lot of corners were cut all over.

So anyways, I have things set up in the garden finally, and I was starting to wonder if I had committed a bit of overkill on the hoop house and chicken wire, until the day after I planted it all.

The damn cat, which is lovely and beautiful and feral, had dug up my mint bed to pee in it. I had to drag out the chicken wire and wrap each of those small round beds to keep him out.

All this is to say, I am dead up against a wall of sore and exhuastion today. I spent the day in bed and watched Good Eats on Discovery+ with the wife. She made game maps next to me while I dozed.

I have so much more to do, that it’s nuts. I have 9 more curtains for the house, a kitchen cabinet box, and a coffee table. I’d have been done with this in a few days when I was healthier. Not so much now. I have to take each item day by day.

Like for instance, today I was going to sew one set of curtains, but I just can’t. I hurt. It’s really hard to be able to work with your hands, and be prevented because of your body’s failings.

I am trying to be patient with myself and happy that at least the garden is planted. I will need to top the beds with dirt in winter, and maybe transplant the strawberries to a fuller raised bed, but it’s in its final form. Now, even when I am hurt and sore, I can still do the little planting things. As this condition progresses, I am set up to continue with my garden which brings me a lot or joy.

I can put holes in my doors!

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I have rented pretty much my entire adult life, and having a house I own lets me do so much. Today I put up a hanging ceiling lamp, and punched three holes in the ceiling. Don’t ask, mistakes were made! However, when I was done, I just sparkled it back up and when I touch up the paint, you will never be able to tell. I’d have been terrified to do that in a rental.

Hell, I just put cat doors in my bedroom and living room doors. (Our layout has no real living room, so one of the bedrooms is a living room.)

My cat can now come and go as she pleases. I have always wanted this, but you certainly can’t do that in a rental. Being able to make my house weird is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

Lawn Terrorism & Other plant and food updates

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-Originally posted on Tumblr

My lawn was destroyed this winter. Part fo the reason is they used garbage fill dirt to level the yard, front and back. This means the dirt is filled with roofing shingles, plastic, metal nails, bear bottles, and ripped up beer cans.

Add to this, that we had a couple feral cats decide the front lawn was thier litter box, and I swear they dug up half the front lawn before I figured out what was up.

I love cats, so I just go out every time I see them in the lawns and since they are feral and the neighbors across the street are taking care of them, they have stuck to that side of the street lately.

To fix this, my wife and I bought 5 pounds of white clover seeds. I don’t like grass. It’s ecologically crappy, grows fast, and requires a lot of mowing. I hate mowing. Clover is also good for the soil, and returns nitrogen to it.

Planting clover is like ecological terrorism because I am sure my neighbors with nice manicured lawns are not going to be happy if it takes hold and spreads.

I am a shit neighbor, because I just planted it out. I have hated grass, to a weird spectrum-y level for as long as I remember. It’s creepy. It’s ecologically a poor idea. I am going to be shit neighbor and grow clover.

My raspberry jam worked out except for one 4 oz jar. We will just eat that first. I am on to strawberry jam today. I have to make some berry pancake syrup but I will plan that out and do that next time. Also, QFC did not have corn syrup which my recipe called for and I am not searching all over town for it.

I swear, I feel like I live in a 3rd world country. I can’t get tater tots or hash brown patties. Tahini is gone, and now corn syrup. I never know what product is going to be unavailable week to week. Hell, I have only seen oyster mushrooms in grocery stores once since the whole pandemic began.

Once my garden is established I should figure out mushrooms.

This is my broccoli. I planted it way too late in the season, but we will see how it goes!

My red cabbage is peaking out too. It was also planted way too late in the season, so I am watching it as well.

I bought some strawberry shoots off Etsy. I literally know nobody in my area, so I could not bum a shoot or two off of anyone. I bought 10, and they gave me 12, and they are already starting to perk up after 24 hours. Here’s hoping next year I have a good strawberry crop. I am glad I got the Etsy ones.

My green onions are not coming up yet, so I planted my grocery store green onions. I saw a video where someone did that and it worked out really well, so I am just going to do that with the last bunch I have in the fridge when I cut them down, and we will see how it goes.

Still no sign of life from my tomatoes. I am worried about them. If nothing happens in a week or so, I will buy some tomato starts from a nursery.

In all, this is going really really well. Buying a home has opened a whole world for me that I could not image being a part of. I am still angry that not everyone gets this chance.

Being able to garden, and having kitchen big enough to can? I think some folks don’t understand the incredible privilege it is to have that kind of space. I could not have done this in my last 564 square foot apartment. I couldn’t even afford to store canning materials I was only going to use once a year do to space constraints.

I am so grateful I can do this. I don’t think I will ever take this for granted.

Gendered Canning

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See my first strawberry jam attempt? Turns out, like the raspberry jam, it tastes far better than any jam I have ever had from the store in the last decade.

