Enter the Greenhouse - up cycling the entries

Summertime has come early to Alaska and because I have a personal rule about not planting anything out before Memorial Day Weekend, it has enabled me to finish two projects that were started last year.  One I actually finished last fall but didn't get to finish the up-cycle on the left overs!  The concrete slab under my front stairs had been in a sad state of deterioration for a couple of years.  Pitted, crumbling, and looking terrible as well as being too small for the space that it should have taken up, I decided to make a new front porch patio with red square bricks.  I started by loosening the concrete slab part under the stairs and leveling the gravel for the bricks as best I could with the slab still in place.  It was part of the system to hold up the stairs after all!  You can't see it in the photo below but the gray slab portion is cracked all the way across.

Below is the lovely finished product patio!  I love how it turned out and should it deteriorate I can replace just one brink and have an easier time.  The slab was about 4 inches thick and weighed about as much as a dump truck I'm sure!

This is the two (plus) pieces of the slab that came out of the area near the stairs.  I moved them over by the green house with the intention of up-cycling them as part of the greenhouse entry way which I have been struggling with.

Above you can see how the pieces of the current green house entry have not been fitting together and my gravel is all over the place and the plastic wont stay where it belongs and its a hot mess!

It also makes it sort of a trip-up area for me as the surfaces are pretty uneven and it's an area that really gets used a lot.

I scraped back the gravel and plastic onto the current patio area which I am keeping - these are blue board slabs with 1/2" of concrete on top.  It is the same thing I have inside the greenhouse as a floor.  It works really well to keep the frost heaves down and to hold the heat once it is warm.  I dug out the gravel and sand underneath just so the sections of slab would fit in.  I did have to juggle carefully the fuel line to the oil barrel which sits near the greenhouse and had to go under the slab sections.

I did replace the plastic underneath and the pea gravel around it and I am really happy with the outcome.  It also filled in a low spot that was really bothersome on the path to the greenhouse and back.  I will be filling the crack between the slabs with some thyme so it smells good when you walk on it.  Yum!

  

Even Ripley the little rescue dog loves the area now!  Cool and shady on this side of the greenhouse and now nice and neat, and made use of some old concrete in a new spot!

Mothers Day and the Clean Bathroom!

I have two sons - and a husband.  Not long ago one of my youngest posted a cartoon on my wall on facebook which of course I cannot find now; but it went something like this - two rolls of toilet paper being pulled either from the top or the bottom of the roll - and it said "the argument" and then below it was a roll of toilet paper not on a roll and that said "the reality"! It really is the reality at my house!  The boys cannot seem to get it that the toilet paper needs to go on the roll - not because the paper works better or rolls off easier - which it does but because IT LOOKS NICER!

When my oldest went out of state to play Juniors hockey, I did a little training with him so he would know how to put the paper on the roll - little training session during which he said "Mom, I KNOW how to do this!"  You do?  Then how come I am the only one who can seem to do it here in this house?  How do I know you can do it if you never have and you live here!  To which he replied "Yah - but it would be embarrassing to not do it when I'm a guest in someone's house!"  I made him practice it a few times to make sure he really did know how!

It also never fails that when I put the organic bowl cleaner in the bowl to clean the toilet, one of the boys goes in and uses the toilet, flushing all my pre soak away!

So today on Mothers day I hatched a plan to keep the bathroom clean and all to myself with the paper on the roll!  We have two bathrooms - they still had one to use:

 I hung this on the bathroom door, put the paper on the roll and the bowl cleaner in the bowl, wiped down the counters and then cleaned the bowl.  The boys avoided me/it like the plague!  There was something wrong with one of the bathrooms!  Stay away from it! Use the other one!

Throughout the day I would come in and use the bathroom, closing the door after so it would always seem to still be broken or "out of order".  Really it was "in order" and it stayed that way for the whole day!  Lovely!

At the end of the day when I was ready, I removed the sign and let the boys in!  My husband did ask what was wrong with the bathroom - of course after I took the sign down!  When he asked me I asked him why he didnt ask when I put the sign up and he said "if something was really wrong you would have told me, and I kinda didn't really want to know!"

My other bathroom was trashed and of course there was no toilet paper on the roll!

I really did have a great Mother's Day and I hope that you all did too!

Tax Day and too much Tomatoes???

Last year on tax day (April 15th) we got almost a foot of snow and then in May - the 19th to be exact - we got another 6 inches of snow!  This year on tax day we turned our furnace off, quit using the dryer, and I was able to move my tomatoes out into the greenhouse!  It has been a steady 63 degrees in Big Lake during the day and not below 38 overnight.   It never fails that I get so hankering for fresh tomatoes that I end up planting a plethora of them and running out of room in the greenhouse even.

Yes those are almost all tomatoes!  We do have a little dill and fennel, and some of these tomatoes will go to a neighbor, my in laws, and some to the school for our garden project and for some of the staff members there.  It is so much fun to share the bounty that comes from a seed!

Houston High School was awarded a grant from the State of Alaska, Department of Agriculture, Farm To School program so that we can expand the schools garden that I discussed in some prior blogs (Houston High and the Great Potato Project I and II, and the Ultimate Upcycle - Those Tired Tires).  We are so excited for this opportunity to show the kids how much we can do with a small space and with free items, with a little hard work and a lotta love!  Ill keep you apprised of the greatness as we go along and keep you posted!

Some of these tomatoes will go to the school project and show how easy it is to grow them, and after they produce, green, gold, red, pink, black or orange, how to use them to make delicious food with them!
Even those hanging baskets have tomatoes in them (Balcony, Sungold, Sweet 100, and Better Bush).  This year I have the most varieties of tomatoes we have ever tried.  We even saved some seed from a tomato that we loved last season and we are calling them Humphreys Early Sun.  It is one that we crossed from a Sun Gold and an Early Girl and they produce prolifically a medium sized tomato that has wonderful flavor, color and texture. Ill let you know how true they come back this year from the saved seed - hopefully with pictures!

You don't have to have a greenhouse to start your garden - I also have the kitchen table covered with Reeds cabbages (Kraut recipe coming in the fall),squash, pumpkins, some herbs, and a few new lemon trees ( sadly my largest lemon tree didn't make it through this winter).  As long as you have a window or two to put your starts in and you water them often, you too can have a too full greenhouse and garden!  Happy Planting 2014!