Tag: Personal

After a much needed break from DIY, blogging, and basically lots of work we are finally back and ready to hit the ground running.  I won’t go into all the details of why we were so spotty at posting new content in the last year but suffice to say that some major renovations (52 windows ya’ll!), getting the yard basically tamed (bush hogged), and working/raising kids it was just time for a break.  I can’t (always) speak for Adam, but I know that I was just kinda burnt out and trying to get quality posts together in the evenings just wasn’t happening, especially when there are chicken coops to build and plants to get in the ground.

However, now that we took some time off and had a lovely European vacation (Which you can see on our Instagram @craftthyme) and got a few posts up I finally felt ready to jump back into it.  We have made a holistic urban permaculture plan for the whole yard and started clearing land like we were god-damn pioneers and not urbanites.  Let this be a lesson on when not to neglect a yard for years…

I’ve always had a pretty good running obsession for organic gardening.  Not that I will snub all chemicals because I.Cant.Even. when it comes to poison ivy.  But I have always figured if I could use less chemicals then that would be good.  No chemicals would be even better!  Adam has been feeding that obsession of mine with a series of permaculture books, a surprise registration to this years Organic Grower’s Conference (squeeeee!), and unending patience as I listen and talk about podcast after podcast from Sow Edible Permaculture.  I/we want to take my gardening to the next level and design a whole yard system that works to create easy food, with no chemicals, for the whole family.

Plus we got chickens!  Who wouldn’t want to write about those lovely ladies?!  You may recall the great bear, fox, and god knows what else attack on the previous flock when we moved into this house.  We have held off raising another flock until we could create a secure environment like we had at our industrial style house and it took quite a bit of time to build the taj ma-coop.

So how does this turn into an urban permaculture plan? (How to create one is a topic for another post)  Well, the long winded intro above was really to illustrate that while we have not been blogging, we have been reading, learning Sketchup, and drawing.  And drawing.  And drawing.  I also took an online intro to permaculture (Adam listened to a lot of the videos).

And even as we started clearing brush, we began more drawing…  We actually ended up moving the coop location from an earlier plan. It was going to be tucked away behind the garage so we could get a clear view out of the back windows and utilize a difficult space. But once we started removing brush we realized it was waaaay too damp for chicken respiratory systems, but potentially perfect for elderberries, blueberries, hazel nuts, or mushroom logs. So my guess is that as we start working from the plan things will have to change further.

Urban Permaculture Plan Overview

Currently, we are working on the back corner area behind the garage.  It was the original planned location of the chicken coop but now is going to have elderberries, hazelnuts, and other semi-shade plants.  The chicken coop ended up just a little further down the property line in a drier area.  It is also on the northern side of our property but far enough away from the house that the sun hits the front area.  We accidentally planned a large sun-scoop (because sometimes I plan before I get through all my books, classes, and terminology) that has a chicken coop in the center.  It is kinda nice to finally be in a gardening place where you just know how sun and plants interact enough that you can design something and then have your plan validated by experts.  I’ve always wanted to have this little clearing edged into a mini-urban forest.  The only change is that a central forest lounge area is going to be a chicken coop instead.  This will allow the ladies wind protection, shade from the worst of the heat, but also, some good sunlight in the winter months to keep them warm.

The plan as it stands is to clear out all the undergrowth, attack the english ivy/poison ivy/honeysuckle, and then replant the under story with a variety of perennial edibles.  Currently, we are eyeballing the removal of some spindly wild cherries and replacement with a couple of pawpaws in the back and nice dwarf plum or persimmon in the front.  Smaller berry bushes and canes, edible ferns, and wintergreen are also part of the foresty feel.  When it is all said and done I think we will add loads of mulch and top with pretty pine straw mulch to speed up the forest vibe.  It will take awhile for the canopy to evolve to fully shade the area.  We had a lot of trees removed in the last year.  My hope is between that and me removing all the invasive vines the grand oak at the end and the locusts, hickories, wild cherries and pears will fill in.  These are great for feeding the wildlife and pollinating the small espalier orchard planned along the side.

Light is probably the hardest part of the entire urban permaculture plan.  We are urban and urban = neighbors trees and buildings blocking the light.  To get enough light to fuel fruit production I really only have a singular location.  I can slot in trees on the other side of the house in a few places but mostly this section is it.  We are slightly down slope from the ridge and the neighbors across the street have some large trees that cut down on available sunlight.  Additionally, I am kinda just attached to the weeping cherry in the front and the 100+ year old cherry on the other side.  So I just have to carefully plan the sun loving crops up front and the shade tolerant items elsewhere. On that note the espalier fruit trees are in front of a wicked new composting fence we just wrapped.  It will also make a nice break between us and the renters next door.

