Because we had a day off work for independence day, and because it was the hottest day so far this summer, Adam decided to celebrate his lack of independence from our house.

Our house is a bit of a fixer upper. The window sills were one of the problems pointed out in inspection. After waiting another two years the front two basement windows were in rough shape and rotting away.

When Adam pulled out the rotten window frame from one of the windows he said he was glad I wasn’t around. It was filled with the bug I have nightmares about, earwigs.

So on our holiday Monday my father-in-law showed up with all his fun power tools and they got to work building all new framing for our five basement windows.

They spent all day sawing, shaping, trimming, beveling and nailing the window frames in the oppressive heat. In the end they did a great job and you would never know the frames where hand built instead of purchased at the store.

And now, with the windows back in place our escape artist is contained again. Good thing, because when its hot out the basement is the kittens’ clubhouse.

So one more project ticked off the to do list. Thanks honey and Gary!

The thing I love the most about Spring is the beauty of the blooming fruit trees. I recently took my camera on a lunch run with me simply so I could take pictures of some of the beautiful blooms presenting in Manchester, New Hampshire. I wanted to share some of them with you. But here’s the catch, I want you to name/guess what kind of tree/fruit/flower produces the blossoms I’ve seen on my run. No prizes but comment away

Mystery Blossom #1

Mystery Blossom #2 (hint it hasn’t bloomed yet and it it’s really more of a flower than a blossom)

Mystery Blossom #3

Mystery Blossom #4

Mystery Blossom #5

Mystery Blossom #6 (A little tricky because taken from below)

I recently came upon Kraft foods’ home farming community sponsored by Triscuit. I actually liked the site, it’s a very good primer to growing vegetables at home. And here’s my more detailed review.

They have vegetable profiles. Basic, cartoony, but simple enough to make growing broccoli seem easy.

My only complaint, very little variety. The Crop guide only includes Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplants, Beets, Carrots, Onions, Scallions, Radishes, Bush Beans, Pole Beans, Peas, Broccoli, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Arugula, Collard Greens, Lettuce, Spinach, Swiss Chard and a variety of Basic Herbs. That seems like a lot right?

There’s no mention of Squashes, of Pumpkins, of Fruit, of Kohlrabi, of Potatoes, of Asparagus. And the cute little profiles don’t talk about different varieties of the vegetables, the heirloom varieties. Carrots, tomatoes, peppers, all come in a rainbow of colours. Some varieties of heirloom plants do better in different climates. The guide does not mention varieties at all. It’s very much a simple caricature of very basic simplified vegetables.

Growing your vegetables at home seems to have a great deal more information. Resident expert Paul James has various videos as well as texts on various topics including Preparing your Home Farm, Planting your Home Farm, Harvesting and Planting Schedules, Using and Storing your Harvest and Nurturing your Home Farm.

These sections are full of information that the new gardener will find incredibly useful and that the experienced gardener may have opinions on. For example, in Pests/Diseases, he recommends using fresh-bagged soil to avoid diseases instead of soil from your yard or last vegetable garden. I don’t necessarily like the reliance on fresh bagged soil. I do like that he recommends home organic recipes for getting rid of pests though.

There is even a recommendation section for those looking to start a home farm. Input your location (sadly it only takes US Zip codes), how much space you have available with at least 6 hours a day of direct sunlight, and how much time you are willing to devote to your garden.

The following suggested vegetables were offered for someone looking to grow in my zip code on a small balcony willing to devote as little time as possible (See the saved link here).

The following suggested vegetables were offered for someone looking to grow in my zip code with room for two large raised beds willing to devote as much time as necessary (See the saved link here). And the recommendations seem to be almost identical in terms of plants recommended. I’m quite sure that plants are chosen based on location rather than space. At least in my zip code.

My overall impression of the site: Great for Beginners.

Get people growing. Then, once they have some momentum, lets educate them about heirloom varieties and organic methods.

What are your favorite Gardening Websites?

My garden last year failed pretty badly. I decided to have a much more conservative approach this year and will be sticking to my 4 raised beds and some vegetables in pots on the patio.

A couple weeks ago we planted a bunch of seeds that I had leftover from last year. Our friend Larisa had come over and I hadn’t planned on gardening, but I had her out there in her nice sweater and pants working with a hoe.

I planted a few things

• Red Onion
• Basil
• Various Legumes
• Pumpkin
• Squash

I’m a little concerned about some of the seeds being successful now though, we had had such nice weather that I planted some seed that should have been planted after the danger of the last frost had passed. I was away for a few days and got a text message from my husband about how we had had snow.

Of course Cooper had to get involved in the planting too.

