More Growing Room

The story of our new raised bed starts with a spinning wheel...

A pre-loved Ashford Traditional purchased from a woman in the Pinellas Weavers Guild. 

When I brought it home and began to spin I decided I wanted to go to the Florida Fiber-In to learn more. I made my hotel reservations, and put it on my calendar: September 21-23... not my birthday, we were not out of town, seemed to perfectly fit.

Then life happened. Kirk became unemployed the last of July. As we work toward becoming self employed (that is a whole 'nother story), we are finding ways to accomplish what we want to do, and not spend much. As gas prices rise and food becomes more expensive for all the calamities of the seasons, I decided that I would really rather spend funds on more growing room instead of a vacation away from my guys.

We searched for leftover patio pavers on Craigslist and the Restore. No luck. Then realized we had enough 24 inch pavers to make a 48x72 inch garden. Decent size. Kirk brought home a couple 2x4s of wood which we sealed and combined with some leftover trex, built frames using the leftover bits from a Lee Valley Hardware kit purchased previously for the last raised bed. We used angle iron to fill in the pieces we were missing.

Yep, that's me, reading the downloaded instructions in iBook... and can you see the pavers in the background behind me? Wacky because we levered out the big ones and made a path for the moment with the "smaller" ones.

Together and Empty and needing a good cleaning

And here it is together, magically filled with dirt and with the wing of the "smaller" pavers to make a path around the edge for easy access and harvesting.

So what happened to the space we took the pavers from? Leftovers from the front sidewalk job...

Third Monday of the month

Back from a busy weekend:

• Dropped a few things at the local weekend Household and Chemical collection.
• Attended a class on Urban gardening. Nuggets of information.
• Attended a class on Permaculture (kind of). Nuggets of information.
• I think I was hoping to attend and come home to find my backyard transformed by my thinking about it. Oh well.
• Stopped by Ikea to pick up an Expedit to organized the rest of my fabric and yarn.

So then today brought:

• Sorted out the last fabric bin from the garage into an Expedit bin.
• Built the Expedit system.
• Mow the lawn.
• Moved the edging pavers to create a movable path along them.
• Trimmed the Oleanders.

I'm seeing a trend here. I'm better at outside projects right now...

Catching up

Lost the week in Blog-shere. And really haven't accomplished much in terms of house.

• I helped with our food co-op for the first time in a year. Clearing my schedule to make this a priority.
• Finished Iced Marlin knitted sweater. Yummy. And started sorting out the spare room and the pile-up of crafts and ideas.
• Signed up for 2 classes this weekend regarding urban growing, different places & teachers.
• Ironed my monthly allotment, really need to do this more often and not have so much to do at one time.
• and more I'm sure I can't remember...

Friday and Saturday

Saturday:

• Discovered the drain for the A/C in the garage is dripping onto the floor. Cut off the insulation that was installed and will watch for further drips. I did vacuum out the drain pipe, no clogs.
• FlyDaddeo got up on the roof and cleaned out the gutters.

Friday:

• Gardened. Not sure this counts... but it is what I did.

Thursday

• Gleaned the last of the grapefruit and delivered them to HS Co-op. Hopefully the tree can produce not as many this coming year.
• Wrote and mailed the Allstar Animal Dispute.
• Sold and delivered some of Kanga's books.
• Measured for cabinet door fronts for bookcase.

Wednesday

• The fan and tool came for Kanga's Mac. It is now installed and he is a happy camper.

Tuesday

• Balanced the washer and cleaned under both washer and dryer.