A lot going on in the garden...

Spring is such an exciting and ever changing time in the garden.  This year is no exception.

New birds are arriving daily, others are nesting, including red breasted nuthatches, northern flickers and black capped chickadees.  All the nest boxes have cameras, and as the action heats up I will stream live video form each (now we are streaming from inside the nuthatch box http://www.ustream.tv/channel/red-breasted-nuthatch).

Just yesterday, 3 nuthatches hatched.  Here is a short video of them getting one of their first meals.

And of course, I have been busy with garden projects.  Here are some photos of what is happening now and some updates on projects...

Featured prominantly on the wall of my shop- I keep a list to remind me of the projects I want to complete.  

This floor grate was an early one on the list (I made it this winter from old wrenches) and replaces a dilapdated, temporary wood grate I made several years ago.  Beneath the grate is our compost furnace.

The greenhouse is really filling up.  

And so is my little nursery.

I have been growing these sedum (Sedum lanceolatum)  for a green roof on the chicken coop I will be building...

 

The coop will occupy this space- the corner raised bed in the vegetable garden that gets too much shade to be really productive.

In the meantime, these shovel chickens enjoy the space.

In what has become a rite of spring, we moved our composter.  This change was set into motion by our new back gate, and fence rearrangement, that was prompted by storing our camper in the garden (click here for my wife's blog about our camper- a project in itself)

It fits right in. 

My plan is to build a pergola over it.  On the list.

 New garden furniture has been on the list for some time. And this winter I made a lot of progress. 

 Several new shovel chairs and benches replaces our dilapidated bent willow chairs.

 Even the birds got new furniture- a new bird bath to match the chairs and gate.

Spontaneous Construction 2012!

SponCon is back for 2012 and better than ever.  The annual Home ReSource festival of creative re-use will be on September 29.  And yes, Butterfly Properties (our garden coaching business) is again a proud sponsor, but more importantly we are competing in the building contest again.  Our team remains the same as last year (me, Barry and Marilyn) and we have another garden project in store (to find out what we are building, you will have to show up on September 29!)

Last year we built this mobile greenhouse, and this year we are concocting ideas for something even better, that will hopefully improve on our finalist placing last year (afterall, it is a contest!).

The mobile greenhouse our team built in 6 hours at SponCon in 2011

The event is a wonderful, fun and uniquely Missoula and there is something for everyone to do- from kids to adults, but one the best ways to experience SponCon is to enter the building competition (it only costs $40/ team and they feed you, and you get free run of Home Resource for materials for your creation).
Enter soon, because the word on the street is that the competition might fill up this year!  Sources close to me also report that Missoula's world renown artist, Monte Dolack, is competing this year.

Here are excepts from my blog post about Spon Con 2011:

"Yesterday our team (Butterfly Properties- our garden coaching business) spent the day participating (or as our friend and teammate Barry would say "competing") in Spontaneous Construction.  This is an annual event at Home ReSource that is all about creative and adaptive reuse.  It is a wonderful event and fun for kids and adults.  Contestants have six hours to build anything from materials found in Home ReSource.

It was a fun time with activities for all ages and creative interests (art, music, community, ice cream and more).

 This year was our first time in the building competition and we built a mobile garden cloche (little greenhouse).  Our little mobile greenhouse (actually 3 items in 1- see below), was selected as one of the contenders for the grand prize.  The prize determination will be revealed at a benefit auction on November 10th.  At the auction, among other things, you'll be able to bid on our mini greenhouse and all the other top pieces that were built yesterday. All of them will be on display at Home ReSource (1515 Wyoming Street), until November 10, so you can stop by and check them all out.

We wanted to build something for the garden that was functional and beautiful that was made from from  discarded building materials.  All the wood for the greenhouse was painted redwood (you'd never know it from the paint) deck balusters, and the frame was built out of an ugly steel fence.  The glazing was single pane glass- and there is always tons of this at Home ReSource, ready to be cut up and put to use.

Six hours is not a lot of time. For maximum efficiency, we divided up tasks- Barry did the metalwork, I did the woodwork and glass cutting, and Marilyn did the site cleanup and all the painting.

We dressed up the cart with some shelf brackets and even garden shears for the handles (below).

The greenhouse (displayed in front of the proud team, Barry Cummings, Marilyn Marler, and me), is actually three items in one.  It can be used as a mobile greenhouse (as is), you can remove the greenhouse and use it directly on the ground as a cold frame, and then you can use the cart as a very study, heavy-duty garden cart.

Team Butterfly Properties:  Barry, Marilyn and me

The cart features 20" solid rubber wheels, and is made with 1" square steel tubing, expertly welded and fabricated by Barry.  The floor of the greenhouse is expanded steel for drainage.

Home ReSource is a wonderful place thanks to all the hard work, vision and dedication of its staff and supporters in the community."

Scenes from the garden: April 21

Just an update on what is flowering, and projects I am working on in the garden.   It was such a nice day in Missoula, that I imagine a lot of people were out working in their gardens, too.  This time of the year, things in the garden change so quickly, that I just wanted to capture what is happening now.

Our front yard prairie has the most color now.  In the photo above, the electric blue of bluebells (Mertensia oblongifolia ) are in their peak.

Cutleaf daisy (Erigeron compositus) just started to flower.

Shooting stars (Dodecatheon conjugens) are still hanging on, but by the end of this weekend they might fade.

 Arrowleaf balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata) is just starting to show some color.

The first to flower in our little prairie, sagebrush buttercups (Ranunculus glaberrimus) are still hanging on, though most are in seed.

Prairie smoke (Geum triflorum) is also just starting to show signs of red.

