Garden – Page 4 – A Smith of All Trades

My dad, my landscaping hero

July 22, 2013July 22, 2013 Jessica Smith

My dad is my hero. Not because of the sweet things he does for me and Brian, but because he’s an all-around wonderful person.

This weekend when Brian and I went to the beach with our friends, my dad also became my landscaping hero (as if he wasn’t already).

I knew he wanted to reapply black top to our driveway, so while we were away he came over and transformed our driveway.

This photo does not do our driveway justice. It is looking fly! Also, notice the rocks alongside of the driveway!? They are finished, too. Only took a few months and us paying someone to finish it. Oh well.

That would have been awesome in itself, but he didn’t stop there. He also removed our old well poll from the front yard, which I can’t even begin to describe how amazing it is.

But wait, there is more! He planted begonias in our landscaping and put out American flags around our house!

American Flags

Bogonias

Isn’t he just awesome!? It was so nice to come home and be proud of the way my house looks, and my dad has been instrumental in making our house look great.

While I’m talking about the outside of my house, here are some pretty pictures of plants around the yard:

And here are my dead stumps!

Tonight we are tackling the lamp post. I’d bought a new post altogether (even though I told dad I should just spray paint the old one), but I’m going to return it. I spray painted the old one with black paint to make it look just like new. OK, it doesn’t really look like new up close, but who really examines a lamp post closely?

Lamp post prep

Here’s a shot of my house as a whole.

A HUGE thank you to my dad for all of the help and positive encouragement he’s given us to tackle the landscaping at our first home. It’s been a ton of work, but I am really proud of how far we’ve come.

Garden, Home Improvement

Remember the Lorax?

July 13, 2013July 11, 2013 Jessica Smith

The Lorax would be very upset with me right now. Does anyone know what I am talking about? “I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees?” If not, you can see my Dr. Seuss reference here.

I have a guilty conscience. See, I am a closet tree hugger and I try to do my part for the environment. I pick up litter on walks with my dog, I don’t typically turn on my office lights at work, and I am mindful of not wasting too much water when I shower. They are all little things, but I try.

I hate when people cut down trees. It actually makes me angry. In spite of that, this past week we had two trees cut down in front of our house. I feel pretty guilty about it, to be honest, but the house looks OK without them.

Before:

Of course, they look pretty in this picture… must be the instagram effect.

After:

The trees were dying. Slowly, but surely. The bases of each tree were so chewed up by insects you could stick a pole through them down to the roots. The leaves fell off way too early… I’m talking about spring too early. And they bloomed — beautiful pink flowers — but only for two days. They needed to go.

Our yard looks so much bigger without the trees up front! I think we will eventually replant at least one tree in front of the house, but to ease my guilt, I donated money to have 25 trees planted through the The Nature Conservancy’s Plant a Billion Trees campaign in the Atlantic Forest . Like I said, I am a total tree hugger.

So, what do you think? Improvement? Bad choice? Has anyone had any experience with fruit trees? I think I want to plant an apple tree up front — how cool would that be? I definitely like the look of no trees way better in person. The yard looks sort of naked in the photo!

Garden, Graphic Design, Life

Farmers Markets — Eat local!

June 28, 2013 Jessica Smith

This post is going to ramble a bit. Consider yourself warned.

I am not a huge fan of summer weather. Maryland summers are humid, hot, sticky, stormy… I am more of a spring and fall weather kinda girl. That being said, summer really is the best season ever. The days are longer, schedules free up, activities are more active… and my favorite… the food! My garden has been doing really well this year. And just like last year, I want to really expand my planting area in the future. I only did a little expansion this year, mainly because I didn’t want to fork over too much cash money.

I’ve got 10 tomato plants, peas, strawberries, green beans, lettuce, peppers… all sorts of goodies. And what I don’t grow in my garden, I have been really enjoying shopping for at local farmers markets! It’s great to eat local foods and to support small businesses and farmers.

I am so lucky that we have a farmers market ON CAMPUS at the University of Maryland. Every Wednesday I walk over and buy delicious, fresh goodies. This week I bought blueberries, raspberries and tomatoes. Did I mention we also have a sustainable food truck!?! I bought a lamb sandwich and fresh lemonade. It was AMAZING. The vendors sell so much yummy stuff (hormone-free meats, fresh-baked pastries, dipping sauces, fresh eggs…). You name it, you can probably find it there — well, as long as it is in season.

As if that wasn’t awesome enough, Howard County offers a traveling farmers market. I’ve only gone once at the beginning of the season, but it too was a great experience. I bought fresh eggs and some yummy greens. Fresh eggs are amazing. I want my own chickens… too bad my dog would probably play with them to death.

I’ve really gotten into eating fresh, organic produce lately so I am going to interrupt my own post to share some awesome blogs I’ve stumbled upon recently and I love. If you are interested at all in eating organic or less processed foods, check out these three awesome blogs: Food Babe, 100 Days of Real Food & Deliciously Organic. I’ve got a whole organic chicken in our crockpot cooking for dinner tonight using a recipe from 100 Days of Real Food. My step sister also has an impressive blog about eating healthy: Fuel My Family. They are all awesome — check ’em out.

Also, don’t worry. I’m not about to turn this into a health food blog. Just figured I’d share since I started rambling about vegetables today 🙂

OK, back to farmers markets.

The real reason I wanted to write this post was to talk about how Dana, my bff, has started selling her baked goods at a farmers market in Laurel! That’s right, Little King’s Confections will be at the Main Street Farmers Market EVERY THURSDAY! I am so proud of her 🙂

OK, ramble almost over. See that logo on Dana’s booth? Yup, I designed it. It was really simple to do in Adobe Illustrator. I used the fonts Lavenderia for “Little King’s” and Code Light for “Confections.” The crown was a free clip art that I swapped from black to white. It is adorable 🙂

Happy ramblings & happy Friday!

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