How green does/will my Garden Grow? Part IV

I'm starting to think this is going to be a bigger project than I first anticipated! The "plans" I found were for an 8x12 green house and I turned it into a 12x18  greenhouse. Now I am not a builder but I do like to build. I think because of this some of the things I've done well, it reminds me of when I sew something, I like to sew but I am not a seamstress like my Mom was she taught me really well but when I sew sometimes I need to rip things out and do them again. So now of the things I've been building I need to rip out too, thing is its not so easy to rip out boards! Luckily for this project I have been using nice long wood screws so its easy to back um out if I need to!
  My daughter and son in law came over tonight to have dinner we had one of her favorites tonight "Jack Daniels Salmon" with wild rice and fresh beans from the garden. Then they went out to help me with the greenhouse! I was so happy I didn't need to cut that 30 degree angle on the `12 foot 2x6's...:)  Course once they were cut I realized that the doors I made were wider than the angle of the board allowed plus it was going to make the top too flat so we decided to raise the ridge board up higher to make the angle steeper.  So we raised it up about 4 1/2 inches and I think now once I tack on the 1x6  to the ridge board I should be all set to start adding the 1/4 plywood ribs.

Now there is one small problem which is why I'm glad I used screws, the 2nd doorway from the left I didn't measure it right, the door is the right size alright but it sits 2 inches further over then the others ...ugh so tomorrow I will go unscrew it and recut the support boards and hitch it back up again...ripping out..I hate ripping out...but I want it to be right so I will add another day on to this job because of my mistake.  I think for fun I will tack on the 1 x6 to the ridge board though and then hitch on a  couple ribs just to be sure they are going to work!

I'm getting closer to having a greenhouse...:)

How green does/will my Garden Grow? Part III

Whew this is a LOT of work! When I saw the design I was going to make I thought , "easy , Peasy!" Okay so not quite as easy as I thought but I'm getting there.
I sent my photos to my brother in Myrtle Beach who is an excellent carpenter. He said "It looks good but don't be sad if this winter you get a big snow storm and it blows over or caves in" Hmmmm that didn't give me a ton of confidence although I knew that there is danger of the plastic ripping apart in the winter but I really didn't want my construction to fall in after all this.  So far the materials were $400.00 not bad for a greenhouse but still don't want to have to do it again in the spring.  Plus as of now its taken about 4 days and I can see I probably have another 4 to go.

  After his suggestion that I double up the 2x6 ridgepole I told him I was going to put up there on top, I decided that I was going to double up on all the supports and add one more right at the 12' mark where I would be having to join the board since I got 12 ' stock.

   I'd say after 4 hours I had all four "doorways" sturdied up and all ready to put up the ridgepole.

so tomorrow or maybe the next day :) I will start cutting the 30 degree angle on the ridgepole after I figure out how I want to do that...I guess its the handy dandy table saw that I hate using !  Hopefully next time I post something here I will still be able to type because I'll still have all my fingers!  Tally Ho and away!

How Green does/will my Garden Grow? Part II

 So yesterday I went out early to get a jump start on the day ahead working on our new greenhouse.  I studied it carefully to be sure my days work yesterday was met with no errors that I couldn't live with.  I needed to finish the baseboards and put up the support on the east side so I could start attaching the center beam.

So after a days work this is what I came up with, I used my carpenters string to be sure everything was level.  I knew once I put up that center beam if its not level I'm  stuck!
the far left corner vertical support was too short so I had to replace it and will cut them all off with the reciprocating saw today.  I also will be adding 3 more vertical supports on both long sides to hold the ribs of the greenhouse. I've decided I'm only going to make one door though but make the opening at the far end a window with which I can put a screen in for the "summer when the weather is hot" .

I also decided that it was alot of rocks I was going to have to use to fill in that gap on the bottom from the slope so put another piece of 2x8 down there, I should of stained that piece first but I'll do that later , I am going to add wood to the back doing the same thing.  Then I'll back fill it with crushed stones.

Now this is my whole reason for doing this, yep we are way up in Northern Vermont where spring comes late and winter comes early. Its almost August and the cukes are just barely looking like cukes! :)

And the tomatoes have a little ways to go too!








a few shots below of some things around the gardens

Now I must get back to work!  Thanks for visiting!  More work to be done on this green house I'm planting some experimental crops in it now!

How Green does/will my Garden Grow?

