Fresh produce and a house torn down

Where did the house go?

No, we didn't tear our house down. :) But the house across the street is gone. From our window well in the basement, this was the old view. Looks alright, but it was falling apart. The tractor moved in for the first day of demolition the week before the 4th of July.

This was the same day that the energy company came and picked up our fridge. In the picture to the left, you can see that they tore the street up. I guess the gas for the entire street had to be shut off for the time of the tear-down, and the gas was buried in the street a ways down. This is the view from our front porch. (Which, man, if you could see the plans I have for my front porch, you'd be amazed, but that's another post for another time)

Demolition is underway! And what a glorious sight it was, too! That house had been falling apart and looked bad for a long time. Then again, most of the houses in our quirky little neighborhood have some, um, character to them. But it's fun to have the immediate vicinity fixing up. When this neighbor told us he wanted to tear down his house and rebuild, he said he felt bad for us for having to look at his house all this time. He feels like we have a really pretty house and wants to fix his up to the same caliber. I didn't tell him that we have a LONG ways to go before this place feels done. It made my day to hear he thinks we have a pretty house!

Look at that thing tearing the house down! I got a pretty huge kick out of this. I ended up standing on my front porch taking videos and pictures for a little while until the guy running the backhoe looked a bit uncomfortable about it.

I wanted to look him in the face and say, "Hey, look, it's not every day that you get to see a house torn down, and it's not every day that house is literally across the street from you!" But I didn't do that. I just went inside and gawked over the pictures in the comfort and privacy of my home. And then I watched from a window.

Here's the "house" today. Pretty amazing. Taken from the same vantage point as the other photos. Just a backhoe left. Not even a lawn remains. Pretty amazing. I can't wait to see the new place go up. The guy who owns this spot says it'll be done in September or October. So we expect to wait until December or January. No biggie. A few months is nothing in the scheme of things. To the left here is the view on the street. They're digging a hole for a new foundation. Apparently, the old one was really bad, but some parts were ridiculously over-reinforced. That's kinda what you get in a house with a really old history. That house had been built in the Midwest in the 1930s and moved to Colorado in the '50s. And now, it's gone. Ah well. It's not like Europe where they build things to last for centuries.

In my garden...

The garden, above, has grown even more. I've helped it along by adding new plants, as well, but the things in it have been flourishing lately, too. On the right is my compost bin. Love this thing. I have put all kinds of things into it and the bottom layer IS starting to turn into dirt. It's gonna be a great feeling next Spring to put our own compost onto our garden and watch it start a cycle. On top in the composter right now is the result of me thinning the corn. It was growing a bit too well in ways, with 4 or 5 stalks to a space, so I thinned it. I am sure it could stand to be thinned more, but hey.

Speaking of corn, I employed something I learned from my dad, and it really worked. He said corn grows best if it's planted in multiple rows together. So, I planted three rows of corn, and sure enough, the stuff in the very middle of the pack is the tallest, healthiest corn I have in the yard. It's not much, but apparently, much better than setting it out there to grow alone. Who knew corn was a social plant? Knowing that make me like it even more.

These are the seeds I have either planted recently or am going to plant in the next day or so. First are my pumpkins. A great pumpkin patch needs more than one kind of pumpkin, I think. From left to right, let me introduce you to mine. :) Far left were planted yesterday, they are my Sweet Sugar Pumpkins. They're fairly small, but are the perfect pumpkin for pies and cooking and baking. In the middle on the top are my Fairytale Pumpkins. They grow pretty large, taste like winter squash and are really decorative. They look just like Cinderella's pumpkin. They are growing next to the sugar pumpkins and in front of the corn. I planted them last night. Below them also in the middle are my heirloom Giant Pumpkins. They're supposed to grow to be about shoulder-height on an average-height person. Exciting. I think they're purely decorative. My giant pumpkins went in the ground two days ago. On the right is the Tom Fox Pumpkin...aka perfect for carving jack-o-lanterns. I haven't planted them yet, but they're going in the ground tonight. The pumpkins have an average growing season of about 100 days and cannot experience frost. So, my goal is to cover them if frost comes early, and they should be ready for harvest at the end of October-ish. I think our house will be pretty festive this Fall! To add to the sense of Fall festivity, I have here my heirloom blue popcorn. Not sure how well you can see the label, but they're pretty awesome. As with most of my seeds, I ordered them from Amazon. I planted the popcorn last week and it's coming up now! The final picture is basil. The seed packet is to the right of the envelope here. I planted them while I was outside taking these pictures and harvesting a few greens for my juice today. I have three types of basil in my garden already, but this is the kind you buy at the store with the big leaves and loads of flavor. I have purple Thai Basil in the ground as well as Sweet Basil and Genovese Basil all gathered around my tomato plants. My friend, Stephanie, told me that tomatoes like basil and the two plants help each other grow well.

