The Next Big Adventure...

You might have noticed that this little garden blog hasn't had much gardening going on...but major things are happening none the less!

A few months ago we looked into the possibility of getting a mortgage on a fixer upper.  We are still in the beginning stages of this process, but will be chronicling it here to add to the body of knowledge available for people looking to begin a similar project.

Here's a recap of the timeline so far (2016):

February 15th:  We ran mortgage calculators to get an idea of our budget and began casually looking at homes on-line while gathering the information we'd need to apply.

February 18th:  Browsing Realtor.com we saw a house in an area of interest that met all of our requirements and contacted a realtor recommended by a friend to set up a visit.

February 23rd:  Added a list of several other houses to visit.  In the mean time, received pre-approval for a loan through the FHA program.

February 29th:  Visited several houses and found THE PERFECT HOUSE in THE PERFECT LOCATION but due to the condition it was clear that it would not pass an FHA inspection.

March 1st:  After referral to a local loan office that specializes in working with the FHA 203k program, resubmitted our information and were able to get a pre-approval letter for the home.  It was listed at $40k, but with several cash offers on the table we were advised to offer $45k with a renovation budget of an additional $35k (rough estimate).

March 3rd:  Deadline for offers was noon and our realtor submitted at 9am.  We also included a $1000 check for "hand-money" at the recommendation of our realtor.  This money helps show you are serious about your offer, and will go towards our other expenses and closing costs.    

March 4th:  OUR OFFER WAS ACCEPTED!  We forwarded the acceptance to our loan officer and continued to gather needed paperwork.  We also dropped off the hand-money check that had just been scanned and e-mailed for offer inclusion previously.

March 6th:  Realtor sent over the disclosures which we were able to electronically sign.

March 8th:  We are now scheduled for our assessment of the house with a HUD certified 203k consultant tomorrow (March 9th) at 1:30pm.   He will make a list of all the things that need to be fixed in order for the house to be FHA compliant, and a rough estimate of the funds that will require.  From there we can decide how to move forward.    I will also be able to take photographs.  

Wish us luck!

Burgh Bees: The awesome community apiary soon to be in my community!

Without bees, there would be no garden, and if that weren't enough reason for me to love the little critters, they also produce liquid sugar in the form of honey.  How awesome is that?

I bring this up because Burgh Bees is currently waiting for permit approval to build their second community apiary right here in my neighborhood.  I've always wanted to learn more about bee keeping in case I was able to get a hive of my very own in my yard many years down the road...a community apiary would make that goal far more tangible.

A friend of mine has a hive in the first urban community apiary here in Pittsburgh, and when she posted asking if anyone wanted to come see her hive during a volunteer workday I took her up on it.  It was so much cooler than I though it would be!

The sign outside the Burgh Bees community Apiary in the Homewood neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

There are two (that I saw) water tubs inside the apiary so the bees have access to water.  Floating corks act as tiny little bee platforms.

My friend about to open her hive.  I actually got butterflies here...I think I've only seen a bee hive up close on Mr. Rogers.

There were many capped cells, but most on this frame were still uncapped.

A bee on my arm (I got to wear one of the weird-looking bee suits!)

Little bee faces sticking out of the hive.

Down on the ground you can see a pile of bee corpses from the winter drone ejection.

Many people painted or otherwise decorated their hives.  

This person painted a neat city-scape!

I was told that these are ancient symbols of bee-keeping.   How cool.

I wonder if this guy is a saint of bee-keeping?

Pittsburgh Children's Museum Garden: Who knew?

Today we took a largely unplanned trip to the Pittsburgh Children's Museum and I had the pleasure of being able to photograph a really cool little educational veggie garden set up in front of the Museum!  Here's a quick photo tour that highlights some really neat ideas that I just might need to steal next year.

The garden is mostly raised beds and containers made from clay drainage pipes (or something like them).  It is situated in a little outdoor nook between the registration lobby and the gift shop.

I'm not big on fruitless flowers, but these are really pretty.  They were probably planted among the veggies to attract pollinators.

Is this purple broccoli in the front?  Or something else...I just don't know.

This faux (or real) log was planted with several herbs.  The vertical clay pipes were also planted with herbs and small veggies, and surrounded a long raised bed.  Such a cool idea!  

Brussel Sprouts

An Asian eggplant of some type.

Another beautiful and healthy eggplant...much healthier than my own at least.

Rain barrels!  They had a rotating composter too but I think I only snapped it in the background once or twice.  

More clay pipes were used as planters along the wall further in.  There are also some amazing  rough hewn wooden benches to sit on.

I just can't get over what a great idea those pipes are.  I have probably seen a ton of them laying around and never thought twice about using them in the garden.  Being square makes them quite a bit more useful than the round pots as they can be used as a border or lined up against each other for more stability.