We already added tons of raised beds along the driveways and in front of the cherry tree.  You might note there is this large square thing in the yard.  It is this ridiculously large concrete pad that housed a gazebo and large hot tub.  The gazebo was gone when we moved in and the hot tub had a large crack in it.  We ended up finding someone to take it for parts but we were left with a giant pad…  On that note we saved all the serviceable old windows when we got them replaced last fall in the hopes of building a greenhouse.  We opted to save those and look at making a semi-passive solar greenhouse in that place instead. With the removal of some trees this now looks like a decent place to build a greenhouse.  Maybe not perfection but with the existing structures it is one of the better places.  More over it will act as a wind break for the chicken coop when we do finally get it installed.

The front section will eventually house a number of smaller herbs, flowers, and perennial veggies.  It already has a beautiful Japanese Maple we managed to salvage after being covered with other trees for years.  We also planted two more ornamental trees, a weeping gingko, and a japonicum maple because as much as we love edible plants we also love beautiful plants.  Around these we are going to cut in some new sidewalks to repair the broken ones with pavers.  Adam has already prepped the site for the bricks and I started adding perennials from a local grower, Kenny’s Perrenials.

On the other side we started on the tiered garden beds last year and still plan to finish those.  They won’t get a ton of light due the the trees across the street, but I think the top two tiers could be a great place for blue berries and maybe an asparagus bed.  We moved a play area/patio section over here so that if we ever fully fix the pond and create a waterfall we will be able to enjoy them.  It also keeps us from having negotiate with the neighbors on removing a bunch of white pines.  At the top point of my lot I’ll probably leave that scrub for the next few years, but I can probably manage to fit in a couple more fruit trees or some chestnut hybrids along the road.  It will save the kiddos stepping on the chestnut burrs and allows me to expand what our yard has to offer. Plus I just happen to love chestnuts.

The slope by the garage is kinda useless as-is, but I think that we can quickly get some use out of it by letting squash and pumpkins trail down the hill and planting Jerusalem artichokes at the bottom.  I dug a tiny swale midway down and planted corn below the squash layer.  Long term we could put in more raised tiered beds, but it really only gets great sun at the top.  So maybe frame out a top bed and then plant trailing items that take up a ton of garden space.

The Urban Permaculture Plan as a Whole

We have some issues with the water drainage; in that everything slopes to the back which still leaves the front beds without adequate rainfall at times. While permaculture, in a perfect world, works without a lot of human intervention and irrigation this urban lot may just have to have some rain barrels up front to supplement from time to time.  We are not willing to sacrifice aesthetics and create a berm in the lawn to keep all the water on the lot.  We’re hoping to make the urban permaculture plan as good looking as possible while still being as permaculture as possible.  It might be snubbed by permaculture enthusiasts, but I hope to make something beautiful that might serve as a potential show piece to other people who are interested in dabbling in the urban homesteading/permaculture concepts.  For example, I hope to make a solar powered waterfall for the kids.  It will serve little purpose other than being my garden folly and to attract wildlife!

Another issue with the plan is that most of the nitrogen creation by the chickens is going to be at the back of the lot.  Since we have a small lot (1/3 of an acre) I’m okay with the extra work it will take to move the site made fertilizer (aka composted poop) upwards in the garden.  I’m already moving the rabbit poop downwards ;).  Since we are going to have to move the poop we plan on two different composting areas one behind the chicken coop for cold compost where we add to it slowly.  By the eventual greenhouse we plan on a three bin system that will run hot compost in the fall/winter to try and use the compost as a method to warm the thermal mass of the concrete.

Finally this entire plan is NOT a year in the making.  Here is what we hope to accomplish on major projects.  It leaves out small things like rain barrels, drip irrigation etc.

Year 1

1. Chicken Coop (Done)
2. Composting Fence (Done)
3. Terracing behind the garage (Mushroom Log area/ In-Progress)
4. Finishing the tiered beds
5. Small solar pump for the pond
6. Front Sidewalks (In progress)
7. Perennial Plantings
   1. Pawpaws
   2. Apples
   3. Pears
   4. Peaches
   5. Plum
   6. Mulberries
   7. Persimmons
   8. Elderberries, hazelnuts, etc

Year 2

1. Green House
2. Solar Powered Waterfall/ Stream
3. Perennial Plantings
   1. Chestnuts
   2. Asparagus
   3. Smaller herbs, veggies, etc
4. Bee Hives

Year 3

1. Shade Patio
   1. Cob Pizza oven
   2. Permeable patio
2. New back deck/Kitchen remodel
3. Solar Panels?
4. Hopefully start reaping the rewards and finish projects from year 1 & 2 that didn’t actually get complete

Year 4 & 5 TBD but probably some major indoor kitchen renovations if we haven’t gotten to all of that in year 3!

