Growing in the Basement!

2018 garden has commenced!

We have paired down our garden considerable from last year as it was more than we could manage at this point, and David's come to the realization he doesn't really like gardening so it's more of a one person task. That's not to say he isn't a big help with tilling and some larger tasks, but the daily maintenance just doesn't bring him the pleasure and joy as it does me.

For now we have plans to grow the following (obviously things might/will mostly likely change):

Tomatoes
Hot/Sweet peppers
Green Beans
Squash (summer, butternut (?), green)
Corn
Basil
Pumpkins
Onions
Brussels sprouts
Okra
Watermelon

We've added a section in the garden that we've devoted to flowers this year, hopefully including sunflowers, zinnias, tulips and anything else we think would look pretty :o)

Some things on the TO DO LIST are:

-Add additional supports to trellises
-Move berry plants (raspberries and blackberries) out of the tilled garden area
Uhhhh, there has to be more to this list but nothing else is coming to mind at this point.

For now seeds have been started in our basement as we did last year and they're doing great. What worked out really well without me realizing it was my mom and me planted the seeds one day before I went into labor! Perfect timing!

Instead of transplanting the plants into larger containers halfway thru I just put them in the larger cups in hopes they'll make it all the way in those containers until being moved out to the garden.

Mom's kale, first thing to sprout

Kale

Tomatoes!

I'd Like to Introduce You To...

Denver Alan George

This special bean of ours was born on March 19 at 5:54pm weighing in at 6lbs 3oz. Today he is 3 weeks old and I can't begin to explain how much joy he has brought to not only David and my's lives, but our family and friends as well. He is a true gift and miracle from God, and one day I may share his story that began August 11, 2011. For now I will share what we all really came for and that is pictures of our little man. He is our Bub, Mister, Peanut, Jelly Bean, but most significantly our son who has made us Mom and Dad. We hope some day all of you reading this will get to meet our little man and he can bring you as much joy as he brings us every day.

Prior to naming him, the staff had fun calling him Boy George

Aubrey and Emma were so excited to meet their new cousin

David's paternity leave brought many still mornings like this

He always manages to get his hands to his face

Night time view as I have David take over changings before bedtime. I think he was waiting for him to stop peeing at this point.

Father/son talks already

Denver wasn't having it

Bahahaha!

Such satisfying stretches

Just so precious

He has the cutest sneezes, just like mom where he does at least 3 in one go

Auntie Beth was so excited he was awake this visit!

Start the mom/aunt confusion

One of these days I do believe Denver will have hands bigger than David, for now they're cute and tiny

Updates... All Around!

Looking back it's been awhile since I've touched this blog, so here's to a post of updates. Considering I haven't posted basically any of our projects, this is going to be a long post, just the fair warning.

Garden
It...was...massive! Obviously, I knew that from the start, however due to not having the most efficient set up it only made things feel more burdensome and time consuming. Our tomato posts couldn't sustain the weight of the tomato plants once they really started taking off, so things bowed and sagged. The general idea is right, we just need more vertical and horizontal supports between the end posts to sustain the weight. We still had good production and canned quite a bit, but the garden went to the wayside for other reasons I'll go into later on in this post.

About the time that the plants were starting to weigh down the lines and posts 

Our home was built in 2007 and done very well, so there really wasn't many renovations to be had. There were opportunities to tweek and organize things to meet our living style so we've dabbled in a few things. As I haven't updated this blog on basically any of our projects these have all been done in the past year or so since we've lived here.

Barn Workshop
First we tackled part of the barn. It's all insulated, however not closed in with plywood so the insulation is exposed to the elements to be damaged. One corner area we wanted to be our "workshop" so we decided to install plywood all around the walls, painted it and built some workbenches. It's been a great place to work and will probably be adjusted in the future (talk of a row of cabinets over the benches) but for now it gets the job done


Barn Stairs
This wasn't an initial idea on our project list, however last Christmas after David fell off a ladder and broke his heal while trying to store something in the loft, we decided a permanent set of stairs would be advantageous.

Now that's better, and some additional storage for chemicals, brooms and towels

Downspouts
For some reason the previous owner didn't connect the down spouts with lines to run away from the house, what we believed has caused some significant cracks in our concrete basement floor and stoop on the breezeway. Needless to say that was one of our items on the big project list.

There's a little bit of the garden prior to it turning into a shit show, and then David playing in a hole he dug

The line going off to the right was the electric for the fence

The Lift
After years of talk and dreaming David finally bit the bullet and purchased a lift. It was our Christmas break projects this year and David couldn't be more excited (he even utilized it this week to fix a patch in his tire!). Installation was a bit humorous/unnerving at times but she's up!

Pantry
I've never been a fan of wire shelving and that was all our kitchen pantry was comprised of when we moved in. Shelves were deep and there wasn't much of a layout to help with organization. It took awhile to figure out how we wanted it configured, but we ended up purchasing upper shelves from Home Depot and then pull-out units from the Container Store. The upper shelves and baskets are all installed with french cleats which ended up being a lifesaver idea. We still needed space for our step stool (9-foot ceilings) and my baking cart so that left us with leaving the left side open at the bottom. The counter top we made out of 2x4 call lumber and is probably my favorite part of it all. It's so much more functional, still could be organized better to utilize it's full potential but light years better than the original.

BEFORE                                                             AFTER

I love the function of the baskets. I also built a tiny ledge on the right to store large cookie sheets

Office shelves
This was a relatively simple weekend project offering us some storage and organization in the closet in our office. There was only the upper wire shelf before.


Mudroom shelf and cabinets
As is consistent with the house, the mudroom didn't offer much storage or function to the space. We purchased and installed the cabinets above the washer and dryer at Home Depot, and then built the coat rack/shelf out of some lumber. I still and looking to build a small seat below the coat rack to set things on.

Still brainstorming a way to hide the cords and duct behind the washer and dryer

Family
Well I left the biggest project of the year until the end but we're pregnant! For those of you that know us this has been an incredibly long, painful, encouraging and miraculous process that I won't go into detail here, but we couldn't be more thrilled. I'm currently 29 weeks pregnant and we also found out were having a boy! My pregnancy has been a "typical" one I guess, felt like crap the first trimester feel myself now other than this belly getting bigger every day and only wanting to be in sweats, ha! Oh, and being in my first trimester was a big factor in the garden going to crap at the end. I would make it 10 minutes in the heat and end up wanting to either vomit or pass out. Good thing my lack of energy also brought a lack of care for what the garden looked like at that point.