Showing posts with label Farm Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Farm Life. Show all posts

Workshop Makeover: A Pegboard Wall Project

Thanks to National Hardware for partnering up with me for this post. My husband, his screwdrivers and my organization-loving heart are now your biggest fans!



Well, folks. Pegboards. They aren't the sexiest home decor project around but man, these things are a game changer! After years of renting, David's tool organization basically consisted of a bunch of giant tool bags/boxes/buckets filled with whatever tools we could squish in. So when I hollered out, "honey! I need an allen wrench!" (okay, I never yelled that out, but work with me here), we were basically lost in a sea of tools. We could never find anything. Meaning we could never get anything accomplished around the house!

Fast forward to the new farm house... David's got a whole workshop to himself in the basement. He's got double doors, some pretty transom windows and a whole bunch of space. We basically just moved all of the bags/boxes/buckets to the new house and decided to organize from there. And how did we do it? With a WHOLE bunch of amazingly handy hooks, hangers and pegboard accessories, all from National Hardware.

Let's take a quick tour of the madeover space, shall we? We dedicated one wall of the workshop to hanging large items like our tall work ladder and power yard tools. There's also some great hooks (like these!) for hanging rakes, shovels, etc. It still impresses me that we don't have them all piled up in the corner anymore. Such baller status.



The other main wall of the workshop is our dedicated pegboard wall. This pegboard project was massive, but gave us so much organizational space! We even wrapped the corner of the wall, as you can see here. Our basement space is not finished (ie. no drywall), so all we had to do was to cut the pegboard sheets (picked up at our local hardware store) to fit our space and then (using pegboard spacers) simply drilled and attached the pegboard sheets into the studs.


The workbench space is my favorite part of the whole project. I'm not even kidding when I tell you that the organization factor here makes me giddy. Those shiny tools all lined up just make me so happy! Most of the hooks we have in the pegboard can be found here. We added a few shelf brackets to create even more storage space for small items like spray paint and reference books. The clip pendant lights are available at most local hardware stores and while they obviously provide more detailed lighting, they also provide an extra amount of style. Love. This. Space.




Here's a view of the entire space, for a full perspective.


A makeover post isn't any good unless you've got before and after photos, am I right? 

Before:


After:



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Our First Edible Garden: Prepping the Ground & Garden Space


As you guys know, one of our first big projects at the farm is our vegetable and fruit garden. I shared with you guys last week how we planned our first edible garden. This week, I want to share what we did to prep our space- basically how we took an empty pasture space and turned it into a garden area! Apologies in advance for the crappy iPhone photos... it's hard to snap beauty shots with a DSLR when you're covered in dirt!


To start, we measured and then staked off the space where we wanted the garden to go. We included the beds as sketched out in our plan and put a foot wide border between the beds and around the entire garden space. Truth be told, we're learning quickly that's not enough border space, especially around the perimeter of the garden- go at least two feet or wider.



Next, we dug a trench around the entire perimeter of the garden. The main purpose of this is for animal-proof fencing (more on that next week!) but it also helped anchor the space. We did some heavy weeding within the garden space, pulling out (with roots!) any major weeds, discarding rocks or any other debris. Then it came time to till. David picked up this tiller, which is actually just an attachment to his weed eater. We had planned to rent a tiller but for the same price, we got to keep this one! He really liked this piece but I will say that after many hours of hard use, it broke the handle of his weed eater about 2/3 of the way through. Not sure if that was user error or machine error. But it did a really good job of roughing up the grass and dirt underneath.



Basically, David went around and tilled up about six inches of dirt with the machine. Then he went back and dumped a bit of organic garden soil (potting soil with organic matter in it- manure) on top of the dirt and roughly tilled it all together. Then we went around with a shovel and manually turned the dirt over another few inches (and again added more organic garden soil) and along the way, pulled out grass, weeds and seeds.


After we generally tilled the ground, we went back and staked off each garden bed. I poured some mulch along the areas we wanted to use as walking paths between the beds. We then used a trowel and garden rake to dig in and till another few inches down into the soil in each bed. I found it pretty helpful to do a "rough" till of the big garden space and then focus specifically on each bed. Since we had our planting plan, we knew which beds would have vegetables with deep roots, so we tilled those in a little deeper but dug the beds with shorter root systems more shallow. Make sense?