     Living in Northern ( Almost in Quebec, Canada) Vermont, where I see just as many Quebec License plates as Vermont ones. The growing season she is short. When we bought the house up here on the mountain my daughter in law joked that since we are living on the North Face of the peak that we'd never see the sun.  Well we do see it but I admit to it being slow to come and fast to go.  But regardless both my Husband and I love to garden so it wasn't long before I started ...

 first with a few flower beds with natural stones surrounding them but then I kept looking at the grass.....
One day when my Husband had returned from his ship for a months holiday I said "Honey, why do we want to spend our time mowing that grass out front?" So it wasn't long before the tractor was digging it up!


wha la a garden has emerged !

We started with this center garden filling it with a few annuals , hostas and started "collecting" perennials  which we had around the property.  I built a few raised beds for more flowers and started some vegetables.  It wasn't long before I realized I really wanted a bigger vegetable garden though so...


This year we added 12 more 4x4 raised beds filling them with squash, cukes, peas, onions, carrots, beans, herbs, potatoes, corn and LOTS of tomatoes since we want to make our own pasta sauces and soups.

Now came the reason for this ... the plants are late, we don't get enough sun in the house to start seedlings until way late in the spring, I made a few make shift greenhouses this spring but they met with disaster after we had a 2' snow fall in April. I needed a more permanent solution and started scanning the web for small green house designs.  Finally finding one that I thought would fill our needs in an old gardening book I've had for years!

So I drew up the design and calculated how much wood I would need to complete the project and ordered the wood.

Now keep in mind some of this wood is for a couple more projects I am working on maybe I'l blog about that after I finish this one! ha!
The greenhouse base is 2x8 pressure treated wood so I hauled the 5 pieces I was going to need to start over to the "site".

Yes I was going to need to cut one board as the dimensions of the base will be 12x18.
I decided before I got the saw out I'd see how level things were.

Level? Well I guess I should of expected this since we do live on the side of a mountain. So I go and get the spade and think I'm really happy my Husband didn't use up all the crushed stone as I was going to need it to grade the base.

I finally got it close enough that I was going to have to dig the front down 4 inches and build up the back about 6 inches to get a level grade , now I wish the stones we not already around these beds as I'm going to have to rake them out so I can dig out the front.



Day two: I got distracted chasing a butterfly, wish I had my long lens on my camera though.!

So I finally got the level done and 3 sides squared up and I started filling in the ditch I dug with crushed stones we had ordered for the basement and used the extra around the gardens.

The East side of the greenhouse for sure sits higher up , our ground is really sloped here.
I'm going to get big rocks to put around the edges and fill it with crushed stones...or maybe get another piece of pressure treated wood to help fill the gap...still deciding on that one.

Done for the day since I needed to cut more 2 x8's the front I'm still debating if I should put plexiglass on the straight sides to protect it from the high drifts of snow we get...the back sits high enough already I think...

I think I've decided to just get alot of rocks to fill this, since they are free on the property..and I have the crushed stone for the inside.  It will just mean a few trips in the woods to find them!

I took  a walk inside the greenhouse to get  a feel for it. There are 4 raised beds  and I've already started my compost pile to help keep the heat in in the fall and spring.  I want to find a couple big metal barrels to put water in. , Right now there are tomatoes, Squash and cukes growing in here.:)

standing in the other side of the greenhouse I am standing where I will build shelving to hold trays of seedlings..:)

So thats it for today. Next I will continue adding the 2x8s' around the edges and add the 3' supports , doors will be at both ends so that will be next.







Stay tuned!

Tasty BlueBerry Muffins( Sparkle Muffins)

2 cups King Arthur flour

1/3 cup Domino sugar

1 tbls baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 Farm fresh egg

1 cup milk

1/4 cup oil

1 cup blueberries

additional Domino sugar ( I prefer brown)

1. add dry ingredients to a large bowl and mix well.

2. in a smaller bowl add egg, milk and oil mix well.

3. add egg mixture to flour mixture , don't mix this too much just enough to mix in all

the ingredients.

4. gently fold in 1 cup of blueberries

5. add to oiled muffin tins or lined with papers...

6. sprinkle with sugar

7. bake at 400 for 25 to 30 minutes

8. remove from muffin tins

9. eat and enjoy! Oh yummy!

as a further note, these muffins are tasty I'm not OVERLY fond of the nutmeg in them though, next time I think I will add vanilla or cinnamon instead..:)

How does a Country Girl Meet a Sailor Guy?

