Colleen and Karina's Going Away Bash

Been awhile since I've blogged, I know. (one whole month to be exact)

Colleen and Karina had come back home from Taiwan for the summer. And is leaving already! :'(
So, as the weather has been great, it's a good enough reason to party. And party it up at our favourite park. Lina made a fantastic arrangement of sweet candy skewers. Awesome idea. Looks even awesomer!

Good times had by all.

Thanks everyone that helped out!

Until next time, Colleen and Karina!!

Note: I make a special appearance in these pics!

Day at the office

This is the life. Working at the beach.. watching the kids play

Happy Bday... to me.

An awesome dinner prepared by Lina, Lili, and mom. Perfectly cooked steak with mashed potatoes and greens. Yum! PLUS, an super-duper-awesome desert set with chocolate covered brownies, chocolate covered strawberries, and a mango cake from St. Germain (Thanks Cat!!!)

Hands down, the Best mango cake I've ever had in my short life!

Garden

Update on the garden.

I just realized no one really care for our garden posts. It only serves as a progress bar for ourselves. A documented journal that we can track.



- Tomato = 13 inches tall (4 inches since we started this 3 weeks ago!! Love the self-watering container concepts!!!)
- Red/Green peppers - 6 inches tall (1.5 inch growth!)

Added 2 new additions to the garden.

- Strawberries in a traditional container (a branch off of mom's patch)
- Kale - 10 inch tall - in a self-watering container

Trying out growing Kale... apparently it's a super-food. You eat it, and it'll give you immortality.

Canada Day

Once again, Lina and Sarah organized another Canada Day party. With unfortunate help from the weather, our original event was relocated from the park back into the house. In the end, it all worked out. Except for one thing... a party that was supposed to last only 4 hours ended up 12 hours long. Still, it was all in good fun. Everyone had a good time, especially the kids and the "sports day" events. Ribbons and awards were given a plenty.

A special bonus to the event was a homecoming welcome for Colleen and Karina who flew back from Taiwan for a visit.

*Click on thumbnail to enlarge

Project: Planter

My mother-in-law loves to garden. Spends a lot of time caring for her babies. She wanted a more dedicated place for some vegetables other than the usual rolling pots. Wanted something more 'elegant'. Shopped around and found the sizes she wanted are over $250. I figure I can make one better and cheaper.

Wood of choice is obvious... Cedar. It's naturally rot resistant AND bug resistant. Bugs eat cedar and die. And this happens without any chemicals. And that's important as this project is for a vegetable garden. Her keyword is "organic". She LOVES to use that word. So, every element in this project can not have any chemical that can leech into the soil and contaminate the goods.

Design is both simple and a compliment to the surrounding property fence.

17,900 cubic inches = 293 liters in volume! That's plenty of soil to grow almost anything she wants.

Material cost = $150 (includes casters! So she can move it around by herself)




Drilled plenty of holes into the floor of the planter for proper water drainage.

Dropped down 55lbs of gravel (about an inch worth in height) and then a layer of landscaping fabric on top to separate the soil and gravel. Again, better for drainage.


This planter is sturdy. Twice as sturdy as any commercially available planter I've seen out there. It will last.
Special thanks to Andrew and his dad for lending me a hand and the tools!

Project: Self-watering container

In continuation of our gardening project, we have this self-watering container.

What is a self watering container? A self-watering container is a container that can be watered by filling up a water reservoir at it's base. When the dirt is dry, the plants will automatically soak up or "wick up" water from the bottom up, and sometimes, depending on how much water your container can hold and how well you mulch the top, it doesn't have to be watered for several days! Now that's what I'm talkin about!

It's a simple project done on the cheap. With the junk around the house... this was actually FREE!

Here's the principle:

You need a bucket. With a tiny hole drilled into the side for drainage. We don't want water to waterlog the soil. (This hole is just below the soil barrier)

A piece of plastic cut to fit inside the bucket. A hole in the center for a cheap plastic cup. Cheap plastic cup full of holes. This cup will eventually be the "wicking tube" It's the part where the soil is submerged in water and pulls the water upward. (Also, there is a hole cut in one of the corners of this plastic "floor" for the watering pipe to go through.

The watering pipe. A cheap PVC pipe cut to length. It's a few inches taller than the full height of the bucket. Also angle cut the bottom end, just in case there's dirt blockages. More holes drilled into this end. Better safe than sorry.

The lid. Why a lid? Why not just let the rain into the soil from above? Reason is waterlogging. No need to "drown" the roots. It's smart enough to pull whatever water there is from the resevoir below. So, this becomes a closed system. The lid also prevents wind/rain from blowing/washing away the nutrients. And bugs and slugs. It keeps them out.

Here it is, assembled.

Persephanie helping dad mulch. We used a 50/50 mix of potting soil and compost. This should provide the plant enough nutrients to keep it alive this time.. we hope.

Tomato plant planted and soil pre-watered.

Big Beef tomatoes on the left container, Red and Green bell peppers in the right.

Hope this works!
Now, to find a solution to water this thing automatically!! Then this will be the ultimate set-and-forget garden!! Mwuhahahaha!

Last day of school

After school treat at La Casa Gelato! mmmm... Sour Sop

Project: Gardening

Lina's been having her green thumb itching. So, we've decided to try and kill two birds with one stone by (attempting) to grow vegeatables. Re-Experiment with gardening and save some grocery money while we're at it. I say "re-experiment" because we had once tried it before.. and failed. All our plants either died or were saved from the brink of death by mom.

We have brown thumbs.

Why and how we failed last time:
1) Location, Location, Location.
2) Soil
3) Not watering. Duh! We have lifestyles that distract from gardening responsibilities. Plus, we're just forgetful.

Now, writing this list.. it seems we not only failed, we failed MISERABLY. Because, those are the only 3 things that any plant life needs. And we didn't provide any of it. Sad. Really really sad.

This time it's different. We're doing our homework.

Our Goal.

So to fix this, we tackled each of the 3 failed points.
1) We're putting this garden in a spot that will have at least 6 hours of sunlight.
2) Not just random soil. But, this time we're using a 50/50 mix of organic potting soil and compost. This should really be enough nutrient for any vegetable.
3) This is my favorite solution... the Self-Watering container. I found this idea on the internet. People had been DIY-ing a simple and cheap solution to minimum watering for plants. (inspired by the Earthbox). This DIY is almost free! As compared to Earthbox which I found locally for $100! I was sold on "minimum watering" and "cheap".

I'm excited about this project.. updates to follow.

Fish for Grandpa

Sephie went to school today with Auntie Lillian!! What fun. Made this fish in class. A gift for grandpa.

Happy Birthday Cat! Happy Fathers' Day too

Happy Birthday, Cat!!

Happy Father's day! (A free dinner for Cat and Sephie at Denny's! Great service too)

Thanks to Lina for a wonderful ensemble!


A visit from Auntie Lillian (Dinner at Foundation)