The Big Harvest

Canning is one of those things I vaguely remember my grandmother doing, but had never tried myself.  Well, I can now say that I've done it.  So far this year, I've put away 21 pints of pickled beets and 7 pints of pickled dill carrots.  All contents are fresh from our garden this year, which makes it even more exciting.  Next year, I'll have a better idea come garden planning time, now that I know what I can more easily preserve.

The canning was all made easier with our new American 921 pressure canner that's capable of doing 14 pints or 7 quarts.  This weekend I'm going to give an Apple chutney a try.  I'll post the results.

The New Cooker

New gas range and double ovens

It's been a long time in the making, but we now have maple butcher block countertops, a new gas range and a set of double ovens installed!  It's been one heck of a productive week for the kitchen remodel project.  We've had a couple of days to test the ovens and the cooktop, and we're pretty pleased.  It's nice to see a project come together and to be able to reap all the benefits.  Next up is the hard part -- deciding on an accent art tile for the backsplash to mix with our white subway tile.  Oh, and all the trim and finishing the cabinets and painting them.  All small things :-)

2011 Garden Photos

Here are a few photos of the garden during the 2011 season.  Enjoy ~

Vegetable Garden 2011

Picture of the new Potager garden taken in August, 2011.

It was certainly not the best gardening year that I've ever had, but I blame it on the lack-luster weather in the Pacific Northwest and not my skill.  Okay, so maybe it was a mix of both.

We put the Potager to good use this year, and it supplied us with plenty of onions, leeks, chard, lettuce, spinach, and even a handful of tomatoes!

Before picture taken on March, 2011.

The space has come a long ways over the last couple of years.  This spot was the former driveway, which we removed a couple of years ago.  It took quite a bit of time to get the space turned into what it is today.  Just earlier this year, we were building raised beds out of cedar timbers and hauling in dirt by the wheel barrow load.

Cardoons and Calendulas

I'm about ready to retire the garden for the year.  Soon, I'll be mulching beds and getting them ready for next spring.  Then, we'll start the process over again.  Hopefully next year mother nature will bring us a decent spring.

Side Yard Progress

We're making more progress on the side yard on the North side of the house.  Side yards are difficult because of the long narrow shotgun shape.  There were a couple of goals in mind for this project.  First, we wanted to landscape it in a way that would allow us to build up dirt along the foundation of the house.  This should help prevent the foundation from taking in so much water.  Second, we wanted to tie it in with the back yard and give it some elevation change.  We did this by building up the path in areas using fill and landscape rock.  We're going to hold off and landscape this area with woodland plants next year.  This year, we are laying mulch to hold back the weeds until it is planted.

View from the front-yard.  Through this gate is the side yard.

View of the side yard through the gate.  

Picture earlier this year when we started this project.  Here you can see how we've started to build up dirt along the foundation.

Kitchen Pot Rack

We recently completed and installed a new kitchen pot rack.  We spent a good deal of time searching the web looking at other homemade and custom built pot racks.  We ultimately settled on a simple design using materials we already had available.  The 4x4 vertical posts are recycled from a banister railing we picked up.  The remaining lumber is mostly scraps we had laying around.  The brass bars are a Second Use find, and complement the brass we've used throughout the kitchen design.  We built the rack perfectly centered around the light fixture which we just recently installed.

Summertime

Well, it is finally summertime in the Pacific Northwest.  Like clockwork, the rain stopped, the clouds parted, and mother nature switched on the sun.

We haven't posted many blog entries lately, but rest assured we haven't been bored.  Here are some  projects that have been keeping us entertained:


Kitchen Cabinets

 Above: Building and gluing the kitchen counter tops together.  This counter will surround the farm sink we've installed.  The counters are being built from recycled hard maple butcher-block.

 Above: Both the top and the bottom on the counter will be sealed with Waterlox.  Applying Waterlox is a long process that takes 5+ coats over the course of several months. 

Above: Set bolts that are helping to reinforce the glue joins on the newly assembled counter tops.  These will be on the underneath side of the counters.

 Kitchen Pot-Rack

We recently added to our collection of copper pots, and not only do we want to display them, but we want to make them easily accessible in the kitchen.  Having them hang from a rack on the wall just isn't working, since it scars the paint and beats up the drywall.  Therefore, we are designing and building a pot-rack to hang over the island in the kitchen.

Above: Kitchen pot-rack is built from recycled 4x4 timbers from an old banister railing.  Brass bars are something we discovered at Second-Use and just had to have.  Thankfully, we have a purpose for them now.  A set of additional bars will be mounted on the inside for a total of four rows of pot hanging capacity.
Garden Gates

Above: We constructed a fence and garden gate on the North side of the house that matches the one on the South.  I was able to order matching gate hardware from Van Dyke's Restorers.  Next step is to stain the gate and the fence to help preserve the structures.

 Above: It's a fence. 

Above: ... and now it is a gate.  We built this gate to look like a fence panel on the South side of our workshop building.  There is a long strip (30+ feet) that runs alongside our workshop that is perfect to store "stuff".  Now, we can store stuff and we don't have to look at it.  Perfect!

Outdoor Kitchen Dining

This project has been a long time in the making.  This year we hauled in 4 tons and basalt rock, 3 1/2 yards of gravel so that we could finish this project and others.  Now we can step out of our kitchen into our outdoor dining area.  In fact, I'm typing this blog entry sitting at the very table in these photos :-)

 Above: The outdoor kitchen dining area being constructed.  We put in some rock for decoration and a foot bridge over to the orchard area.  We laid underlayment and then put in 5/8 minus gravel.  Unfortunately, we can't use the crushed brick because we can no longer find the product.  Sad.

 Above: Here is the view from our kitchen dining table through the French doors we installed last year. 

Above: The cats seem to approve of the new dining area. 

North-Side of House Landscape

We're building up the dirt against the foundation to help with the drainage problem.  We're installing a path, and building a low area so that the gutter water will have somewhere to go other than into our foundation.  This area will be landscaped with woodland plants sometime next year.

 Above: Lining the path with rock and laying cardboard as weed barrier.

Above: The path raises up almost a foot to create a low spot where water from the gutter can collect during the rain seasons.  I used old broken brick to raise the path height up.  Next step is to pour gravel for the path and mulch the whole area. 

Misc. Other Photos and Projects

 Above: The kitchen potager after one of the coldest Springs on record in the Pacific Northwest.  Not bad.  We won't be getting any tomatoes, but we have more arugula than we know what to do with!

Above: We found this old metal kitchen cabinet that's perfect for our outdoor kitchen.  In the coming weeks we'll be installing the brick patio, install the cabinets and pull the grill down off of the deck.

Above: An arial view of the backyard.