Backyard Upgrade- Part 2: The Rocks & The Dirt

We shared our plan for the backyard (lower area) in this post. Then we made a 'test patch', kind of a way to see if we would like it and find out how much work it would be, etc. 

We decided to go with a checkerboard pattern, but with the grass all the way around the tiles. We used 4 bags of topsoil to level this area, and 6 tiles. So based on that our estimation is around 20 more bags of soil and 24 tiles.

So we started our 'test patch' probably 2 weekends ago, and didn't do much in between {family in town, life, working, etc}, so it gave us a good chance to watch the seed start to grow in. So obviously we'll need to add more seed to this area, but it's a good start and we are excited to see progress!

So where did we move the couple of hundred pounds of rock? Or should I say where did Greg move the rock? Well I helped, but only a little, I did other gardening activities. We only have one shovel.... Anyways, we moved them up to the upper area behind the garden. The rock looks so much better there and is nice ground cover for the dirt, hopefully it will also help prevent the kudzu from taking over again.

Today, we finished moving the rock and added all of the dirt and leveled it. We were pretty close on our estimation of dirt, it took 18 bags. So the plan for tomorrow is to get the tiles and lay them, and then wait for the grass to grow!

So so many projects!

I think one thing I've learned so far is that I get so excited about a project that we start and then start another one and another one. I think we have at least 5 projects mid-progress. So that's my excuse for being so slow at updates lately. Blogs are hard work to keep up on, but it's fun, so I'm going to try to be better at updating.

So with that being said, here are the projects we are in the middle of-
1. Outdoor seating unit
2. Front yard upgrade
3. Back yard upgrade
4. Sewing project that accompanies the seating unit
5. Laundry room organization

Our goal this weekend is to finish the backyard and get the front yard more finished. The front yard has been kind of done for awhile, we just keep doing small things to it. So I will share soon with what we've done to it, it looks completely different from the original pictures we've shared.

Backyard Upgrade- Part 1: The Plan

We love grass. It's soft, colorful and pretty. Unlike the ground cover in our small backyard, rocks. Now that the raised area of our yard is pretty and nice looking with the vegetable garden, the drab brown rocks down below are even more noticeable. So along with building our outdoor seating unit, we are focusing on fixing up the lower area. We bought some Scott's EZ Seed a few weeks ago half price at Home Depot, it says it'll grow anywhere (even on concrete), so we'll be testing out that claim.

Our plan is to do a variation of a checkerboard pattern with 1' x 1' yard concrete tiles. Then plant grass in between and around each tile. Before we can do that though, we have to remove all (or at least most) of the rocks in the backyard, put them somewhere, till up the rock hard clay, and probably add in some new topsoil and compost. So that's all for now, just the plan :)

DIY Rain Barrel

Last weekend we tackled a project we've been wanting to do for awhile- make a rain barrel to collect rain water from the gutter run-off. This is especially good for us since we don't have a hose outlet in the back yard (that's a project for another day!). There's tons of useful information on the internet about making rain barrels, so we went with a simple solution for now. We may add some more modifications to it as time goes on.

Materials
Barrel- we just used a $9 Rubbermaid trashcan
Spigot
Hose washer
'Nut'- I mean something to screw in inside the barrel to hold the spigot in place, we used a female coupler
 Bricks (optional) - we wanted it off the ground, so it's raised by a few inches with some landscape bricks we had

The whole process was pretty simply; first, cut off down spout at desired height. Attach flexible gutter tubing to the downspout, secure to fence (or other object) for more stability. Cut holes in trashcan (or barrel), one for the gutter tubing, and another for the spigot. Slide hose washer onto spigot threading, then into the hole in the rain barrel, then screw the but on from the inside. Put lid on and slide the tubing down into the barrel. Finished!

Since we got some rain over the weekend, we got to test it out last night! It works really well. We are going to add some caulking to the spigot joint once it dries out to make sure it doesn't start leaking, but so far so good. It works more like a siphon if you attach a short hose to it, not much water pressure of course. But it's good enough to fill up my watering can, which beats walking back and forth from the garage to fill up a bucket with water! Plus this water is free!

Cute & Crazy Kitties

I've been trying to snap a lot of random pictures of our cats lately, and since they don't always make it into a post, I thought I'd share a lot of them here!

Lion hiding on the top shelf of the closet... no idea how he got there!

Nutmeg is helping assemble Greg's meat smoker

Lion loves tummy rubs!

Inspecting the cabinets before we hung them in the garage

Nutmeg also needed to inspect the cabinets to make sure Lion did a good job

Nutmeg has a weird obsession with the cardboard box of litter, he chews holes in them!

Cats and boxes.....