I ended up making some gender based observations this weekend. My goal was to can up some raspberry and strawberry jam this weekend, and yesterday I went ahead and bought a stupid amount of raspberries and strawberries to do it.

I am new at this, and wasn’t sure what constituted 5 crushed cups of fruit, so this saw me in the check out line with six containers of strawberries and four of raspberries.

The cashier was a bit odd about it, and asked what I was doing with so much fruit, and I said I was canning.

I am a 51 year old, heavily tattooed man. I am also transgender, but she would not know that to look at me.

Instead she was completely bewildered that I was canning jam. She nosed around why, and I said becuase it tastes better than anything store bought, and you can’t even buy some of the flavors.

Then she asked if I was doing it as a gift with someone, presumably a wife or mother, by implication of her wording. I said nope. Just me, canning jam for the year for my wife and I.

I then stopped at a regular grocery store for sugar, and bought a single 10 pound bag. I was asked why I was buying so much sugar by the clerk and the bagger, and I said I was canning jam.

The bagger, a young man, was completely gobsmacked. He was like why? Did you pick a bunch of berries? I said it was too early in the season for that, but I was making a years worth this weekend.

Before I transitioned 11 years ago, I don’t recall anyone caring at all what I bought for food, and being a weird quasi-foodie that does a lot of odd ball things from scratch? I have purchased some empirically odd food combinations in really large crazy amounts before. Nobody has ever said a word.

Now that I am read as a man? It’s like my very existence beyond buying beer and snacks is read as odd, and worth further questioning.

It reminds me of the first weekend of the pandemic. I was in the grocery store with my wife stocking up on things, and being the primary cooks I had the cart stocked. The lines were stupid, so I sent my wife with the cart to the line while I grabbed a loaf of bread and some beer.

A middle aged gal saw me walking back to the line juggling a loaf of bread and several IPA’s, and just made eye contact and smirked at me. I knew instantly she thought we were in the middle of a national emergency, and this dumb dude was buying nothing more than bread and beer. She was laughing, and I am sure I presented a hilarious picture in the half panicked grocery store.

It’s such a weird gendered construct that men can’t cook or or take care of the home.

I find I also get questioned a lot more in fabric and craft stores. I still sew, and make clothing for my wife and I, and now I get questioned a lot more in fabric stores. I think there is a social construct for the gay designer archetype, so if I look competent they immediately shoot me into the expert category. It’s like there is no middle ground in perception. I am a dumb man who is invading women’s spaces or I am a gay expert. The truth is I am a confident middle of the road seamster, that is bi/pan, and is married to a woman.

Conversely, I am treated way better at Lowe’s Hardware, and any of the other hardware stores I end up in. People just assume I can do the work I am asking about. They start from an assumption of competence first, then back up if I tell them I need more information.

This is in stark contrast from when I looked like a woman. I have literally had hardware store guys argue with me over basic information I was 100% correct about, because they assumed anything that came out of my feminine mouth must be wrong.

I just find it interesting what people seem to expect is so gendered. Maybe we could just abolish useless gendering of activities, and I think we’d all be better off.

I had forgotten the flavor of Raspberry jam

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-Originally posted to Tumblr.

I was running out of raspberry jam, and I was thinking the stuff I buy at the grocery store was kind of meh. This was all it took for me to decid to can my own, now that I have a kitchen big enough to do it.

First, I did a lot of reading. I have never done it before, so I bought three Ball cookbooks on canning. I had some of those Amazon credits for slower delivery options, so that was nice. I got them for free.

I was not prepared for the sheer options in canning. Just in what you could make. The flavor options for jams were really cool. Like stuff you will never find in a grocery store for any price.

Second, I bought some jars and supplies on Amazon. I have discovered my mix of Verones and Ball came out with me really liking the Ball jars better. They pop when they come out, and are easier to work with in my opinion. This is important because the rings are not the same exact size between brands, which is annoying.

Third, I went to the grocery store and got raspberries and strawberries. I should have stuck with one, but I got excited.

Finally, today I got everything together and I made the Berry or Black Currant jam recipe on page 29 of the Ball Complete Book of Home preserving.

All my cans are sitting and cooling now, but as I licked the utensils and my cans are cooling?

I had completely forgotten what raspberry tasted like. You know, I have been eating raspberry jam 3, 4, 5 times a week since I was a kid. It’s my go-to comfort food, and some things I just don’t change up much.

The raspberry jam from the store, any of them because I switch it up often looking for a good one, don’t taste like this. Yet, I remember this flavor because when I was a kid, the jams we bought from the store tasted like this.

I think this is yet another 10th of a cent corporation issue. It goes like this, the company board wants to save money, so they work out that they can save a 10th of a cent on every product if they just use less great ingredients, or save costs on packaging, or use a cheaper option somewhere.

This goes on for years, slowly the product has no real comparison to the one you ate 30 years ago.

I think this is what’s happened to all the jams I used to eat.

