Green bat

Hiding in the thick leaves is..... a green bat! Everything seems to grow so much faster once there is a heavy rain followed by a few days of sun. While we were busy building the bench and picnic table, this opo gourd has been growing quietly.

Lawn furnitures

We had quite a lot of lumbers at our disposal. Some were the left-overs from our deck, some where left in our shed by the previous house owner. We thought we'll make the best out of it by building some lawn furnitures.

Our first project was the bench. It was made almost entirely from the old (gray) lumber. Most of them were warped. Kitty spent the entire day sanding it, and it looks quite nice. We have yet to decide if we'll stain/paint it.


Our second project was the picnic table. It was made entirely of new lumbers; the 2x12 were the left-overs from our deck, and we bought the rest 2x4 and 2x6. It is about 6' long, with the seat at 17.5" high.

Oh and the planter, that was just for fun.

Opo gourd

Guess what we had for dinner? yeah, this ugly Opo gourd. It is actually the second gourd we picked so far, but this one is much larger than the previous one.

Opo gourd, when eaten fresh, does taste slightly sweeter than the store-bought ones. We have not bought other vegetables for almost a week now; relying only on tomatoes and opo gourd as our source of vegetables.

Tom, my rear house neighbour, commented that my garden "looks" crowded. Well, what can I say, this is my first year gardening. If we are still here in Kingston next year, we'll plan it more carefully.

After dinner, we spent an hour cutting the 2x4 and 2x6 for the picnic table. All the cuttings were finished, we only need to assemble the parts together. We plan to finish it tomorrow.

Tomato Salad

Excuse for the shaky hand. We had four different kinds of tomatoes for dinner today. On this picture, you'll find yellow pear, black pear, Japanese Trifele Black, and golden dwarf champion.

We actually build a bench using the old woods left by the previous house owner. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of it as it looks quite old/rusted. We borrowed a sander and we plan to sand/paint it.

We also bought more 2x6 and 2x4 from Homedepot today. We have two pieces of 2x12x12' boards left over from our deck building. I plan to build a picnic table with it, but I need more woods for the legs and beams. Trust me, PT woods are actually quite expensive, more so than we expected.

Japanese Trifele Black and Eggplant

Today I have my first harvest of the Japanese Trifele Black tomato and eggplant. The Trifele Black wasn't quite ready actually, but I snapped it off with ease. It still tastes pretty good.

The eggplant is quite interesting in how it grew actually. It started very slow but once it got to certain size it grew quite rapidly. This particular eggplant was 1/2 of the current size just a few days ago.

Golden Tiger

Well, it is not exactly a tiger. Here are two more tomatoes from my garden: a golden dwarf champion and a tigerella.

The golden dwarf champion doesn't taste too much different from the store variety, but the tigerella is surprisingly good. It also looks extremely exotic. I'll definitely plant it again next year.

First harvest

These are my first harvest: a New Big Dwarf tomato and a chili pepper. The chili pepper has a lot of heat in it, I like it a lot.

We spent the morning constructing a pergola. It is composed of 2 6x6 posts and 5 2x4x16 boards. We used 6x6 posts (instead of the regular 4x4) because we want to secure a hammock onto it. Now the deck is finally completed.

Solid cube of green, oh, and my first red tomato

Hiding in the solid cube of green leaves is... a RED tomato! We have been waiting for this moment for a long time: our first home-grown tomato. This matured tomato is a New Big Dwarf. I'll pick it in a few days.

The opo gourd is taking over the garden. It looks like it is multiplying itself every 2 days. It is so heavy now that my little bamboo pergola cannot support it. It is also choking the tomatoes as it grows around the tomato, blocking the sun-lights and wrapping its vines around the tomato leaves. I wonder if I should prune the opo gourd a bit?

oh, the deck is done. I'm building a pergola tomorrow and more pictures will follow.

Railing

Day-6 of deck building. I didn't go to work and stayed home to help with the construction. Steve was late and actually left early after he received a phone call. We did, however, installed some of the railing. Steve showed us how to install the palings quickly: the trick is to install the top rail first, then each paling can be aligned horizontally against the top rail. Each paling was fastened with 4 screws and is 4" apart from each other.

Steven wants to finish everything by tomorrow. We'll see if that will happen, as the pergola is yet to be built.

Deck construction, Day-5

It looks like Kitty and Steve were having too much fun building the deck. It was a hot and sunny day, and these two didn't get much done other than getting the decking of the upper deck (10'x7') installed. Steve called it a quit at about 2:30pm; he was supposed to drill more holes for the pergola(s) along the deck. I guess the weather got to him.


This is what the deck looks like by day-5. I'll be helping them tomorrow for the rest of the construction since Steve wants to finish it by Thursday. Hmm...working under the sun for a computer geek. Flora said I am too pale so this may turn out to be a good thing.