A sort of Vacation to Seattle

May 11, 2014 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

As part of my work contract with my J-O-B, we are flown back to the States twice a year. One of those trips has to be coupled with work travel, but overall not a bad deal. Stamps-With-Foot and I flew in to Seattle last week and stayed with my mom at our/her place. This was our first time back “home” since our move and my mom has transformed our eclectically decorated (books everywhere, Moroccan bits, craftsman furniture, mid-century couches…) home and turned it into your grandmother’s place: ceramic chickens, recliners for TV watching, lace doilies, a tin of cookies ripe for raiding, special soap in the bathroom that is meant just for looks…

We stayed in the basement and by our second day we had trashed it with clothes and books and other stuff to the point that it looked like a staged teenager’s room in a TV sitcom. I felt like I was in high school: mom cooked, did my laundry, made sure I got up on time every morning, offered to pack me a lunch, I played a little music, watched a few movies when I should have been sleeping, tossed clothes about… The only exceptions were the lack of posters on the walls and that I had permission for the pretty girl to share my bed and I didn’t have to sneak her in the basement window. 🙂

I ended up working for 5 days of the 8 day trip, but I got a good bit of other stuff done this week:

Sorted 3 months of mail – we get a LOT on junk mail
Picked up backyard and garden a little bit – long winter
Went to a couple of our favorite restaurants
Made 3 trips to Woodcraft for ~~toys~~ tools to take back to France
Coffee at C&P 🙂
Cut and edged yard
Fixed a few things
Hung out with my mom
Had great breakfast at Easy Street
Moved a room full of boxes into the basement
Painted a mirror frame for my mom
Ate 2 dozen cookies – true story
Snagged treasure at Goodwill: baseball bats, rolling pins, sweatshirts…
Ridded the yard of filthy, dirty, evil dandelions
Treated the yard for moss
Accidentally poisoned my mom’s cat with Moss Out
Spent evening in veterinary ER and dropped $250
Cat all better now
Turned compost pile
Paid some bills
Set up a Skype account for my mom and showed her how to use it
Got a sweet new pair of running shoes
Arranged for professional lawn care – warned them about the cat

Summer Garden 2013

August 23, 2013 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Fall will be on us in a couple of weeks and this has been a fairly productive garden year, though not quite as bountiful as last year. I blame it on my travel schedule since the weather this year has been fantastic. We have less tomatoes, but a bunch of corn – 40+ stalks that are a week or so away from harvesting. A huge running squash plant, but only a few actual squash – it should have nipped it. Since rhubarb and Swiss chard are disgusting weeds that I feel has no place in my garden, the two plants that my lovely wife planted are going gang-busters…

The crows found the cherry trees up front and within two days ate EVERY single cherry – green or otherwise, and left pits scatted about the lawn to taunt me. Grumble, grumble, grumble… A particular squirrel found our raspberries & thorn-less blackberries and our harvest was cut by 50% or so. We grew TWO LEMONS!! Total cost for time, the tree, energy to keep it alive for two winters, water, etc.., means that my lemons are worth $500 each. The Apple trees are healthy and we have a few apples – we need more bees. The fig did well and we are going to plant it in a sunny spot in the front. No blueberries to speak of. We will plant our two Sunshine verities along the side of the south front fence and see how they do for the next couple of years.

On the flower front, we are awash in dahlias and lilies and poppies. The kitchen and bathroom have been filled almost all summer with various cuttings. Stamps-With-Foot is giddy about her progression from plant murderer (she once killed a jade plant… How do you kill jade?!) into a budding flower gardener. Giddy. Below are some pictures of some of the fruit, veggies, flowers, and berries from our garden at home so far this year:

Getting ready for our move to France – first round

July 18, 2013 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

We/I have some serious work to do before we move to France for two years and we have a list of stuff that needs to happen. Here is the initial “to-do” post:

The Lawn:
The Nana is going to be moving into our house and will be puttering around the yard, planting flowers and the like, but there is no way that she will be pruning trees, cutting the lawn, weed eating, edging, or pulling pine needles out of the gutters. There is a little time, so we have contracted a crew to start taking are of the lawn now so that any kinks will be worked out.