Here's the basil I planted a few weeks ago. Looking pretty happy there in a row beside my tomato plants. It smells divine to go out there and get near this part of the garden. Especially on a warm day. Oh man. The way I see basil is that it's not possible to grow too much. It costs a fortune at the store and it's great as a pesto sauce in the winter. So, whatever we can't eat fresh this summer and fall, we'll just grind up before the first frost and make it into bags and bags of freezable pesto sauce that cost us, well, almost nothing. Pesto is amazing, but cheap-as-free-pesto is the BOMB. I am guessing that. I've never tasted the feeling of basically-free-pesto before. I bet the price makes it tastier. :)

The planting methods of putting "friendly" plants next to each other is called companion planting. It's something I haven't learned too much about, but the idea behind it is that different plants have different strengths and weaknesses, and some even work together symbiotically. By playing to your strengths, you're supposed to get a bigger, better harvest of everything. The book I saw on this topic was called "Carrots Love Tomatoes". I have no idea if it works well, and honestly, haven't even bought the book. I read several excerpts and it sounded interesting and like something I will probably try some time. And apparently, carrots do not love tomatoes, but it's a clever title. It's in that vein of thought, I think, that my friend, Stephanie, recommended planting basil with tomatoes. My tomatoes had been pretty sad, pathetic, nearly dead, etc. until I planted basil beside them, and they do seem to have flourished. I've also planted soybeans and other legumes in my garden to help return nitrogen to the soil.
Most plants leech nitrogen from the soil, making a one-way street of nutrients leaving the soil. Legumes like beans, soy, etc. "fix" nitrogen, or return it to the soil. Many farmers leave fields fallow for a season and then will plant something like soy in the field before planting the original crop again. That's because they're trying to get as much nitrogen naturally returned to the soil as possible making it a better growing environment for other plants.
You can see here how much my tomatoes have loved their basil friends. This plant is covered with green tomatoes. This variety is called the "Health Kick" tomato. I bought it because I liked the name and it said it grew medium-sized fruit. Large tomatoes are harder to grow, so I went with this one and then looked up why it's called that. The link above on its name takes you to someone's blog where they have a recipe for fresh tomatoes and some info about the Health Kick tomato. It's apparently quite gonzo as a cancer-eraticator. Well, that sounds quite nice to me! It has extra lycopene in it. My other tomato plants were grown indoors on my back porch and have yet to produce fruit, but they are happy and very green. They're just your normal tomatoes. Honestly, I don't remember what variety they are. Sad, I know.
I am hoping to get enough tomatoes to can them in jars and make tomato sauces and salsas from my garden all winter long. Next year, I am planning to grow Romas and more Health Kicks, probably about 5 or 6 plants. I really want to have no shortage of tomatoes! So, I planted more basil today and I'll update you on it when it comes up!



Now, poor wandering mind of mine, back to where we started this whole basil/tomato thing off.....pumpkins. Ah yes, I remember.

 Here's where they Fairytale pumpkins went in. They're supposed to have a large (1 foot tall!) mound where you plant the seed 1 inch deep. It's the weirdest planting instructions I've read yet, but I did it that way. Makes me wonder what they could get me to do by printing it on a seed packet and writing that it was necessary to make a plant grow. Sad thought, I bet there's a list too long and too strange to expound upon, so I'll move along. Next to the Fairytale pumpkins are the sweet ones. They're uphill and I dug a cool trench between all the pumpkin mounds so that the water goes where it's supposed to and I just put the hose in one spot. It's cool.

You may notice a few pieces of pea gravel here. Oh, my friend, there was a foot-deep layer of pea gravel here before. Jason scooped it all out and beneath it was real dirt. This is not bad at all!

There's the row of pumpkins! This is just the Sugar and Fairytale pumpkins. They're at the very front of the garden in front of the corn, peppers, broccoli, and everything else. They're supposed to have lots of space to grow. This area should grow just 7 pumpkin plants. In Guinea-Bissau, pumpkins are called bobra. They're really a gourd that looks nothing like a pumpkin, but tastes similar. They grow like weeds. We had one that was determined to conquer our back wall there. And it won. It took over a papaya tree and won that fight, too. We're praying these pumpkins aren't as aggressive. Also, the fact that there's a shorter supply of water and a shorter growing season should help, too. I hope. :)

Below here is the space where I planted two mounds for Giant Pumpkins. I am a little scared at the mostrosity they sound like they could become. Hoping they're managable. Either way, it's also exciting.

