gardening co-op!

Now that I have my own place, I want to cook more and use more organic ingredients. Are any of you fellow gardeners/cooks interested in starting a gardening “co-op” in my back yard?

Initially I’ll need some help setting up the terraces and planting. After the garden is up and running, we’ll just need to do weekly weeding/maintenance. I’ll take care of the daily watering, etc.

It will depend on space and the number of people who are interested in being a part of the fun, but here’s some ideas of what I would like to plant (some will be container...I'm also considering building a mini-green house):

Herbs – basil, Thai basil, dill, rosemary, thyme, etc.
Apples (have one well-established tree and plan on planting another)
Asparagus
Broccoli
Carrots
Chives
Corn
Cucumbers (for pickling)
Garlic
Grapes
Onions
Pole beans (a friend has an awesome stock, and he’s willing to give me seeds)
Potatoes
Pumpkins

Rhubarb
Snow peas
Spinach
Strawberries
Sunflowers
Tomatoes
Zucchini

I’ve purchased a gardening almanac to help with planting, and mason bees to help with the pollination.

I also want to plant some dahlias, tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths, so there should be lots of flowers!

Let me know if you’re interested!!

Erin

plans...

my dad and i had fun drawing plans last night.

here is the house as it is now:

all those weird symbols along the walls are the outlets and light switches. i needed to map them all out because my uncle is coming in a few weeks to help rewire the whole house. we're going to rip out all the dry wall and old wiring and he's going to run all new wires (amongst other things).

here is what the floor plan will look like when we're done...

basically we're going to open up the kitchen so that it's more of an open floor plan, and add a bar because the house is too small for a full dinning room. we're also going to relocate the water heater and install a washer/dryer hook up in the 2nd bedroom/office.

pretty awesome!!

wallpaper...

someone in the blue bombshell's history sure had amazing taste in wallpaper!!!

i took a pruning class a couple of weeks ago to learn how to take care of my lovely apple tree.

after listening to all their tips and tricks, i realized my tree is really jacked up!

along with chopping the wood in the front yard, removing the rest of the wood paneling in the office/bedroom, i also i took out my kitchen cabinets on saturday...

the paneling and linoleum is coming out tonight...

paneling pains...

i stopped by the house for a few hours tonight to do some more demo work.

i finished removing the tack strips and staples from the office/bedroom. I also tore out the closet framing, molding, corner shelf, and started on the wood paneling:


i couldn't get the paneling to come off from below the window. i think i'm going to have to remove the baseboard heater, so i'll have to wait for help on that one...


i was able to cut the paneling to get the cable and phone wires out, but didn't want to mess around with the paneling around the outlets...

but, the results weren't too bad for only a few hours:

blue bombshell

last friday - 1.9.09 - i FINALLY closed on my house after an extremely long and difficult process that took about 5 months. now the real work begins...

the house needs a lot of work, so i've revived my blog in order to take you all along for the ride.

here she is:

now you know why i call her the blue bombshell!

there's too much work to be done to move in, yet...

this is the back door that leads from the driveway into the kitchen.
that is the orkin man's truck. the orkin man was kind enough to come out and take care of the house's current occupants...

the garage...er, carport rather. it use to have a door, but it was broken, so in order to pass the apprasial, it had to be removed.
there's a gate between the corner of the garage and house that leads onto the deck.

looking towards the back of the yard from the gate.
between the deck and the first fence is my apple tree!

the lot goes back to the far gate you can see through the gap by the garage.

looking back to the garage and house from the fence at the end of the lot.

built in bench on the deck.

this is actually the front door, but you can't realy see it from the road.
that will change eventually...

projects for saturday:

• replace exterior doors
• rip out carpet, tack strips, and staples
  
• remove outlet and light switch face plates
• begin removing wood paneling and drywall
  

a quick run to home depot for supplies:


old door from driveway to kitchen:

after removing wood paneling:

my dad removing the drywall:

dad reframing the door - we increased the width of the door 2" - he's such a ham!:
when we took out the old door, the floorboards in threashold were rotted. so, another trip to the lumber store for some treated wood.

installing deadbolt and door knob:
we're going to have to take the new door out again, rip up the steps (the owners poured the concrete right up to the wood - dooh!), and replace all the boards.

because of the rot, the back door took most of the day, so we didn't get to the front one. but we did rip all the carpet out. the floors are going to need some tlc:

fun findings

this qualifies as a "fun finding" because it makes me laugh...whoever installed the linoleum in the kitchen just pulled it up and screwed it to the bottom of the cabinets!

not so fun findings
after pulling up the corner of the carpet in the hall, i thought i was going to get wood that was in good shape:

instead, i found the old crawlspace access that had been puttied over:

hmmmm...i don't think this will buff out.

well, i survived day one of the remodel. stay tuned for more fun! : )