We store garden dishes and glasses (thrift store dishes and glassware we only use for garden dining and entertaining) in the greenhouse, and I just re-purposed some old rake heads to serve as wine glass racks.

 The greenhouse is pretty barren right now, but there is a whole fleet of Thai peppers and eggplants growing steadily.

This is a sad composting area.  For a few years, I have been meaning to rebuild our compost bin, and this weekend I finally did it.  I am going to completely reorganize this area tomorrow.  In looking at this photo, I realized we have a lawn mower, but no lawn.  I think I'll Craigslist that tomorrow, or better yet, donate it to Home ReSource.  By the way, Home ReSource is a great place to get a variety of gardening tools, materials and supplies- everything from lawn edging, to pots, irrigation supplies, shovels, to fencing.  Just saying.

Sad compost bin.  My wife, the compost maintenance supervisor, deserves better.  But, this two bin composter has lasted us 12 years and has been moved all over the yard.

Canadian white violets (Viola canadensis) provide a lush ground cover in shady areas of our whole garden is just beginning to flower.

The white clematis (Clematis ligusticifolia), that covers so many arbors and trellises in our yard is just starting to leaf out.

The black capped chickadees that are nesting in our garden gather antelope hair for their nest box from a skull in our backyard.  Antelope hair is hollow and a great insulator.  We have a nestbox camera that we stream online- you can view the inside of their box here http://www.ustream.tv/channel/black-capped-chickadee-nest-box.

Spontaneous Construction

Yesterday our team (Butterfly Properties- our garden coaching business) spent the day participating (or as our friend and teammate Barry would say "competing") in Spontaneous Construction.  This is an annual event at Home ReSource that is all about creative and adaptive reuse.  It is a wonderful event and fun for kids and adults.  Contestants have six hours to build anything from materials found in Home ReSource.    This year was our first time in the building competition and we built a mobile garden cloche (little greenhouse).  

Abe Coley, contest registrar, registers a contestant 

Our little mobile greenhouse (actually 3 items in 1- see below), was selected as one of the contenders for the grand prize.  The prize determination will be revealed at a benefit auction on November 10th at the Missoula Winery.  At the auction, among other things, you'll be able to bid on our mini greenhouse and all the other top pieces that were built yesterday. All of them will be on display at Home ReSource (1515 Wyoming Street), until November 10, so you can stop by and check them all out.

We wanted to build something for the garden that was functional and beautiful that was made from from  discarded building materials.  All the wood for the greenhouse was painted redwood (you'd never know it from the paint) deck balusters, and the frame was built out of an ugly steel fence.  The glazing was single pane glass- and there is always tons of this at Home ReSource, ready to be cut up and put to use.

Six hours is not a lot of time. For maximum efficiency, we divided up tasks- Barry did the metalwork, I did the woodwork and glass cutting, and Marilyn did the site cleanup and all the painting.

We dressed up the cart with some shelf brackets and even garden shears for the handles (below).

The greenhouse (displayed in front of the proud team, Barry Cummings, Marilyn Marler, and me), is actually three items in one.  It can be used as a mobile greenhouse (as is), you can remove the greenhouse and use it directly on the ground as a cold frame, and then you can use the cart as a very study, heavy-duty garden cart.

The cart features 20" solid rubber wheels, and is made with 1" square steel tubing, expertly welded and fabricated by Barry.  The floor of the greenhouse is expanded steel for drainage.

Home ReSource is a wonderful place thanks to all the hard work, vision and dedication of its staff and supporters in the community.  Below is Lauren, the co- founder and co- director, his wife Aimee and father Larry.

Simon, the longest tenured of the many dedicated staff members.  Staff at the store are more recognizable now with the new, handsome uniforms.

And Matt Hisel (addressing the contestants, going over the rules for the contest), the other Home ReSource visionary- the co-founder, co-director and organizer for this years' event and fundraiser. 

It was a fun time with activities for all ages and creative interests (art, music, community, ice cream and more).

I hope to see you on November 10th for the Benefit Auction!

Scenes from the Garden: mid-July

My blog is simply a garden journal, and though I write a lot of how to articles or post information on ecology and wildlife int he garden, at its most basic, it is a place to simply depict what is happening in the garden.  This post is just about capturing what's going on in the garden now.  

It is a showy time in the garden, but I do look forward to when the grasses cure, and things die back quite a bit, and reflect the dry hot summers.

 This is the time of the year when we have an abundance of flowers, and have to prune our showy fleabane (Erigeron speciousus), goldenrod species (Solidago spp.), bee balm (Monarda fisulosa), and others on a near daily basis, just to maintain our walking paths- especially after our summer thunderstorms.

Even though our garden does not get any irrigation, it provides a wealth of flowers for wildlife, and cut flowers for the house.

 Inside the vegetable garden, structures like raised beds, arbors, and benches are prominent.  The vegetables are a focal point, too!

  My next garden project is to make another grape arbor to cover and shade the garden bench (below).

Milkweeds (Asclepias spp.) and monarchs butterflies are in the news a lot these days, especially encouraging people to plant milkweed species in their garden for monarch conservation.  In the right location this is great and effective, and I think every garden deserves a native milkweed or 20.  Here, in western Montana, we are too far east and too far west for monarch butterflies (except the rare stray).  I love our native milkweed (A. speciosa), and the benefits of this plant and its beauty, are not limited to monarchs.

Our hammock finally succumbed to weather this year after eight years of being exposed to too much weather. It was a cotton hammock- I gave it to my wife as a present for our second anniversary (cotton is the traditional gift).  This year (our ninth anniversary) pottery is the traditional gift.  I have to think about that one.

I have a new hammock on its way- a more weather resistant one, made from recycled pop bottles.