At this point in the game, it was time to plant! Since the danger of frost is officially over here in Georgia, we went ahead and put most of our vegetables and fruit plants in the ground last weekend- with a few exceptions, like tomatoes, herbs, eggplant and peppers. For each bed, we followed the instructions on the seed packets in terms of how far apart to plant each seed/how many seeds to plant but always dug each hole a little deeper, filled with more organic garden soil and then put the seeds and soil/dirt mixture back on top. Hopefully that gives each seed a really good, solid starting system!




I will say that after about two weeks, we do have some small amounts of grass coming up, particularly along the borders and in the areas outside of each bed that we did not "double dig." I'm not sure there's much more we could have done to prevent that- it may just take time and a season or two of gardening in this space to get rid of that grass forever. Until then, we'll just pull it up as it comes and hopefully it won't interrupt our edible plant growth!

So that sort of seems like a whole bunch of info, but hopefully that gives you some insight as to our system this year. And if you're looking to start a new garden, these steps will definitely start you in the right direction! So, those of you out there who are old pros at gardening- what did we miss? Did we do anything wrong?! Share your green thumb advice, please!
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5 Steps to Planning Your First Edible Garden


I saw a sign the other day that said "spring is here! I'm so excited I wet my plants!" and I totally said YAAAAAAAS because I am definitely that girl this year. Call me Green Thumbs McGee. Well, wanna-be Green Thumbs McGee. You see, this is my first year attempting a big garden (other than a few tomato stalks or annual flowers) so I really have no clue what's in store for me. I have done my research (like, a lot of research... even the guy at our local nursery was impressed which made me feel like a baller) and I hope that my first crop will be incredibly fruitful, but it may fail completely. And I'm okay with that, because you have to start somewhere! So take my tips below with a grain of salt since I'm a first year gardener and new to this entire thing- this is just what I've tried and what I believe will work based on lots and lots and lots of research (that I'll hopefully save you from!).

Today's post is all about the first step of your garden: planning. It'd be really easy to just throw out a bunch of seeds and call it a day, right? Well, it's not that easy. I mean, it could be that easy if you've got some great soil and a green thumb! But your garden will be a bit more intentional, and hopefully more profitable, if you take the time to actually plan out the space and design your garden with intent. And if you're type A (cough, OCD, cough) like me, it's really fun to make these plans! With that said, here's my take on the best five steps to planning your first edible garden.

1. Pick a space for your garden.

Do you have a big yard? If so, pick a sunny corner and start measuring out your new garden space with a few stakes. Don't have a big yard? Invest in a few large potting containers or elevated beds (I love this one and this one!) so you have an idea of where you'll be planting. Regardless of the size of your space or containers, draw the area out on paper (graph paper if you're dorky like me!) so you can better visualize the space. Take into consideration the cardinal direction of your space and any possible shade trees or buildings so you can determine which areas get the most sun.


Of course, we're planting our garden out at the farm this year. You can actually see a video tour of the garden space right here if you want to check it out. Down the road, we eventually want to fill out something gigantic like a 50x50 foot space (I know, big dreams) but this year we are starting smaller with a 22 foot wide by 14 foot deep garden space. It's a big, sunny, relatively flat space we can't wait to get our hands on.

2. Make a list of what you want to plant.

Before you start filling your mapped out garden space, take a minute to think about what edible plants you want to grow in your garden. What fruits and veggies does your family like? What do you eat a lot of? What edibles are worth planting to save you their expensive costs at the grocery store? What fruits and veggies grow well in your area? Or, specifically, in your soil type? The answers to those last few questions may take a little research. For you Georgia folks, I highly suggest picking up a copy of this Walter Reeves book (or any Walter Reeves book/articles for that matter! he's a gardening genius!). I've also really, really loved Kitchen Gardening for Beginners, it's sort of my new favorite companion that I carry around in my purse because I'm cool like that. There are also some really great articles by bloggers and magazines that you can find via Pinterest- feel free to follow my gardening board for some of my favorite ideas!

