What a difference a year (or two ... or three) makes ...

... three years, a retaining wall, some landscaping mix, some plants, fertiliser and water!

Started out with this:

January 2011

The house before the wall:

October 2012

Then got the wall:

October 2012

Then finally got the plants in

February 2013

And the latest view:

January 2014

Nowhere near self sufficient ...

In the last post, things were looking promising in the veggie garden with everything having the beginnings of a decent crop.

I'm not sure what happened but those two cucumbers were the only two to grow past the swollen flower stage.  They tasted good but they were nowhere enough to feed the family for even one meal :-(

The corn plants all died within days of each other without producing a single 'proper' ear of corn between them.  I think the dogs may have had something to do with that but without proof, Peter won't accept that his precious princess Xena can do any wrong :-P

Speaking of Xena, she ended up at the emergency vet in the middle of the night recently.  She had been sick all over the house from both ends (lovely clean up job for yours truly 'cos everyone else in this house is a wuss) and when we took her into the vet, they thought she was having a allergic reaction to something.  We couldn't work out what it might have been but after everything was all over and they had taken the kidneys of our first born to sell on the black market to cover part of the cost she was home safe and sound, I caught her carrying baby green tomatoes off the plants into the house to hide for later.  Made me wonder if that was what had made her sick and when I caught her trying to bring leaves in as well, I figured it was time to give up and just pull the plants out. (For those who don't know, tomato plant leaves are toxic to humans and many animals, including silly little white dogs named Xena).

So, all in all, our crop of two cucumbers, a multitude of minuscule inedible carrots, no corn, no tomatoes, no watermelons, dead herbs and one single solitary apple can be deemed a failure in the 'feeding ourselves' stakes.

The solitary yummy apple from this first 'crop'

The first of many more apples ... I hope!

I do have plans for another apple tree to hopefully increase our crop of apples (via cross pollination) for next season but am still trying to find one that won't grow to triffid proportions.

Here's to next season .....

Not quite self sufficient

.. but getting there!

^^ baby carrots in front with polka dot sweet corn behind ^^

 

 ^^ tomatoes and cucumbers at back with lettuce at front ^^

 

 ^^ the Pinkabelle apple tree i got for Christmas from Clare with it's single apple hanging in there ^^

 

^^ one of the watermelon vines (may have missed the best season but we'll give it a go anyway) ^^

 

 ^^ baby cucumber ^^

 

^^ not-so-baby-but-not-quite-ready-to-eat cucumber ^^

 

 

My tradie's curse strikes again ...

I just don't seem to have much luck picking tradies to do work at this house. 

The concreters were dodgy as slightly lacking in customer service and work ethics (still waiting for them to come back and seal the coloured concrete "liquid limestone" and we've been here 18 months!)

I think the painters I chose to paint all the areas with high ceilings used water based sealer instead of the oil based sealer I know the walls needed .. but we'll just have to wait and see on that one.

And then there's the landscaper.  He seemed like such a good bloke (and still does) but I think he's just too young/disorganised/lacks time management skills to be in business for himself.  I suppose I should have learned from how long the front yard took to be done but I thought I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and booked him to do the back yard, which he started in November. 

I don't know if he underquoted or was just sick of the job but he just really wasn't interested in finishing it off.  It took us threatening to post nasty things the truth on his facebook page for him to finally come back and finish the job ... in February!  It isn't done to the standard that we would have liked but it is finally done so I'm just going to live with it and see what happens ...

Dividing line

When planning the back yard, I had the grand idea of building some sort of timber screens to .. you know .. 'screen' the view of the clothesline and the (eventual) garden tools shed.  Unfortunately we couldn't seem to agree on which way the timber slats should go.

I was leaning liking the horizontal slat look and as we don't have small children any more, though that it would definitely be the way to go.  The fact that is the current fashion may have influenced me slightly but hey, the heart wants what it wants, and I wanted horizontal.

Husband darling, however, couldn't (or wouldn't) share my fashionable vision and was insisting on vertical slats .. you know .. like the proverbial white picket fence.  Yee-uck!!

To save the cost of marital couselling, we both agreed to let go of our respective fence dreams and compromise.  The eventual choice was to use the same sort of fencing as on the boundaries but with a slight tweak.  The fact that this fencing was (probably) cheaper and far less labour intensive than any of our previous options, hubby was given the go ahead by yours truly to install it ... yesterday.  (We all know that when I want something done, I want it done yesterday and that I am not to be expected to expend any effort whatsoever .. it is to just happen!)

Despite my (rather grandiose) idea of having someone else install it to save hubby the hassle on his very short times at home, I didn't get around to getting someone in.  So my darling, very handy, hubby got to work with our boys and installed one side of the fence in a morning.  I did have to expend some effort myself but it was well worth it!!

The other side will ahve to wait until we can get the rest of the necessary parts .. a couple of uprights.  Due to this fence colour not being commonly used .. except for in our estate where everyone's fences are the same colour .. we have to wait a bit longer for them to make some more.  As soon as it is done, I'll post more pictures.

Woohoo .. first haircut!

... for the lawn that is!  Looks so much nicer like this .. it almost looks even!!

All we need is ... dirt

The back yard garden beds are finally finished but unfortunately a couple are still empty:

the alfresco corner

 

across the back

 

down the side to the garage

Another brick in another wall

Now that the front yard is done, it's time for our landscaper to start on the back yard ... yay soon to be no more sand!!

We tidied up the yard a bit and tried to work out whether we wanted curbing or actual blocks and decided on blocks to make it easier to take care of the edges.  Once that decision was made, it was straight into the clearing and construction:

The alfresco corner

Across the back fence

Down the side to the garage

The Wall ... continued

The wall is coming along nicely despite our landscaper having slightly overbooked himself and rushing off to finish a few other little jobs.