I also got some asparagus roots. I’m excited to plant them somewhere but I understand from Animal, vegetable, miracle that it takes three years for an asparagus harvest to be useful. I need to pick a great place for them. I love the idea of having fresh asparagus.

I would love to understand plant biology a little better.

I live on a main road. My section of the road is a little windy but there are no major hills or elevation changes. I can’t imagine the soil composition changes very much from one yard to the next. Yet I appear to have developmentally delayed daffodils.

I’ve noticed this before, and I feel that it’s more apparent now that I run the road.

My daffodils are beautiful green stems reaching out of the ground. Run half a mile either direction down the road, and every yard is a field of yellow. And they have been that way all week.

IMGP8736 by candiacrew

Are my neighbours (and I use that term losely as I think of anyone within a couple miles is my neighbour) secretly fertilizing their daffodils and not telling me? Do I just have terrible soil composition? Are my daffodils simply moking me because I care when they emmerge?

I know I should have patience, because when the daffodils came out to play last year they were spectacular.

IMGP8732 by candiacrew

I have this bush in my backyard that has the most amazing leaves in fall. They actually turn an amazing  pinkish red. The picture below is actually a pretty accurate color on my monitor. It’s beautiful.

Just for fun though, I decided to throw the picture into Picnik’s AutoFix. This is what came out.

Perhaps Picnik decided that the leaves pink was bright enough that the greens had to be brighter. Just a reminder that autofix can make things better, but you can actually lose your natural color schemes in the process.

Anyone know what my pink leaved bush is? I’d love to know.

Here’s a couple more pictures of the plant.

In the Winter time I feed the wild birds with a generic bird seed mix. I enjoy watching the birds come by to eat but I also feel good that I’m helping them make it through the rough New Hampshire Winters.

And now an unexpected result. I noticed a weed growing in my hydrangea bush (which is right below the bird feeder). The birds and squirrels had missed some seeds and I had Sunflowers growing in my front yard.

So I help out the birds in the winter and in exchange the birds help me by growing pretty flowers in my garden.

I really love Portsmouth New Hampshire. I go there from time to time to bring the pup to the Dog Park and to Pierce Island which has off-leash sections. But Saturday I didn’t bring the pup with me to Portsmouth. So I was able to do some things I wouldn’t normally have a chance to do.

Such as visiting the flower gardens of Prescott Park. Prescott Park is a pretty park between the Strawberry Banke Museum and the River. It has beautiful gardens full of name tags to identify the flowers. If you have more time than I did they also have concerts in the park during the summer.

The flowers are so perfect and so beautiful that you could just walk around taking perfect pictures of flowers and they would turn out to be frameable no matter your technique (at least if using an auto function camera).

Rather than post a hundred pictures of flowers I made a mosaic of a random selection of the flowers.

You can see the Mosaic full sized here.

Full set of Flowers from Saturday is in this Flickr set (It also includes some of the pigeons from the previous post).

I love our detached garage. Not only is it the newest part of the house (we think the previous owners built it in 2005), but it is also a sheltered, clean, non-basement place for my husband to work on his cars and on the house.

The nice garage makes me feel less guilty when the hubby has to do ‘emergency’ repairs to my car, The Goblin. At our last apartment, I was having brake issues one evening. The Calipers had locked, the ensuing heat warped my brake’s rotor.  In short my brakes were not at their best, and probably not safe. So Adam had to lie on the ground in the dark, in the cold rain to fix my car. We only have two cars on the road then (and right now), and we had long commutes, so he had to fix the car that very night.

Now he has a nice concrete floor, a workbench and a fairly oversized two car garage to work in.

And I love to watch him work.

It makes me happy to know that although we did have to compromise on a few things on our house search, the one thing he really wanted ended up being such a nice part of the house.

And we still have an attached 2 car garage. So once we finish installing fireproofing drywall between the garage and the room above, and our friends stop storing things at our house (don’t worry it’s not a rush, we havn’t even planned out what we will do about the dry walling yet), we will have a place to park our daily drivers during snowstorms.

He does look happy as he gets to modify and play with his motorcycle though, doesn’t he?

Remember my mystery weed next to the driveway? It’s been identified as a Burdock. The plant that inspired the innovation of Velcro with it’s hooked tendrils that attach seeds to animal coats and human vestments.

Wikipedia tells me that some varieties are actually cultivated for dishes from other cultures. I’m still considering it a weed and plan on eliminating the early growth next year (it has simply gotten too big to do it this year).

The bees are currently enjoying the flowers on the plant though. But I’ll plant equally yummy flowers in place of the giant weed.