In the spirit of full disclosure, the timing of this yard work transition was set into full motion only when my lawnmower blew up. Really, really – kaboom! As in there was a silver dollar-sized hole in the side of the piston housing and oil spewed everywhere. Right up until that moment the lawn caed transition was just a good idea. After it died, I threw it in the back of the truck, so it wouldn’t leak anymore oil on my grass and called the lawn service. There were a couple of things after their 1st visit, that I would like done differently, but on the whole, so far so good.

Projects:
The Kitchen HAS TO BE COMPLETED. I have stopped working on my Basement of Doom, the Campaign Camping Furniture, wood turning and a couple of refinish projects until the kitchen is complete. I will work down from there and not take on ANY new projects. I have two chests of drawers and a Duncan Phyfe Table that I want to complete and sell so that I am not storing them.

Shop:
I hate my table saw. I am going to out the beast on Craig’s List along with my contractor’s saw (Just collects spiders and sawdust), 12″ band-saw, small joiner, small drill press and the miter-box saw. None of them will work in France (50Hz vs. 60Hz power issues), so I can’t take’em with me. They are all old and have had a good life with me. It is time that I pass them on to new homes where they will see less use and live out their golden years making soapbox derby cars and bird feeders. I am planning to use any money made to invest in both some quality carving chisels and I will save part for the down payment on all new, cabinet shop-quality, power tools when we return to the US.

I can’t not build stuff, so I am taking the Anarchist’s Tool Chest route and am taking a rebuilt an old ammo/tool box (see evolution in pictures below) into a more useful tool travel case and will then show up in France with planes (22 of them), carving knives, mallets, hand saws, chisels, etc… The plan is to make smaller more detailed items, mostly by hand, while I am there (I will be sourcing a lathe and doing some bowl work though…).

Cutting trees down and making stuff

April 22, 2013 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

Shortly after we moved into La Maison du Talley, we cut 21 trees out of the backyard. There was only one serious tree – a 40′ cedar – and the rest were smaller Bay Laurels and Vine Maples that were blocking any possibility of sunlight reaching the ground. I kept some of the larger, straighter sections of the small trees and put them in the loft of the garage to dry and season, hoping that I would eventually make stuff out of them. That was three and a half years ago and while spring cleaning in the garage/shop this weekend I decided to take a little break and mess stuff up again 🙂 I pulled a couple of sections down and cut them to manageable size with the chop saw. I knew exactly what to do with pieces.

We have a neighbor who is crazy helpful and has a passion for dahlias. He grows and shares them with the whole street and has helped Stamps-With-Foot litter the edges of the yard and flower beds with them. She loaned him the bulb planter early this spring and he loved it. He had somehow gone through life as a gardener and just never tried one. I decided to make him his own with graduated depth gauge marks and a matching mallet to drive it into the odd patch of hard ground. The planter is made from a section of the vine maple and the mallet is turned from a hickory Little League baseball bat that I bought for $2.00 at Goodwill. The maple was super-dense and I counted 21 very tight growth rings on it. It grew in the shade under larger trees for all that time and that made it an especially hard and nice piece of wood to turn with sharp chisels – the wood shavings and tailings came off in long, thin, lace-like strips. An absolute pleasure to work with.

Since I was making sawdust already, I decided to keep going: The wife and I are planning to make some/most of our Christmas gifts this year. I have already started and added a few mallets for the woodworkers in my life (I am not spoiling the surprise – none of them read this blog…). I also turned a garden mallet for Stamp-With-Foot from a section of Laurel tree (her name-sake). I added the burned striped bands at her request after she saw her’s beside the others and got mallet-envy.

Just before my wife stomped out to the shop and MADE me come in for the night, I took a hunk of red oak that I have had for 10+ years and turned a couple of fancy door-stops. Since we live in a house built in 1928, the doors have a mind of their own and a well placed wedge keeps a person from walking into the edge of a door in the middle of the night. I will add some tung oil and a few coats of satin poly this week to finish them up.