A view from the end of one of those wooden benches.  The raised beds were quite high off the ground.  You can see a tiny bit of the city skyline in the background.

This is the best shot I could get of the long bed created with a border of clay pipe containers.  

A beautiful heirloom that I didn't see a tag for.

Tomatoes on the same plant but less ripe.  I MUST grow some like this next year.

Chard  :)

This photo is on the way home.  You can tell how many kids probably feed these squirrels.  This fat little guy didn't even blink when my son walked 2 feet from him.

This one just sat a few feet above us quietly observing.

A view of the beautiful day we had here from the car ride home.  I shot that through my windshield (while my husband drove) if you can believe it.

The Pittsburgh Children's Museum Garden itself actually has a blog, which you can find here if you'd like to take a look.  They host several educational workshops for kids and schools, though I've never been to one since we just discovered this garden today.  I love finding new gardens around town :)  

The rabbits are becoming less cute by the day...

Seriously?  My fall crop of bush beans are all just stalks now.  I don't even want to think about my melon patch.

Rabbit damage to the now leafless bush beans.

Rabbit damage in the melon patch.

The vine this watermelon was attached to was severed by a rabbit.

I did discover a really cool place after my root canal on Monday though!  I was wandering around with my face half numb looking for the spot I had parked my car in Pittsburgh's South Side (if you've ever been there you'd understand) and I saw a giant poster with a kid or something on it and words like "sustainable" and "recycle" attached to a building that looked oddly retrofitted with green upgrades.  Considering the whole area is filled with giant 100 year old brick row house buildings, I knew this had to be something neat.

I went inside and found myself in a small lobby filled with information brochures with a glass door leading to a larger lobby with no one manning it in sight.  I started trying to process the brochures in an attempt to figure out where I was, when a nice lady who looked to be returning from her lunch break walked in behind me.

"Can I help you with something?"

I turned around, smiled a half-novocained smile in what I hoped was a very uncreepy manner and replied: "No I uz ust undering ut thiz place uz."

I then decided that the drool, slurred speech, and garden dirt stained clothes I wore due to an emergency tipped tomato plant right before my appointment might be giving the woman the wrong impression, so to combat that I managed to rankly overcompensate by telling her that I was looking for my car after a root canal and liked to garden and was intrigued by the posters outside all in one godawful slurred run on sentence.  I'm totally sure that I came across as a nutcase.

ANYWAY it turned out to be a green building that even collects difficult-to-recycle items like CFL bulbs and batteries.  I am still not completely clear about whether they are some type of outpost of the PRC (Pennsylvania Resource Council) or just a different non-profit that works with the PRC, but any place that has bags of worm poop in their lobby for a small donation is pretty cool in my book.  They also give tours of the building to school kids or anyone interested in seeing how it operates!

It's not every day that you leave the house to get a root canal and return with a sandwich bag full of  worm compost.

So I guess things aren't too bad since the worm compost seems to have been just what my ailing eggplants needed to perk up a bit.  However, if anyone out there is keeping count, this makes two baby water melons and four baby musk melons bitten off by the bunnies.  

I really have no idea what I am doing.

Really.  This is sorta the third year we've had a garden here, but only the second where we'll actually get a harvest since that first year we lost our whopping 8 plants to late blight.

So far the missteps haven't been as profound as last year, and we seem to be on the verge of getting a good amount of food out of our front yard, but I love seeing people around town who are doing it better.  Last year I found a few random people with really neat urban gardens scattered around Pittsburgh.  This year I want to actively seek them out because they let me know that what I'm trying to do is possible (and also because they are just so cool).

Today I managed to get out to Wilkinsburg to FINALLY try to get new eggplant seedlings from Garden Dreams.  They did NOT have any Turkish Orange left (damn) but I found several other varieties of eggplant as well as seedlings for ground cherries, green tomatillos, purple tomatillos, and a bunch of cherry tomatoes.  I also picked up some variety of white tomato...not because I need another tomato, but because I've never grown a white one and I couldn't resist.

They occupy two city lots and the whole garden is just amazingly landscaped.  There are several areas full of potted seedlings for sale which make up the bulk of their business currently, but later in the season they will also be selling their naturally grown produce to the public.  There were so many different colors and types of pepper, tomato and eggplant seedlings available that I can only imagine the rainbow that will be their harvest.

But enough words!  Here are some pictures I took there earlier today...if you're ever in Pittsburgh, they are definitely worth a visit (even on a gloomy day such as today):

(A haunted house.  Or a non-haunted house doing a really great impression of a haunted house.)

I can't wait to go back in a few months when the veggies start to ripen!  Next time I'm bringing the kids.