This weekend the inner wall framing for the master bedroom was added. As a reminder, we are remodeling our house with double-wall construction. The outer and inner framed walls are separated by an air-tight layer of XPS foam. Last week we had finished up sealing the middle layer for the master bedroom. I am particularly excited about about having this inner wall framed because it means wiring, the last layer of insulation, and then drywall can be added. Maybe I should say I am really excited about the WIRING and DRYWALL aspect. Like pee my pants excited!

The slugs were stalking my basil and the trails of their slimy nefarious nighttime activities were giving them away. Either that, or my basil has some other serious issues going on.

Since I saw the little baby slug creeps on my basil one night, I’m thinking it’s okay to blame them. For once my basil that I didn’t get planted looks better then the planted ones. Oh, it may be root bound, but at least the leaves look ever so much more tasty.

Jackie suggested in a comment that I could try crushed up egg shells as a slug deterrent. Since I didn’t have any fresh egg shells to use at this particular moment, and I didn’t feel like digging through the compost pile, I decided to use some of my chicken’s crushed oyster shells. I’m hoping that it will be much the same. Whenever I make it to the store, I am going to get some Sluggo too.

While I was out in the garden sprinkling anything that looked slug tasty with shells, I noticed something. I do believe that some of my carrots decided to sprout. Not very much of it, but a little. I think it only took it three weeks. Only things is, the weeds are huge in the carrot bed. I’d feel suspicious that we are growing Queens Anne’s Lace (which abounds on our place) but I have never seen weeds line themselves up quite like that.

Despite the weeks of cool weather and rain that is trying to stop all garden progress, we got some seeds that sprouted. “WOOHOO!” is all I can say. I thought that these seeds would have rotted but they proved me wrong. It’s nice to be proved wrong sometimes.

My basil starts may look like crap, but at least my potatoes look awesome. Maybe what I should have done is planted my whole garden as potatoes.

Lee is very happy because all four of his hop plants came up. He is going to need to build a trellis for them very soon when they decided to go on their growth marathon.

My hanging baskets that I put together are looking nice. I always find them cheery in the summer time.

Lee makes fun of me for putting the hanging baskets up on our house. He said it is like trying to put earrings on a pig. I can’t help it if we have a missing window, missing corbels, missing shingles, missing lights, and a broken screen door. One day those things will all be fixed and then he will probably tell me that the peacock doesn’t need any more plumage.

When we had the two Port Orford cedar trees taken out by the front of our house, their stumps remained behind. One of them has a huge rotten spot in it so I decided to plant something in it. It’s going to be a while until we get to landscaping the front, so maybe by the time we do the stump will have been rotted out from me using it as a planter. I planted a plume poppy in it that I picked up at the Master Gardeners annual plant sale.

Our last post about our progress in super insulating the master bedroom left us with the first layer of R13 fiberglass insulation and the end wall sheathed in OSB as a structural upgrade.

Next up is the middle layer of insulation. This is comprised of pink XPS foam board which serves three roles. It increases the insulative value of the wall by an additional R10, it provides a thermal break between the outer walls and inner walls (since wood is a poor insulator, a lot of heat is lost through the studs that hold up typical walls), and it acts as an air barrier (when sealed properly). Most heat loss in modern homes is through unwanted air transfer via small holes in the construction. On the end wall, we attached the foam board directly over top of the OSB sheathing. To join foam panels, we applied two beads with a caulk gun: one bead of PL300 foam adhesive, and one bead of siliconized latex caulk.

On the knee walls, we nailed the panels up to the studs. We used the same 3″ cap nails that we’ve grown to hate from previous steps (because they bend so easily).

The junction between the angled and knee wall panels would be difficult to seal with caulk, so we used spray foam. Spray foam was also used to seal other large gaps and potential leak areas. It will eventually be used in the attic to seal the top plates of the inner walls to the foam layers. We trimmed back excess foam after it had dried so it would not interfere with later steps.

As a final insurance against air leaks, we taped the connections between the panels, floor, and ceiling using Tyvek tape (which is designed to bond to plastic/foam surfaces). The cap nail locations were also taped. This is really sticky tape, and should provide good insurance against cracks in the caulk which will form as temperature changes cause the foam panels to change dimension.

Our next step is to frame the inner wall which will hold wiring and plumbing. Then the inner walls will be insulated with wool batts. This will bring the ideal wall insulation value up to R33. (Not counting small insulation gains from other sources, such as the drywall and wood sheathing layers, nor the losses from thermal bridging through the stud framed wall layers.)

How is it when you leave for a few days and then come back, all sorts of new developments seem to happen. Lee and I got back from a much-needed weekend away yesterday. We lugged all our stuff into the house and then we went out to check on the chickens. I watered them while they all slumbered away and they seemed fine. All the girls had been locked up in the coop for three days while we were gone and a neighbor collected their eggs for us. Today when I went outside to release them from the coop for the day, lo and behold, there was a dead Wyandotte under an empty chicken waterer.

