To The Surbiton Manor Born

This week's hardscape addition: A trellis  The Full Worm Moon will be out tonight. Having done some digging, there are worms running around under the garden. Things are waking up. In another exciting development, Kiki and I had a conversation about getting solar installed for zero down payment. There's a tax credit that would be worth more than $6,000. We would also get a check from Xcel Energy (our utility) for becoming a small producer - about $2,000, we're told. Solar is a big dream here, something we've wanted to do since we were kids. I always wanted a green house, and this would be a huge step. We're approved for the loan to purchase the hardware and get it installed, but we're waiting for a quality quote to come through from the first company we contacted, and for a second quote that should follow a telephone call we are having on Wednesday. This is a big deal! On other fronts, this week is a little frustrating, because we can only do so much before we ru

  Indoor and outdoor projects dominated a weekend that might have been nicer, weather-wise.  It was deceptively unpleasant outside. The sun shone in the sky, the temperature climbed into the 50's, and yet, somehow, the light, 20 mph. zephyr that howled unceasingly managed to take the shine off of things just a little. Still, we didn't get where we are today by getting deterred by a wee bit of weather. Many things are on point to begin, awaiting the passage of time, labor, or something else. Our accomplishments include: Adding cosmos and yellow summer squash to the greenhouse, which is beginning to reach capacity. A strong start to the front curb-appeal project. Kiki was up and out the door before 8:00 this morning in her overalls and yellow wellies hauling heavy paver blocks from the back yard and placing them, and a few pots.  Devising and constructing a fitted uber-cloche from the lumber originally purchased to tame the blancmange cover for the prototype raised bed (after a r

Robins. A flock of them. My sad camera could not really capture the 17 robins I just counted out flapping in our trees. I've never actually seen a flock of them. But there they were. Unfortunately for them, it looks like we're going to get 2" of snow today. But it does warm up soon. 50's for the rest of the week.  

  There were a fair number of learning opportunities this weekend. The first thing I learned: The prototype raised bed will not be duplicated. It was expensive - over $200. It was time consuming. A good chunk of the day on two separate weekend days.  Because of the questionable banana-lumber employed, I had to fix a gap that I could easily picture a chipmunk penetrating.  We then received a garden supply catalogue which showed a number of products - probably the best (and almost certainly equal to my primitive attempts) was a $179 4x8 tent cover. It would have saved money and time and done at least as good a job. Perhaps next spring.  This is the thing about prototypes. A prototype is just a prototype. If it doesn't work out, you don't replicate it. You don't really know for sure how something will turn out. So experimentation is good. Another thing I learned: After a week under black contractor bags, the soil in the prototype bed was precisely the same temperature as the s

It's been an eventful week at Steepmeadow. We've made some capital investments, and planted quite a few more plants. On Friday, a "Fruit Fly Bar Pro" fly strip that I'd ordered arrived. I'm not a huge fan of using poison (in this case dichlorvos - 2.2-dichlorovinyl dimethyl phosphate), but our fruit fly infestation was completely out of control. Our pogrom seems to have eliminated almost all of the fruit flies in the greenhouse, and our windowsills are no longer full of their foul little corpses. I'm planning to leave it in there for two weeks to disrupt the lifecycle completely, and then get it out. On Wednesday we received two more T5 full-spectrum grow-lights for the greenhouse. This gave it the full compliment of five. Two on each level except the top where we store some tools.  Yesterday involved some heavy planting. The original nine banana peppers that I'd planted had finally failed. I love banana peppers, and will not be mocked. I planted nine