Autumn Garden Prep

We moved in during the Spring.

Sometime during the summer, I decided to start working on my garden. 

The 'garden' is overgrown and, as expected, would need LOTS of elbow grease. 

Before Before

This is the garden as we moved in. It's an area of the yard that is divided by 'railway ties'. 

Before

The Garden after a little elbow grease. 

I removed some of the 'trees' (my mil wanted one of them, but I had let it sit too long) 

I tried to dig the garden over, but the land was too rocky. 

Then.... 

the garden sat all summer and I did nothing. 

Today

I took some action. After some internet searching, the final concluding idea was to rebuild my garden.

The land in PG is too rocky. There is no point in me digging it up. It's too much effort that I don't have. 

First

Cardboard. 

We bought a bed a month ago. The cardboard is too big for our little car. So it's still hanging out in the garage. Perfect for my garden. I covered up the old weeds with the cardboard. They suggest that this will prevent sunshine which will kill everything underneath! Whoot. 

I also watered the cardboard. Because then I thought it'd stay in place better. 

Second

Eric and I took advantage of the trees in our front yard. 

We bought some rakes and raked the front yard. I took some containers and moved all of the leaves to the back yard. And piled them high. Over the winter. This will sit. 

Come next Spring, we will buy some pretty rocks to build an edge to the garden and then bring in some dirt to build up the garden! 

A Few more  pictures of our adventures

I can't wait to get my sony nex 5r!!! IF only it would come into stores! Jeez louise. I might just have to wait till my trip to Vancouver next week. 

A Few Blogs/websites on this idea!

Birds & Blooms

Chowhound Forum

Building Raised Garden

Treehugger

Stay Posted

Once the snow falls. And then melts.

I (and hopefully my hubbie) will start building our raised garden bed. 

Maybe for next Thanksgiving we will have some fresh veggies to serve straight from the garden! yummm! 

Coffee & Puppy House Training

These little guys (I know, only Daisy is seen here) HATE COFFEE! We discovered this recently when sitting around and we offered them a smell of our coffee... because could, and they 'ran away' from us. 

So after some internet research and some waving of coffee under their noises we came to the deduction that dogs just don't like coffee. 

Our puppies are still in the process of being housebroken (AGH!!!)

They have a favorite corner that we can't block off like we did around the TV (because of chairs and lamps, etcetra). This corner is where they love to poop and pee because we can't see them to scold their little asses outside. So, Hubby proposed we use some of the coffee we don't like to turn them off the area. I've been trying to use Knock Out spray on their stains to lift the odors and ultimately not 'encourage' continue use, but it wasn't discouraging. 

So I deep cleaned my carpets, let them dry, and then I sprinkled ground coffee over the area. Like so:

I let it sit for a couple of hours and vacuumed. 

My house smelt like coffee. No complaints here. 

I put everything back. 

It's been two weeks and they haven't done anything in that space. 

Daisy even like to curl up against the wall. She doesn't anymore.

I think I might do my whole carpet.... ;) 

Anyone else have any tricks and tips to house training your puppies?

And don't forget about the Friday Social Hops

One Small Project

Look what I installed! <3 Ikea! So glad I got to visit when in Vancouver! Too bad I had to leave some stuff behind