the goose loves: The Garden Thymes, Issue #1

Hey, Friends! Welcome to my new post series - The Garden Thymes. Yes, that's a pun on newspapers and herbs. We keep it classy on this blog.

Since I've done pretty well with my Tuesday's Ten posts, I figured the best way to post more would be to design another series on a specific day. I played around with Weedin' Wednesdays and Farmin' Fridays, but decided to skip the alliteration this time and go for the classic wordplay on Thyme/Time. Funny story - we haven't even planted thyme. But you won't know that until Issue #3 or #4.

This project, like many others, began many months ago, when my hippie husband Billy decided we should plant a garden and harvest our own vegetables, herbs, etc. I figured that after 7 years of living in Portland,(7?! Can you believe it?!) it was time to give in to the green culture and get growin.

So we decided we'd break out our tools and build us a planter box.

Maybe you remember this photo, when we first shared it back in March. Yep, two months ago. But it was still snowing back then, so there was really no rush.

We found a great tutorial video online, which I can't seem to find now. Some google-ing will probably get you some good ideas to supplement this "tutorial." It's a pretty basic rectangular setup with four walls, no bottom, and no ledges. Maybe we'll add ledges later, since I think they look nice.

We priced out various lumber sizes, and ended up choosing nine 8'x6"x2" boards in order to make an 8' x 4' box, 18" high. If you do some math (or if I do your math for you), that's six boards for the sides (stacked vertically) and three boards for the ends, each cut in half. We also got a 4"x4"x8" post to secure the edges together, and got that cut into four 18" pieces, with a 24" piece leftover. Yay numbers.

Here's our kind Mr. Home Depot, slicing our boards for us. Sure, we have a saw, but they never rarely charge us for cuts, they are wayyy faster, and likely more accurate.

Then we get home, reasses our side yard (the future home of Planter), and decide that four feet wide is too fat, and three feet would be better.

 So THEN we pull out our saw, chop one foot off each of the newly-sliced 4-foot boards, and add those wooden feet onto the ends of our 8-foot boards, securing the pieces together with some scrap plywood that was hanging out in the garage.

Now we had wood to make a 9' x 3' box. (Below are some one-footers waiting to be connected.)

I like lots of screws - Billy doesn't. I won this time.

So here's our dog, posing next to our long sides - 9 feet long, 1.5 feet high. You can see our 3-foot ends in front of the goose, and our 1.5-foot posts standing up.

Ooh, looks like a planter! Sorta.

Where's Waldo Bentley?

Putting the sides together is very simple, but slightly time consuming. You line up your posts with the end of one side, and drill holes all the way through. We used 3/8" holes and 3/8" bolts that were 5.5" long. I let Billy do the hard work here.

Then you take a picture of your dog, who's taking a break from ripping up his nice shark bed in the yard.

Then you take a picture of your husband, who's still working hard on the planter box.

Our sides were made up of three 6" tall boards, so we drilled three holes on each end, spacing them out so that the bolts from one side didn't run into the bolts from the other side. The bolts on the right are at the top of each board, while the bolts on the left are at the bottom of each board.

Then you repeat for the other four sides. Ideally, when you went to the hardware store, you bought 24 bolts that were 5.5", instead of about 15 bolts that were 5.5" and 9 bolts that were other various lengths, like 5" and 4.5". If you didn't, then you can take a break and head back to the store to get the right parts. We would never buy the wrong sizes, though, of course, but just in case you run into that problem...

  We completed two "L" shapes with the four sides, and then brought them over to the side yard to be finished, since it would be way too heavy and awkward to carry the box into the side yard once it was all put together. And we know Billy's my muscles aren't that big. :) And you're right - it's not quite put together here.  We had to go to Home Depot and get the right size bolts.

And that's where I leave you! The Garden Thymes will resume next week, when it takes a closer look at the dirty side of gardening - dirt.

the goose loves tuesday's ten - #10!

Full Disclosure: I'm writing this on  Thursday, May 3. Two days late. Life is busy.

Welcome to The Official Tenth Week Anniversary of Tuesday's Ten. Ten glorious lists of ten, which means I've posted about 100 different things in the past 10 weeks. The only shame is that I've only posted about 100 things, with very little besides the Tuesday posts. But we're working on that.

1. This weekend we made Breakfast Quinoa, a recipe from one of my fave food bloggers How Sweet Eats. We used half coconut milk and half regular milk, since that's what we had. I added cinnamon-sugar toasted almonds that were delish, even if slightly over-toasted. We made a half cup of dry quinoa, for a total of 1 cup cooked quinoa, which is only half a cup of cooked quinoa per person. This amount makes it look like a fancy restaurant entree (sparse), but it's actually super filling. And tasty.

2. Our dog sits weird. Super weird. I mean what are all the legs and arms (or just legs?) doing at this point?

3. Sunday included a $130 trip to Home Depot. But, I must say, we got some good deals. That's a 6-foot fiberglass ladder for $40. Score. And we bought our first family rake and shovel. Yay for growing up.

4. Other spending included $10 on 16 wooden garden signs from The Plaid Barn (another one of those Groupon-for-crafters sites). I just need to slap some paint and words on these bad boys, and stick em in the planter box! Oh and plant some plants, too. Probably should plant things first.

5. On Sunday, after I spent 3 hours in the office and before we spent 6 hours on the garden, Billy and I fortified ourselves at Bunk Sandwiches. They're fairly famous, I think, and they've been on various TV shows like Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.

We tested them out for ourselves, and the result is good. Extremely tasty sandwiches, but technically a little pricey. Definitely worth trying.

I got the tuna melt (above) and Billy got the roast beef (below).

6. We found a new dogpark! And this one superly rocks. It's a 5-7 minute walk from our house, across the street from a delicious coffee shop, fully-fenced, covered in nice green grass, and usually very empty. In the past week, we've probably been about three times. I think I'm ready to admit that we're in love. Did I mention we can walk there? Now we just have to get Bentley to bring the ball back once we throw it.

7. Speaking of Bentley, he's still looking for people to join his Heart Walk team. So far, he's just got one lame team member (me). Even his dad hasn't signed up! But we did pass out 30+ of these invitations (below is one sheet that we cut into four invites) to my coworkers, so hopefully we'll get some participation soon! Join Bentley's Team and Donate!

8. Here's a sneak peak of what kept us busy on Sunday...

9. And here's a sneak peak of what will keep me busy this weekend! I swear I need a vacation just to get caught up on my sewing.

10. And finally, speaking of vacays, Billy and I are dreaming of a wild getaway over Memorial Day weekend. Currently topping our list is camping or cabins in Sun River, Oregon. Hmmm!

Happy Tuesday (Thursday) to you all!