Home Improvements

We’ve been all about the home improvements Chez Diana of late. Spent the weekend clearing out the basement in preparation for turning it into a family room (with an entire wall of built in bookshelves, be still my beating heart!). We’ve also been rearranging things upstairs — getting new furniture, looking at painting options. I redid the shelves in my kitchen cabinets because I was so frustrated by the utter lack of storage (The previous owner of the house installed new cabinets, but failed to put shelves in them. What’s up with that?) Next up: installing a pot rack and a spice rack and a bookshelf for my cookbooks. I think I’m also going to be installing shelves to display my collection of gorgeous teaware.

We got a freaking awesome new steampunk-nautical wall clock:

And of course, I’ve been working on my garden:

Isn’t that insane? I mean, seriously, compare it to my last attempt. So, what do we have in this monstrosity?

• Yellow summer squash
• Zucchini
• Spinach
• Arugula
• Boston lettuce
• Red lettuce
• Marigolds
• Oregano
• Sage
• Basil, basil, basil!
• Cucumbers
• Approximately one metric ton of tomato plants

So for those of you following along at home, that’s the basil over on the far right, the zucchini immediately to the left, all the salad greens front and center, and then squash and cucumber all mixed up on the far left. In the back are the killer tomatoes. Everything (but the greens and herbs) is staked and trellised to within an inch of its life, as I’m clearly growing vertically instead of crawling vines.

The tomatoes are a shock to me. See, I’m such a newbie gardener, all I knew was that tomatoes don’t reseed, so I went out and bought another five tomato plants this year (sun gold grapes, which are phenomenally delicious, and beefsteaks). Well, what I didn’t realize was that though they don’t last more than a year, they are self seeding, and I might have lost a tomato or two (or two dozen) off the vines last year. So, even after Sailor Boy tilled the soil for me, I wound up with something more like a dozen tomato plants, and newbie gardener and recovering black thumb that I am, I didn’t have the heart to yank any of them. Which is why I have a tomato in teh middle of my squash patch. I even have tomato plants growing OUTSIDE the raised bed. Because of the aforementioned tilling, I have no idea what kind of tomatoes these plants are going to end up producing. Could be more sungolds, or black cherokees, or plum, which never did produce last year. We shall see, and soon.

You may recall that last year I lost all my squash and zucchini to powdery mildew. Luckily, there is no sign of that yet this year (knock wood) which I think is due to my taking out a tree (it fell over) that often shaded and dripped on the garden. Said tree removal is also probably the reason my garden is so insane these days. And the basil is doing WAY better in-ground than it did in pots on my porch. (I may have to try it with my struggling mint as well, though everyone tells me I’d be crazy to plant mint in the ground.)

There are also bell peppers in there, but I fear they are too shaded by the massive squash leaves to survive.

I also have some potted lovelies — strawberries and hot peppers:

I find it very satisfactory to garden, especially right now, because it’s the favorite activity of the main character of my current book. I feel very conected to her when I’m up to my elbows in soil.

Any home projects keeping you busy?