I was super jealous of Marvin’s garden when I saw it this morning, but realized mine is doing ok since this is the first summer for it (last summer I just tilled up half the yard and threw in some tomato plants and yelled “You’re on your own, produce”). At any rate, some pics:
Did some more grass seeding today, and we are slowly but surely getting a thick, lush grass everywhere. Just a couple more thin spots left. Pulled up all the onions today and picked a ton of roma tomatoes:
Planted some broccoli where the onions had been:
Watermelons are doing well, looks like I am going to get a dozen or so out of four plants. The seeds were 99 cents so that’s not a bad deal:
The pole beans I put in last week are doing well (and I sneaked in a broccoli plant where I ran out of seeds). You can see the sunflowers still doing their thing in the back:
Finally, looks like I am going to get about a dozen decent sized apples this year. I could have gotten more, but I picked about a dozen or so and threw them in the compost pile because I didn’t want to stress the limbs on a young tree:
I’m seriously considering putting in three more raised beds next year. Also, I think I am going to hold off on the pathway until next year. I’m tired and broke, and it can wait another year.
WHAT COLOR SHOULD I PAINT MY SHED?
SWMBO
WHAT COLOR SHOULD I PAINT MY SHED?
What color is on sale? Personally I like rainbow so it looks like your yard is the pot of gold.
Baud
I see no pets in these photos.
JPL
@SWMBO: Just not gold.
SWMBO
What is with the lattice on the left leaning against the fence? Are you trying to stop someone digging? Or offering shade to something that is getting cooked? It just looks untidy and incongruous otherwise.
SWMBO
@SWMBO: Also one last picky detail. It’s Marvel’s garden. Marvin’s garden is in Monopoly.
sgrAstar
White with green or gray trim.
SWMBO
@SWMBO: Also, it’s Marvel’s garden not Marvin’s garden.
The Dangerman
WILLOW!!
/buffy
sukabi
What color is your house? Paint it that color…or invert your houses color scheme for your shed…
Fyi, the save nym / email fields checkbox has disappeared on android mobile…and it isn’t saving them anymore either. ?
Charluckles
Whatever color is on clearance at Lowe’s. If rebates line up and the wind blows in the right direction you can get gallons of new high-quality, but mistinted paint for free.
jeffreyw
Paint your barn red, John. That way the tax man will not think you’re uppity and raise the evaluation. Known fact.
MoxieM
I vote that John should paint the shed with colors that coordinate with the porch and house, but not too much contrast. (Alternately dark green or dark red. There are a lot of dark brick red sheds in my neighborhood and they’ve weathered nicely, i.e., you don’t have to paint them that often.)
I have a question for Jackals with larger dogs or lots of them, whose dogs pee in the yard. I am finding with Murphy that I have a drastic case of dog-pee-brown-spot.
I’ve re-seeded with the Scotts dog-pee reseeding mix, which sometimes works. But it’s expensive. Oh, I should add that her fenced OK-Corral out behind my condo/townhouse is about 25 x 35 ft rectangle. Not huge but adequate for dog beeswax and lying under the lilac in the shade. (Yes, I am rigorous in keeping it cleaned up, and Yes, she gets several long walks each week to stretch her legs.)
I have been filtering her water with a super duper filter that eliminates a lot of the nitrites in her urine, besides what she manufactures from protein (I read that’s what turns the grass brown).
I know fuck-all about chemistry however, and am a lousy gardener.
Hence: looking for tips on taking care of the grass with 90 lbs of dog giving it a good pee once or twice a day. (Since she’s a girl, she tends to pee in the same general area.) Poop zone–pee zone–play/rest zone.
thanks much!
low-tech cyclist
John, your yard looks really great, now that it isn’t underwater. :^D
dexwood
My wife, the painter, says if you want it to stand out a bit, turquoise blue, pale green, or barn red. Though, she first said white if you want it to fade into the fence and surrounding houses. I like the barn red idea against the white fence and green lawn. My second choice is a pale grey with white trim.
