ORC-Spring 2021- Vegetable Garden & Exterior Painting Progress -Weeks #6 & #7

The Spring 2021 One Room Challenge is wrapping up next post. I have slowly been working on these outdoor projects over the past 2 years.

The main focus was to:

• Complete Exterior Trim & Garage Painting
• Maximize Planting Space in Garden
• Create Seating Area at Front of House

Exterior Trim & Garage Painting

Garage Door & Trim Painted

Our house started out with mustard trim and a beige garage door. I started the painting myself but eventually realized we needed to hire painters to do the upper portions that required ladder work.

Before – Perfect Candidate for Cosmetic Paint Changes

I did climb out the front window to paint back when my youngest used to nap but it was risky and realistically it would have probably taken me 5 years to finish at the rate I was going. Hiring painters was worth it.

Painting the Trim to change the colour & maintain the wood.

July 2019

Create More Planting Space

We were lucky that there was already a dedicated garden area off the back patio. It had irrigation installed too. The only downside was the deer are frequently in the yard so these raised beds needed some protection.

This fencing Spring 2020 has worked to keep deer out and there was still space for a couple of other raised beds.

Deer Fencing built Spring 2020

Still working on these new raised beds

So many shelling peas growing right now.

The newest garden bed tucked in along the fence

Work in Progress Still

Maybe we will have our first pears this year?

There are animals (I think they’re marmots) sneaking in and eating the lettuce. Now I’m figuring out more ways to cover the vegetable garden.

Front Porch Reading Area

We have been using this space, especially in the afternoons.

There was a shrub here that unfortunately wasn’t alive anymore and I had to remove it.

Foam & Fabric for Cushions

This is the foam and Sunbrella fabric I chose to make the base cushion. I decided on this black and beige irregular fabric so that any marks won’t be obvious. I am going to try out this stool as a side table too.

In the next 2 weeks I’m going to pull together the final details to complete the plan before the official start of summer.

To see what everyone else is doing here’s the link: https://www.oneroomchallenge.com/blog/orcspring2021wk7

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Simple Floral Arrangements for Easter

With Easter and other celebrations going on this time of year I thought I’d share a couple of simple ways that I decorate. There are beautiful signs of spring emerging and all it takes is a couple of branches or seasonal flowers to dress up the table.

Home: Shibang Designs Photo: Heidi Lau Photography

1. Forage from the Yard & Display in Glass Jars

This is what we have in our yard right now – Hellebores, branches from our maple tree & these blossoms.

For a low effort & high impact display I use recycled jars to showcase each flower or branch. They can be spread out along the table or clustered together.

Spring Flowers & Branches from the Yard in Recycled Hot Sauce Bottles

This is from a couple of years ago in our last home, highlighting daffodils, hyacinths, serviceberry & maple branches.

2. Use a Potted Hydrangea to Clip a few Blossoms

If you don’t have a yard to clip branches and flowers from (or if you love hydrangeas), I like to cut a few blossoms from a potted plant. I only take 3 which is barely noticeable from a plant this size.

Make sure to treat the flowers to prevent them from wilting by sicking about 1 cm of the bottom of the stem in boiling water for a few seconds.

Flowers: Shibang Designs Photo: Heidi Lau Photography

Add a couple of branches found on the ground during a walk and there’s a bonus way to spread flowers around the house. Or buy a bunch of tulips and add a few found sticks to make the arrangement more interesting.

Home: Shibang Designs Photo: Heidi Lau Photography

Even though celebrations are still small this year, a couple of little details like fresh branches or flowers can make the occasion feel more special without a lot of extra effort.

ORC – Week #6 – Salad Greens

This week for the One Room Challenge for us is all about enjoying eating from our garden and watching it grow. My plan is to eat all of our leafy greens from our garden rather than buying them at the grocery store from June until the end of September (and hopefully longer).

Since the end of May we have been eating all of our salad greens from the garden for 2 meals per day. My Mum was telling me about how my Grandpa’s family used to grow a lot of their own produce in the yard to feed their large family of 8 and also to save money. I’m just a beginner with limited experience with kale and swiss chard but I plan to learn more!

