Fall Garden and Sewing Baby Clothes

Fall makes me feel all domestic-y.  As such, we've planted our fall garden and I've spent my free time sewing Matilda some clothes.

Fall Garden

Our garden has cauliflower, swiss chard, arugula, lettuces, cabbage, cucumber, tomatoes, snap peas, jalapenos, blackberries, mint, rosemary, basil, cilantro, sage, thyme, oregano, and lemon grass. We still have room, so we'll probably plant a few more things.

When we planted it three weeks ago, it looked like this:

 Now it looks like this:

 

 

Matilda helped us pick plants out at the nursery and plant them.  Although she doesn't look happy, she was really chill and such a good helper.

Sewing Baby Clothes

I've also spent some time sewing stuff for Matilda.  The first thing I attempted was a bonnet to go with her Halloween outfit.

I also sewed her two fall dresses.  I've never sewn clothes before, so I think they came out okay for my first time.  I didn't have a pattern, so I just used one of her other dresses as an estimate.

The first one was a little peasant style dress with 3/4 length sleeves.  (Don't tell anybody, but they were suppose to be long sleeves, but didn't quite end up that way.)

 And the second one is a pillow case style dress for Thanksgiving. 

All I need to do is bake a fall bread or desert and put up our decorations, and my fall nesting will be complete.  :)

Winter Greens & Lettuce

On my morning off (am I like the only one with today off?), I worked out in the garden.  I fertilized and mulched our existing plants, added some winter lettuces, and separated the leek seedlings. 

The broccoli and cauliflower are coming along nicely.

 

The Swiss chard and kale are still trucking along too.  We made some Swiss chard and kale quiche last week, and doesn't this kale recipe look yummy?  Might need to try it soon.

 

Also, I didn't originally know that you need to separate the leek seedlings, so I went ahead and did that.  Hopefully they survive.  They look so tiny planted individually.

 

As far as winter greens and lettuces, I planted some arugula, Mascara lettuce, 7 Wonders lettuce, and Bloomdale spinach.

Radar wasn't too happy with me this morning since he got a bath, but he helped protect me while I worked either way.  Such a loyal little pup.

Pecan Snatcher

I watched this incident out of our kitchen window the other day...

What a pecan stealing punk.

Fall Garden 2012

Jason and I planted our fall garden this morning.  First we worked on pruning, fertilizing, mulching, and watering our existing potted plants.  Right now we have cayenne pepper, blackberry, blueberry, strawberry, lemongrass, rosemary, oregano, and sage plants.  We planted a new basil plant as well.

 

Then we planted lemon mint, spearmint, chives, multiplying onions, leeks, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, kale, swiss chard, and snap peas in the cinder block gardens.  We saved some room to plant winter lettuces once it gets cooler.

I've pretty much given up on trying to plant tomatoes.  Other than cherry tomatoes, we can never get any of the other varieties to produce.

I'm hoping our plants do okay.  After solarizing the soil this summer to get rid of all of the weeds, our soil seems a bit dry and lacks the beneficial bugs and critters that help plants grow.  I might need to go find some earthworms and beneficial insects if our plants struggle.

I'm looking forward to watching everything grow though.  I'm also looking forward to some kale and swiss chard quiche. 

Backyard Blue Jay

Yesterday when we were working in the yard, I noticed this little guy.  I thought that he may be hurt since he was just standing there, but now I'm thinking that perhaps he is just young and hasn't mastered flying yet. 

He somehow moved from the front yard to the backyard, and now he's hanging out on the deck.  I'll just have to keep an eye on Radar until he flies off.

Turf Wars

While the majority of our front yard is doing great, we had a fairly significant patch of dead grass between the sidewalk and street. Over the past week, we decided to do something about it.

Lawn last week.

First we removed all of the dead grass. Then we tilled the existing soil, added
some compost and lawn starter fertilizer, and raked smooth.

We watered over the last week and bought some St. Augustine sod.

Today we laid the sod.

We didn't have a lawn roller so Jason used our big shovel to push the sod down
into the existing soil.

Then we gave the newly laid sod a deep watering.

Before & After


The backyard was looking pretty bad as well. But unlike our front lawn of St. Augustine grass, our backyard is Bermuda. Last weekend, we mowed it as short as possible, raked it really well, added a layer of topsoil, and put down fertilizer and Bermuda seed. Then, we watered it every day this week.

I don't know if the seed is actually taking or if it is just looking better from the daily watering, but it does look more green this week.

Last week.

This week.

Also, we have some berries growing. The birds usually get to them before we do, but they're pretty either way.

Blackberries.

Blueberries.

Pecan Tree

Don't despair... our pecan tree has not died!  Hooray!  Jump for joy!

Oh, what is that you say?  That you weren't worried about our pecan tree? 

Huh... well I sure was.  It was nearly the only tree in the neighborhood that wasn't covered in green leaves.  I was getting so worried that we lost it in the drought.  Jason was convinced we did.

But, if you squint really hard, you can see the small buds at the ends of the limbs. 

Can you see them?

Hooray for our only tree!

How to Build a Raised Garden Bed: City of Houston Edition

Jason and I have our own experience building raised garden beds as described here and here, but today I joined forces with City of Houston employees and other Urban Harvest volunteers to help build the City's newest City Garden.  Located at the Houston Permitting Center which houses the Green Building Resource Center, this garden will be planted, maintained, and harvested by City employees.  I believe this is the City's third City Garden, with the first two located at the Public Works Building and Tranquility Park downtown. 

We built five beds, one for each floor of the center.  The garden bed walls are made
out of repurposed bricks from the City's ReUse Warehouse. 

The hardest job of the day was removing the old mortar from the sides of the bricks
so they would line up straight.

 Once the walls were up, we raked the grass and weeds from each bed.

Then we laid down heavy duty gardening fabric to keep the weeds from coming back.

Surprisingly, we had the five beds up in about two hours.

Next Thursday, City employees will fill the beds with soil and fertilizer with planting to follow at a later date.  It was really fun to work with other volunteers to build the garden beds.  To learn more about Houston's community gardens or how you can get involved, click here.

Fall Gardening

Yesterday, we attended a fall festival at Buchanan's Native Plants in the Heights.  We sat in a free class held by Urban Harvest to learn tips about fall & winter gardening, ate free hot dogs, watched kiddos enjoy the moon jump and pumpkin painting, and picked out some transplants for our garden.  It was all-in-all a very fun time.

Gary Edmondson, Director of Education at Urban Harvest

Beautiful fall display - I could live at Buchanan's if they would let me. 

This morning, we started our fall garden.

We planted a cauliflower, a broccoli, and three brussel sprouts in this bed.  We'll likely add some beet seeds & snap peas later on.  Once our eggplants are harvested, we'll use the small raised bed for winter lettuces.

We also planted a bunch of herbs in one of our big pots - oregano, sage, bay leaves, cilantro, chives, & lemon grass. 
Radar likes to eat the lemon grass.

Isn't it cute?