Home Gardens too!

Even though we are both busy with our respective businesses, we've found the time (or rather Steve has taken the time - usually late at night) to start putting in gardens for ourselves around the house.  This is a work in progress, and will take a few seasons to complete.  But anyway, here are more pictures!



This is one of the gardens at the front of the house.  We moved the spirea to the side of the stairs, planted tulips, crocuses and hyacinths and it was so nice to see them coming up.  However, at the time this picture was taken, they were past and the summer flowers were starting to come into bloom.  The flower buds on the spirea were coming along nicely, and the lamium was too.












This is the area along the lane.  Eventually it will be all flowers, but we're putting it in in stages.  This is stage two.








There are two lavender plants and a purple liatris at the back, and 5 daylily plants.  We'll add more once we decide what else we want to put in there.  This is a full sun area so whatever goes in there will have to be able to tolerate all that sun.






Here is the start of the herb garden.  The herbs are pretty small right now, but they'll grow.









And more dianthus.  Maybe next year I can find some carnations, though these smell pretty good too.











I call this the strawberry garden.  It has sage and thyme and rhubarb, but it also has about 5 strawberry plants - some left from last year.  We actually got a couple of strawberries, but the slugs and snails got the rest.
And yes, that is a dragon guarding the garden.  :-D



The front of the house, showing both gardens and the potentilla plants out front.  The flowers are a nice cheerful yellow.









And here we are ready for Canada Day!  The hanging baskets have red and white flowers so are very appropriate, and the flag flies all spring, summer and autumn.

Here we have grapevines by the back door.  Until we know exactly where we want them, this is where we put them.  We expect to put them in the garden centre area, probably along a low fence or trellis.  Or maybe even use them as shade for plants needing more shade than is available.  This photo was taken on June 30th, and they had just been repotted from the containers I purchased them in in mid May.

Here is the white grapevine as it was this evening (July 27th).  Less than a month from the picture above and this is what it looks like now!  WOW!  I've never had grapevines before, but Steve has and he says we may even get grapes this year.  This is still not the final place for them, but it will do for this year and next year they will go into their permanent location.



This is my little container garden from last year.  It doesn't look too bad for not doing anything to it this year.   That is Sean's old wagon in the background.  Where it is now is where the Concord (red) grape will go once Steve gets a bit of time to put it in the bigger pot.





 Some pictures of columbine now.  The first two are similar to the one I posted the closeup of in the previous post but not quite the same.  The third picture is one of that original plant, still flowering after a month.  These photos were taken July 27th.

This is one of the daylilies - the Elegant Candy - very pretty!

















 This is Dragon's Blood Sedum just coming into flower.













And this is a closeup of a flower from the Hosta Francee.














On the right is a grouping of Purple Liatris or Gayfeather.  They've just started to come into flower and soon the whole long flower stalk will be purple!
















On the left is a fall phlox.  We have four different colours - white, pink, red (or deeper pink) and this one.  They smell divine!

Last but not least is the Gaillardia or Blanketflower.  Steve started these from seed in the house in early spring.  We had no idea if they would even grow, but he has done a wonderful job - they are just starting to bloom (this is the first one) and they are just magnificently coloured.  The purple flower just below it is a monkshood.  We are really excited to see these plants do so well.  We will undoubtedly do this again!

That's all for this post, and I hope you enjoyed the pictures.  Next post will be about building my booth at the Market.  Stay tuned!

Garden Biz-ness

I took a bunch of photos a little over a month ago and just never got them posted - busy with a lot of things - getting ready for Market and so on.

So here is a photo essay on what is going on in the back yard as of June 30th.






Entering Plantman Gardens











Evening Primrose, Thymes, Virginia Creeper, Lily of the Valley, Phlox etc.











Astilbes - Lots of them!

More Astilbes (there are Snowdrift, Fanal, Etna, Delft Lace, Finale, Catelaya, Gloria and more!)
 as well as cannas, sedums and lots of others.

Here are some purple coneflowers started from seed and a few different plants.

Three types of perennial geraniums - Patricia, Sanguinium and Brookside

Monkshood, cherry bells, bee balm, yarrow, asters - just before coming into flower.

Coral Bells, Iris, columbine and red Honeysuckle










Irises - Variegated, Purple Bearded and Yellow and purple bearded









Hostas - Undulata Marginata, Francee, Wide Brim, Blue Cadet, Sum and Substance

Daylilies - Elegant Candy, Pandora's Box, Mini Stella and Black Eyed Stella

Asiatic and Oriental lilies - not in bloom at the moment, but it's coming!

Ornamental grasses and Giant Striped Reed.

We've kept a few things aside for our own gardens, but everything above will be available for purchase.  Bloom time will be AMAZING!







I also discovered the closeup or Macro setting on my camera and took these pictures on the same day:

This is an Etna astilbe flower spike.

Here is a closeup of an astilbe flower spike.













Red Bleeding Heart closeup.

and White Bleeding Heart.

Dwarf Red Bleeding Heart

Columbine - just gorgeous!

Chocolate Mint; see the dark margin around the leaves?

I planted these last year and didn't expect them to come up this spring because they are in a container.  But they did!  It makes me smile just to look at them in all their lovely colour.  :-)








This is lamium.  The flowers vary from deep purple to light pink to white.  We have several different ones and this is one that Steve planted in the garden in front of the house last year.  They look delicate but are obviously very hardy.







This is one of the perennial geraniums - called Patricia

and the blue one below is called Brookside.

This is White Creeping Thyme.  It is lovely when it blooms.  It's a great ground cover for rock gardens or between stepping stones.  We also have wooly thyme and Minas Thyme; the blossoms are different colours for each type.







This is a Black Eyed Stella Daylily.  Don't know why it's called that because there doesn't seem to be a lot of black on it.