The kids don’t eat much still, just occassional kale chips but this little one loves eating mint and the kale flowers.

We use a colander to go out and pick the leafy greens. We have let the kale get large but for the lettuces I am picking them as baby greens.

I bought these little lettuce as seedlings (Romaine, Leaf & Buttercrunch for $9 total) – I probably could have started them as seed but wanted to get started asap. There has been enough to pick salad every 2 days.

The lettuces are all in the gaps between the tulips. They don’t need a lot of space since I’m not planning to let them grow to full size. Once the tulip leaves are yellow then I will remove them and try adding some lettuce seeds to get the next round going.

We tried indoor seeding this winter but it didn’t give us a head start outside. In about 4-5 weeks the directly sowed seeds have caught up in size to the ones we started indoors in mid March. Next year we will sow seeds straight outside and start earlier in the season.

No new building has gone in this area, for the past two weeks we’ve spent plenty of time here just looking at how everything is changing. We are all learning together. I am also not comfortable digging 2 ft down where there may be irrigation lines to put posts up for a deer fence. I’m brainstorming a different idea.

This kale plant was from last summer and survived the winter and continues to bloom with hundreds of yellow flowers. We see bees going from one flower to the next every time we are outside. The seed pods are starting to form too.

I added 2 blueberry bushes and tomato plants in the pots along this fence line. I’m hoping that these will be foods that my kids will actually eat! These pots were what the trees (that I showed last post) came in. I’m going to build a couple of planters along this edge similar to what I built in ORC Spring 2017 at our last house.

We also added some cucumber seeds in the raised beds. It’s so incredible to see the leaves pop up. It looked like nothing was happening and then suddenly these just seemed to appear!

   

The mint has come back from this box! I guess I never got rid of it but that’s fine with us, at least we can make the most of this raised bed by growing kale and swiss chard here.

A reminder of how the back raised bed was full of overgrown mint when we moved in last summer.

Here’s a selection of the rainbow of swiss chards growing – Candy Cane & Bright Lights.

This is how the kale and swiss chard looked 2 weeks after planting the seedlings that I bought.

This is 2 months after planting the seedlings. Some of the swiss chard was turning yellow from bugs so we are now picking it smaller but meanwhile the kale remains nearly indestructible.

We are feeling pretty lucky to be enjoying fresh garden salads. Salad dressing is one of my Mum’s specialties – this one is based on her Honey Dijon Dressing.

There are also beautiful peonies, poppies and many other plants around the yard from previous owners that I am loving and have inspired some floral arrangements. 

There is so much to learn in the garden. Also the timing of this Spring One Room Challenge being later in the season means there’s way more to show as a transformation even though nature itself is doing the work, not me.

To see what projects everyone else is working click here.

 

 

ORC Week #4- Herb Growing Tips

This week for the One Room Challenge update (where I’m working on our vegetable garden) I have some tips for growing herbs from Isabelle at Paradise Herbs.

Isabelle and her partner Rob, moved from Switzerland to BC last year to start an herb farm. They also have animals, fruit trees and grow vegetables while using regenerative farming practices.

Herbs are so easy to grow and so expensive to buy, and they add so much flavor to a meal. I think a small balcony herb garden could benefit a lot of people.

Herb tips

– If you have a balcony and limited space, I would take 2 window boxes to plant two sets of herbs. Parsley, marjoram, savory and basil for example all take rich soil and lots of sun, so any normal potting soil will do and plant them in the sun. Some small rocks or sand in the bottom would help with drainage though. All of those herbs, except the parsley, are annual and will need to be planted again next year if you leave the box outside. However, if you bring the box inside over the winter, you’ll have parsley at least all winter too.

In the other box, I’d put perennial herbs that like good drainage and put half sand and half soil in the box. Perennial herbs that like good drainage are rosemary, thyme, lemon thyme, sage and oregano. This box should be brought inside at least its first winter (if growing from seed) and especially if you want to enjoy these herbs in the winter.