     Well its Sunday July 11th its been 2 weeks since I kissed my Sailor Guy goodbye again and I swore that the next two months I would NOT complain that he isn't here with me.  Too many people around me, husbands gone to war, husbands passing away ...I know I am lucky I get to talk to him everyday, he spoils me mercilessly by calling me so often and sometimes more than once, if we have no cell service then we are so lucky the company has given the ships internet so we can chat on facebook, I don't get to here his comforting voice but at least I can smile from his humor. :)  So here I am not complaining but spending the day around the house vowing to be busy , my mistake I turn on my ITUNES and my favorite songs are songs that remind me of him and of course how much I miss him!

    So I think, how did this happen to me? Heck I was just an innocent Country Girl living in Chester Vermont minding my own business way back in the year 2000.  Yes, I was a recently divorced woman, my daughter still living at home so I kept our house and my business a Retail Store with a strong web based business attached to it. I sold horse equipment. Handy since we did indeed have horses and I spent the most wonderful times in my life in the barn with my daughter, going to horse shows or just riding the trails, even getting my son involved in the horseback riding too until the skateboard took over. :)  So since I did have a web based business I found it handy to have a chat program for customers to ask me questions about the products in the store or on my storefront web business.  It was here on ICQ that I innocently responded to a "Hi, How you doing"? from a message from someone called "BIG JOHN"  It was against my better judgement to respond but for some reason, I did.

     It was February 14, 2000 maybe I was feeling a bit out of sorts since I'm sure my daughter was out doing something valentiney ( is that a word?) My son away at college, my dearest friend at the time Rhonda was out at a gig with...egad Les??  ( another story in itself!)  So I responded to "BIG JOHN" only to find out really quickly that indeed he was NOT BIG JOHN but living at BIG JOHNS house so was using his ICQ account.  So I found out that this fellow was Anders...not Andre very quickly and when he said he was a Ship Captain I thought.......

Living in Vermont I really didn't have much experience with Ships, sure I grew up vacationing on weekends, holidays etc at my parents camp or on our own cabin Cruiser on Lake Champlain. That was a big lake and had big boats ....right?  He did his best to explain.  I found I was drawn to the computer and walked by it frequently to see if "Big Johns" name was on my "online" list of buddies. ( and it was like "Hey, You've got mail, in so many ways)  He told me that he'd be going back to work in April , I thought..what he isn't working now??  Who doesn't work for 3 months??  Then he asked me for my address so that he could write me while he was away. I thought ...what are you crazy?? No way I'm giving a complete stranger my address..no no no!  But yet I still caught myself looking for him online.  We laughed and talked for hours and a week or so later I said " So, you still want my address? " Nope , I didn't want to loose track of this man , who made me laugh so hard I'd cry and gave me goose bumps sometimes too and just from his words.  I think it was a few days later that he asked for my phone number. Oh yeah a BIG HUGE knot formed in my stomach.  How can I do this? I was scared, I was excited, my heart was pounding out of my chest when I typed the numbers and waited for what seemed like hours to push the send button...... then RING.....do I answer it??? YIKES....its ringing, he is typing.. "Answer the phone!"  So I pick up the phone, its a hand held job and my hand must of been sweaty because I dropped it, and when it fell on the floor the battery broke out...HA!  So yep it disconnected and as I"m explaining online, I get it back in and it starts ringing again.  This time its in my hand already and I pressed..."TALK" and oh man did we ever!  He had the most amazing voice, deep and smooth, with an accent that I had never heard in Vermont!  We laughed oh did we laugh!  We were on the phone for 5 hours maybe more and this continued for a couple weeks.  He had a birthday coming in March and I don't remember how that all came about but he surprised me by saying he was coming out to see me on his birthday!  

Now most people would say, How could you let a Man you don't even know come to your home after only talking to him online or on the phone for a month?  I don't know how I knew, but I knew , and on March 14, 2000 Anders Rasmussen arrived at my door and my life has never been the same since. :o)  

We were married on August 11, 2001 with me making crazy trips out to visit him on his ship ( anther story itself that can be found here on my website : www.mrscaptainsplace.com . Funny I started the site as a joke since I had a business , I had a website so I did some art work on a photo of his Ship and wrote the "COOLBEANS" on the hull . Little did I know what I started.... :o) 

We moved to Canada in 2004 finding a wonderful home on Lake Erie right down the road from the plant in Nanticoke where his ship docks quite frequently.  It was a wonderful experience living there and I made so many wonderful friends but I did miss my "Vermont" its mountains and most of all my children. So when I asked "Honey, do you think when you retire we could move back to Vermont?"  My wonderful husband didn't even bat an eyelash he just said "why wait?" and thats what we did....I'm so lucky...I'm so blessed...I'm so in Love...

.