Fall Flowers + Garden Projects

It's been a while since we posted anything about the house, hasn't it?  We've been very busy with work and the return to grad school.  Any free moment we've had has been spent keeping up with our lives (dishes and laundry primarily).  What little extra time we've had beyond that we've spent outside trying to get the yard ready for the winter.  So here's a quick update.  We had some beautiful late-blooming flowers around our yard this September and October.  Here are just a few:

After we cleared this corner of the yard a in late August, a mystery flower popped up.  It seems to be some sort of lily:

It finally bloomed in late September:

Here are some more little surprises that popped up in September and October:

In October, Matt's parents came for a visit and lent us some of their gardening knowledge and skills.  The biggest accomplishment of the weekend were two brand new raised beds.  In one we planted spinach and two types of lettuce and in the other we replanted the Chinese ground orchids that were already growing in the back yard.  Many thanks to Matt's parents for the help!

In late October, with the threat of overnight frosts upon us, we went out and winterized the banana tree and the orchids.  We cut the banana tree (which had gotten quite out of control) down to the ground and covered in in mulch to protect the roots from the cold.  If we get a really cold spell we will additionally cover it with thick black plastic.  Supposedly when the weather warms up it will start to grow new shoots.  We'll see!  To protect the orchids, we simply layered as much mulch as we could fit into the raised bed.  We'll continue to add more mulch as it starts to break down and we'll cover the whole bed if we get much really cold weather.  Hopefully they'll do just fine!

When school ends for winter break, our top priority will be finishing up the kitchen cabinets so that we can put away our dishes!!  Lets hope there will be a post about that before Christmas!!

Weekend Clearing and a Teaser

Before we get too far into the week we want to share one of the projects we worked on over the weekend.  While the weather is still nice (it might not be much longer around here) we wanted to get some more work done in the garden.  So we cleared out one of our favorite little corners that was pretty overgrown.  This corner of the garden is shady and quiet and is the view right outside the room we've been sleeping in (we've been sleeping on the futon so we're hesitant to call it the bedroom just yet).

The photo above was actually taken a little bit into the process.  All the stuff at the bottom of the picture was pulled out of that area.  Apparently this corner had been a bit of a dumping ground.  On top of all the stuff, and the weeds, this tree was spreading and sprouting all over the place.

The sprouts were coming out of the roots of the tree, so they couldn't just be dug up but each one had to be cut down below ground level.  With all that digging we found all kinds of little critters like this little roly poly friend:

We also managed to uncover part of the concrete path that runs through some of the back yard.  Thanks to our handy sweeper nozzle we were able to get it pretty clean.  We also took the opportunity to give the house a little cleaning, too.

Eventually we'll plant some grass in this area, but for now it at least looks a little bit neater.

Here's the next garden project we plan to tackle:

Okay, here's a little preview of what's happening around here over the next couple of days.  Can you guess what's happening?

And check back tomorrow for the other project we finished over the weekend:  the closet!

How To (Partially) Deconstruct a Sunroom

Remember our post about how to recycle just about anything?  We said it then and we'll say it again:  the most important first step to recycling is deconstruction, not demolition.   So what's the difference?  Demolition is destruction of a structure using means such as a sledgehammer.

Reuters

Deconstruction is the careful dismantling of a structure by the same means that it was constructed: with screwdrivers, hammers and the occasional pry-bar.  The purpose is to keep materials intact for future reuse and recycling.

That being said, we've been working on deconstructing the home-made solarium that is taking up space off the back of our house.

Here's how we've done it so far:

Step 1:  Remove furniture, bubble wrap, plastic, carpet, plexiglass, fake wood paneling, curtains, interior gutters, hooks, string, etc.

Step 2:  Attempt to figure out exactly how the structure is constructed.

Step 3:  Have a visit with a kitty (stray or otherwise).

Step 4:  Remove glass panes.

Step 5:  Check to see if glass is tempered.

Step 6:  Assess the damage (and stop the bleeding, if necessary).

Step 7:  Take some artsy photos.

  Step 8:  Clean up the mess.

Step 9:  Repeat steps 3 through 8 as desired.

Step 10:  Remove any unwanted/extremely dangerous spiked bushes.

Step 11:  Continue to remove support pieces as desired and enjoy the view.

Step 12:  Sort wood.  Determine what you can or want to reuse, sort the rest by recycling center standards.  Some centers may not accept wood with paint or nails.

Step 13:  Carry on as desired.  We decided to leave the base and roof of our sunroom as a work area for other house projects.  For now.

The deck will give us a good place to work on sanding and painting projects outside of the house and the cover will offer protection.  Having the windows and many of the support beams out, however, makes the area a hundred times cooler and much nicer to look at.

On a serious note, do check to see if glass is tempered before moving it around.  From experience (we lost two out of nine panes) we recommend wearing gloves, long sleeves and eye protection for moving any type of glass, but our injuries (we just had a few scratches) would have been far worse had the glass not been tempered.

In case you're wondering, the cost of this deconstruction project was a full $0.  Our big savings was not having to rent a dumpster as we had originally planned.  Once everything is down and sorted we'll take a trip in our car or borrow a neighbor's truck to bring the wood in for recycling.  Anything that we have thrown out fit in our trash can for weekly pickup.  Anything that we can't recycle we plan to put on craigslist.org or freecycle.org and hope for some takers.

We hope you enjoyed our tutorial!

Late Summer Harvest

Recently our plums and figs have started to ripen!  Our regular purple plums came and went a few weeks ago but these golden plums are just perfect right now.  And they are absolutely delicious.

The figs just ripened up out of nowhere in the last couple weeks, too.  We'd never eaten figs fresh off the tree and actually had to do a little bit of research. 

It turns out that figs can be eaten whole, skins and all, but they are a little bit tricky.  Primarily, the sap of the fig tree is apparently a proteolytic enzyme, which destroys proteins in human skin.  When figs are not fully ripe they ooze a milky white sap from the tip when picked.  If it touches your skin it can irritate or even burn.  When eaten, the sap in the skin can make your mouth itchy, numb or sore.  The effects are reduced the riper the fig is.  We have also been cutting our figs into smaller pieces to reduce the contact our lips and mouth have with the skin.  While we've fortunately not experienced it first hand, we've heard that spiders and ants will climb inside the fig as well so cutting it up is a good way to check for critters.  Another fun fact:  Figs are not a fruit, but a infructescence, which is basically a cluster of flowers.

Here is our harvest from just one day last week:

Bonus:  our neighbor doesn't like figs but she loves those golden plums so we were lucky enough to be able to trade for some fresh eggs from her chickens!  They made a delicious breakfast this weekend.