When I licked the spoon when I was done? It was like a memory from childhood back when raspberry jam was raspberry flavored, and not a red artificially over sweet jam that tastes like it had sat next to a raspberry at some point in it’s life.

I think this is a metaphor for capitalism and corporations making money at the expense of there own products, and now we live in a world were we have little choice in the matter but to take what few products there are, because most companies are owned by very few corporations at the top.

In any case, I am ecstatic at the success of my jam, and shocked at the loss of raspberry flavor in my store bought jams.

Garden Progress

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-Originally posted to Tumblr

I got the gate on, and dirt in three of the five beds. It started really raining, so I gave up and it’s been raining all day today. I need to put my tomato cage in the back bed. I am just going to put a PVC frame in there and use twine to train them up. I need to make two because I have cucumbers as well I am planting.

The dirt looks amazing in the beds.

(Spoiler from future me: It was not enough dirt and settled down pretty low. I will have to amend and add to it next spring.)

I get the rest of my dirt on Tuesday. I’ll hopefully have my beds planted by Wednesday. This year’s last frost was super late, and I am later still because I was building this out. However, I am happy! Next year will be pretty easy.

After putting the dirt in the beds, I found some big ‘ol worms, which I put in my tomato beds.

My wife wanted nothing to do with them! I am finding some great ones as I am slowly moving Mt. Garbage Dirt out.

I am pretty grateful to my wife for helping me move the dirt. I am not as physically able as I once was, so her help really is appreciated.

I think the last thing I will need is some bark to lay down on the ground between the beds. I also have some mushroom compost I need to lay in when I plant, and some straw to use as mulch.

I have never been this excited for dirt before. I never thought I would get a home, and be able to have a garden. It still feels unreal.

More Garden Work

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-Originally published on Tumblr

Slowly but surely, I am working in the garden. It is definitely a bit frustrating taking so long on things because my body can’t keep up. I miss my 20s and 30s where my joint issues and pain were not as severe, and I could do all this in probably a solid weekend.

Anyway, I am proud of what I have going on.

I got both walls up, and all the long beds in. I ran out of chicken wire though. I won’t have that until Monday. Which is annoying!

My plan is to get the last two circle planters done, and the PVC door frame. I can chicken wire the damn thing when the wire comes in.

I have some dirt, but I don’t think it’s enough. I probably need like another $300ish dollars worth. I wish I had good dirt here, but nope. I don’t even have tree branches or wood to put in the bottom of the raised beds.

But wait. . . Whats’ the pile of dirt in the below picture?

I can’t use that lump of dirt in my beds. I pulled that out of my lawn, and it’s sod, dirt, rocks, glass, plastic, roofing shingles, oyster shells, playing cards, beer cans, and god knows what else. I don’t feel it’s safe to have it in with my vegetables.

Instead, since I don’t have a truck, I have been packing it into amazon boxes, and putting it in the garbage one box at a time.

This is besides feeding an entire disassembled TV console into the garbage, one or two boards at a time.

Who knew homeownership would also include patiently disposing of items you had no ability to get rid of any other way because you drive a KIA, and do not have a truck.

As always, work is dependent on my body’s ability to keep up.

I guess it’s good that spring just sort of started up this week, and was so late, because I had nothing done in time anyway. However, at least it will all be set up for next year, and all I’ll have to do is to amend the soil and plant.

Garden Progress & Operation Squirrel Interdiction is a go

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Well, I got the chicken wire up on Operation Squirrel Interdiction.

I am going to use PVC pipes on the front there, and make a door that is all chicken wired.

I am thinking of covering the ground with gravel, but I can’t seem to figure out how much gravel I need, and I had sticker shock when I looked at Lowes.

It occurred to me my cat can come out with me to the garden when it’s done because it will be inclosed. She may like that.

I also used some of the surplus dirt to fill holes in my front yard. Oliver the big black main coon stray cat that was re-homed and his incredibly feral littermate were using my entire front yard like a free roaming litter box. I had thought it was a dog because the leavings were so damn big. These cats are bigger than some dogs.

The result is my lawn looking like it is going through chemo because of the tufts of grass and big dug out holes.

So with the holes filled, we seeded the lawn with clover seed. We prefer clover to grass. We will see how that works out.

What I have learned is the lawn looks like it was landscaped with some sort of garbage rock fill dirt. There is literally garbage all over. Glass, roofing shingles, plastic, kids toys, and so damn many rocks. It’s bad. I am glad I am going with raised beds and expensive new dirt.

I mean, the city I live in is notorious for superfund sites anyways, and you have to get the soil checked if you want to grow in the ground. I don’t even want to try, and now with all the rocks and crap? Yeah, no. I’m not in a specifically known site, but I’m not taking chances.

I had to order more T fittings for the PVC and it won’t get here until Thursday. That and a couple bails of straw are the last items I need to start an actual garden.

It may be late in the seasons, but honestly the last frost date just happened so we are all late this season.