A Garden Oasis...

...Well, not yet anyway. This is my future vegetable garden as it looks today. It is a sad, sad picture. I should have taken the photo yesterday when the sun was shining (a gorgeous 27 degrees celsius!), but I was too busy amending my soil. Today is nothing but rain, but rain is good for a garden right?

The soil was in pretty good shape, but I added some cattle manure (ewww) to give it some nutrients. I spread the manure all over the bed and then took a spade and turned it all in. I am no expert, but have done some reading and this was the general sense of what I read (and my Mom told me to do this - she is smart).

I also staked the 2x6 surrounding the bed as it was falling over. We hope to replace it with some nice sturdy landscape stone, but that will be later in the season.

You can see from the picture, that I already have the chives and the blackberry bush (they were there when we bought the house). The rest has yet to be sown in the ground, although I have quite a few seeds started indoors. I hope to plant my first lettuce seedlings in the garden this week (after hardening them off) and I plan on sowing green onion seed and the first batch of carrot seed directly in the bed.

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Meet Olive...

The latest and greatest addition to the shop is 'Olive'. I love her...she is so round and cute. She features adjustable straps (by way of buttons) so you can carry her by hand or alternatively - over the shoulder. I'm also really happy with the fabric - I got it in the "As Is" section of IKEA. I always find great goodies there. You can find out more about Olive here.

The Ups and Downs of Painting Stairs

I finally got around to painting and re-staining our stairs. This was on my to do list since we bought the house last June. I just got sick of looking at them - all decrepit and awful looking. In a moment of rage, I started sanding uncontrollably until I could not go back and therefore HAD to finish them. Take a good look at the before pictures:

The process:

1) Use a scrapper to scrape any old loose paint from stairs

2) Sand stairs with an electric sander (this is VERY important - don't try to be a martyr and sand by hand - trust me! Unfortunately, the railing pickets must be done by hand unless there is some electric instrument to sand in small places....if there is such a thing, please don't tell me now after I did the pickets by hand - thanks). I just gave the previously painted areas, such as the risers, a light sanding. If you want to re-stain the wood then you must remove all old paint/stain, right down to the original wood.

3) Cry the next morning over sore muscles from sanding the previous day

4) Fill holes and dents with wood filler (I used two bottles of it!)

5) Sand where you used wood filler (when dry)

6) Stain the areas you wish to stain

7) Apply 2 coats of varnish to the areas stained

8) Use painter's tape to tape off areas you don't want painted

9) Get a good primer and prime areas you wish to paint

10) Paint the areas you wish to paint in colour of your choice

Now admire the beautiful work you have done :

Please note: Many mistakes were made during this process and things did not go as smooth as my 10 steps may make it seem. The 10 steps have been written in retrospect, hopefully you will get it right on the first try!

A Garden from Seed

this is our first spring in the new house and there are all kinds of 'firsts' that are coming along with the season. One of the exciting things that I am looking forward to is starting a vegetable garden in my back yard! I have an interest in gardening as a hobby, but I also thought it would be great to grow my own veggies during this global recession and save a little cash in the process (if all does well!).

The previous owners of the house already built a raised garden bed - it needs a little sprucing up, but the bones are there. It's a bit too early to get out and actually tend to the bed so I've been doing some indoor gardening to get things rolling.

I picked up some seeds from a local retailer and my Mom was kind enough to give me one of her extra seed trays so all I had to do was buy some potting soil and 'sow' away. So far so good - I have some seedlings!

I have planted the following:

Beef Steak Tomatoes, Red Pepper, Sweet Basil, Parsley, Summer Savoury, Leaf Lettuce - Grand Rapids & Alyssum aka Carpet of snow (pretty little white flowers for...well....prettiness!)

I also plan on starting some Zucchini and Romaine lettuce shortly. Some carrots and green onions will be planted directly in the garden once the frost leaves us. I think that is enough for a first time vegetable gardener don't you? It's so tempting to buy seeds though! There are so many to choose from!

So stay tuned for more on gardening as I learn by trial and error! Should be an interesting season...