Lee now feels like a bad chicken owner. We again have no idea what happened. There is no way any animal could have gotten into the chicken coop and killed it. There were no marks on the chicken anyway. And why was the waterer empty when I just filled it the night before? Did I not screw the lid on right? We are scratching our heads over those two questions. So we are now down to 9 chickens. ARGG! I really, REALLY, hope nothing happens to any more of them.

As Lee was burying the dead hen in our field we noticed a white dog sleeping out further in the pasture. Lee said that he saw a streak of white dog earlier that day when he was out. So now it appears we have acquired a stray dog. I can’t get close to it and have no idea what to do with it. If I see it around tomorrow then I will bring some food out to the field. I don’t want the dog to have a Jack snack because it is hungry.

It’s been raining every day almost since we planted our tomatoes last week. We are hoping they don’t get some kind of mildew disease from this weather, because I don’t want to have to replace them all. I can’t believe that it is almost June and there’s is still a list of things we just can’t plant. The ground is too wet and the weather too cold. What has been growing in this weather is the slugs! Those slugs have been munching on my basil and other seedlings and I am not amused. With so much moisture around the D.E. doesn’t work especially fast. So I am considering what to use as a slug control. Lee is suggesting trying out a beer trap.

Saturday and Sunday were Territorial Seed Company’s plant day where they have most of their veggie starts in stock. So early Saturday, Lee and I went down to get our tomato starts. The 15th of May is the official time to put your tomatoes in where we live. The frost danger is finally gone–well, mostly gone. The weather in Oregon is always a gamble.

This year tomato-wise I got:

• Stupice
• Legend
• Gill’s All Purpose
• Fantastic
• Heinz 2653
• Nova
• Cordova
• Old German
• Sun Gold
• Red Current
• Pineapple (actually a Ground Cherry)

My mom gave me some Garden Bio- Film to try out. I decided to use it around my tomatoes. The heat will make my tomatoes happy, less weeds will make Lee happy, and when I get my peppers and eggplants planted I will use it on them too. It will be interesting to see if it makes a difference in my pepper and eggplant production. The cool summer nights here make it harder to grow heat loving vegetables.

I labeled each tomato cage with the corresponding tomato name and whether it was Indeterminate or Determinate. That way I will have a better feel for what is ripening faster, which plant is healthier, and which tastes better. I had my tomato names written down last year but it was on a piece of paper that was always in the house, so I never knew which variety I was looking at.

Since this weekend was beautiful, Lee and I spent it outside working in the garden. I got my first sunburn and Lee got his first tan. He was wearing gloves so his is a funny tan. We got the last thirty feet of potatoes put in (ninety feet in total), planted all but two of my tomatoes, weeded, and planted lettuce, basil, cabbage, cauliflower, kohlrabi, collards, and broccoli. Along the way there was an intentional massacre of Poison Hemlock all over our property, field mowing, and we refilled the asparagus trench.

So far we have these planted in the garden:

• Tomatoes
• Potatoes
• Garlic
• Onions
• Carrots (not sure if they are germinating)
• Parsnips (not sure if they are germinating)
• Beets
• Sugar Peas
• Cauliflower
• Hops
• Collards
• Lettuce
• Kohlrabi
• Broccoli
• Basil

I felt happy with that list until I looked at what I still need to plant. We are a little behind over here. I guess I shouldn’t complain because I know we aren’t the only ones. The weather has been a bear and with Lee hand-digging each bed instead of rototilling it takes us a little longer.

This is my list of vegetables that still need to be planted:

• Peppers
• Corn
• Pumpkins
• Melons
• Squash
• Beans
• Cucumbers
• Turnips
• Rutabagas
• Jerusalem Artichokes
• Eggplants
• Sweet potatoes
• Joi Choi

There are some new things that we are really excited about planting this year. One is Broom Corn (actually a form of Sorghum). Lee wants to try his hand at making some brooms out of it. The second is Painted Mountain Corn. It is an extremely short season Indian corn variety that was breed from over 70 heirloom varieties and is perfect for stressed and cold climates. You can eat it fresh, creamed, ground into flour, boiled into hominy, parched, or used as an animal feed. The third is the hops Lee planted. He hopes to use them to make beer in the future. We got some sweet potato starts that I am really hopeful will turn out. I have recently decided that I love them and can’t get enough of them. I don’t believe that I ever ate any as a kid so this is a new vegetable love affair for me. Lee, on the other hand, hated them as a kid and has only recently changed his opinion.

Where Lee hasn’t hoed in the garden the grass is taking over. It’s really out of control. Lee is thinking that he might have to mow the garden before he can hoe new rows for me.

