Veggie Garden!

Ever since my dad and I built our redwood planter, I have been itching to fill it up with something fun. This weekend, I finally had my chance!

I realize it's a little late in the season to plant a vegetable garden, but I am hoping our mild California weather will trick the plants into thinking it's still spring time.

I planted seeds for lettuce, scallions, bush beans, and zucchini, which were all part of an "easy to grow" farmer's seed kit. Not willing to trust my future salads to my notorious brown thumb, I also planted a few things that had already been started - basil, strawberries, beefsteak tomatoes, and dill.

All of these plants required "semi-moist" soil (how can you judge if something is "semi-moist"??), but the rosemary plant I had required "arid" soil, so I planted that in a separate pot. I am sincerely hoping that "arid" means I can forget to water it, and it'll grow anyway.

Disaster Watch 2013: Redwood Planter

Hope you're not too addicted to my Backyard Disaster Zone tales of woe, because they are rapidly approaching an end! Last weekend, my dad and I (with the help of Jose from Home Depot) installed a brand new sprinkler system in the backyard! Huzzah!

Next major step will be sod, but there are a few little plantings I want to get done before then. And my dad (God bless him, he just has a way of creating more work for himself) had the brilliant idea to add a raised redwood planter along the walkway to Garrett's studio. Genius!

Through some divine DIY karma, the planter area was exactly twelve feet long. Which meant that we were able to buy twelve foot boards, and not have to cut anything other than the sides. We decided to make the planter eighteen inches deep, basically just for logistical reasons - we would be able to get eight pieces out of one board, so we made our planter four boards high. Bringing our grand total of materials to just nine 12 ft redwood boards - everything else we already had on hand.

Now, I realize this view of the backyard isn't exactly inspiring, but let's take a moment to ponder where we came from...

We've come a long way, baby!

Awfully Big Deck You Got There

When my parents and I walked through my house, before I bought it, the first thing my mom said was "I would rip down this patio cover and open this all up." At the time I thought she was crazy. First of all, SHADE! Secondly, it's a covered outdoor space, who doesn't love that? 

Two and a half years later, I am willing to admit my mom was right (didya hear that Mom??). The roof had gotten progressively leakier over the years, not to mention sustained quite a bit of termite damage. And the cement floor was severely sloped (toward the house), so if I ever wanted to level it out, it would mean the roof would be incredibly low on one side. I finally decided to give up putting lipstick on the pig, and just take it all down.

Here is the before...

I'm not going to lie, this was way more work that I expected. The roof was tarred right up to the siding of the house, so taking that down meant damaging quite a bit of the siding. And then about a third of the cement floor had to be chipped up and thrown into a dumpster (such back-breaking work), just so we could make a level frame for the deck. 

Once that groundwork was laid, the actual decking went in pretty quickly, thanks to this handy tool. 

Not only does it help people who are not that great at drilling screws in straight (ahem), but it also puts the screws into the sides of the board, so they're hidden. And check out the results!

Pretty fancy, eh? It's amazing how much brighter the space is - it feels like a whole new backyard!