So we start with a plan and we modify it as we go.  Can’t wait to see how it turns out and we are really hoping you follow along. We use our Instagram and Facebook Stories to show the day to day urban-farm work.  We hope you will follow our progress on the urban permaculture plan and learn to create your own permaculture oasis.

Here at Craft Thyme we focus most of our efforts on creating quality tutorials.  There is a lot of planning (Adam), work, photo editing, grammatically poor writing (Brianna), and general craziness that goes into making a useful tutorial.  We love doing it and our readers seem to enjoy the efforts but there is so much more that goes on behind the scenes!

Did you know that we both work full time outside of the home?

Did you know that we have a combined household of 4 amazeball kiddos and two ferocious kitties?  (Don’t ask about the chickens… insert sad face here… Spring will see a new coop!)

Did you know I came home to a pelting of water balloons this week?

Did you know we have supplies to completely redo our entire front sidewalk and landscape, plans and supplies to build a sweet composting fence, and are working on a permaculture-principle inspired plan for the property?

Which got us thinking (Ut oh).  Despite being pretty private people perhaps we could let everyone in a little bit on what goes on behind the scenes.  The idea is that at the beginning of each month we let everyone know what they may have missed (Hint: Instagram/ Facebook) AND what our plans are for the coming month.  It is a little for you (Because who doesn’t want to know I was in a beer stein holding contest last weekend.  Spoiler: I lost).  And a lot for us so that we can keep track of what we are building, crafting, and gardening.

We will break it down to the pertinent sections so you can skip to what you want to follow along in.

DIY

It is Summer, which in Craft Thyme world, means 90% of our DIY is outdoors.  Yes, my kitchen is still atrocious, yes, the kids bathroom still is pink, blue, and some shall not be named cream color, and yes, the treadmill is gathering dust.  (Not exactly DIY related but just one of those failings)  BUT there is outdoors!

• Butterfiles
• Warm Breezes
• Mosquitos (oh wait that’s a negative)

So, we build outside.  We built the first level of some hella cool tiered garden boxes that we still need to write up a post about.  And because we got such positive feedback we went ahead and wrote up the timber and pea gravel stairs into a nice tutorial.

Cause why stop at 1? Still have one more 8′ #raisedbed to go! On this level!!

A post shared by Craft Thyme (@craftthyme) on Aug 4, 2017 at 4:29pm PDT

Let’s see…  Adam changed out a toilet seat so we finally got rid of that awesome wood-70’s vibe toilet we had going on.  I cleaned like a mad woman after having the house cleaned because OMG! the kindergarten teachers come out and visit your house to meet your kids in this day and age.

We are kind of reaching the end of Summer in the mountains so we are flummoxed as to whether to continue on the beds, start on the composting privacy fence, start on the sidewalk, or head indoors and work on the sun porch…  One of these things will be happening this month!

Crafts

It feels like I should probably not call this Craft Thyme this month.  I think I might have sewn some super hero pillows but that may have been in July…  September is not looking so good on the crafts either because any of the above projects are going to take  …drumroll please… more digging.  Digging is tiring, goes faster with two people, and does make up for the lack of treadmill.

I do want to get some minimal fall decorations up in September.  I used to love decorating for each season but renovating this beast of a lovely home, keeping 4 kids alive, and working the day job is the most I seem to be able to manage lately.  So I am shooting for at least a crafty fall wreath this month.

Gardening

Oh gardening… Well I have a lot of cucumbers at least…  The aftermath of the great groundhog wars left the garden in shambles.  I’m JUST now getting ripe tomatoes, pulling carrots, and picking cucumbers.  They had to have ample time to regrow their leaves after the groundhogs decided to pillage and destroy.  The kohlrabi, beans, all the brassicas…ALL THE BRASSICAS, squash, melons, pumpkins, peppers, and and some flowers just did not make it through the ravaging.  Le Sigh… Perhaps next year.  I toyed with the idea of doing a fall/winter garden but just didn’t get it done.  I may throw in some garlic but will just plan it all out and start again next year.  I need some time to build up the soil anyway.

We did write a guide on prepping your raised beds!  It has served us well and worked really nicely through some very dry weather we had at the end of the summer.  Once I get some compost all worked in these should be really set for next year.  Our experimental method seems to hold water very well but still allow for good drainage.  Getting that optimal miz has been a real trial and error through the years.