Weekend Update – Spring flowers, Lincoln Park, and thoughts of Arborcide

April 15, 2013 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Oh Seattle… Why can’t you be pretty and green and sort of warm all year? I keep telling myself that Summer and early fall here make the crappy six month of fallwinterspring all worth it, but that is a hard pill to swallow right now. This has been an especially dreary winter: rain, cooler than normal temps, very few sunny days (I remember 4…) and it didn’t really get cold enough to kill the mosquito eggs, so we are looking forward to a buggy spring. Oh Joy. On the bright side of things, the lawn and garden at La Masion du Talley are erupting with jonquils, tulips, cherry blossoms, the begonias and the dahlias are just coming up, there is green on the espalier apples, new raspberry canes are shooting up, my rose bushes in the back are leafing out, I saw a couple of honey bees out foraging, the grass is lush and green, and the first hints of the lavender up front are coming in. I spent the weekend splitting my time between the inside of the house and the yard. In the last two weeks I have been in Tokyo, Orange Co.., CA and Las Vegas, so my part of the household chores had gone unattended to. Here is how it all went down:

Slept late Saturday.
Breakfast and coffee while sitting next to Brodie.
Washed a load of whites and a load of colors.
Thought about going for a run.
Lost two hours of my life to Pinterest instead…
Put dishes away – some of them anyway.
Stamp-With-Foot took Brodie to new vet.
Got dressed and picked up living room and office.
Wife loves new vet. Brodie, not so much…
Finished a couple of small house projects.
Got ready to take Brodie for a walk in Lincoln Park
Started raining.
Started hailing…
Canceled trip to the park.
Brodie went back to sleep on the couch.
Went downstairs to work on my Workbench of Doom in the basement.
Heard water running outside… SHIT! Gutters overflowing! Downspout Plugged!! FVCK!!!
Ran outside, put ladder up DURING hail storm, dug pine needles and holly leaves out of gutters on both sides of house.
Water started moving down drainpipe.
While on top of wet, slick ladder – wished I possessed The Force – would kill neighbor’s trees and lift them out of the ground like X-wing fighter…
Said loud dirty words about gutters, pine needles and neighbor’s trees.
Squinted eyes, pursed mouth, and made mental note to buy copper nails, a large auger bit, some Drain-O, and a vile of the poison that coated the blade that Bilbo was stabbed with for that hateful tree.
Climbed down slick ladder with frozen hands prayed for a single bolt of well placed lightning.
Went inside, threw wet hat down and stomped downstairs to plan a crime.
Stamps-With-Foot made me coffee.
Felt better & cleaned the basement a little.
Wife took me out on Movie Date.
Had a nice time.
Came home and sat in the hot tub for a good long while – nice light rain fell.
Wife all for me taking a hit out on the tree.
Fell asleep looking at Pinterest again.

Up at the crack of dawn on Sunday: 9:00am
Coffee and breakfast.
Wrote some e-mails and sent a few pics to Instagram
Wife left for appointment and Brodie and I went to C&P Coffee.
Brodie tried to eat a black lab the looked funny at him while I was ordering coffee.
Being French, he has a Napoleon Complex – Really, really.
I grabbed him in mid air and other dog looked like he wanted to tinkle on the carpet: hid behind owner
Brodie looked hard at that dog whole time we were there.
Stopped by Home Depot on the way home and got moss killer for the roof and yard.
Noticed the moss while unstopping gutters.
Came home, cut the grass and spread some Weed&Feed that will lead to the eventual demise of all the dandelions, clover, and nettles that dare to take root in my yard.
Mwahahaha…
Felt happy.
Edged and mowed the front and back yards.
Found a couple of ferociousness dandelion patches.
How had I missed them?!
Got out the instant death weed killer and murdered me some dandelions.
Giggled like Buffalo Bill as he put the lotion in the basket.
Other neighbor walked by told me that I had a beautiful yard.
Beamed with pride and tried not to look like a weed serial killer or that I was hatching a plan to commit arborcide!
Wife came home and helped me spray the roof for moss.
Took off overalls and went with wife and Brodie to Lincoln Park – pretty end to the day!
Went to Trader Joe’s for the week’s worth of groceries.
Stamps-With-Foot made dinner while I worked on some handmade Christmas gifts (starting early)
Looked at Pinterest and Instagram again.
Stole wife’s phone because her pics of Lincoln Park were better than mine.
Heard noise outside.
THE WAS A FVCKING RACCOON ON MY ROOF!!
Thought about getting The Ruminator’s pellet rifle.
Decided I did not want to be on top of ladder and at eye level with mad ‘coon that had just been tagged with a pellet.
Turned the water hose on and ruined his night.
He jumped off roof and into the hated pine tree.
I thought about the pellet rifle again… decided to let the raccoon and tree just have each other.
Came in and wife was asleep and the dog was snoring like a 75 year old alcoholic with sleep apnea.
Wrote a couple blog posts.
Turned off lights, set alarm, and went to snuggle with wife.

