August 3rd, 2010 by Erin

Obviously, we’ve been working a lot in our front yard.  Well, maybe obvious to us because we’ve put in the work, but not so obvious to our neighbors who still have to look at an eyesore of a yard.  It seems like it has taken us forever just to remove all the ugly stuff that was there when we moved in, from bright white landscaping rock, to overgrown rosemary, to weeds.  Well, we finally got to a point where we were ready to add something back in, and we happened to snag a couple of Red Flame grape vines from Costco.

Once we purchased the vines, we were a little bit ahead of ourselves.  We needed something for them to grow on before we could plant them.  We searched the internet for various DIY designs for grape trellises and took the best bits and pieces to create a trellis that suited our needs.  Here are the materials we used:

• Two 4×4 posts, 8 feet long each
• Two 2×2 posts, 8 feet long each
• Wood preservative
• 10 eyelet bolts, with nuts, about 1/4 inch in diameter
• 20 1/4 inch washers
• 5 turnbuckles, about 5 inches long when open
• 14 guage wire

The first thing we did was treat the posts with a wood preservative.  Our posts are redwood, since it holds up well outdoors, so we chose a preservative with a redwood stain to it.  Specifically, Preservawood in Pacific Redwood.  Preservawood is a low-VOC formula, so you won’t be breathing in horrible fumes while you treat the wood and it won’t leach toxic chemicals into the soil once you have the posts placed.

Next, we had to set the posts in the ground.  We wanted them sunk down two feet, so six feet would be exposed for the trellis.  Using a post hole digger, we dug down about 28 inches for each post, and spaced the holes about four feet apart (so the trellis is 12 feet long, from end to end).  The two 4x4s were used for the outside supports, while the 2x2s were used on the inside.

The reason we dug the holes a bit deeper than two feet is that the method we decided to use for setting them involved placing a few inches of gravel on the bottom, then several more inches around the bottom of the post.  But where would we get gravel?

We just happened to have some lying around.   Anyway, we put four inches of gravel at the bottom of each hole, then placed the posts in, used a level to make sure they were straight, then filled around the bottom of the post with gravel for another six inches or so.  Then, we packed the rest of the hole with the dirt we dug out of it, periodically using the level to make sure the post was still straight.

Next, we drilled holes in the posts to stretch the wire across.  We planned on five wires, starting about two feet off the ground and ending about two inches from the top of each post, so we spaced the holes approximately evenly over this space.

On the outside posts, we put eyelet bolts through and secured them each with a nut.  We put a 1/4 inch washer on either side of each bolt in an attempt to not damage the wood as we tightened the nut.  We planned to just run the wire through the holes in the two smaller posts, since the larger, outer posts were really the major supports for the wire.

Next, we attached a wire to each eyelet (each of these wires was about half the length of the trellis as a whole, so maybe six feet, give or take, with a little extra just in case).  We threaded the wire through each eyelet, bent it with about a three inch overlap, and coiled the overlap around the other side of the wire using a vice grip.  They all looked like this when we were done.

Since each of the wires we threaded through the eyelets was about half the length of the trellis, we needed a way for the left to meet the right in the middle, and we decided to use a turnbuckle for each set of wires.  Maybe Congress could use a few turnbuckles?

In case you were wondering what a turnbuckle is, here is a description from Wikipedia:

A turnbuckle, stretching screw or bottlescrew is a device for adjusting the tension or length of ropes, cables, tie rods, and other tensioning systems. It normally consists of two threaded eyelets, one screwed into each end of a small metal loop, one with a left-hand thread and the other with a right-hand thread. The tension can be adjusted by rotating the loop, which causes both eyelets to be screwed in or out simultaneously, without twisting the eyelets or attached cables,

We coiled a wire from the left side to one end of the turnbuckle and a wire from the right side to the other.  We pulled them as taught as well could initially, but then we still had the ability to adjust the tension even more by rotating the loop on the turnbuckle.

So there you have a pretty basic trellis!

After all that work we still had to plant the grapes.  We tilled the soil with a Mantis tiller, added some soil amendment, and tilled again.  The we just dug a couple of holes and popped the plants in.  Finally, we untied the vines from the bamboo support from the nursery pot and started training them along the new trellis with a little string. I think it looks pretty nice, and has a lot of potential if we don’t kill the grapes and they keep growing up the trellis.

Of course, the rest of the front still looks pretty dreadful.  Baby steps!

© 2010 The Beehive All Rights Reserved

July 26th, 2010 by Erin

I’m talking about the front yard.  Progress has been rather slow for a while.  Steve injured himself pulling out rosemary and really had to take things easy for about two weekends, so not a lot got done.  Plus, we didn’t do a whole lot on the long 4th of July weekend because we were, you know, having fun.  Not that toiling in the yard under the hot summer sun isn’t super fun . . .

