Roof's up

We finished the roof over the back deck today.


The panel material we chose lets in the light, but blocks UV rays and keeps things cool.

Next on the agenda will be to put up the railing. After that we will make the call for the final inspection and then it will be time for the rain harvester.

Raise the Roof

It that title too obvious? In any case, most of the framing is done for the roofs over the deck and basement door. There are a few more pieces to add tomorrow, and then we'll add the actual roof panels and the railings. Can't wait to sit out there, drinking coffee and checking out the garden.

Build on

So these are some old photos of the back deck...



It's nothing too special. What sucks about this deck is that it faces west and has no roof. At one point it did have a roof that went across both sides, but when a storm knocked it down, the previous owner chose to take the insurance money and dismiss the rebuild.

Today a family friend, Rick, came over with his sweet set of tools to begin what we figure will be the most bitchin' deck roof in Bethlehem.


The roof will not only cover the deck, but will also serve as the main collection area for our rain harvester, which will go in the space between the deck and the dirt. A platform for the harvester's barrels will be in the works shortly.

We had to tear down the railing to install the posts which will support the cross beam. Something I failed to mention earlier was that the previous owner built the deck himself, which is cool, but he obviously knew very little about construction—neither do we (yet) and that's why we called Rick. I'm guessing the previous owner burnt through several screw bits to sink all the screws we got out of this thing; it was comical.

New Lines

Our clothesline is up. This was the last major item we needed to address. Later in the season we will be constructing cold frames, but that can be put on hold for a little while. As you can also see in the photo, our plants are off to a very slow start. It really didn't help that our move prevented any planting until late May and the massive rains we've had have also brought things to a crawl. Last year the heat stuck around late in the season, so hopefully we will see a repeat of that and get a respectable amount of veggies in before winter.

We have been touring our local farmer's markets. We have gone without any grocery store produce for about a month now, which isn't all that impressive, but we are beginning to network and will hopefully be putting food by soon. We'll post some bits about this experience soon.

And we're back

We have internet access and garden info.


As you all might recall, this was our back yard when we bought our new home. I didn't think to lift the screen before I snapped this photo, but we can still get the general idea (actually the idea is not exactly general; it's a flippin' yard and the photo is fine).


This little tidbit is what's available at the bottom of the first photo...


...and this is where we are now. Four of the five beds are complete. All that's left is to box in the dug up swath at the left of the photo. We have all the wood, but it hasn't stopped raining long enough to get them all done. The four beds that are complete are also planted as well. Since we missed the early part of the season, we did miss out on some greens and peas and whatnot. What we do have in are tomatoes, hot and sweet peppers, summer squash, winter squash, cucumbers, green beans, carrots, parsnips, turnips, chard, flowers, and a boat load of herbs. Most of what is in has been direct seeded, so we won't really see the patchwork for another week or so.


I don't believe it would be right if we didn't give a grateful nod to the Bethlehem compost heap. As residents of the City of Bethlehem we have free access to a mountain of organic compost provided by the borough. The materials for this beautiful resource are supplied by the leaves from Fall clean up.

The rest of these photos were taken during random stages of the dig.