Tag: home improvement

My June Garden 2013

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The early harvest of sugar snap peas and strawberries.

The early harvest of sugar snap peas and strawberries.

June is when the literal fruits of your gardening labors begin to show up. The plants get big, and flowers turn to fruits and vegetables… but not quite all of them. While I spent much of this month collecting strawberries, pea pods, and various greens I’m still waiting for a ripe tomato and a squash big enough to be worth picking.

And, if you saw the May post about my garden you’ll know  that one of my biggest challenges this year is the wasteland which — because it’s behind my fence — I am referring to as “The Pale.” I started tackling this problem by throwing wild flower seeds down, which turned out to be a terrible idea. Plants began to sprout but I had no way of knowing what was a wildflower and what was just going to be a weed (which, I realize, is a bogus distinction). This drove me crazy, especially because I look out of my office window at The Pale all day long. So, I started to rethink my strategy. Continue reading →

My June Garden

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The raised beds, in the very beginning…

I have this slightly obsessive need to document my garden’s progress. It’s a rather strange manifestation of OCD, but whatevs… When you first put in your starter plants it’s hard to imagine what they’ll look like in a few months. But if you take pictures every week or so, you start to realize how quickly the little guys grow and how easy it is to overlook the change when you see your plants every day. Tomato plants make for especially good pictures, thanks to the rungs on the tomato cages which clearly mark your plants’ progress.

As long as I’ve got this picture taking compulsion, I may as well put the results to good use and blog about it.

Now that the raised beds and plants are in, I’ve been spending a lot of time figuring out how to make the most of what I’ve got. I prowl Pinterest looking for homemade fertilizers, ideas to keep the vines in check, and sprays for powdery mildew and black spot on my roses. But it’s still fairly early in the summer, so here is a glimpse at where I started. Continue reading →

A Memorial Day Makeover

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Long before I even moved into my house, people started giving me stuff they no longer wanted. For instance, my aunt gave me a couple of end  tables I wasn’t particularly fond of but they did the job. But this week I decided it was time to start tackling some of the furniture rehab projects I’ve been planning.

Tables before being painted, but after a light sanding.

First up on the agenda were the tables. They have some weird nooks and crannies on the legs, so I figured spay painting was the way to go. I turned to a blog post about spray painting furniture on Young House Love for advice. I wasn’t really sure what color I wanted to paint the tables, and there aren’t that many Rustoleum Universal colors to choose from. I knew I wanted to do my patio table one of the hammered finishes, but I didn’t know what I wanted the end tables to look like. I didn’t think glossy would go with my other furniture, but there weren’t many satin options. I wasn’t convinced the metallic options were good for these tables but then I figured, “Hey, it’s only paint!” So my cousin and I picked up some of the “Aged Copper” paint and went to town on the end tables.  Continue reading →