I plan to get the raised garden beds all prepped for the fall/winter so they are set for a nice and fruitful growing season come spring.  Our big plans for this month are to clean out that end of summer ick from the garden. All the wasted spindly plants… Weeds that have crept in…  I mean just look at this sad garden.  At least it looks like the zinnias I threw in at the last minute will manage to bloom before frost.

Lots of building, cleaning, and prepping in the month of September.  We will work on getting the raised bed tutorial up at least.  Additionally, I have been doing a ton of research on permaculture and edible perennial plants.  I hope to share some in-depth guides by the end of the month so you can get fall bare-root trees in place and plan for the spring!

You might have noticed that it has been a little quiet around here but we are going to change that with a new home tour.  Well it all started with the decision to do a little yard sale shopping which ended up with us shopping for a yard.  Yep!  We have moved! A whole 1.8 miles down the road from our previous locale.  We have been known for our impulsiveness from time to time, but I am pretty sure this move takes the cake.  Our process in a nutshell: see a house you are interested in, go put your house on the market, and boom under contract in 19 hours.  The whole shebang set in motion in less than a week, which certainly did cause some scrambling since we hadn’t even put in an offer on another property.  As luck would have it we were able to work everything out so that life and Craft Thyme can continue on.

BUT the houses are oh so different this time.  We have gone from new and modern to old and well…old?  Oh yes, we have decided to plunge into the land of old home ownership with the purchase of a 1927 brick combined duplex.  Fun fact, when I (Brianna) was a kid I spent a lot of time in this house.  I loved all the pass throughs, strange staircases, fireplaces, nooks, crannies, and built ins. Seeing as this house is double the heated space and three times the yard size with an attic, two basements, and a garage?  What’s not to love?

But every fairy tale has to have the heroes triumph over adversity.  Our adversity? Tenants.  This home has had tenants for a long time and they have been well… tenants…  You really need someone who loves an older home to keep it up in style!  And guess what?  We are going to love this older home to renovation death.  The bones are amazing with hardwood floors, huge rooms, and built ins galore. But being us means we have huge plans.  Of course the huge plans have to happen after some basic changes.  We are currently in those first stages.  The ones where you get moved in, clean, clean, clean, paint, hang blinds, paint some more, try not to kill each other, and paint some more and clean again.  We will provide you with lots of before and afters but for right now we are going to do the tour AS IS.  Oh yes!  You get to see the new homestead in complete un-retouched glory.  #nofilter!

Let the Home Tour Begin:

The First Floor

The first floor contains an entryway that serves to combine the two sides, two living rooms, two dining rooms, a three quarter bath, and combined galley kitchen.  We are just going with pictures from here on out for the first floor of the home tour.  BUT take special note of those awesome fireplaces, built-ins, and staircases.  They are the bones of what will be AWESOME.

The Second Floor

There are two ways to reach the second floor.  Matching winding staircases flank the fireplaces in both living rooms.  Both sides are mirrored making for two modest bedrooms, two gargantuan bedrooms with sitting areas, and two extremely modest (read that as tiny) bathrooms by today’s standards.  There is a pass through in the hallways that leads across to either side and up to the attic (Not pictured in the home tour).

The Third Floor

What?!  There is a third floor?  You bet your sweet aspercreme there is!  Head up an oddly shaped and unfinished wood staircase to a large wooden floored attic.  Currently, it is not heated or plumbed but the kids adore running around up there and we have very awesome, secret plans for 5+ years in the future.  Right now I have lots of winter clothes and fine china stashed up there till I straighten out the closet situation and paint the beautiful builtins.

The Ground Floor

WTH? There is more!  Oh yes, there are two concrete basements down below.  The access to the basement is solely outside, which, is going to be fun in the winter.  Because guess what?!  That’s where the laundry is located.  We have more of those secret plans to handle that, but we will get to that later.  I really don’t have any pictures of dark, concrete areas to share.  You should thank me for saving you from that.

The Yard

Well what can I say about the yard…  It is extremely large, especially, for a city lot, but the tenants were N.O.T. into gardening.  Underneath the over growth there are tons of interesting plants, jack in the pulpits, day lilies in spades, and a host of other plants (including a run in with poison ivy twice now).  We won’t be doing much in the gardening area till next spring, but there is so much potential there it is exciting and a little overwhelming.  Kind of welcome to the jungle meets English cottage garden.

And that concludes our before tour.  We will be posting additional room details as we work to renovate our new home.  Expect to see a new style as we go for a more laid back bohemian mix of modern and classic.  Should be entertaining for both you and us!