We have actually accomplished quite a bit, though, thanks to the Mantis tiller we borrowed from Steve’s parents and my parents’ offer to help us dig out a large shrub.  Specifically, this large shrub:

Its roots looked significantly more daunting than the rosemary we had spent all that time digging out.  Plus, there was a sprinkler right underneath it we would have to be careful not to damage.  It started to make me think of the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

We started out on our own by just slowing soaking the ground around it and digging in.  It seemed like we didn’t do much but create a moat around it.

My dad has some experience with stump removal, so when he offered to help us get this one out, we jumped at the chance.  He brought a special tool:

That metal thing with the red handle is a fancy ratcheting thingy.  And yes, that is a technical term of art.  Essentially he wrapped a chain around the based of the roots to the ratchet, then a rope from the other end of the ratchet to a stationary object (we used the trailer hitch on Steve’s car).  Pull the ratchet a few time, and the stump comes right out.  Well, maybe it’s not quite that easy, but I decided I wanted to take a picture of the process and when I got back with my camera this is what I saw.

It was that quick.  What we were thinking digging out the rosemary without this handy helper?!?  To be sure, we put it to use on the rest of the rosemary in the front. Here’s my dad, and Steve’s car, working on that.

So we are pretty much done removing stuff and have a clean slate to start laying out the new yard and planting stuff.

Ok, ok, we have actually started planting a little bit, and it looks pretty good.  But that’s for another post, so stay tuned!

See our yard progress from the beginning here and here.

© 2010 The Beehive All Rights Reserved

June 22nd, 2010 by Erin

We continued with our work on the front yard this past weekend.  Thankfully, it was not nearly as hot as last weekend (although I did neglect to wear sunscreen on Sunday and got a bit burned!).  Last weekend, we cleared out scattered rosemary bushes and white landscaping rock from the center of the yard area.  This weekend, our goal was to remove the mature rosemary and white landscaping rock from the top of the slope.

The mature rosemary plants were much more of a struggle than the smaller ones we removed last week.  The roots tend to grow sideways, which meant we did not have to dig terribly deep, but there were a lot of roots and some of them were very large.

Steve also somehow twisted his elbow pulling out those big plants, so he was mostly sidelined on Sunday.  That meant I did the majority of the rock-shoveling and carrying it into the back.  Tough work for one person!

Here’s what are neighbors are looking at now:

Next weekend we’ll be heading down to the bottom of the slope.  Hopefully we can clear the last of the rock, but I’m sure the remaining mature rosemary will be an ordeal, as will the large, unidentified bush in from of the Mulberry tree, so it may take us a while to get that done.

© 2010 The Beehive All Rights Reserved

June 15th, 2010 by Erin

This weekend was a hot one in our neck of the woods. That didn’t stop us from getting outside and doing some work in our front yard, though. We’ve been unhappy with the look of it since we moved in, and our neighbors are not too thrilled with the white landscaping rock the prior owner was so fond of. Here’s a look at the area we’ve decided to tackle first just as we were starting on Saturday morning.

On Saturday, we pulled out all the “volunteer” rosemary. Rosemary bushes were planted around the edge of the yard area, but they self-seeded and created little mini-bushes — and some not so mini — all over the center of the yard. The weather was great and a strong breeze kept us cool while we worked.

Sunday, we cleared a bunch of the offensive white landscaping rock from the part of the yard we cleared of rosemary the previous day. This was a real chore. I don’t think we ever came up with a really efficient way to do it. We tried rolling up the weed barrier with the rocks in it, but they spilled out the edges. Further, the prior owner didn’t use conventional weed barrier for the entire yard; in some places, flattened out bags from mulch or potting soil were used, and we even found Home Depot shopping bags in some places. We also tried using the weed barrier to move the rocks into piles, which we then shoveled into buckets, but that seemed to take a long time as well.  And, we were left with this nifty pile to deal with when we were done.

So here’s what our neighbors have to look at now, until we get back to it next weekend. Probably won’t get any better, since we’ll just be pulling out the mature rosemary and removing still more rocks. But we’ve got plans, and it will eventually come together, slowly but surely.

© 2010 The Beehive All Rights Reserved

June 3rd, 2010 by Erin

We have a cherry tree in our backyard.  Last spring/summer, it did a whole lot of nothing.  My parents had a cherry tree in their back yard when I was growing up, and it also never produced fruit, allegedly because it was the only cherry tree around an you need a second one for pollinating.  I figured ours had the same problem and it would just stand there and look pretty.