This year, we've decided to plant: blueberries, beets, strawberries, raspeberries, kale, spinach, onions, peas, potatoes, carrots, corn, watermelon, tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant, pumpkins and herbs.



3. Research companion planting.

I came across this concept in one of my gardening books and it seems like such a genius idea. Companion planting is basically the art of pairing certain veggies and fruits together that grow well next to each other; conversely, it's also separating plants that typically stunt each other's growth or do harm to one another. Seems like a smart idea, right? And so easy, once you have the information. I took my list of all of the veggies/fruits we wanted to plant and simply took the information I learned from various companion planting articles and paired them up/separated which plants worked best together. For more info on companion planting, search Pinterest for great articles like this link.

4. Put the pieces together like a puzzle.

 Now that you've got your space sketched out, your list of edibles to plant and your pairs of what veggies/fruits that do/don't work together, it's time to put all of the pieces together like a puzzle. It's also helpful to understand how much space each type of veggie/fruit needs to grow. For example, I learned that our blueberry bushes need about three feet and need very acidic soil to grow (unlike most of the other edibles I'm planting), so I planned a 3 foot wide by 6 foot wide blueberry patch for two plants in the corner of my garden.



5. Add in the details and then sketch out the entire garden plan before you implement.

 Before you consider your garden space final, make sure you include any of the extra details in your plan. Do you need a fence to keep out critters? We have a ton of wild animals (deer, turkey, rabbits, etc.) at the farm, so we had to make a big fence a priority. I'll definitely share more details on how we did our fence later but make sure you include one in your plan if needed! What about walking paths between the beds? Do you plan to construct raised beds or work straight into the soil? Did you leave any space to plant wildflowers or other helpful pollinators/pest control plants like lavender? Making sure you have room for all of these little details is what will make your time spent planning your garden well worth it!

Next up? Getting your space ready for your garden! David and I have been hard at work the past couple of weeks prepping our space... I can't wait to share!

What are your best garden planning tips?
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VIDEO: A Tour of Our Farm Land!

I am so excited to share a little video tour of our vacant farm land. Since we bought the land in November 2015 and started planning our dream home there, it's become such a special place to us. Once we start construction, it will probably grow into a completely different place, so I wanted to capture some memories while the land is simply pastures and forests. And, of course, I wanted to show you guys around! I used a new editing software that is pretty much leagues above the production quality I self-attempted in my first video a few weeks ago. I love the editing, but it wouldn't let me plug back in some intros I had done to describe each scene you're looking at, so I'll try to do so below.

The beginning (7 seconds to about 12 seconds) is a walk down what will be our driveway.

13 seconds to 1 minute 5 seconds is the "front pasture" of our property which is where our home site and garden site will be.  About 26 seconds to 30 seconds is specifically the garden site which is sort of in the corner of our giant 3 acre front yard (we'll start small this year but eventually want something massive like 50x50... remind me I said that after my first year of gardening!).

The 1 minute 6 seconds mark to about 1 minute 16 seconds takes into the "back pasture" where we eventually plan to have a barn and animals... small, like chickens and goats. Maybe a horse? We shall see!

The rest of the footage... the woods, the creek, the stream that HDawg decides to jump through... shows little parts as we walk around the rest of the property. The amazing thing about this land is that there are so many different kinds of places. There's a dense forest near the creak that's saturated with lots of moss and overhang that kind of looks like a fairy forest. There's a patch of overgrown, beautiful, extremely large oak trees that we've dubbed our own "redwood forest." There's a fun little spot in the middle of the back pasture covered by trees and littered with boulders that creates the perfect fort for little ones. We have already picked out so many picnic spots and little places to make special. It's amazing!

Like I said, I'm so excited to share this special place with you guys. Can't wait to share more along the way! Stay tuned : )
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A Checklist for Buying Vacant Land or Property


Having been the owner of vacant farm land for approximately a whopping two months now, I'm certainly no expert when it comes to owning property. But, David and I did go through the purchasing process and (we think) completely vetted all of our options and exhausted all of our resources during that time in terms of performing due diligence and making sure we were buying the right thing. Plus, I'm a real estate attorney, so my professional background gave me a lot of insight into the process, as well. A few of you have recently emailed me asking for tips for buying vacant land or property, so I thought I'd compile my notes and thoughts for you guys!

