Gardens. Can you dig it?

My boys and I were so happy when mid February rolled around and the ground was finally soft enough to dig. 

Digging in!

  

Back side of our property. Just hay and weeds when we arrived.

All winter I read library books about gardening in Tennessee and organic gardening and landscaping. I got a little overwhelmed by the information, but decided that this year would be experimental. It is my first year gardening in TN, and since our acre has never been cultivated as far as I know I figured anything would be better than what it currently was. 

 I decided to hand dig my plots. From what I understood from my how to gardening book, the double digging method is good for a couple of reasons. First, being it is best for the soil because it breaks it up nicely, but doesn't overly break down the molecular composition of the soil. Which would make it compact more when rain and sun beat it down the entire growing season and causing damage delicate roots. This is especially true for heavy clay soils. (Hello, TN.) Second reason is no fossil fuel used, just muscle. Sweet. Third reason is it is pretty easy to dig in compost and organic matter deep down which will nourish the roots all growing season. It really was a fun project for me and the boys after being inside all winter. It did take about a month to get it done. We took our time, and it was quite a bit of hard work.

Muscle power!

I had really good help. Thanks Jack and Charlie!

Digging in compost.

I planted peas, onions, carrot, beet, spinach, lettuce, and mesculin in March. Everything came up and did really well. Peter Rabbit ate all of the beets which I'm sure were delicious. Next year, I probably will put up a little fence.

Onion sprouts.

Finally done!!!!

I started the rest of my seeds indoors and waited until I was sure there would be no more frost. I planted at the end of April and was so happy to have help from my brother Joey. We planted in square foot garden fashion. I inter planted a lot of my crops after reading about how different combinations of plants can deter pests and promote healthy growth. I planted carrots with onions, corn with squash and climbing beans, and marigolds, nasturium, and zinnas with everything.

Used sticks and string to make a structure for my
plants to climb.

Cold tolerant veggies up! Getting ready to plant everything
else.

 I do think I planted too closely. I had to remove some plant because over crowding and after a wet spring I had some problems with powdery mildew.  I understand that is often caused by not enough sun light being able to keep the stems and stalks of the plants dry. I used a spray of baking soda, liquid detergent and oil to help control the mildew, and it worked! (Recipe: 1 gallon of water, 1 Tablespoon soap, 1 Tablespoon baking soda, 3 Tablespoons oil) Baking soda has anti-fungal properties. The soap and oil help deter insects. It is a great non toxic spray. The downs side is keeping up with it. In order for it to work you must spray every day. 

Sweet peas and mesculin

Onion and carrot

"Peas taste better than candy." Jack, 4

Tiger Toms

Over all I think this year's garden has been fairly successful. Japanese beetles did some pretty good damage and so did the squash vine border. I'll need to figure a safe and effective way to remove those bugs next year. I'm not crazy about poisons since J & C frequently pick food and eat it with out washing it.

   

Rubarb, watermelon, broccholi, white beans, tomatoes, peppers    

Right: yellow squash, zucchini, sun flowers
Left: pumpkin and cauliflower

                    

Yummy! Love those fresh veggies. So satisfying.


My other garden project began last fall when I decided to put in a flower bed between the road and the front of our house. It created a nice border that made the road less accessible for my children. Since the front used to be a gas station I found myself removing quite a bit of concrete and gravel. Sheesh! Talk about work! I transplanted day lilies and irises from my grandmother's house in the fall. In the spring, I planted dahlias, fox glove, holly hocks, blanket flowers, cosmos, daisies, four o'clocks, poppies, and marigolds. It turned out rather wild, but pretty.

Front of the house before

Digging the flower bed.

Flower border creating barrier between the front of the house and the road.

Zinna and holly hocks

Double blossom dahlia

                                 

So far, so good I think. Keeping up weeding feels impossible, but just keeping my hands in the earth helps me stay sane.

Slacker!

Well, we're have I been and what have I been doing since Christmas? I can't remember. The haze of winter? I don't know. I will post more.
My big project now is the garden. I won't upload pictures now because I don't feel like it, but I will soon. I'm still here in Spring Hill, TN. I'm still making it.

Christmas Crafts

Craft central.

Merry Christmas, Ya'll! 
Here are some of the christmas crafts I have working on. I finished up today!