Below is a Hosta Undulata Marginata with a flower spike just forming a bud.
















This is an evening primrose blossom - what lovely clear yellow!

This is Virginia Creeper.  Steve tells me that there will not be any flowers, only berries, and so the berries are already starting to grow.

And last but not least by far is the white honeysuckle.  It had many flowers on it, and this was the first time I had ever seen one.  It's lovely!  It will climb, and though there is a trellis there now, we'll replace it with a better one once the honeysuckle is a little bigger.  this is on the side of the house.

As always, if you click on a picture, you'll get a much bigger version.  To return to the blog, just hit the back button.  I hope you enjoy these photos as much as I enjoyed taking them.  :-)

My Mad Lab...er...Workshop! Yeah, that's it - My Workshop! :-)

I promised some people I would post some pictures of my workshop.  I suppose it's difficult to imagine just where in my small house I could find enough space to work, let alone store all my stuff - and yes, I have a lot of "stuff".  Well, I manage, though it seems like the space is already full, I somehow manage to fit more "stuff" in.

So here goes!

To get to the basement, I go down a narrow set of open stairs from the kitchen.  The basement is uninsulated with a concrete floor and concrete walls.  There are 4 windows, two on each side wall, and an exit onto the back yard with a shorter and much wider set of stairs.  The following pictures were taken at night, so bear that in mind as you look at them.  The windows are the new ones I put in in the fall, so now all the windows in the house have been replaced from the original and, of course, make the house that much more cozy.

At the bottom of the stairs from the kitchen is where my soap cures.  I keep each batch in its own plastic shoebox (that has holes for air circulation).  You can also see some of the finished bath and body products that are waiting to be sold.

On the bottom middle shelf above are my liquid oils - Olive, Castor, Canola, Avocado etc.  On the bottom right are my cocoa butter and shea butter and salts etc.  Kitty Litter buckets come in really handy!

Next photo is a little closer picture of the same area - gives you a little better look at what is there.








Here's my workbench - every mad lab...er...Workshop should have one!  I put a new top on the bench that was already there because that one was made of tongue and groove boards that were old, and uneven and unlevel.  This works MUCH better!  There are about 5 coats of polyurethane on it, and as long as I make sure to wipe it clean anytime I spill stuff on it (notably lye) it should stand the test of time.
The plastic bins under the bench hold other supplies, and the bins on the bottom, resting on the floor hold the wax for my candles.  I had some better task lighting installed in the form of three four foot long fluorescent light fixtures (one is above the workbench, of course), added some more outlets and put in an outlet bar.  Some things I don't have to have plugged in all the time, but some I do, and this arrangement works quite well.

In this next photo you can see the workbench plus the shelving beside it.  That shelf unit holds my microwave (which I use for melting things like butters and oils and beeswax for balms and solid lotion sticks), the stereo (yes, Sean, that's your old one!!), pots, pans, utensils and on the bottom are my hard oils like palm and coconut and other stuff (like my lye buckets).


Because the walls are concrete, it's difficult to mount shelves, so I've had to use standalone shelving units.  The ones I have are very versatile and luckily for me, 
go on sale at Canadian Tire every so often.  I'm thinking I might need another one for the area around the corner from this unit.  We'll see.


This photo shows my drawer units that have things like bags, small equipment, candle moulds, wicks, wax additives and so on.  I don't know what I'd do without them. 




I use all the space I can - note the baskets hanging from the floor joists.  They each contain something different; for example the one on the right contains soap ends that I sell by the ounce at the Market.  There are LOTS of nails in those joists so I do hang stuff from there when I can.  I tell ya, I DO use everything I can.  :-D

 A real bonus in my basement is the water hookup for a sink.  There was a sink there, just not one that was particularly efficient for my use.  So when the plumber was here fixing the items the insurance company wanted corrected, I had him replace the sink with a proper laundry tub and faucet. This is MUCH better because now I can wash my soap pot and utensils a lot easier.  This is where the second fluorescent light fixture is (so I can see to make sure the pots are clean, of course).  You can also see the door to the backyard.  Steve is going to build better shelves in this area for our tools, as well as a counter area for my dish drainer.  Whoo Hoo!

Here is where I label and package my products.  I love this folding table because it is strong and sturdy - in fact if I could find another like it I'd be a happy camper.  However it seems this style is no longer being made, so any one I find will likely be a second hand one.  The third fluorescent light fixture is above this table, in among the duct work.  The extra light is fantastic - and a less exhausting for the eyes.

Here are the finished candles and the soap labelled and ready for sale.

At the top of the picture on the right you can see the duct going from the furnace to the kitchen - it's very low.  I've hit my head on it numerous times and it's why I don't do any "work" in that area of the basement!

Across the "aisle" from the finished soap and candles are these areas - from left to right are my essential oils (on the white shelves) and fragrance oils (in the totes below them); packaging supplies (jars, bottles, tubes, tins and bags) in the totes with the white lids and in the boxes on the top shelf; and the botanicals and additives in the jars on the unpainted shelving.  These shelves are shallow, but just the right depth for the large mason jars holding things like peppermint leaves, lavender buds, beeswax and other stuff.

Here's another shot of the additive "wall".  The stairs to the kitchen are just behind it, and the area under the stairs holds the boxes from things like printers and other equipment, because as sure as the sun rises in the east, if I recycle them, I'll have to send some piece of equipment back for repair and have to look around for a box to put it in!

And, yes, that is Mabel on top of the icebox.  She loves to sit on the chair and check out whatever it is I'm labelling at the moment.  She's good company.

Well, that's it for this post.  I hope I satisfied your curiosity about where I do my thing.  It's not a big space, nor is it shiny and new, but it's mine and it works.  :-)