2liberal
Marvel’s garden was the morning garden post. Marvin Gardens is Monopoly.
WaterGirl
The shed I would love to have (but have not place for) is charming and I would use it as a feature.
Cole, do you want your shed to say “Notice Me!” or “Pay not attention to me, I am just here to help.”
The answer to that question is important in deciding what color to paint the shed.
So many people paint their garages with multiple colors to mimic or accent their house, but garages aren’t something you typically want to call attention to. But a shed can actually be charming and be a garden feature, so it’s a whole different deal. Unless it’s an unattractive shed.
jeffreyw
Do this with the tomatoes until you run out of tomatoes.
WaterGirl
@dexwood: I see that your wife and I are thinking along the same lines.
WaterGirl
@jeffreyw: I want your tomatoes. So jealous.
Omnes Omnibus
John Deere green.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: Green, damn it! No edit function. Impermanence of ‘nyms.
ETA: Now edit is back, but not ‘nyms.
jeffreyw
@WaterGirl: I ate all both of them, sorry. So far we’ve been underwhelmed with our tomatoes.
dexwood
@WaterGirl:
True. She has an amazing eye for color and how it works. She never uses black in her paintings, yet, you see black where you think it ought to be. Magic.
Litlebritdifrnt
I grew watermelons in raised beds one year and the vines got so out of control they escaped the beds. Eventually they produced so many watermelons that I couldn’t keep up with them. Many over-ripened and exploded all over the lawn. I had feral watermelon vines coming up in my lawn for years afterwards. Just when I thought the seeds were all done up would pop another watermelon plant as soon as the ground was warm enough. It was funny when I think back on it.
Scamp Dog
@MoxieM: One strategy is to dilute the urine. If she’s fairly consistent in position, or you can observe were she goes, water that area. You may have noticed that the grass on the edge of the brown spot is often taller and lusher, since there are some nutrients that are good for grass in small quantities, but can “burn” vegetation when overdone.
WaterGirl
@jeffreyw: Well, from the photo they looked like they are awesome summer tomatoes.
WaterGirl
@dexwood: I am in awe of people with artistic talent.
jeffreyw
@WaterGirl: So far our vines have produced 2 good tomatoes, I hope to get more as there are some green tomatoes on them.
J R in WV
OK, here’s the rule. If you’re going to use the shed, paint it white to keep it cooler in summer heat. If it’s a toy shed just to look good, then there are plenty of good color balanced suggestions already. Turquoise blue would be good…
Jay
@MoxieM:
Add low sodium tomato juice to her diet.
Pogonip
Puce.
WaterGirl
@jeffreyw: It’s been a hard year with all the excessive heat. Disappointing.
WaterGirl
@Jay: What does that do – I have the same problem as Moxie.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
Red with white trim, definitely
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: My Chevy is John Deere Blitz Black. The use it on the wheel wells.
raven
@jeffreyw: We’ve had a great crop down here.
HinTN
Blue, with white trim. So sayeth Mrs H.
ETA nym and edit just fine on this android
MoxieM
Thanks for anti-dog-pee ideas.
I am thinking that a great color for that shed is Willow green.
Jay
@WaterGirl:
Seems to change the chemistry of the urine, makes it less hard on the grass.
Boy dogs tend to kill plants and shrubbery, ( leg lift), girl dogs, grass, (squat).
Never did figure out how to deal will Digger’s urge to poop on the tallest thing available.
WaterGirl
@Jay:
Made me laugh!
Gelfling 545
It’s looking fantastic for a first year garden.
JPL
John, Imagine sitting on the deck with a glass of ice tea looking at your beautiful yard and garden, and then you will know what color to paint the shed.
Aleta
fluorescent orange
Gretchen
Are those Moon and Stars watermelons? So pretty.