– You can grow herbs from seed but they require sometime up to 3 weeks to germinate, so do not hesitate to plant them any season inside and expect 80% germination with most herb seeds (50% with rosemary). Within a year though, your rosemary will be 20cm high even from seed.

– Lastly, if you want mint or lemon balm, plant them in a third box alone, otherwise they will take over all the other herbs in the box.

Perennial Herbs:

• Rosemary
• Thyme
• Lemon Thyme
• Sage
• Oregano
• Parsley

More behind the scenes from the long farming days and what Paradise Herbs is working on can be found on Instagram below: 

Fresh herbs make simple food feel fancy and even if you don’t have a lot of space, they can be planted in pots to enjoy as Isabelle explained.

Since we’re all spending more time at home cooking, here’s a simple recipe based on Whitewater Cooks ‘Cool Sesame Miso Noodle Salad‘. I love Whitewater Cooks and their recipes that are healthy, often plant based and uncomplicated to make but so delicious. They’re also based in BC near Nelson and have several cookbooks available.

 

I’m not a food blogger – mealtime is too chaotic at our house to be taking decent photos but this recipe is so simple, summery & satisfying that I had to share. I modified it to only use basic pantry staples that are livened up with the addition of fresh herbs & leafy greens.

Dressing:

• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 cup rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp curry powder
• 1/2 vegetable oil

Method: Mix dressing ingredients and add to cooked & cooled spaghetti noodles- (run them under cold water) before serving. Toss with fresh green vegetables and chives. Add chopped nuts and protein as desired. Keep the extra dressing in the fridge and you’ll be ready for another quick meal.

Right now in our garden everything is growing and the kids are enjoying picking and sometimes eating the leafy greens.

My older son loves going out to pick our salad greens and loading up this colander before mealtime. Now of course I wish he would eat them!

These are a couple of books that I have found to be useful resources. Edible Landscaping by Senga Lindsay has lots of different edible garden styles that look good and covers everything from rooftop gardens to potager to urban gardening ideas. Edible Spots & Pots by Stacey Hirvela has information about planting combinations, how to harvest herbs and which choices make the most sense to plant.

While my One Room Challenge is about the vegetable garden area I am also going to plant these trees and grasses. This size of pine was much easier to bring in the car than the 6 foot cedars I planted to create a hedge at our last house.

I figure that this is the ideal time to plant trees since there will be no vacation plans so the trees can be watered daily to become established.

To see what everyone else is up to for the One Room Challenge click here.

ORC Week #3 – Vegetable Garden

This week I’m sharing some vegetable garden progress. I’ve been dabbling in growing vegetables and flowers for a few years and every summer I try to learn something new, however my knowledge is still very basic.

These are some of the doube early and parrot tulips that I planted in the fall. I filled one planter bed with about 100 tulips bulbs plus I tried adding some garlic too. In the springtime I love to be able to cut flowers from the garden before planting vegetables.

One thing I learned the hard way before is to leave the tulip leaves until they turn yellow. As tempting as it is to tidy up the leaves they are needed to feed the bulb for the next year, otherwise there will be no flowers the next year.

Now that the tulips are almost done I’ve added some spinach where there were some gaps and I direct sowed some kale seeds as well.

Spinach is supposed to do better in cooler weather so I put some here in one corner of the box with the tulips (I still have to paint this side of the planter).

This is about one week after putting the seeds directly into the soil. I figure I have the seeds left and the space so we’ll see what happens. Growing from seed was a first this year and while it was exciting to watch them grow throughout March and April indoors, they haven’t been very successful.

I ended up turning to store bought these seedlings to get a jump start on the limited growing season in Canada. I definitely have a new appreciation for farmers and growers.

These are the seedlings from the nursery first planted.

Now the swiss chard and kale are filling in. I painted these raised beds with dirt in them so it wasn’t the best job but it’s better than they were before.

Also these chives came back from last year, somethingI didn’t know they did. This kale made it through winter and now we’re hoping that these flowers will turn to seed.

A reminder of what the yard looked like last summer.