Needless to say, we were a little surprised when we saw little green cherries sprouting out all over it several weeks ago.  I still wasn’t convinced that they would ripen.  I thought maybe they’d be like the cucumbers we tried to grow last year, which shriveled up after not being pollinated.  But the cherries actually ripened!

We picked a bunch yesterday and ate them for dessert.  We think they are probably Royal Anne cherries, because they still have some yellow on the outside, even though they are ripe, and the flesh on the inside is also still yellow.  Rainier has a similar look as well.

Steve tells me that Royal Anne are the variety most often used to make maraschino cherries (confirmed by Wikipedia). Further research confirms that sweet cherries do need a second pollinator tree, while sour cherries do not. This should also be a pretty easy tree to maintain, as sweet cherry trees only require pruning to remove diseased or injured branches. Score!

© 2010 The Beehive All Rights Reserved

March 1st, 2010 by Erin

Steve and I have had our fair share of problems with weeds in our yard since we moved into our home last April.  Our neighbors were not too pleased with our brand of yard maintenance, and weren’t shy about letting us know (in an anonymous letter).  And while we tried to convince ourselves that it really wasn’t that bad, we did find some pretty hideous weeds. 

Last year, we finished the task of clearing the major weeds from the yard, and swore we would never let it get like that again.  The idea was we would nip the weeds in the bud, so to speak, and with some frequent low level maintenance, they would never get out of control.  With the recent rains, that hasn’t been too easy.  Our busy schedules limit the time we can spend in the yard, and there haven’t been any weekends recently that weren’t too wet, cold, and yucky to go out and work in the yard.  As a result, the weeds have grown like, well, weeds.  So we find ourselves right back where we started.

Enter the Weed Dragon weed torch. 

The best way to describe it is a mini-flamethrower.  Powered by a standard gas grill-type propane tank, it subjects the weeds to super-high temperatures, bursting the cell walls and killing the weed.  The Weed Dragon consists of the aforementioned propane tank, a handy dolly to transport the tank, and the hose and torch itself.  We also chose to purchase an optional trigger valve. 

The standard weed torch emits a constant flame which can only be controlled by adjusting the flow of propane into the torch.  With the trigger valve, you do still always have a small pilot flame in the torch, but it won’t be shooting out the big flames until you pull the trigger.  We thought this would give us more control and make using the torch safer overall. 

There is one additional essential piece of equipment:

In addition to having the fire extinguisher nearby, we decided that weed torching would always be a two person job, one manning the torch and one with a garden hose to wet down any dry looking areas before torching them and to spritz out anything that did catch fire or smolder after being torched.

Since Sunday was nice and sunny, we were finally able to take the Weed Dragon for a spin.  First, Steve tested it to make sure there were no propane leaks by pouring soapy water over all the connections and watching for bubbles for a few minutes.  When he was satisfied there were no bubbles, he rinsed it off and we lit it up. 

It didn’t take long for us to recognize that just a few seconds of heat from the torch was enough to kill most weeds.  When they wilted and turned bright green, like vegetables do when you cook them, we knew they were toast.  Our test area was a rock-covered area in the back yard.  This is what it looked like when we were done, and then a few hours later after the dead weeds became crispy. 

Notice all the still healthy weeds in the background along the fence.  We didn’t have a chance to get to those, but we did cover a lot of area in the front yard. 

The process was certainly a lot more fun than pulling each weed out by hand.  So far, it also appears preferable to Round Up.  You get more instant gratification because the weed wilts right before your eyes instead of a few days later.  It’s also nice to know we aren’t spritzing all kinds of chemicals into the soil.  Hopefully we will continue to be pleased with it as we get to use it on more areas of the yard. 

General Sherman would be proud.

© 2010 The Beehive All Rights Reserved

August 24th, 2009 by Erin

This weekend felt extremely busy, but looking back it does not seem like we did all that much.

Saturday we finally got out and tested the sprinkler system.  The prior owner had mapped it out for us, but strangely lost the map prior to moving out.  So we’ve been watering by hand since we move in back in April, which not surprisingly has been a bit sporadic and some of our plants are starting to show it.  Saturday morning, Steve went on to Google maps and printed a satelite photo of the house.  We started with zone one on our sprinkler box and started filling in the map.  The box has the capability to handle 18 zones, 8 through 18 of which currently do absolutely nothing as far as we can tell.  Also, none of them control the backyard, which clearly has a drip system throughout.  We figured out later that there is a hose that connects to the drip system and apparently the prior owner just hooked it up manually to the spigot on the side of the house whenever she did that watering.  In any event, the drip hoses have seen better days.  There are multiple splits in the main line and almost nothing comes out the actual drip points, so it’s going to need some overhauling. 

