Happy st paddys day!

We're in fort Collins, we missed the green beer so instead we're drinking an Irish stout (Carter) and a green Chile beer (Erica)

Dr. Cooper's blog and cute photo of baby Carter

Check out Carter's Dad's blog! He's just starting out in the blogging world. His latest post was a photo of Carter from HS that's actually still up in the high school!!

http://dcooper25310.blogspot.com/2012/03/blog-post.html?showComment=1331822442987#c3591661841018931471

New garden adventures this year

I'm so lucky, this year I get to start from scratch in the garden!! It's a blessing and a curse. The new house does not have any established gardens, just a few flowers in beds around the house (from what I can tell, irises, tulips, just a couple daffodils and crocuses, and a few mums that are already greening up!)

The first two pictures here show the location of my new veggie garden! It might be kinda hard to explain without seeing it, but I'll try :-) Eventually, we'll have three beds, each approx. 30 ft by 4 feet, running parallel to the house in this location. We chose this location because it's on the south side of the house (warm and sunny!), in an area we would not otherwise use for anything, and outside of the area that will be fenced for Emma's roaming zone, so Emma will never be in contact with this garden (though we will need to fence it for small wildlife, probably with fencing coming off the house, and down to the tall grass from the vacant lot). Our master plan is for there to be NO GRASS AT ALL on this side of the house, the entire length of the house all the way down to our property line! We won't get it all done this year, but hopefully at least 1 long bed and some of the walkways, then we'll chip away at the other beds and walkways throughout the year.

The black plastic is covering the grass in hopes of killing it, and is 25 ft by 10 ft for some perspective (I'll have to move it after everything dies, to kill off the next section). From the black plastic to the house will be the main walkway, 4-5 feet wide, and other walkways will be 3 feet wide. This will give me TWICE as much planting space as my last garden!!! (360 sq ft of beds here, 180-ish sq ft of beds at old house).

ALSO, part of the long term plan includes larger patches for pumpkins/squashes/gourds/potatoes down on the far east side of the property down by the canal  (again, another area we wouldn't normally use for anything else, and outside Emma's zone) (no photo showing this yet). We'd also like to have a berry-area somewhere but we're not sure where yet. I also have big plans for flower beds too, but that's another blog post!

Here's the veggie garden area looking west (the big hill in the background is Table Mountain, flat on top though you can't really tell from this view).  We're not sure, but we think some of the small trees are the "fruit trees" referred to in the house listing, but we're not sure. I hope they don't shade my garden too much, or else they'll have to come out!!! (veggies trump fruit, in my mind)

This is the same area looking east (see my shadow! this was at 5pm, gotta love daylight savings time!!) . In the far background you can kinda see the chain link fence which is the end of our property, canal on the other side. Down there is where the big pumpkin patch will go.

Not too exciting, but here is our "patio"! Smaller than the last but that's OK, we still managed to fit all of our  patio furniture out here. We've already enjoyed just sitting and enjoying the scenery--from here we can see Haystack Mountain to the south and a horse farm to the south-east! The red cord running through the picture is Emma's tie-out dog run thingy.

In other garden news, this year I'm gonna try starting seeds indoors for the first time ever! I'm soooo excited, I hope at least some of the little babies work. I'll start broccoli, peppers, tomatoes, basil, and I'm sure some other stuff too. Please comment if you have any tips or tricks for starting plants indoors, or suggestions of other things easy to start indoors.

Here's the set-up: office closet!! Carter rigged a 4-ft florescent lamp hanging from the lowest shelf, and put it on chains so I can adjust the height at the plants grow. The lamp (with bulbs) was only $5 at a local thrift store, what a great find! I could also use advice on bulbs--is there one type that is better than another? I have no idea what kind of bulbs these are, but I know at Home Depot they do sell long bulbs that the label says are for plants. Is there really a difference? Or is this OK? We put the light fixture on a a timer, I think we'll do 18 hours on each day.

My small flat looks so tiny! There are 72 spaces, which I think is enough for me, and I'm sure all 72 won't work out. I have two other sizes of peat pots to transplant seedlings into as they get bigger, with diminishing numbers as the pots get bigger.......I'm hoping to get 22 plants total from the 72-space flat.....do you think that's a reasonable estimate?

My babies

 

Carter made cake

Two layers, can't you tell?

I think this is home....

They are comfy!

Joe documented our move!

Click here for Joe's blog:  http://joelovespkg.blogspot.com/2012/02/ericacarter-moving-day.html

Moving day success!

Lots of people came to help, thanks everyone!! One big load almost did it all, and I could still park in the garage with all the stuff  :-) now we're headed back to Broomfield for one more small load and the animals.