Pine cone angels

Nativity scene

I made calendars for the dads full of darling grandson photos. Me and the boys made Christmas angels for the moms out of pine cones, acorns and maple leaves from the yard. I made Jack and Charlie house shoes. I made Christmas wreath cards with a family photo in the middle. (Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of them finished.) I made stockings too. I also made a pine cone nativity scene. Writing this I feel a little stay-at-home mom dorky, but whatever. Christmas on a budget!
My favorite creation is for Charlie. I made him pretend food out of felt. He loves imaginary play with his animals and is always feeding them imaginary food. So, I thought I'd make him some unedible treats! (I made edible ones too. Mmm, chocolate covered pretzels!)
Happy Holidays. I hope you are making warm memories.

Yummy food for all the stuffed animals!

Getting ready to move in.

Drywall needing some repairs! Oh yea, we needed
a new back door too. One headache at a time, please!

Before we could move into our new space there was some work to do. Fortunately, the wall were up however the drywall was not finished and the seam tape had begun to peel off because of the moisture problems. So, Kris went to work. In the beginning he was no drywall expert, but he learned a lot and did a fine job. Oh, drywall is so tedious and frustrating! Especially if you are patching up an old job.
After about a month of working non stop, we still weren't done, but enough was finished to start sealing the drywall. Unsealed drywall is like a sponge and we need our place dry out. We primed the drywall and painted it all white. Guess what? Priming and painted a ceiling and 1700 square foot space takes a long time! Whew! I needed a thirteen hour massage to get the kinks out of my aching neck!

Painting a ceiling is hard work!

We also discovered some problems with the floor. I'll start with the back room. The room at

the back of the house had a raised floor like 

a stage. We were going to leave in until we 

found out that it wasn't structurally sound. 

We ended up tearing it out. That's when we 

realized the oak flooring underneath was wet

and beginning to mold and rot.  Oh geeze!

We cleaned up the floor and put a 

dehumidifier in the room to dry it out. We 

ripped up the rotten flooring to find rotten 

Maybe the previous owner needed a stage for tap dancing.

floor joists. Aagh! Repair time, baby.

Stage removal.

Rot-o-rama

 Kris replaced the floor joists in the base-ment. We used salvaged wood flooring from the laundry room  to fix the floor.  We're planning to tile the laundry room. 
Removing the laundry room floor wasn't too bad until, surprise!, more rotten floor joist.    

OMH!

Thank goodness my dad was in town! OMH, old man Hud, as many of us call him is a wizard at home repairs! Instead being like "OMG!" when we discovered yet another big hole in the floor, we were like "OMH." Let me tell you, they fixed that hole in one day. It would have taken Kris and I a week of head scratching and tears to figure out that repair since it involved a major support beam in the basement. Nothing like  big holes in the floor to make a mother of two small boys have a nervous break down. Good thing it got fixed so fast. 

"Hey, where'd that big hole go? " 

Stripping off the grime!

We sanded the floors through out the house to clean them up. It was very exciting to see them transform from dirty 70 year old floors to beautiful oak floors. Now that was a nice surprise. 
More help came from my cousin Michelle and her husband Danny, who drove up Arkansas to help us with the floors and the doors. Danny did some hard and grubby work, while Michelle took care of her three kids and our two. Who's job was harder? Hard to say. Michelle freed me up to do more painting and cleaning. The guys framed out and hung new doors and sanded that floors for about twelve hours.

Moving day!! 

The back room and laundry weren't totally finished, but our lease was up on our apartment; so we moved in. Yea! So far, so good.

Catch up

I am going to be playing catch up to show the progress we have made so far. I will start at the beginning.
When we bought this place there were two issues that we had to take care of immediately.
1. Leaking roof
2. Mold (yuk)

The main reason the roof was leaking was due to two enormous, unfinished sky lights. Beautiful in theory, but not so pretty when water was pouring through the roof through the second floor and destroying the downstairs ceiling. Eek and ugh. I don't have any pictures now, but you'll see pictures of the upstairs soon.
You know what happen when a wet drywall cooks in a Tennessee summer? A garden variety of molds blossom and then take over. Mold is gross and unsightly. It is also toxic and a health hazard, so it had to go. ASAP!

