garden pictures

white bunching onions and 'candy' sweet onions


black eyed peas, still drying in their pods


ground cherries


sunflowers a month ago. i pulled this head off and brought it inside to dry and save the seeds.


this is what the 1st head looked like


i left this 2nd head out in the garden. i didnt know if the birds would come back and eat them all or not. these are pretty much the only seeds left of all the sunflowers i planted.


this is what most of the sunflowers looked like a month ago


i tied the 1st head to some wire shelving in my porch to dry out



what the head looked like with all the little flower buds brushed off the seeds


what the head looks like now, after a month of drying


i left the stalk in the garden of the sunflower i pulled the head off of. it decided to sprout tiny little new flower heads further down the stalk.


the 2nd sunflower head, left a month longer in the garden. the birds actually left it alone. i cut the head and strung it up inside next to the drying 1st head this week.

the greenhouse goes up! (greenhouse post #7)

we had a slight engineering issue. slanting the pavers away from the existing concrete slab for rain diversion is good in theory. when that particular row of pavers is going to be supporting part of a wall of the greenhouse that is also partially supported by that same slab, the pavers and slab need to be level or one end of the wall ends up being an inch off the ground. i need to pull up 4 pavers and re-level them. 4 pavers out of 46 isnt too shabby.


(ignore my fancy paint drop cloth, an old bedsheet that met its death via the dogs nails)




so i pulled the blocks, dumped a bucket and a half of dirt back down, and leveled out those four pavers.


raised up pavers. the north wall base is now parallel to the south wall base.


first two walls up and attached


yes the north wall is taller than the sides and the south wall. it had to be taller to accommodate the salvaged door, and to add a slant to the roof.




all four walls up! with my dad in the corner finishing up.


the door is installed


look at all this space i have beside the greenhouse! space that was totally wasted with stupid landscaping rocks. what can i do with this space...


the second top plate was added above the north wall. working out how much overhang we can allow for the materials we have to use on roofing.


the roof truss pieces on the very ends are cut to length and attached. the remaining boards are just resting up there


the north side


the south(east) side


tarped up for a couple days of rain

more with pavers, painting, and building greenhouse walls (greenhouse post #6)

my dad came up today to work on the greenhouse. there was a fence post in the way.


he used his saber saw to cut it off below the level of the pavers, then we filled the hole in with dirt and put the remaining pavers in place.


we cut and built the two side walls of the greenhouse. we attached the plywood on the lower section to help keep the walls square. we also attached the brackets for attaching the sides to the north and south walls. Molly made an appearance.


tomorrow we are going to assemble the four walls, so the bottoms of all the walls needed painting. starting with the side walls


the south wall, bottom painted


the north wall, bottom painted


painting the backside of the OSB sheet


doggy paint barricade


painted as much of the south wall as i could stand, then i was done painting for the day.

adventures in painting and pavers (greenhouse post #5)

yesterday and today i worked on painting parts of the greenhouse.

there is an added challenge of keeping the dogs safely away from the freshly painted surfaces.

see, Puppy has helped me paint in the past. he did this by sweeping a painted wall that i had thought was dry enough with his long fluffy tail, and then turning around and painting the door with his painted tail, just by wagging it. so i knew i had to not only keep the dogs away, but i had to keep them far enough away that their tails couldnt accidentally reach either. its been interesting. thus i've been making doggy barricades with lawn chairs and shelving.


the north wall, outside face is painted


one side of the uncut sheet of OSB painted (that stuff sucks up a LOT of paint)


you can keep the paintbrush soft by wrapping it in tinfoil after cleaning


oil based exterior primer


paint thinner for cleanup


laying pavers where the second section of fence was removed


there is a fence post in the way. one set in concrete below the frost line.

progress on the greenhouse (greenhouse post #4)

knocked one side of the red fence down


there were some tree roots in the way. too thick to use the shovel on. i had to use my hatchet.


i had to chop out a lot of roots


there are tons of tree roots in the area


the north and south walls of the greenhouse have been hiding under a tarp from the rain


laying some more pavers


with the red privacy fence gone, you can see my porch/sunroom now (paranoia! people are watching me!)


with the pavers put in where the fence was in the way. look at all those pretty pavers. they far are nicer than those old stupid landscaping rocks!


my awesome chop saw (miter saw) tilted at an angle from cutting a certain piece of milled lumber


the south wall, with cutouts for three windows, plywood put on and squaring bracing removed. and the special milled piece of lumber horizontal above the plywood


end view of the specially cut piece. the notch in the top is where the pieces of glass will sit. the angle cut on the outer edge of the top is to direct rain away from the notch. the notch in the bottom is to allow overlap over the plywood. the second, smaller notch on the outer bottom is a rain deflector. so rain doesnt run down the front and along the bottom and wick up under the plywood. it'll wick up into the little notch and drip down from there. and the end is beveled at 30 degrees. my dad did all these cuts on his table saw.


better picture of the outer notch on the bottom for rain diversion


the north wall (with the south wall behind it) with plywood/OSB put on and bracing for squareness removed. with cutouts for a door and one window.


knocked down the second section of red fence