Stamps-With-Foot’s Garden

January 30, 2013 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Seattle has suffered through a weeks of freezing fog, stagnant air, flu season, and intermittent rain. The weather has me longing for long September evenings in our back yard….

2012 was a great year for us outside and in the yard. Stamps-With-Foot had her greening thumb put to work and our garden was crazy plentiful, in part because of her planting of mutant green squash and her nightly wine sipping/watering regimen. She moved dirt, turned the compost, picked berries, planted, harvested, pruned, cut bushes, dug in the dirt, and even removed a slug or two. I was very proud of her!

That hard work and spent energy was put to good use and we traded our bounty of veggies with the neighbors, she froze raspberries and blackberries that we both toiled over and my sweet wife made countless spinach and arugula salads from plants that we grew. To top it all off, she turned some of our tomatoes into chutney that was canned to make Christmas gifts. She is turning into quite the little homesteader.

Our Summer Garden

August 16, 2012 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

It has been a sweet summer in our small garden. Stamps-With-Foot has really stepped up and has been planting, weeding, watering, picking fruit, staking dahlias and has even once turned the compost and added chicken manure. I have been both shocked and impressed. She even talked me into having some corn planted in the raised boxes this year. She bought the starts, planted them, made sure they were well hydrated and is now about to harvest 15+ ears of yellow sweet corn. Her squash has been prolific and we will have more soybeans this fall than we will know what to do with. Happily surprised at my bride’s greening thumb…

So far this season, we have harvested 25 heads of garlic, 10 sweet yellow onions, 30+ yellow and green squash, a few Roma tomatoes (still very early in the season), 4+pints of raspberries (late summer crop just starting), 3 pints of wonderfully sweet blackberries, figs, apricots, 1 apple (more to come), a gallon+ of cherries, spinach, 5 beets, more Swiss and rainbow chard than I care to remember, 2 pints of small strawberries, a pint-ish of blueberries, and we have supplied three households with rosemary, sage, pineapple sage, thyme, basil, Thai basil, Moroccan mint, and spearmint. We have been trading produce with some other members of our family for eggs and with two sets of neighbors for veggies and flowers. Stamps-With-Foot mentioned the other day that she felt like Marie Antoinette with her little Austrian Hobby farm in the shadow of Versailles.

The amazing amount of flowers (except for the lavender and roses) have all been cared for by my sweet wife and a neighbor from across the street. Both front and back yards have been perfumed since early spring.

Lawn Furniture done!

August 14, 2012 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

As I mentioned in a previous post, there had been parts for Adirondack lawn chairs all over the house and shop for 9+ months waiting on me to gather the will to glue them up and drive some weatherproof screws home. The Ruminator and I put together when he was here this summer – he supervised while waxing poetic about dressing up like a viking – and I spent a combined 12 hours priming and painting them candy apple red.

Since I don’t want to repaint them every spring I used an oil-based exterior paint. Holy crap, it was hard to find! It seems that everyone has switched to latex based paint for homeowner use (ease of use, easy cleanup, better for the environment, etc…) and I had to resort to having gloss deck and concrete paint custom mixed. It went on like glass though and should be impervious to our rainy long winter weather for three or four years. My sweet wife super loves them and could barely wait until they were dry before giving them a proper, reading a book in the sun, test.

Below is a gallery of the whole build process:

Sawdust and paint fumes

August 9, 2012 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

It has been roughly eight months since my shop was robbed. It is just now that I have found the will and desire to start building furniture again. I have let projects and repairs pile up and let my garage shop digress into a sawdust filled junk-room. There have been parts for Adirondack lawn chairs in my basement and shop since December. I finally got around to gluing them up and screwing the pieces together when my son was here this summer. That little project led me to start cleaning the shop and find all the stuff that has been waiting on me. I dabbled with a couple of boxes, then started making pieces and organizing tools and supplies to tackle the larger stuff. Below is a list of current projects that are in work:

Painting the Adirondack chairs
Re-build of my father’s 1971 bookshelves
Kitchen cabinet doors
Misc. Lathe tasks
Kitchen cabinet pullouts
Camp Kitchen box build and paint
Campaign furniture for luxury car camping
Hall mirror
Copy of a 12th Century Abby oak door
Fireplace surround and mantle
New Kitchen cabinet pulls and knobs
Garden tool shed
Christmas gifts
Garden table