Back in the early days at our previous home I would plant kale, swiss chard and brussel sprouts in the gaps between the limelight hydrangeas and cedar hedge that I planted. The trees were small enough that there were still big enough gaps between them to let enough sun in.

We also had success with planting zucchini in random spots in the yard too…like this giant one below!

So if you have an outdoor space but don’t have planters maybe there’s somewhere you could plant directly in the ground. Swiss chard and kale are so easy.

Swiss Chard in September, grown beside a cedar hedge.

 

Next week I will have some advice from my friend Isabelle of Paradise Herbs here to give some tips for growing. She has recently set up a farm in the Slocan Valley BC where they promote self-sufficient living and sell culinary & medicinal herbs.

Last summer Isabelle was visiting for a girls weekend here and suggested getting the overgrown mint out of the raised bed in our yard. That idea prompted me to move it into my front hanging baskets where it can no longer spread out of control – plus it means staying home and using what we already have.

To see what everyone else has been working on for the One Room Challenge click here.

 

One Room Challenge – Spring 2020

It’s One Room Challenge time again and I am joining with a small outdoor project to refresh what we already have and prepare our vegetable garden.

Everything is different right now but one thing is the same – paint can make a huge difference to change what you already have and also to maintain materials outdoors. A lot of people are also more interested in growing their own seeds (myself included) so I’ll be sharing some of my trials and errors with gardening over the past few years.

One thing I have learned is that kale is so easy and provides green vegetables for months!

Kale from my garden – it’s so easy to grow!

Here’s a quick refresh of my ORC 2017 where I built my own planters and trellis:

How to Build Cedar Planters

 

This time we already have raised beds so I will just be changing the colour. One difference about our new home is that we have deer that come into the backyard and eat the garden so I will be figuring out a way to build a fence around this garden area. This was last summer with my Father in Law just after we moved in, late July.

Last year I naively thought that this little bit of chicken wire would keep out the deer. Two days later they had decimated the vegetables that I had planted.

I moved what was left of the vegetables into one box and made this ugly arrangement that did keep out the deer and did grow a ton of lettuce and kale.

Vegetables thrive here in the Okanagan. This little raised bed produced these large romaine leaves, swiss chard and kale despite being planted at the end of July.

This year I want to maximize what I grow in these three raised beds while making it prettier and more functional.

Right next to the raised beds is a hot tub that is in good condition inside, but the outer wood needs a new stain to protect it. This umbrella got destroyed by an animal last summer too so I am hoping to build a large pergola for shade.

Project Plan:

• New coat of paint on previously painted wood raised beds
• Sand & restain cedar
• Build a fence for the vegetable garden
• Build a pergola for shade

This is the back of the house, these sliding doors lead to the kitchen/dining/living room area. There is a large concrete slab patio which is the perfect blank canvas.

I love the look of these simplified pergolas that are an extended size. I would like to build something similar to these quick sketches and images below…we’ll see what ends up happening.

My brother now lives 5 hours away and I was hoping he could visit and help me but we’ll have to see what travel restrictions are looking like in June to know whether or not that can happen.

Fixer Upper

 

Humphrey Munson

 

Meanwhie these kale seedlings are getting ready for the garden soon. This year I had planned to try growing seeds for the first time. So far, so good but I have a better appreciation of buying plants now!

Lots of other people are working on projects big and small in their homes, here’s the link to see what they’re up to.

 

DIY Aged Terra Cotta Pots

Do you add more houseplants & flowers to your home this time of year?

Terra cotta pots are a classic & inexpensive option for plants but the ordinary colour isn’t my style. Doing a quick paint job adds that aged look.

Here’s a look at the before and after – which only took a couple of minutes and hardly needed any supplies.

Supplies:

• Terra Cotta Pot (from a home improvement store, dollar store)
• Paint Brush (any size or shape)
• White, Cream or Grey Paint ( I use my leftover house paint samples)
• Newspaper or scrap paper to dab paint

 

The trick to this look is using a dry brush technique. Dip the paintbrush into a tiny bit of paint, then dab most of the paint off onto the scrap paper. Apply the paint to one spot on the pot and then rub it with the brush and gently spread the paint outwards until no more paint is left. Continue these steps until the whole pot is covered.

