garlic

The garlic is looking good these days.  A little later than some years, but it seems like it has enjoyed the cooler wetter spring...maybe that'll mean some nice big bulbs this year.  Above is the garlic crop at the beginning of April and below is what it looks like now.  It grew a lot....over 3 feet tall now!

Soon the scapes will be out and it'll be time for garlic scape pesto!!  Yum, can't wait!

fragrant clematis

As I worked on through the afternoon and into the evening yesterday, the early evening sun shone on the clematis blooms, encouraging them to release more and more of their sweet perfume...a remarkable fragrance filled the entire garden.  The bees were busy.  So beautiful!

getting wwoof ready

Yesterday we got the outdoor shower at the garden house working and I'm really happy about it.  Hot water for the shower and the garden kitchen sink too!  It has taken what seems like forever but we're slowly inching our way towards being a wwoof host.  So much fun!  If you don't know what wwoof is and you're curious, go to the wwoof canada website for lots of good info.  

I hope to create a special spot for someone to live, work and learn.  Someone who'd like to experience quiet, peaceful days living in the forest by the sea while contributing a few hours of good hard work gardening and learning about growing food and flowers.

Here's Chris showing me a part of his soldered pipe creation.  Ready to hook it up in the shower!

This is the back of the shower building where there's a little closet-like cabinet that houses the tankless water heater.  The water heater uses propane to heat the water on demand.  Originally, we were going to keep the propane tanks inside the cupboard on the floor but we found out that wasn't to code (fire hazard) so we had to dig a trench at least 10 feet long and find a new place for the propane tanks...beside one of the posts of the garden house, which happily just happened to be ten feet away.  Eventually, we'll build something to cover that all up....it'll probably incorporate a little deck or platform for  our outdoor bathtub....

Around the corner from the water heater cabinet is the entrance.....the shower area is built right under a cedar tree by Pat Hennebery of Cobworks.  He used Mayne Island milled wood and Mayne Island sandstone rock.....

A little further and there's the mirror and sink....

A little further and tadaaa!  We tried it out and it works beautifully!!  I still have a few things to do...clean it up a bit more after the winter, add some hooks and towel racks and a screen for the entrance and I think I'd like to plant some ferns in the planter....but it's almost all finished and I'm so pleased......it's going to be a very sweet place to take a shower in the summertime.

So in the meantime, I won't fuss too much over the mess in this area of the garden.  Look at all those dandelions going to seed!!  Out of control.  The forest wastes no time trying to reclaim it's land...there are little fir and cedar trees sprouting up all over the place! I'm just going to have to wait 'til I have some help.....

And eeek!  Another example of how I need a willing worker to work with!  So next step: finishing the kitchen and the sleeping loft.  The kitchen is almost ready, just need to tile a small counter area.  And the sleeping loft is almost wwoof ready too!  Photos soon :-)