The above are started and in-work. I have plans to also build the below items soon:

Small basement work bench (reloading and winter projects)
Rebuild bookcase in master bedroom
Murphy bed for my home office
Box ceiling for master bedroom
Home office bookshelves
Chicken coop
Ornamental planter box
Cookbook shelf in kitchen
Rebuild my standing desk
Basement stairs rebuild

Our yard is in bloom – Spring 2012

June 3, 2012 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Magical Spring has finally come to Le Maison du Talley. Our rhododendrons are back and in full pooping bloom after they were hacked back last year. The tulips, daffodils, and poppies have all decided to bloom at the same time. The Spanash, English and Provence lavender has taken root and flourished along the front fence. After a two year struggle with blossom-rot, the two cherries up front are full of flowers and green cherries. We have Mandarin orange blossoms, apple blossoms, apricots, figs, raspberry buds, a fence line of blooming roses, and 3 Meyer’s lemons on the dwarf tree in our backyard mini-orchard.

Stamps-with-Foot and I planted garlic and onions in the fall that are close to being pulled and we spent an afternoon planting tomatoes, squash, corn, and zucchini in two of our raised beds. After in initial problem with early blight last year, our two full beds of tomatoes went NUTS! and we had more that we could use or give away. We were more selective this year and planted just a couple varieties and only 7 plants. I hot-housed a bed of spinach, Swiss Chard, and beats all winter that is now in full production mode.

I plan to be home more this summer and really spend some time tending and harvesting, although one wouldn’t know it from all the traveling so far. I can’t wait until mid-August when I can sit in my cotton hammock, gently swinging over my Ireland-green grass, drinking a Dunkel Weissbeir, snuggling my wife, and patting our puppy while gazing out onto our yard and garden.

What I want Thursday – 4/12/12

April 12, 2012 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

A list of stuff and things that I want currently – not that I necessarily need, but that i wuold like to have or see done/happen:

1. More time to read, write, build, snuggle, climb, bike, run, laugh…
2. A twin Murphy-bed in my office disguised as a mid-century modern wardrobe so that we have more guest space.
3. For my year-long kitchen project to be finished
4. To remember the password for my old laptop so I can have access to 10+ years of pictures…
5. My very own spending money that I can do with what I wish without submitting to a vote/need analysis
6. To have my FVCKIN’ tools back that some asshat stole…
7. A few new t-shirts for summer and a flat belly to reside under them.
8. For my Mother and Sister to find the perfect place in life
9. For all the dandelions in my yard to cease to exist
10. I would very much like for the really sad, really pregnant girl I say in Seattle yesterday to find someone/something/someplace that makes her warm, happy, and safe.

It is 71 BLEEPING degrees outside – WOOHOO!!

April 9, 2012 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Spring has finally decided to show up in Seattle! I am all giddy. Yesterday was Easter and the sun was out, birds were singing, my flowers are blooming, and my grass in Ireland green. I spent the morning, edging, mowing, raking, reseeding and assaulting my hated foe, the dandelions. I spent ALL DAY outside working on projects, fixing stuff that has waited for me all winter, working on a bookshelf for Stamps-With-foot’s sewing room, sharpening garden tools, and soaking in as much sunshine as possible. Brodie took up residence in his favorite patch of grass and alternately munched and napped. The end of his short snout got a little pink. I think that he is happier than I am about the sunshine. I am sitting inside at my J-O-B and I can see a little sliver of sunshine. I want to make a break for it!

As for Easter celebrations: There were chocolate & peanut butter eggs from my pretty wife, a Cadbury egg from my sister, and I purchased a hollow chocolate bunny, which I savaged, starting with its cute bunny ears… Brodie and I had a wonderful lunch of ham and ham, oh and more ham at my family’s place. Pork is bad for both of us and I was careful not to have any open flames around the house last night. Stamps-With-Foot is in Northern California visiting her sister and best friend in the world, so she was spared.