Using very little paint is key.

Here they are finished and below is a pot I did a few years ago with white paint. This larger herb pot was left outside over a couple of summers too so that’s what added to the patina.

Well spring may be a few months away still but it feels more lively in here with extra plants & forced bulbs around. 

ORC – Final Reveal – Part 2

Here is the final reveal of the planter box and lattice that I built for the One Room Challenge.

In the boxes I planted several types of kale since I know that they grow well in this spot and will provide us with steady greens into September. There are also 4 clematis plants to grow up the lattice and vinca vines to spill down the front of the boxes.

Here’s a reminder of what the fence looked like before. 

Now is the part that I love, watching the vines fill up the lattice and having a constant supply of leafy greens for the next few months.

The Before & After of this project is also on Apartment Therapy.

More photos of what this area looked like before I started and inspiration can be found here:

Week One – One Room Challenge

Photo Instructions on How to Build This:

 

ORC – Week 6 Reveal- Part 1

The 6 weeks of the One Room Challenge are over now and it’s time for the final reveal. My reveal is going to be a two-part post because I’m not quite done building and we were still having frost warnings last week so I’ll be waiting to plant. The planters are currently in place but in the photo above I drew in the lattice since it’s not done yet.

This was some prep work along the fenceline where the raised beds will be going. Since they’re open on the bottom I dug up the grass where the boxes will be sitting.

Constructing the boxes was so smooth and quick but staining them and the lattice strips have taken much longer than I had anticipated.

Here is the  14 feet of raised planters in place in the garden. This space already feels more organized and expansive with the black boxes.

The lattice is coming together and I hope to have it installed within the next 2 weeks. Since it is 8 feet tall I need a hand putting it in place plus there is still more lattice that needs to be stained.

In the meantime, by propping up some wood it gives me an idea of the space will look once the full screen is installed.

The final reveal is now on Apartment Therapy

Before & After: Plants and Privacy, What More Could a Backyard Need?

 

To see how the other One Room Challenges turned out click here for the final reveals. It’s incredible to see how much changed in such a short time.

One Room Challenge – Week 1

Over the next 6 weeks I’m going to join in as a guest for the One Room Challenge. Basically, over the course of 6 weeks, participants share the progress of their space, broken down into weekly blog updates, for a final reveal on May.11th.

This was a last minute decision for me to join so I’ll be sharing progress on a backyard project I’d already been planning to do. My plan does include plants so I may have to do another reveal later in the summer once things have filled in and leafed out.

 

 

This was our yard when we first moved in, during summer 2014. The backyard shares fences with 6 other neighbours and there was not one single plant or tree here even though the house was nearly 20 years old.

At least one good thing about this was that I could choose whatever I wanted to plant. Below is the garden in August last summer (2016). There is no privacy in our yard so my focus was on getting all of the plants growing first before thinking about building a deck or putting in a patio.

I’m a new gardener and absolutely love planning what to put in the garden and seeing it grow. Along the fence by the back last year I turned this empty space into a spot where herbs, swiss chard and kale thrived. It wasn’t the prettiest setup but it added a lot of salad greens and was a good spot for vegetables that grow in the shade.

My plan this year is to build a long and narrow planter box along the edge of the fence where I can plant vegetables and have vines growing up trellises to create a green screen.

In the winter when all of the leaves are gone, the black trellis and black planters will be more interesting to look at than the plain fence. I would really love to stain the whole fence dark grey but right now I’m not prepared to talk to all 6 neighbours who share to the fence to ask if they’re okay with that.

This is a photo of the planned area that I took yesterday – we’re still waiting for spring here in the GTA.

These are some inspiration images of black planter boxes and privacy screens. Follow along on Pinterest for more images of beautiful gardens.

 

Below are the photos from my mood board which are linked to the original sources.

Elana Nathan

Interior Salvage Design

Kriste Michelini via Gardenista

To see the other guest participants and 20 featured designers click here.