Some progress shots:

And here's where we're he's up to at the end of today's efforts:

 

 

Next step ... is the steps!  Woohoo!!

Channelling Pink Floyd in the front yard ...

... "all in all, you're it's just a - nother brick in the wall".

As shown in a previous post, we had decided to have the front retaining wall built out of leftover house bricks to use them up and try to save a bit of money on materials.

After wasting 6 weeks trying to find a bricklayer who would

1. actually answer their phone
2. agree to come out and give me a quote
3. actually turn up at said appointment time all
4. be able to do the retaining wall job sometime before Armageddon

... I finally gave up and called a couple of landscapers.

Then after going through almost the exact same process over two weeks this time, I found a young bloke who has just moved into our estate, turned up exactly when he said he would and gave us a reasonable quote, so I grabbed him with both hands (not literally!) and gave him the job.

Before he could start, Peter had the unenviable job of removing the last dodgy contractor's handiwork from the path to the front door.  It wasn't done properly to start with and the guys disappeared of the face of the earth after doing it so we Peter got out his pneumatic thingumajig and tried to break up the concrete.  Twenty minutes later he annouced he was going out to the local hire shop to get, quote "a proper jack hammer" unquote as his one wasn't big enough to do the job (so many jokes .. so little time!).  This is the end result of his venting his manly frustrations on temporarily unyielding concrete:

The landscaper started the front yard today and we've already run into a few issues.  I wanted to have the wall run across the middle of the yard to make it two levels (just to add a bit of visual interest), but when they started digging for the foundations, they found the stormwater pipe, electrical pipe and to top it all off, the phone cable running right through at the wrong heights.  As he explained it to me, I could have the wall where I wanted it but I'd just have all those pipes sticking straight out the front of my nice new wall.

I pouted and sulked and whinged and whined but eventually accepted that the wall would have to go right on the footpath boundary ... waaaah!  I do believe I heard the words "suck it up princess"  more than once from my darling husband, but chose to ignore him for his own safety.

Once that decision was totally taken out of my hands accepted, they got stuck in and here's where they're up to at the end of the first day:

Looking good so far ...

Backyard progress ... sort of!

We haven't managed to put in any gardens yet but I just had to get outside and do some 'gardening' last weekend. 

It all started when our new dog (Xena, a stray who adopted us .. not the other way round) decided to dig a hole down the laundry side of the house with her 'cone of shame' (that she was wearing after being spayed).  This resulted in Brutus getting under the fence and ending up in the neighbour's backyard playing with her dog, Stella. 

Realising that if little tiny Xena could dig a big enough hole for Brutus to get under the fence, then she would be able to get under there too, we decided to put some sort of barrier along the bottom of the colorbond fence.  (The fact that my sister's puppy, Brando, was coming to stay the following weekend may have been a factor too ... definitely couldn't let him get out .. I can't run fast enough to catch him!)

I found some leftover old conveyor belting at work that I thought might work, so I brought it home.  I figured it was tough enough to withstand being chewed and scratched a bit but not too sharp or hard that it would hurt the dogs.  Peter and the boys attached it to the bottom of the fence and it's working a treat so far.

Only problem was that once I had mostly levelled out the laundry side, I just kept going around the back and then down most of the other side.  The boys weren't very impressed as they were roped in to help but I let them off after about three hours!

Here's the roughly levelled out laundry side before the conveyor belting went on the fence:

 

This is the rough layout of where I want the garden beds to go along the back of the house (the bricks along the left side represent the edging) and where the screen(s) are going to go to block the view of the clothesline and what will eventually be some sort of overflow garden storage area (by the pile of bricks in the background).  The rest will be lawn with a small garden bed under the window to shade it in summer time:

I would like this to be a planter box the same height as the (orange) retaining wall so I can plant this tipuana tree in it to shade the alfresco in summer.  Tipuanas are deciduous so it will allow the sun in during winter .. just don't tell Pete it will drop all it's leaves every year or he'll probably try to kill it!

We are still trying to decide what to do down the living area side of the house.  Peter wants to pave the area just outside the roller door so we can park the trailer there, but we have enough space for it to live out the front so I'm trying to talk him out of bringing it out the back.  There will be garden beds along the fence but none next to the house ... at this stage ... as the rest will be lawn to reduce the reflected heat:

Now for some time and money to finish it off ...

Decisions, decisions

Even though landscaping for the front yard was included in the price of the land, any hardscaping (retaining walls etc) had to be completed by us before the landscapers would even come out to look at the front yard. 

So we have been out the front to try and decide what we're going to do ... leave it sloping and try to get a lawn to grow or put in a retaining wall with the hundreds of spare bricks and just have garden with no lawn.

Most of the other houses on our side of the street have some sort of retaining wall .. usually limestone blocks which Pete doesn't like ... and the few that don't have walls, have mostly lawn that isn't looking the best.  The lawn not looking good could be due to many factors:  not being gardeners, not enough water, no fertiliser, or just the fact that the estate's landscapers put roll-on lawn straight on top of whatever sand is out the front with no preparation/wetting agent/compost/soil improver. 

Enough whingeing about the 'landscapers' ... if we can call them that .. they're just installers as they don't seem to have any idea about how to make plants/lawn grow.

We brought some of the bricks out to the front to try and work out what sort of wall we would like to have built and managed to decide on the following layout:

The gap is for the front steps I want .  I've always disliked having to walk up the driveway to get to the front door so I'm finally going to get steps .. woohoo!

 Mind you, this is the third time we've changed our minds so far so it may end up being different again in a week's time!