Plumbing and Snap Peas

Phlox blossoms in the front yard (totally unrelated to the rest of the post)

Plumbing and snap peas: improbable combination, I know, but that's what I want to write about this time. I'll do the not-so-pretty first (the plumbing), though I'm sure for our brothers and other schadenfreude-ists out there, it will be the more interesting of the two topics. After all, the subtitle of the blog is "misadventures in home maintenance" and so far it seems like we've only blogged about gardening. So, last month I noticed a black spot on the caulking around the base of the toilet that seemed new or at least bigger than I remembered. When I followed the bead of caulk around to the back of the toilet, I found a giganto black spot and squishy linoleum. I had no idea what that meant, but I knew it wasn't going to be good. Turned out to be a leaky wax ring, which, to repair, involved taking the toilet off the floor (bolts were rusty and one had to be broken off), dealing with the maggot-like squigglers throwing a party beneath the toilet (just under our feet! yay!), scraping the old squiggler-infested wax ring off, positioning the toilet juuusssst-right over the new bolts (had to buy a second set because the first set was too short), and then cutting the bolts off to make them short enough to fit the cap over (yes, you read that right: we had to buy long bolts just to go and cut them short). This whole process was made much more fun by virtue of the fact that the area we had to work in was maybe two feet wide between the tub and the sink. But, we got it done and it hasn't leaked since. I consider that a success.

On to snap peas: we got 'em. Lots of 'em. We're freezing some and eating the rest sauteed over high heat in soy sauce. Yum. Otherwise, the greens are getting big, the carrots are about as big around as my thumb, and we ate our first green top onion just the other day. We're thinking now is about the right time to put in a fourth bed for tomatoes and peppers.

Thaw!

The freezing temps are finally over - for two weeks it was no colder in Michigan than it was in Florida. We both got pretty sick of covering the plants every night, but it seems to have been worth it since most are alright. Not great, mind you. And the peas are in sad shape. But, all things considered, I think the garden weathered the worst winter in 25 years fairly well. Today was back to sunshine and 70 degrees. Next project - straightening the edgers (small job) and painting the house (huge job).

Hard Freeze Warning

Bad news. The cold snap that's affecting 2/3 of the country reaches down to the Florida panhandle, too. So we've been covering the plants every night - amazing that a thin little tarp can make that much difference - and keeping our fingers crossed. We might have lost the banana tree entirely. It was so brown and withered we decided to hack it off and let the plant concentrate on generating new growth rather than trying to revive dying limbs. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, it's a war zone in our back yard and the fight is on for our winter garden.

After getting thoroughly lambasted by all our family at Christmas for not posting since October, we're finally back to it. Part of the reason for the lapse was due to end of semester and holiday craziness, and part was due to the lack of things to post. I mean, is it really that exciting to read that our carrots have grown a quarter inch? Happily we now have some garden news worth writing home about: our first harvest. The salad greens needed thinning so we grabbed up some of the baby greens, added parsley, cilantro, chives, and fennel from our herb garden, and had a nice little salad, made all the more tasty because we grew it.

Gardening seems somewhat magical to me; I marvel at the fact that I can throw some ten-cent seeds into the ground and weeks later pull up vegetables that I'd pay ten dollars for at the grocery store. It makes me realize how far removed I am from the daily existence of just a couple generations past. Our grocery stores would seem (and, indeed, are) far more magical to my great-grandma than a simple vegetable garden would, and yet it's the garden that amazes me.

Camelias in October?

Okay, so I heard a million times that the weather in Florida was going to be different. Everyone warned us, but we were dubious. Sure, it might stay warmer longer (which it did) and there might not be as many cold(ish) days as in Wilmington, but how different can it really be? We were still in the South after all, and at the beach, no less.

Last week convinced me. Camelias are in bloom. Azaleas are in bloom. Wilmington's Azalea Festival is in April, not October. It seems that the combination of several 90 degree days (yep, in mid-October) and clearing off the vines and ferns that had been choking them off was enough to set the bushes into full bloom. My Pedagogy professor swears her azaleas bloom twice every year, so apparently this isn't a fluke.

Now, however, we've got the best of both worlds. The temps have dipped into the 60s and 70s and flowers are gorgeous.

On another note, now that the tree is finally out of the back yard we've started on the butterfly garden which we've planned to grow up around, on, and in the remaining stump. Of course, we won't get too many butterflies this time of year, but we can work on the area in preparation for spring. Y'all know how I love my planning : )

The Garden!

We finally have the beginnings of a proper garden in place. We were waiting on a big water oak to come out, and it has, so today I looked at the area we have available and settled on a plan. The total space amounts to a rectangle that's 16 x 12 (with options for a couple more small beds outside this). Eventually there will be 6 raised beds that are 3' x 7' with paths of 18" between. The dimensions are the result of the total area and practicality. I could have done fewer and larger beds, but working them would be a problem without stepping into them, which we don't want to do. Three feet is easy to work with from both sides, and is probably more than enough space for just two people to grow veggies to augment our grocery shopping. Today I got in one of the beds and marked off and prepared the soil for the second. I used available materials for the borders of the beds (cedar beams that were laying around and leftovers from the herb garden border) and 5 bags of gardening soil to fill in. All of the beds will be mulched with pine needles. I'm not sure what we'll mulch the paths with. Pea gravel would be nice, but once it's in, it's a pain to take out. I think we'll be able to mulch and plant it this weekend. It actually works out nicely to stagger them, both financially and from a planting point of view. If we can plant a bed every two weeks we should be eating well all winter, right from the garden, and we'll be totally set up for spring to do heavy plantings of peppers, tomatoes, cukes, and miscellaneous other veggies. In the meantime, arugula, here we come.

House Color Help

Now that the weather has finally broken (highs in the 80s instead of 90s), we're thinking about tackling our next big project: painting the house. Something about the current two-tone blue feels a bit dated. We're not averse to adventurous colors - after living downtown across the street from a sage green house, a pink house, and a purple house we've come to like bright house colors - but since we don't live in a historic downtown and we want to sell the house in four or five years, we need something a bit tamer. We've thought about yellow, red, green, white, until we're blue in the face. Anyone got any suggestions?