Gutter Garden and what's popping up

Gutter Garden!
Someone posted a link to this idea on Facebook a couple weeks back and I thought it was the perfect solution to our tiny yard. Buy 10 foot lengths of gutter, caps and clips. Attach a 10 foot length of board to your fence, attach gutter to the boards. Drill drainage holds in the bottom of the gutters, fill with dirt and plant shallow-rooted vegetables.

2 gutters on the right side of the yard:



And two on the left. I planted the right side ones almost 2 weeks ago. On Sunday I will plant the left side so that we have veggies growing at different times and to prolong the harvest. EDIT! I decided to plant this side today!




Week 1! Here comes the... ummmm... now what did I plant there??? I think those are onions! NOPE! They are radishes!



Onions!


Week 2! There is lettuce, radishes and onions in the top one:



Spinach, lettuce and beets in the bottom one.
I think.
I can't remember where I planted everything but those are the veggies I planted!

When they say to plant the seeds 2.5 cm apart, they weren't kidding. I have zero patience for something like that and just sprinkled seeds in there and covered them up. Now they are coming up in bunches. I'm going to have to get some tweezers and start thinning them out!



I can't believe how everything is coming! I planted everything less than 2 weeks ago. I'll post more pictures as the weeks go by so you can see how big they will get in the gutters. The key is to use shallow-rooted vegetables (google "shallow root vegetables" to find out what to plant), they need very little room to grow.


Just some other things growing around the yard:

Peas in the flower garden. I've been trying to grown a cedar in this spot for the last 5 years and every year it dies. I gave up this year and planted peas there instead. So far, so good!



Just some purple I-don't-know-what!
I know what now! It's Lobelia erinus! Thanks you!!


Gorgeous rose:


Lavender:


"Fibre Optic" ornamental grass:


Daisies:

Devon Minor Baseball - Rookie #1 team

Just a few pictures from my little guy's baseball game earlier this week. I was playing around with special effects in photoshop to give them a lot of contrast and saturation. I kinda like the effect in sports shots.

Here is is catching for the very first time. He did great!





Can you see the ball? He hit it out of the park!



okay, not out of the part but....



He got a triple!

Oasis

We finally, FINALLY broke down and bought ourselves a cushy patio furniture set and splurged on a 12 X 11 foot gazebo with a huge ceiling for the deck. Together, this makes the deck feel like our own little slice of heaven. It's literally adding a whole additional room on to our house and we spend every second we can out there. It has mosquito netting curtains so we can have supper out there an not be bothered by the wasps. The furniture is so comfortable, I even fell asleep on the couch out there the other day. It is the perfect place to sit and read a book or just relax with the fam.
Last night we sat under it and listened to the rain and thunder. Total heaven.

Impostor Frankie

My sweet old lady would have turned 18 yesterday. My little guy was so sad, he carried around Impostor Frankie all morning and then put her on my pillow when he had to go to school.



It's been 8 months since she had to go. I miss that cat.

Olympic Torch Relay Day in Devon!

What an exciting day it's been so far. The Olympic Torch made it's way through our town this am. The kids went with their schools to line the streets so Mark and I headed downtown to see the action. It was hard to get any real good shots as there were so many people, someone always getting in the way and everything happened so fast!
Anyway, this was the excitement of the morning. It started at 8:35am and was still kinda dark out at that time.

Here comes the delegation:



Hello, Vancouver people!



This was the bus that carried all the Olympic Torchbearers. They were pretty excited in there!


Coke truck! Everyone likes to see the Coke Truck.




The guy announcing from the RBC truck was VERY happy to see us this morning. He shouted out, "GOOD MORNING DEVON, ONTARIO!!!"
uhh... we're in Alberta, buddy.


Can you see the flame waaaay down there? The bus dropped the first guy off at the start of the route and we could see them light his torch.


Here he comes!


Buddy to the right kept getting in my shot. This was the best I got:


After they went by us the first time, we walked 2 blocks over to see them coming back around the loop. Second pass:




Devon, ALBERTA. He got it right this time!




Superfan:


Last torchbearer:




Fun stuff! That was pretty exciting. I got to see the torch go through Lethbridge when the Olympics was in Calgary in '88. That was 22 years ago! Wonder when the next time Canada will get to host the Olympics? In another 22 years? I'm glad my kids got to see it today, it could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Coldest place in North America

Edmonton was the coldest place in North America yesterday and the second coldest place on earth! That honour went to Dzalinda, Siberia! It was -46.1C with a windchill of -58.6C. Siberia was -48C. We must be some hardy folks! Here is the article from the Edmonton Sun:

http://www.edmontonsun.com/news/edmonton/2009/12/13/12141366.html


And a couple pictures of my frozen windows from the inside. I wasn't going out there to take pictures!

'Tis the Season

for taking lots of pictures!