Planting, planning and pragmatism...

The backyard space is coming along nicely (pictures to follow). I cannot hide my unabashed love of lavender and have demonstrated no restraint in this capacity. There are at least five varieties planted about the area. My love of lavender is enhanced by the fact that bees love the stuff and are sadly, rapidly dwindling in number. I always try to think of the local flora and fauna as I create any semi-permanent landscape. After all, it is the wildlife that has been pushed to the fringes to make way for us.

My grape vines, blueberry bushes and pomegranate plants arrived yesterday from Raintree Nursery and I will be working on weaving them in to the existing edible landscape consisting of thyme, rosemary and lavender, strawberries, marjoram, oregano and chives along with plum and apple trees. I started moving seedlings which I started weeks ago from seed and grew under lights, outside to harden off. Among them are peppers, tomatoes, pumpkins lemon balm, cucumbers, echinacea, fennel, squash, artichokes, chamomile, basil. Yesterday I proceeded to direct seed several types of lettuce and greens such as collards, swiss chard, spinach and kale.

I planted a honeysuckle vine to grow on one strip of fenced run which should attract hummingbirds and butterflies. We are now searching for natural, flat stone to use as paving stones for a decent sized hard surface patio sitting area under a large shade tree on the second tier. The patio will be approximately 15'x12'. We plan to put a table, chairs, a bench or two and possibly a fire pit on the patio. For the play area on the upper tier, I found a used 8' high, 15' diameter geodesic climbing dome . We're trying to get most of our patio furnishings and decor second hand in order to be more green with our project and of course save money. I even found a used wood fired brick pizza oven on craigslist.com.

Our neighbor is going to go in on a small drilling rig with us so that we can both drill wells on our property. I ran the idea by him months ago and he actually said that he had been thinking of doing it for a while before I mentioned it. He works at Ace Hardware and gets a 15% discount which he will use to purchase it. We are going to get the well water sampled and if it' s suitable for drinking, which I suspect it will be especially when compared to what's coming out of the tap these days, we will plumb it in to our house. If it has high levels of any impurities, it will be irrigation water for gardening and landscape purposes. We should be able to dramatically offset our water usage either way and hopefully find an even cleaner source of water than that supplied by EBMUD.

The solar panels for our roof are also in the works. So far, with the quotes we've received and based on the rebates currently being offered, it will run us approximately $15K. This type of home improvement can be easily financed and the payments will be more than offset by the fact that they will be less than our monthly PG&E bill. It will also increase our home's value but best of all, it will reduce our carbon footprint.