Saturday afternoon, we went shopping for a birthday present for our now 5-year-old friend, Abby.  As much as I loved Toys ‘r’ Us when I was a kid, I really dislike it now.  I never imagined it would be so hard to shop for a 5-year-old!  We picked out something we hoped she would like and moved on to our next errands: JC Penney to check out window treatments and Home Depot for some yard stuff. 

Penney’s was kind of a disappointment.  We have tall ceilings in our family room, so we needed some lengthy curtains, and it seemed they mostly only had standard 84 inch panels, which was too short.  But still, we got an idea of what they had, and were able to order some online later that evening.  I’ve had a backache for the past few days and I needed to go home and lay down, so we skipped HD. 

Sunday we spent an awful lot of time doing just general chores, which had been put off all week long (we should know better).  Then, of course, the birthday party, and finally home to relax.  Sort of.  I did not feel like watching my sixth auto race of the weekend, so I pulled out our leftover paint and slapped a coat on the upstairs bathroom while Steve watched Indy car from Sears Point Raceway.  Probably not the best thing for my back, but really there is only so much racing I can take. 

And that’s about it.  I’m certain there will be much more to come on the sprinkler system, as that needs a lot of work.  And I’ve been taking pictures of the bathroom as I go, so I’ll be posting those as soon as I can download them from my camera and re-size them for posting.  Because I know the three of you reading this are on the edge of your seat just waiting to see our upstairs bathroom.

© 2009 The Beehive All Rights Reserved

August 6th, 2009 by Erin

Since being scolded by our anonymous neighbor about the disheveled state of our yard, we tried to get outside more and take care of business. And things were looking better — although I still didn’t think it was that bad to begin with. That is, until Steve approached me, beaming with pride, after pulling this gem out of the ground:

Yes, that is a weed as tall as he is. 6 ft. 1 in. That’s pretty bad. Actually, that’s really, really bad. In our defense, it was in an area of the yard that is hidden by trees and shrubbery and not really visible, but still . . .

© 2009 The Beehive All Rights Reserved

August 3rd, 2009 by Erin

As I mentioned in my last post, I intended to go out and pick a ridiculous amount of nectarines from our productive tree to share with my parents and Steve’s parents this weekend.  That tree was full of nectarines just waiting to be picked and gobbled up.  I grabbed a bowl and walked out to collect some of that sweet summer fruit.  My jaw dropped when I reached the tree because it was EMPTY!  Not two days before I had surveyed the crop and there were more fruits in that tree than I could count.  This was all that was left when I went out to harvest:

It’s difficult to tell because they blend in with the rocks, but in addition to the slightly gnawed fruit there are multiple pits lying on the ground beneath the tree.  So no nectarines for us this year.  Next year, netting will be required.

© 2009 The Beehive All Rights Reserved

July 31st, 2009 by Erin

It’s been a while since I’ve posted about our garden. Unfortunately, it is because there is not much good to report.

Our tomatoes look puny. In the past when I’ve planted tomatoes, they grow out of control even if you ignore them! Ours are still small, with thin leaves. The tomatoes are small too. All three plants have fruit on them. The Brandywine (in the topsy turvy) has a whopping three whole tomatoes on it, amazing considering the amount of flowers it had. The largest of the three is starting to turn color, and it is barely the size of a cherry tomato you’d find in the supermarket. There are a good number of tomatoes on the Burbank slicing plant, but they are also small. The largest is also starting to ripen, and it is about the size of an apricot. The orange cherry tomato also has many fruits on it, none ripening yet, and non with a diameter larger than a nickel.

The cucumber is worse off. I was so excited to see little baby cucumbers on it, but each one shriveled up. I did some research and learned this is because they aren’t really baby cucumbers yet, it’s the female flower of the cucumber plant. They have to be pollenated by a male flower in order to grow into cucumbers. Armed with this information, I watched the plant intending to pollenate any new flowers with a small paintbrush. Every time a female flower bloomed, though, there wasn’t a single male flower in sight to pollenate it with, so they continued to shrivel. I doubt we will get a single cucumber off that plant.

The strawberry plants look fine, but we haven’t seen any new berries since the critters ate the first batch that ripened.

The only thing that seems to be doing well is the existing nectarine tree. The fruit is ripening, and I’m sure there are some just waiting to be picked. Maybe there will be enough nice ripe nectarines that we can pick a bunch and share with our parents this weekend.

© 2009 The Beehive All Rights Reserved