These guys are my herbs for indoors. This way, I'll have fresh herbs year-round. They have survived my care this far! It's excellent. They've even grown. I've harvested from each one of them, as well. I am rather in love with my little herb garden and plan to make it a stand for sitting in my window this winter. I feel like the herbs will be better-cared-for if they live in a place I spend a lot of time in so they'll get noticed more. I sprouted seeds on my back porch last winter, but I think they'll be happier all the way indoors. Mmm, looking at that mint plant makes me realize that in August, I am going to have a fresh, homemade mojito!

Alright, it's time to talk about this fabled popcorn! The type I bought was called "Shaman's Blue Popcorn" and it came off of Amazon.com. The kind I posted a link to is not the exact one I bought, but it looks like the same thing, possibly even a bit better than what I have here. I have no idea if this stuff is supposed to get as tall as regular corn, but we'll see. It sure sprouted FAST. I put it in the ground late last week, and here it is. It's the little green bits that look like grass. That's how my other corn looked when it was sprouting. See the height comparison? The foreground is my new little popcorn shoots, and the background is the corn that's about ready to make some food! In between (you can't see them too well) is my New Mexico Big Jim Green Chiles. I am looking forward to those! So is Jason. Hehe. The corn has tassels growing above, and the chile shown is a banana pepper!

I planted blackberries and raspberries earlier this summer. Now, they're growing and I am getting berries off of one of the raspberries. I am about to put blueberries in the ground as well, but they can't just go in normal dirt, no, blueberries need acidic soil. This concept made me so nervous for a while. People were talking about getting meters to read the acidity of their soil and I imagined myself in a chemistry lab feeling completely confused, just wishing I was in my garden again. Anyway, you need peat moss to plant blueberries in Colorado. Dig a hole, throw a bale of peat moss into the hole, and throw the blueberries directly into that bale of peat moss. Water generously, and you have happy blueberries! You also need two varieties of blueberries to cross-pollinate with each other. I nearly killed one of mine last week, so I might be going to the plant nursery for another one at some point.

 This is my climbing wall deal for my gourds and melons. They are vines, so they need something to grow on. This also helps them not get moldy from sitting in the dirt. They're kinda hard to see against the fence. but they're pretty! Under them are my absolutely prolific greens. They're out of control in the best way possible. Love this garden. It's way better than I guessed it would be.

 This is me on my birthday! It was a great day, I'll write about it later.

Construction zone

 The Final Day For This House

 The house across the street is being torn down today. This is the place in some of its final hours. When we first moved into this house, we were hopeful that one day, our neighbor would tear down his house and build something a bit nicer...you know, help us out with our property value just a little. Well, today, our dreams come true! The house is cute, but delapidated. The roof is caving in (even though, oddly, in this picture, everything looks fine), the walls aren't straight, and it's in a general state of poor repair.

This is the same house from my yard. You can see the planters I put in earlier this year. The trailer in their yard (to the left of the house) is where the homeowners will be living until the new house is finished. I think they're planning to move back into their home in just a couple months. They're building a duplex because, apparently, we live in the land of duplex homes. Seriously, almost every house in our neighborhood is a duplex, there are even a few quadruplexes. Our "neighborhood" is more like a zoning nightmare that leaves things up for grabs. We technically fall into three different zoning areas, so none of them claim this space and it is officially zoned as "the country." Some neighbors own chickens, goats, ducks, horses, etc. Some neighbors have chain link fences, some have nice cedar fences, some have picket fences, some houses are mansions, some literally have walls made of tarp. This neighborhood is truly an interesting place. In the past few years, our street has begun to pick itself up. First the house beside us was built--a fancy duplex with nice landscaping, then we began remodeling our house (a process that won't be done for several years as we still have landscaping, replacing of the fence and the house's siding, rebuilding the front and back porches, and adding a carport), and now our neighbor across the street, Keno, is knocking down his home and making his space more presentable. I have hope that this place has a lovely future.

The Garden

This is my garden today. Off to the left of it is my compost bin I purchased through Craigslist for only $50. It is a really nice double-sided composter. Since I am doing a juice fast right now, I am making a lot of compostable waste...you know, the stuff that usually makes your trash stink? Well, throw it outside, layer it with newspaper, cardboard, yard clippings and dead leaves and it doesn't really stink, you have great dirt for next year's garden, and your garbage can ceases its stinking and messiness.

This is my garden a little closer up. I should take a picture with me standing in it some time. You can't really tell from the picture, but the plants are getting absolutely huge! On the right is the corn, next to it is soybeans and okra, then asparagus ferns which won't produce for a couple years. There are tomato baskets (the red things) and between the tomatoes, basil is growing. It's a companion plant for tomatoes. Further left at the back are my artichokes, tomatillos in the front, and then peppers, garlic, onions, lettuce and other greens, and back where you can't see is all of my vines, so cucumbers, zucchini, cantaloupes, watermelons, squash, etc. Beyond the end of the garden are my raspberries and blackberries.