FYI, we found our land for sale on Zillow- it was for sale by owner. A local farmer was retiring and splitting up his 150 acre tract into 10-20 acre tracts for single-family homeowners. We got lucky with this piece, we think it's the best in the area! Once we negotiated the price and contract, we started the due diligence period, which is basically a "free period" you have to research the property. If you find something you don't like within the due diligence period, you can walk away, have your earnest money refunded and the contract is off. We gave ourselves three weeks, which is a minimum. Try to negotiate something more like 30-60 days into your contract period to conduct this due diligence if your seller is willing. But definitely make sure you have a due diligence period- you need some time to research what I describe below!

Keep in mind that while I'm a real estate attorney, I'm not giving this advice as a professional real estate expert. Another caveat is that a lot of the information I have may be limited to how things work in Georgia, since that's where we bought property. The third thing I want to throw out is that this list doesn't encompass the actual build process at all- this just covers shopping and purchasing vacant land. But with that being said, in no particular order, here are ten things you should research in your due diligence before you buy vacant land or property.

1. Pick a trustworthy team, including a builder, an architect and/or a contractor. Step one for us was to get a few people to help us navigate this process. A huge blessing we have is that my uncle is a talented, renowned architect in Atlanta and he is helping us design our home. We're also working with a builder that he works with and that I know through my real estate profession. Now that we've got this team together, we have folks we can email questions to or run things by as we go through the building process. It makes a huge difference to have smart, trustworthy people to turn to!

 2. Ensure the land you're looking at has a proper building site. One of the most important things we did after we first found our property was to ensure that there was a good site to build a house. Would we have to do a lot of site work to put the house where we wanted? Was there enough slope to build in a daylight basement? Would we have to spend a lot of money grading the land and taking out trees? Was there a good place to put a driveway? We asked our builder and architect to take a look at the site to generally answer these questions for us. Luckily, they affirmed for us this was a good piece which would need minimal site disturbance to build the house. We also clarified with the county that we could put a driveway onto the main road from the spot we wanted on the property. All signs pointed to yes for us!

3. Conduct a soil test. It's very important to hire a professional to conduct an examination of the soil to determine if it's able to house a septic system. Most counties will require evidence of this test and proof the soil passes all the right tests before they issue a building or development permit.

4. Ensure the zoning classification permits what you're planning to build/develop. Most local jurisdictions have a zoning map which sets forth what each piece of land can be in terms of use- rural, single-family, commercial, etc. Do your research and get a letter from your jurisdiction confirming what your zoning designation is. For us, it was important to know what our use (agricultural residential), setback lines and permitted accessory uses (farming, live animals) are.

5. Plan ahead and research your financing options. In full disclosure, we'll have three loans throughout the course of this process: a land loan (to buy the land) which will roll into a construction loan (to build the house) which will then roll into our permanent loan (which is like a regular mortgage on a house). So we reached out to multiple local lenders to find out their terms for each of the three loans to make sure that, as we process each stage of the financing, we know what to expect.

6. Make sure all utilities are available at the property. Our property is located off of a main road, but otherwise is relatively off the grid. It was a farm animal pasture and vacant woods for the past few hundred years! Of course, we don't plan to stay off the grid, so it was important to us to ensure that we could get power, well water, gas and internet at the house. We called around to all of the local companies who helped us confirm that information.

7. Obtain a recent metes and bounds survey of the property. A survey basically lays out the exact property lines bordering the land. This helps you to determine exactly what you are buying and whether or not there are any encroachments. If your seller doesn't have a recent survey to share with you, it's worth the few hundred dollars to obtain one yourself from a surveyor.

8. Have an attorney conduct a title examination. If you've got a closing attorney, they'll handle the title exam for you. An examiner will go to the county record room and review the chain of title and any "hits" against the property that are current, such as liens, other mortgages, encumbrances, easements, etc. The title exam will show you if any liens need to be released or if you'll be purchasing the property subject to any permissible encumbrances such as a right-of-way easement for a road or a power easement.