Aleta
mural of rocks, a few trees and wildflowers
MagdaInBlack
@2liberal:
Marvin Gardens is also a reoccuring R.A. Wilson character.
JaneE
I would vote for the same colors as the house, with or without reversing body and trim colors. Dark body and lighter trim can look very nice.
MadgaInBlack
@Gretchen:
I thought they were too, but I think its just water reflecting .
Moon and Stars : Mmmmmmmm ?
Aleta
Actually wood shingles or shakes would give some nice texture back there. Make the light bounce differently at different times of day and year.
MagdaInBlack
@Gretchen:
I thought they were too, but I think its water reflecting.
Moon and Stars : Mmmmm ?
(It seems to have eaten my comment once…..seems to…)
Josie
White, if you want it to fade into the fence, or green to fade into the landscape. The yard will seem too small if the color stands out.
debbie
I agree with whoever said to use the house’s colors.
Ohio Mom
I like the barn red idea. You need something cheerful to look at in the winter and the early spring, when everything is monochromatic.
Maybe paint some sun flowers or vegetables growing up the sides, just for fun. They’ll blend in during the summer and in the winter, remind you what you have to look forward to.
joanne Ross
John, put net or wire mesh bags over those apple tree limbs. You aren’t the only critter in your neighborhood who has their eyes on ripening apples.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@The Dangerman: Cole planted the willow too close to the blog.
ETA: I blame the willow for having to re-enter my nym every time.
AnotherBruce
Fuck it, paint it Black.
dnfree
Mustard yellow!
Roger Moore
Obviously the right color for the shed is either olive drab or camouflage.
NotMax
Snarky answer #1: Pink, to match the bedroom.
Snarky answer #2: Team colors of the Steelers.
Real answer: Barn red, keep the trim brownish.
different-church-lady
I’ve owned my place 12 years now, and yours looks about a thousand times better.
different-church-lady
@AnotherBruce: Only if it’s a red door.
JMG
WHAT COLOR SHOULD I PAINT MY SHED? Good question. If you want to express yourself, earlier posters have made fine suggestions. If you want to be practical, take it from a New Englander. Gray with whatever trim suggests itself (we have dark green at our house, but you could pick brighter and it’d be OK). Winter is coming.
Kay
Stain it a deep blacky-brown. Your fence should be that color too so replace it :)
Plants look great against it. Flowers, foliage, it all looks great against, in front of or behind this color. It wears to a silvery-brown that looks even better. You just sort of refresh it with stain every couple of years to preserve the wood, but you don’t have to get too manic about it because the stain just silvers and fades which looks nice, too.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: Desert camouflage.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: Only 2 snarky answers NotMax, you’re slipping.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Okay, then.
Red, white and blue. This is ‘Murka, dammit!
cmorenc
@JohnCole:
Watermelons == raccoons, if there are any around. They will wait until the melon is almost ripe, close enough to have you thinking: “not quite yet, but almost – just a handful more days”. And then – blam! You find not just that melon all busted up and chewed up, but all the other melons within 2-3 weeks of being rupe all split and torun up too, leaving you at most a few itty-butty late starters that probably won’t get ripe before the weather turns.
Aleta
@cmorenc: Same with corn. Raccoons wait until they hear you think: tomorrow it’s time to pick the corn. That night they come in and tear off almost every ear, take at least two bites out of each and leave them lying around to break your heart in the morning. You can move away, to an island miles out to sea, but the next summer they will still come for your corn on the exact night it is ripe.
MaryLou
White with a blue door!
ruemara
I like your back yard, JC. It’s very neat & restful.
Citizenship update: It took a few weeks, but I have parental A numbers and citizenship dates. I don’t have my mum’s bday, so I guess another week or so. But the application is finished and check is cut. This close!
JR
Lost all my tomatoes to blossom end rot
Used a bad potting soil mix. Such is the consequence.
Barry
John, it’s looking really good!
You should be proud.