Water damaged dry wall removed. Now to fix that big hole...

We needed to fix the water problem first since it was causing the mold problem. We boarded up the sky lights, sealed them with tar and roofing paper to fix the big leaks. We will open them back up and install sky lights when we begin to remodel the upstairs. We tackled other little leaks that we knew about, and continue to look for more every time it rains.
The leaking roof caused the most damage in the front hall. We had to tear out the molded drywall and then treated the damp wood underneath with a spray comprised of vinegar, boric acid, hydrogen peroxide, and water. These relatively non toxic, house hold products are the perfect recipe to annihilate mold.

Concealed basement driveway

We also had a mold problem in the basement. Due to a lack of ventilation, cracks in the foundation and a concealed driveway that runs down into the basement, the basement got wet. A hot, wet basement is mold's play ground. It was like a black carpet began growing on the floor joist and structural support beams. Gross!

Moldy floor joist

 It took us over a week to clean up the mold problem. We sealed off the basement with plastic and had to vacuum the mold up using special filters so the spores wouldn't become air born. After that we had to scrub down the affected areas with our dandy mold killing cocktail. Then after that we sprayed everything down with an anti fungicidal spray so the mold can never come back. never. NEVER! We wore hazmat suits, air masks, and goggles to protect ourselves from being exposed to the nasty. Worst job ever!

Uncomfortable, hot suits. 

We dried out the basement with a dehumidifier and fans and laid plastic down on the dirt floor so moisture couldn't come up through the ground.

 I am happy to report that two months later, the mold is still gone! And an air quality tests showed that there is no mold in the air. We will have to keep an eye out for mold in the future, but we killed it. Killed it dead! 

Clean, sealed basement! Hurray!

A little back ground

Here's the background on our building. It was built in 1940 to be a country store downstairs and an apartment upstairs. It ran as a store for about fifteen years then was closed never again to be reopened. We met the man, Mr. Church, who bought it first from the original guys who built it. He and his family lived in the up stairs and didn't do anything with the downstairs. According to Mr. Church, he owned the building until about three or four years ago when he sold it some guy. I don't know who he was, but he is the one who started the renovations down stairs. Up till then it was just an empty store. We have been told that he was an artist and he had six kids. Anyway, some way or another this family got foreclosed on. Sorry artist family man! This guy did some cool stuff and a lot of nasty work. When we first saw the place, walls had been built, the kitchen was in, bathroom mostly finished. The upstairs had been gutted for the most part. It wasn't too hard for us to see the potential.
We had a structural engineer check out the foundation, septic man check out the septic, and a couple of other specialist come out and check out big deal stuff. Every thing checked out so we bought it. I won't say exactly how much, but it was a steal. Especially since our place is on an acre of land. Sweet!

The back side of our lot. Big garden potential!

After the paper got signed, we started working. And we still haven't stopped. The next couple of posts will show what we have done so far.

The Start

Here we are in Spring Hill, Tennessee, making our home. We bought this old store in July and have been turning it into our home. So far it has been real work.
We moved to Nashville area in February from Kona, Hawaii. Kris, my main squeeze, is a singer/song writer. We decided we needed to move our family to the scene for him to be heard. The idea we had when we moved out here was buy a home that would be cheeper to live in then renting the conventional home or apartment. Then Kris would be freed up to work less and write more songs. When we found this place we were really excited.
Yes, it is old and run down and intimidating, but the potential is enormous. Oh, the dreams we have dreamed for our land and this structure! The main objective at first was to make the downstairs livable.  We moved in at the end of August. It wasn't totally finished, but almost. Since then we have winterized and are currently focusing on moving in and making this home. Eventually we will finish the whole building and have an awesome home, recording studio and work space. We would like to plant an orchard and have some killer gardens on our land too.
I'm writing this blog for any one who cares to see what we're making or remaking.  The house, gardens, furniture, or whatever I fancy. If you feel inspired to visit and work, do so. If you feel inspired to offer suggestions, by all means, do so. If you feel inspired to send me lavish gifts and affection, I won't stop you! And please, encouragement is greatly appreciated!
I will do my best to update this blog regularly for you, dear reader, and for me as a journal of our progress. We have a lot of fun projects to do! I'm only learning how to make a blog, so this might be a bit lame at first, but it will get better.