9. Confirm with the local school system which school district the property is in. With two little ones ready for school in the near future (H will start kindergarten in the fall of 2017, ahh!), schools are very important to us. We called our local school system and had them confirm with us the current districts. Once we confirmed we were in a great school district, that pretty much sealed the deal for us!

10. Request an appraiser to conduct an appraisal of the property. Unless you've got a realtor working for you who can verify the value of the property with certainty, put an appraisal contingency in your purchase contract and pay a couple hundred dollars to have an appraisal done. Then, if the appraiser finds that the property is worth less than you have contracted for, you can renegotiate with the seller or walk away. Make sure your money is going towards a great investment!

I've said a lot about the due diligence process and how we handled it... what insight do you have about buying vacant land or property? Spill your tips!


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That One Time We Bought A Farm....






No, but really. We bought a farm. Well, kind of. A vacant farm. Is that a thing? A wannabe farm. A soon-to-be farm. We're going to build a farm, people! 

Let's rewind. Ever since we put our old house on the market four years ago, David and I have been dreaming and scheming about buying again. As you guys know from here, we didn't exactly have the luxury of selling the old house and immediately buying. It took us four years to get that sale wrapped up, which meant four years of changing our minds about where we wanted to buy. Or, more importantly, where we wanted to set roots. Where we wanted to grow our family. Let me just tell you that I'm pretty sure David and I are Zillow's number one and two users- we have been obsessively house hunting for years! And not even just in one area- we pretty much followed searches all across metro Atlanta, just to cover our bases. At one point, we decided we definitely wanted to be in the city. Then we definitely wanted to be in the suburbs. Then we thought we'd buy an old house and renovate. Then we wanted to build a new house in the suburbs. Then we wanted to live in the city again. We were all over the place, but a lot can happen in four years! While it was hard to be patient, we had faith that God was leading us in the right direction and would put us on the right path in terms of where to settle.

Fast forward to October of this year, when we finally closed on the sale of our old house. One October Saturday, our little family was at our (rental house's) neighborhood fall festival. While I was waiting in line with HDawg and Little Lady June to get balloon animals, I noticed David was on the phone. After we got our butterfly and dog balloons, the kids and I rambled over to David and he said, "I found some land I think we should go look at!" I was a little confused- we had been mostly looking at subdivision lots with an acre or two of land, but this was 17.5 acres. But, it was a beautiful day and the kids wanted to play outside, so I said "okay, let's take a walk through the woods, honey." And the rest was history.

All the heart eyes, all the soil tests, all the meetings with builders, lots of time in the woods, more heart eyes, many many prayers, plenty of chats with our architect, lots of conversations with county officials about zoning and flood plain and taxes and rural development, a few more heart eyes and then one official closing with my new law office and I am proud to report that we're officially the owners of 17.5 acres in a country suburb outside of Atlanta.

The land is beautiful. There are two cleared pastures of about four acres each, a perfect home site, lots of pretty woods and even a gorgeous meandering creek along the back of the property. In the best school districts, about 20-25 minutes from our offices. The kids love it. David loves it. I love it. There's a perfect spot for a huge garden that we plan on starting this spring. Possibly even some small animals (chickens? goats?) in our future. And, the best part? I get to build my dream house. Hello, people! My dream house! I can't even begin to tell you how excited that makes us. And don't you worry, I plan to report it all here on the ol' blog. It's been awhile since Ten June has seen some great home projects outside of our four years of renting, so hopefully you guys are still around and ready to see some of our house building and farm growing process!

We officially bought the land a few weeks ago, but we're still in the very beginning processes of the build. I would like to say that we will break ground in February or so and then have a 6-8 month build timeline after that, but that's still all up in the air as we wait for our plans to be finished and the process to continue. After four years of waiting to see where life was going to take us, a few months ain't no thang. So exciting though, right? While we wait, David and I will just pretend to be Chip and Joanna Gaines and basically pin anything "farm house" or "ship lap" to our inspiration boards until then. Hellooooo dream farm house, here we come.

WE BOUGHT A FARM! #moo
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