Mike J
Neighbors are putting on a new roof. Yesterday sounded like As I Lay Dying. Nail guns have come out today and it sounds like they’re preparing for a war crime.
Omnes Omnubus
@Mike J: Never mention that book. I still have nightmares from freshman year in college.
Suzanne
A nice, deep, silvery green. With pale gray or cream trim.
J R in WV
@ruemara:
Good news, keep us posted as you learn more – esp a date so we can help party!
ruemara
Yay! Mom got back to me quickly! Application done. So, I guess I wait
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnubus: you don’t like Shakespeare?
schrodingers_cat
@ruemara: Good luck! My friend who applied this January passed her citizenship interview last week. Swearing in is this month.
WaterGirl
@ruemara: So happy about this, Rue!
MoxieM
@ruemara: woo hoo! new voter ahoy! congratulations.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: My college has a program called Freshman Studies in which every professor and every student takes part. Set reading list that evolves little over time that gives every student and prof a common background. That book was part of it. Years later, I told the gentleman who was president when I was there that the student body had renamed it “As I Die Reading.” He laughed his ass off.
lahke
@JR: Nope, it’s inconsistent watring, says my sister the Master Gardener (that’s a real thing in California). Water consistently and don’t let them dry out.
Mike J
@Omnes Omnubus: My HS English teacher was a Faulkner scholar. Pretty cool that a public school teacher is publishing in journals, but we got way more than our fair share of Faulkner and field trips to Oxford.
stinger
John, what apple varieties did you plant?
Yutsano
Pepto-Bismol pink. I’m actually not kidding.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike J: There are only a few books that I actively hate.
Yutsano
@ruemara: WOOT!!! It will be over sooner than you think!
MomSense
@MoxieM:
Mix clover seed with the grass.
Roger Moore
@Yutsano:
I am not a crank!
Yutsano
@Roger Moore: I AM NOT A KRONK!!!
I make a mean spanakopita though.
Jay
@lahke:
Inconsistant watering can cause it,
So can the flower failing to detach, then rotting,
The VW virus has a similar effect on ripening fruit.
Olivia
You have great talent growing things. I am jealous of your yard and garden. It all looks so organized and lush. Your shed should be teal or turquoise or the combination of both. It will look great in the winter.
Mai Naem mobile
Dark green or whatever non ugly green they have in the mistint oops paints at Ace/Sherwin Williams/PPG/Dunn Edwards as long as it’s the really good normally expensive paint.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mai Naem mobile: I already called for John Deere green.
Schlemazel
I have heard a song a few times now, “Re: Your Brains” by Jonathan Coulton. Hit is a hilarious bit of fluff about a zombie office mate. But it struck me when I heard it yesterday that it contains the perfect representation of the modern GOP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snb_rkKpIFw
Miss Bianca
@Scamp Dog: How is Meeca??
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: that is funny. But best to avoid the Delta in case word has gotten out.
Did anyone see the Washington Post article from an hour and a half ago about Emmett Till? The co-founder and director of the center is married to my cousin. Unfortunately, a depressing topic in an out of the way place hasn’t brought in many tourists. He’s a super nice guy, though.
Suzanne
@Mai Naem mobile:
Don’t get PPG. Not good. I personally stick to SW, Dunn Edwards, or Benjamin Moore.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: The DGs knew so the secret is out.
zhena gogolia
@Schlemazel:
I love that song! One of my students turned me on to it.
MomSense
It’s just a personal taste thing, but I’m not a fan of the x trim on doors. It reads too cutesy country to me especially since your house is not cutesy. Whatever color you pick, I’d be tempted to paint the trim the same color as the siding. You could always paint just the flower box in an accent color or do the trim in a shade or two lighter than the body but not a major contrast.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus:
We’ve commiserated about this before. Although there are some Faulkner novels that I like. I’ve never revisited that one — sheer agony! Just the name “Anse” gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: Inorite?
Chris T.