Film Friday – Brooks Saddlery

April 6, 2012 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I hate breaking in a new leather bike saddle – hate. It takes a month of riding for it not to feel like some sort of 15th century Transilvanian torture device. When it finally does wear into place, there is nothing better on long slow rides. A properly broken-in and adjusted saddle makes back to back all day rides possible and enjoyable without any pain the next day. My favorite of all time was a 1970’s vintage Rolls that I got with when I traded a pair of skis for a time-trial bike in the 1990’s. It was like a soft calfskin glove for my butt. It died in a horrendous crash on a colorado mountain road – a crash that left me with some serious road rash and some broken fingers. When I replaced the bike and saddle, I put a Brooks B-17 (black) on my new stead. After the initial torture, it was a constant companion for about 10 years. It was heavier that most saddles, but I am not in the ounce counting club and a comfortable ride is worth POUNDS of added weight.

Below is a video of the Brooks factory tour. They still do it all by hand. Watching the video makes me want to buy an new one just because of its provenance.

Spring Cleaning and Garden Prep -2012

March 27, 2012 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

The sun is out and it looks like spring has finally come to Seattle. I had a full weekend off and was in the country for a change, so it was time to get busy waking the garden and yard up, prepping for planting, take care of some spring cleaning and enjoy a sunny warm day outside. Below is how this past Sunday went for me:

Up and out of the shower by 10:00am
Wife made yummy breakfast with Trader Joe’s Croissants
Coffee made me human
Put on my overalls
Removed extension cords that powered Christmas lights
Started taking down Christmas lights – 2.5 months late
Realized when on top of ladder that I needed long reach tool I made last year
Spent 30 minutes searching…
Remembered that I turned old tool into something else
Muttered dirty words
Spent 10 minutes making new long reach Christmas light removal tool
While on top of ladder, cleaned gutters – 5th time in 12 months…. Stupid Pine tree…
Turned compost
Cleaned and swept shop a little
Took apart one of our winter hot houses.
Planted forgotten bag of tulip/Camila bulbs found in hot house
Shook head and hoped that they will come up
Mulched roses
Feed roses some of the pink Miracle Grow good stuff
Treated roses for Black Spot as preventative measure
Killed some evil dandelions
Laughed manically while committing the deed
Reconnected the garden irrigation system
Wife brought me coffee and a kiss
Mulched the apple and cherry trees
Ran out of mulch
Started to Home Depot and somehow drove past and all the way to Second Use
Found $220+ of oak flooring for $25
Bought oak flooring…
Picked up more mulch at Home Depot and replacement drill for one that was stolen
Unloaded truck
Wife didn’t raise eyebrow at truck full of wood
Got away with unplanned purchase this time…
Trimmed dead shoots from lavender
Mulched around all the lavender
Sweet wife made me lunch
Moved new cabinet from shop into basement
Started to move charcoal grill
Found football sized mass of blue and black mold inside grill
How in the hell does that happen??!?!?!
Gagged more than a little
Muttered more dirty words
Cleaned out mold, scrubbed every surface with bleach solution and wire brush
There were some additional words spoken that start with F
Made HUGE hot fire with oak shop scrap to kill EVERYTHING in grill
Grill now ready for spring
Laid out spot on outside garage wall for new garden tool shed.
Cut stakes for raspberries
Dark outside so went into basement
Sanded kitchen cabinet shelves that are under construction
Put a coat of primer on them
Installed in some drawer slides in what will be new 15″ cabinets beside the stove
Fv#%ing drill battery ran out of juice
My lovely bride made a yummy dinner
Can’t find new charger for new drill
Wrapped last of wife’s birthday gifts
Put finishing coat of clear-coat on Persian table base that I have been redoing
Somehow got finish in my mouth
Spat and tried repeatedly to scrap the turpentine taste off my tongue
Failed
Gave up
Went to bed
Opened book
Not a single word read before I passed completely out.

A fruitful season

December 13, 2011 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I am sitting in our breakfast nook, drinking coffee and getting mentally prepped for my J-O-B. As I sip my needed and delicious cup o’ joe, I can see the winter sunrise reflecting off the tips of the frost covered grass in the front yard. It has me ruminating on the intensity, goals, minor failures, and harvest from this years garden and yard work.

I spent our very cold spring getting our raised boxes ready for a bumper crop: perfect soil mix, irrigation lines, compost, etc… The tomatoes were planted a little early and they got an early blight that stunted them for a time, but they came back in force and we had more tomatoes than we new what to do with this year. I didn’t get the onions in the ground soon enough or plant garlic at all, so e ultimately gathered 2 medium white onions and I left the rest of the shoots in the ground this fall, planted winter garlic and covered them with straw so the we will have a summer crop next year.

