A Week at the Mountain Cottage Pt. 2

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Last time, I shared a few things Mr. DIY and I worked on at our mountain cottage on our "vacation" in May. Our time there is always a working vacation, working on a project, planting something in the garden, and maintenance. 

We always love looking at the view from the porch. 

In addition to the staining the cedar posts, railings and  grape arbor, Mr. DIY installed a retractable, nearly invisible screen door. Our old one had deteriorated and had to be replaced. Mr. DIY and I had a retractable screen when we lived in Long Beach, California and it was the one item in our move to North Carolina that never made it. Never knew what happened to it.

 

Mr. DIY found the retractable screen at The Home Depot, but Amazon also has a similar screen. 

The only thing that could be better about the one we purchased is the handle where you close it is tricky when you're inside, especially if you're only using one hand. The handle should be larger/more curved (cuplike) so you can pull it into the channel to close.

Of course, there's always tending to the garden in the Spring. I was excited to see so many on our largest blueberry bush. We came back a few weeks later and the birds had eaten all of them! 

I see a bird netting cage in Mr. DIY's future. 

I did some digging around on youtube about bird netting and the consensus was that tulle (as in bridal tulle) was better, kept bugs out and was easier to use than actual bird netting. This is what I ordered. 

The birds (or critters) also ate all of our clusters of grapes. 

I bought these for next year...

Hopefully the critters will leave some apples  for us.

Our garden was a bit larger this year. Mr. DIY planted potatoes, several heirloom tomato plants (+ a few volunteers  came up from last year), 1 zucchini, 1 yellow squash and 2 watermelon plants in the back on the right.

Note to self: give watermelon 10 times more room than you think! I think we had the vines under control until the end of July. We came back after a couple of weeks and watermelon vines were everywhere and a watermelon was growing through the closest tomato fence and another one was hanging in a tomato plant.  

The first watermelon we picked wasn't ripe enough. We looked up on Youtube when to harvest a good watermelon ...thumping, a creamy yellow spot where it sits on the ground and a dried up tendril near the fruit. The 2nd was overripe and by the time Mr. DIY brought it home, it had sloshed up in the car and was all water. So the tendril couldn't be totally dried up. 

We hoped the 2nd and third watermelons were good and they were delicious! The large watermelon on the left was too heavy for me to carry! This past weekend, Mr. DIY brought home 2 more gigantic watermelon and (seeded) and 2 seedless. We sent our daughter home with one. There are still several more watermelon growing at our mountain cottage. It's a good thing I love watermelon!

That's about all we have for now. Next time, I'll share more photos of the grape arbor. 

Thanks for stopping by. 

Pam

square paver marks my sweet Buddy's grave. 

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