Urine (dog, cat, human, whatever) is actually pretty complicated chemically, but the majority of its content, by far, is nitrogen compounds (uric acid, urea, ammonia, etc) diluted with water. The water evaporates while the nitrogen stays behind and acts as fertilizer. Too much fertilizer results in the burned brown look.
Hence, the simplest cure is simple dilution: get it spread out even more before it over-concentrates in one spot in the soil.
(The nitrogen gets into the urine via deamination, which is how your body turns excess protein / amino acids into the glucose it needs. An amine is a chemical group including a nitrogen and hydrogen atom (well, 2 in this case to make NH2)—and removing these gives you glucose. Depending on the amino acid there might be some additional steps but that’s the core process. The freed-up NH2 immediately bonds with stray hydrogen to form NH3, i.e., ammonia. Ammonia is toxic and will also cross the blood-brain barrier, so your liver, which is doing the deamination in the first place, grabs up the ammonia and, in an energy-expensive process, converts it to urea or uric acid, which is also toxic but doesn’t cross the blood-brain barrier. Your kidneys, which can also do a limited amount of deamination, get rid of the urea/uric acid. Upon being peed-out, it degrades back to ammonia.)
This all harks back to the old saying: money is like shit: it makes great fertilizer, as long as you spread it around. If you just pile it all up in one place, it stinks, and eventually kills everything off too!
MomSense
@MoxieM:
Clover lawns do not turn yellow or brown with dog urine. Handles drought or too much rain. Always looks lush and green. If you let it flower you will attract bumble bees. It’s also inexpensive.
MomSense
@Chris T.:
The simplest cure is a clover lawn. Doesn’t turn yellow or brown with dog urine.
Chris T.
@MoxieM: It’s nitrates, not nitrites, which are a different thing (but still a nitrogen compound). If your dog is peeing a lot of nitrites, your dog is not a dog, it’s some kind of mutant superpowered creature. :-)
Chris T.
@MomSense: I’ll buy that (well, up to a point, I bet you could burn clover with enough concentrated ammonia).
Omnes Omnibus
I can’t post any music that could revive this thread. Sorry. The urine theme is too much.
Patricia Kayden
Your yard is lovely, John. You must have a very green thumb.
Mel
@ruemara: How exciting!! Congratulations!
rikyrah
Your backyard is doing great, Cole.
So much green.
sukabi
@JR: lack of calcium in the soil. Supplement the soil and new tomatoes will be fine. ☺
rikyrah
@ruemara:
Yeah.
Just keeping positive thoughts for you.
Cross a those “t’s” and dot those “i’s”??
sukabi
@sukabi: tomato blossom end rot and treatment
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
Did you consider this song?
MoxieM
@Chris T.: Well, I DO call her Murphy, the Magical Wonder Dog … but I’ll assume she processes food & water like the rest. :)
Thanks for the info. Very helpful .
@MomSense: I’ve ordered my Clover seed! and even better, apparently it doesn’t want to be too dug down into the soil, which is good. (My back really hates raking &&), just scattered about on the surface.
Looking forward to the outcome of all this. Thank you, and I hope it’s helpful to others with animals who just aren’t plastic, dammit, and insist on peeing and pooping.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: Somebody mention This Song?
ETA: The video was filmed in the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in DTLA.
BruceFromOhio
Chartreuse. You’ll be the only one on the block…
The whole thing is really coming along nicely!
Munira
@lahke: Also calcium for blossom end rot
mad citizen
For the shed, maybe match the house–would look pretty cool, I think.
On the clover lawns, yes, I love them too, and have mixed clover in to my yard. I discovered micro-clover, and it’s kind of hard to find (got some on amazon–it came from northern Europe), but worth it. Smaller than regular clover, doesn’t really flower, all around a better look.
Once on the web I found that when they invented the week killer, they discovered it also killed clover (broadleaf plants, etc.), so from then on they marketed clover as bad. Yet another corportate BS thingy.
Susan
greenish gray.