These are my greens from the other end of the garden. Close up, I have kale, then collard greens, then broccoli. In the second row, there is rainbow swiss chard, then lettuce. And between the greens are my carrots. They're thriving! Everything is. I am wildly surprised. I fully expected this garden to grow maybe 25% of what I planted. But everything, with the slight exception of habaneros and a few herbs, are growing rapidly!

This is one of my zucchinis. This plant is currently making about 6 of these beauties. These things grow like a weed in Colorado. I have a really tasty and simple recipe for making them into an appetizer. Then, of course, there are all the zucchini breads and things like that, and it's pretty great in juice, too. Maybe tomorrow I will give a quick run-through of my favorite zucchini recipes. You can never know too many when running a garden in this state!

My raspberries! One of my favorite memories as a kid was going into the raspberry thicket in our back yard and just eating raspberries, then picking rhubarb and sitting in the shade. As a kid, you can fit all the way back in the thicket, so you feel invisible. I planted two raspberry bushes in the hopes that by the time I have kids big enough to hang out in the yard, there will be a thicket worth getting lost in for a while. For now, I have these green little guys waiting for the sun to turn them red and juicy. In a couple years, I also hope to have enough of these to make pies and jams and preserves.

Cantaloupes. Yum! There are flowers all over these bushes. I started them indoors in about March. They're not as big as I would like, so next year, I think I'll start cantaloupes, tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, celery, carrots, and soybeans indoors in January. Then, they'll be plenty large by June and ready to bear real fruit. This summer, my vines are kinda doomed to a life on the ground, but next year, I hope and plan to get a trellis built so they can climb and the melons can be held in a kind of makeshift hammock made of old shirts and sheets and such. I'll put it on here when I finally get that done.

Lettuce and broccoli. We've had several tasty salads (well, Jason has, I have had LOTS of juice) from the lettuce here. When this is all gone, I plan to put in red lettuce in its place. Having lettuce in the yard is never a bad idea, and the fence we have around our garden is a rabbit fence, so we might as well go crazy growing things.

Fridge Installation Gone Full Construction Zone

New fridge after the battle for installation.
Looks really nice!

Old fridge waiting to be removed

This past weekend, we obtained a new refrigerator. We found a deal through Excel where they'll pay you $50 for an old fridge as long as it still functions, which ours does, but is on it's last leg. So, in a couple hours, Excel is going to come get the fridge and pay us for it. Jason's brother, Jeramyn and his wife, Tamara, have a fridge they wanted to get rid of, so we struck a bargain. In exchange for the fridge (and the work to move it into our apartment), we helped them paint their entry way (and set up/take down scaffolding).
Here's a picture of the old fridge and the new fridge. Old fridge is on the left, new one on the right.

New fridge inside. So much better
for organization!

Old fridge inside. Not many shelves or spaces
for organizing and storing things.

Our old fridge began making these awful "ka-chunk!" sounds whenever the cooling system would turn off and this week, it's developed the trend of whining and making a high-pitch sound. A couple weeks ago, we went to get ice cream out of it and found a tub full of cold mush. It's time for a new presence in our kitchen. This old fridge will get to live a new life somewhere else until it finally gives up the ghost, and we get to be the proud new owners of a previously loved fridge that meets our needs much better!

New freezer! So orderly! I know where
everything is!

Jeramyn standing beside the disassembled
stairs inside our house. This was as
the guys were re-installing the stairs.

The new fridge is the exact size of the space we had available, and a bit larger than our entry way. Jeramyn and Jason ended up taking off the stairs (wooden stairs) in our basement entry way, and removing the doors from the fridge just to get it inside. It took from about 10am until 5pm on Saturday to get the fridge even into our apartment. It was 105 degrees outside and the house was almost as hot inside.

Then, there was the issue of the microwave needing to move 1/8 inch. The fridge fits in its place with no extra give room whatsoever, but the microwave caused some consternation. The picture on the left is as far as we could get the fridge in until we moved the microwave.


See the space here? Crazy, right?











Yeah, the entire microwave was removed twice and re-installed twice just to make space for that little overlap! The fruit of our labor finally paid off with a nice, snug fit between the appliances. The only small issue remaining which needs to be addressed is that the microwave doesn't really want to open well.

The way the hinge opens means it runs into the side of the refrigerator each time it's opened. Some cabinet will have to be shaved off and the microwave moved probably another 1/8 inch to make this a better fit. Luckily, we really don't use the microwave that often, so we have no real rush about that. I am just so excited to have such a system for organizing our food. Bins for everything and even a water dispenser on the door. Aren't we fancy? :)