We feel our biggest success was with our greens. Planted spinach, butter lettuce, and chard that fed us all summer. There was an unfortunate incident with the broccoli (bugs, microwave, crunchy dinner…), but on the whole our bed of greens was were most of the bang for our buck came from.

Fall hurt a little. I was away a good bit traveling for work and the garden was neglected. My very first apple was stolen by a squirrel, the slugs went NUTS on the last of the tomato crop. Fvcking slugs… There will be a battle next year and I am planning on a plan of full slug eradication. There was some definite success though: we gathered almost 2 gallons of raspberries, made mint mojitos and mint juleps from the 6 types of mint I have growing in containers. There were probably 3 bushels of tomatoes that came out of one 3×7 raised bed – really. We had our first lemon, first fig, cherries, huckleberries, strawberries (also hurt by the squirrels though), a full cup of blue berries, beets, greens, and lot of knowledge gained through screwing up.

Thoughts for this winter and next year:

Death to all slugs!!
Need more bees early in the season for fruit trees – hang some mason bees in a warm area.
Grow starts in basement and do not plant too early.
Mulch raspberries and roses.
Cut all blackberries out.
Need more drip irrigation hose.
Raise kitchen herb planters up another foot off the ground.
Raise strawberry pots up as well.
Prune tomato flowers so that crop is smaller and fruit larger.
Use apple bags to keep apple pests at bay.
Spray fruit trees early!
Spray roses with anti-rust/fungal early and monthly.
Spend more time in garden.

Fresh cut grass makes me tingle in the lower abdominal region…

May 13, 2011 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

After 100+ days of rain, spring is finally here. I only really know that because my lapin cherry tree and the ornamentals on the block are in full blossom. Hopefully, all the hard work done in the rain and mud till now is about to start paying off.

Prep has been the theme for the past few months. I spent some quality time killing yard moss, reseeding in the front and back yards, adding weed and feed, conducting property-wide dandelion genocide, planting 70+ bulbs, and getting the soil in the garden bed ready for the tomatoes, carrots, onions and garlic. In addition to finishing the raised beds and converting the cat litter-filled pond into a flower planter for my wife, I have cut all the trash trees, vines, and blackberries from my south fence. My neighbor on that side keeps his home and yard in the Miss Havisham fashion. I have taken three loads of branches/leaves/vines to the dump and I can now see from one end of our property to the other. So far this year his pine tree has delivered three 5-gallon buckets worth of pinecones in my front yard and I have had to clean my gutters three times. I have a sneaking suspicion that the particular pine tree in question is not long for this world… There is a holly tree of some relation that is not looking all that well either...

I finally got a great espalier apple tree in the ground, two columnar apples to flank it, and an additional cherry (a glacier) up front. There is now a fig for Laurel, a dwarf Helena apricot from Dave&Sarah, a Satsuma, and an Improved Meyer lemon – all in containers so we can hot-house them this winter. For the side yard, there are two huckleberries in bloom – ready to plant. The last rose bush (a J&P Radiant Perfume) has been planted on the back fence and irrigation lines have been run to the roses, garden boxes, raspberries, and fruit trees.

The Apricot and citrus trees will stay in containers so that I can

move them into a hot-house when the temperature drop in the fall.

The multiple weird cold snaps this year have been decidedly unhealthy for my strawberry pots, but the kitchen herbs planted last spring are doing well. The orange-mint has taken over a rectangular container and the rosemary is starting to bloom tiny baby-blue flowers. The two sunshine blueberries in pots are covered in small white blossoms and the grass in front and back is thick, healthy, and Ireland green – I can’t wait to string up the hammock and snooze gently swinging above my lawn. Although I still have dandelion farms on either side there have been very few that have dared to peak up in the grand lawn of Le Maison Du Talley this year. Their appearance has been followed with swift and forceful retribution. Speaking of the weed farms adjacent to me: It seems that someone sprayed them in the middle of the night with Scott’s liquid death. Now all the yellow-orange flowers that they were cultivating seem to be shriveling up. I think it was the gnomes. -I have a couple of English garden gnomes that are leftist lawn militants. The local dogs give our place a wide berth – narry a singe poop on the parking strip this year and there is a racoon living over at Miss Havisham’s and they are preparing to hunt safari-style…

The second of three loads of branches taken to the dump in the last month. My neighbor loves me so much that he shares his trees and yard waste with me…

Driven Outside

Category: Yard