Old picture of Nutmeg- he was 2 weeks old!

Another old picture! He was only mildly destructive...

Passed out kitten!

He likes to drink out of human cups, so I put water in a coffee cup for him. I swear it wasn't coffee!

Nutmeg hiding in the box, he did this to himself!

So then Lion had to check out the box....

Lion sleeping in my travel bag....

Nutmeg playing with the piping for my sewing project & inhibiting me from getting a good picture!

Sewing a Pillow

I made a pillow! Aren't you proud of me?

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we are working on an outdoor project, and that part of it involves sewing. I haven't said exactly what the project is yet, because I think it will look awesome once completed and it doesn't look awesome yet. You can probably deduce that we're making some sort of seating unit with pillows and cushion, and you'd be right!

The pillow I made isn't necessarily for the outdoor unit, but we'll probably use it there. It was a practice run for me to see if I can sew in a straight line. I won't go into great detail on how I made the pillow (even me with no sewing experience can guess how to make a pillow), but I did learn a few things from it:

1. I'm terrible at hand stitching after stuffing a pillow
2. I don't sew in straight lines (but I guess they are straight enough)

There's not much I can do about not being able to sew in a straight line- I'll just keep practicing, maybe by the end you won't be able to tell. But most of the project is sewing on the wrong side, so once you flip it, you don't see my uneven seams too much.

The hand stitching part is a problem though. You can see how terribly it went in the picture (the bottom of the pillow), I ended up machine stitching to finish it, since it was already not going well. So I definitely didn't want my cushions (oh yeah, that's what the final project is) to turn out that way.

So other than learning to sew a cushion, I need to learn how to:

1. Sew a zipper so I don't have to hand stitch
2. Sew piping (it'll help my seams look better, I hope...)

This whole cushion project is going to take awhile. So stay tuned for updates, I'll try to link everything so you can follow the whole story of this crazy outdoor seating unit!

Part 1: Super Secret Outdoor Project
Part 2: Sewing a Pillow - This Post!
Parts 3-infinity: ????

P.S. The fabric for the pillow is what we are using on the cushions too, I love it! It's going to look great with bright colored pillows!

Veggie Garden- 1 Month Update

It's been {exactly} one month since we planted our vegetable garden, and as much as I'd like to say that I planned that, I didn't. It's just a happy mistake. The garden overall seems to be doing really well.

And no, you aren't imagining that wooden fence back there, it wasn't there before. A house is just about complete back behind our road, but fortunately, the house is farther down, so we just see the fence and woods.

The store bought better-boy tomato plant is in the back and has grown pretty large, it has lots of flowers and even one mini tomato growing. There's a few smaller tomatoes in this picture too.

This Cherokee Tomato plant is the lone Cherokee seedling survivor, those torrential downpours killed the weakest, and I'm not really sure what happened to the other seedling. But this one has done really well and is almost as big as the store bought Cherokee!

The cucumbers are massive! I have no idea what we're going to do with all of them. Guess we'll be making lots of pickles. Fun process, gross smell! We started with 4 store bought plants, one died, but the other 3 are looking good!

All 3 of the pepper seedlings we planted have survived! We know there is one Bell Pepper and one Poblano Pepper, but we aren't quite sure what the middle one is. The seedlings got mixed up when we were planting, so that one will be a surprise!

We planted 4 zucchini seeds since none our of seedlings made it to transplant time (thanks Nutmeg). All 4 sprouted, but 2 of them didn't last long. These two are getting big and seem to be performing well!

I don't know anything about onions, so I have no idea if these are doing well or dying. At least 1 has died, but a few others seem to have grown another 'leaf', I really have no idea what it's called on an onion.

Like the zucchini, we planted Cherry Tomato seedlings, which are still pretty small. But about 3-4 look like they're doing well.

Broccoli seedlings, planted straight into the ground. Some of the seeds got washed out of the row, so they are somewhat random throughout that side for now. We'll see what makes it, they are still pretty tiny.

The Kale, Butter Lettuce, and Arugula are doing really well! These are the ones we got from Oakhurst Community Garden. They are huge! So are the other lettuce varieties we planted in containers on the deck. They have their big plant sale this weekend, so I'm excited to go check that out and see what they have now!

Melon seedlings (Cantaloupe, Crimson Watermelon, and Orange Watermelon) are still small. They took a lot longer to sprout than the zucchini and broccoli seedlings. Only time will tell.
Not too much is going on with the blackberry plants, they are supposed to be fall bloomers, so we'll have to wait a while to see action there. Something weird is going on with the blueberry plants though, they all bloomed and didn't produce any fruit, so we'll have to research what's going on there.

Stay tuned for another update soon!