We also got a chuckle out of the last seed potatoes we planted Sunday. They had been sitting in a cupboard in a paper bag for a couple of months now. Due to weather and other potatoes having the honor of being planted before them, they had to wait. This is what they looked like. They were literally growing out of the paper sack searching for light.

I was also amazed by how odd my little asparagus looked. I kept asking Lee if it was going to grow any “real” leaves. He informed me that my asparagus was “normal” after many concerned questions were directed at him. I had never seen an asparagus plant in person before this time.

She had five squirrels teasing her at one point. The squirrels would turn their backs to Jack and pretend that they didn’t know she was there. They would let her get about two feet away before they would scurry off. After she narrowly missed one, they decided to stop pestering her.

Jasper, meanwhile, was taking a snooze. He really has no interest in the outdoors. A squirrel could come up and punch him in the nose and he would just stare at it blankly.

At least we think it is. So far it stands at four elephant garlic lost and one R.O.U.S. caught. This pocket gopher was just a tad out of Jack’s league when it comes to her mousing. It was enormous! Like scare you and turn around screaming enormous.

Lee went to the farm store last night to get a cinch trap. It was his last ditch effort before we sat outside with a shotgun. My dad humorously suggested building a guard tower in the garden. I was thinking that we were going to have to give up gardening for the year. Lee was getting horribly frustrated watching a garlic disappear down a hole every day. The whole situation was getting somewhat morosely comical. I’m glad that it is over with. At least I hope it is.

Lee is up in arms and so far he is losing. It’s getting quite ridiculous over here. Lee has one more thing up his sleeve before we try sitting outside at night with a shotgun.

So what exactly has been going on over here you might ask? Remember back when I was talking about Lee having some garden anxiety? We had found this huge hole by our garlic and Lee set a trap. Then he set another, and another, and another… Life went on and I wasn’t too perturbed that the varmint was outsmarting us.

Well I was okay with it until I found this! You may now gasp in horror as you look at these graphic pictures.

Yup, that was my beautiful row of elephant garlic. It was so lush and exciting for me as it is the first time I have ever grown it. Well this stinky little cuss decided to tunnel under the whole row and eat one of them. When Lee put a trap where the wily butt-headed monster came up, he back filled and then popped up a day later under the next garlic plant. Then when Lee went out today he said yet another garlic had been hit. This one looked like it had shrunk–the animal was eating it off from below and it was sinking. The entire area smelled of garlic. It’s becoming something out of the movie Caddyshack or the Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Lee has tried big traps, a mouse trap with peanut butter, cutting in the tunnel, and a fall in trap with a glass jar. He is going to try the cave in method and see if that works before we try the shot gun approach. I’m sure that will raise a few eyebrows from our old neighbors as they drive by.

The holes this thing makes are really big. Like you could almost stick your arm down it. It’s also very active. This hole I took a picture of and then came back an hour later to show Lee and the stinker had already backfilled it.

It’s war!

There is this tree that I took a picture of not that long ago. I don’t know what it is but it is still flowering. About a week ago Lee and I both noticed that all the flowers were disappearing.

Not only were the flowers disappearing but we kept seeing squirrels doing gymnastics in that tree. So we both at separate times stopped and watched them.

What they were doing was eating the flowers off the tree. I’ve heard of people planting butterfly bushes to attract butterflies, but I wonder if anyone plants squirrel bushes?

Lee finally got his tractor up and going. It was having some issues and the grass was getting out of hand. So much out of hand that my sissy town dog Edgar didn’t want to go to the bathroom because he hates getting his legs wet. I wanted to do cartwheels when I heard the lovely sound of the tractor starting and of Lee driving around mowing. I don’t like getting my legs wet every night either.

I did some mowing in the garden. The chicken’s grass was getting out of hand too. They won’t eat the long tall stuff because it is too tough for them. They like that tender new growth. Since the chickens were in danger of becoming lost in certain areas of their pen I thought it pertinent to mow for them. That and we moved the portable fencing and they are completely shut off from the vegetable garden area now instead of partially. They weren’t happy, but then they forgot about it.

My potatoes are up. I am feeling very happy about that. The varmit in the garden has been too obsessed over my garlic so I don’t think that it has tried eating my spuds yet. This may be a happy delusion on my part. But I prefer to keep it that way. Any more garden destruction out there and Lee may feel the need to stock up on ammo, guns, night vision goggles, and camo apparel.

We went to our annual Lane County Master Gardener fund raiser sale and got plants. We got lots and lots of plants. Basically I need to get a wagon or convince a bunch of people that don’t like plants to come along with me and be my plant holders. I have about half of the stuff I bought already planted. Among all my plant loot, I got some more blueberry bushes and a fruit tree for my Mom. You can’t beat the five dollar price tag on any of those.