and the winner is...

so the guesses are all in, the polls are closed, and we have a winner!!!

so listed from lowest guess to highest:

jwo-210
david- 244

mother hen- 250

lily- 282

monika- 288
*gail- 300

mishi-316

terri- 360

jgreg-447

tami- 475

dad-500
**rois- 540

*(changed when # of beds told)
**(# became available when gail changed her guess)

and the winner is...

ROIS!!!

 there are 541 bottles total used around the beds. 540 are wine bottles (well, some are san pelagrino bottles and there are a few champagne bottles) and 1 was a gin bottle. 

i will let you know when your wonderful prize is ready and we can either get together or i can mail it. i vote for getting together...for a cookout...with the fams. :) 

one out of ___?

one last bottle needed. 

i thought i had enough, but obviously i am one shy. so very close to the end of a rather long project. i must say i am proud of it though.



what is this project? some might ask.

well, it started with me wanting to find an economical way of bordering in our vegetable beds because the fabulous soil was being washed away with each winter. i didn't want to use wood because face it, in the pacific nw it can be rather wet.  

i had an idea out of the blue. wine bottles. the perfect solution. most of our friends drink wine. only a few loads were from people we didn't know or neighbor's recycling. kev only picked up a few that way once or twice. they warm the ground and help keep the roots toasty.

i know how many bottles were used in the bed project. i've counted twice. 

Guess how many bottles used in the 6 beds 
and win something fabulous and wonderful!!

Guesses must be made *HERE by next Sunday, the 25th. 8:00 am pst.

* comments left at the fb posting won't be counted. i want to make this easy on my brain people!

garden photo catch-up

i finally got a chance to get out and take some photos of the life in the garden. it's not going to be a huge harvest year, i fear. i am happy for what is growing, though...

the moby grape tomatoes are doing fairly well. they're looking the best out of the six planted this year. one of the romas have thrown some fruit and my oregon spring, but that's about it so far.

 the zucchini looks to me as though it is holding court over the rest of the garden. perhaps he is cheering the rest of the plants on, giving the shout out of positive words?  we lost the first batch (of most everything) to slugs (rat-bastards) and had a few zucchini plants sprout and survive the second sewing. we plucked all but one...we're no fools.

and surprise! artie came back this year! i didn't think it would survive after the really wet winter/spring, but it did. and there are two blooms waiting to be either picked to be eaten or to open wide to the skies. i might suggest to kev that we eat these and let the other blooms open for the bees.

i love the pom-pom top of the flowers from garlic. they bring a smile to my face, but what in my garden doesn't? (besides the slugs, small pepper plants, and one garden bed that is awaiting three more bottles to be complete)


we got some volunteer garlic this year. it's a good thing, because we didn't plant any last fall. we learned our lesson, though, and will be planting some this year!!

my favorite shot of the morning has to be this last one, though...i love daisies. they are happy flowers, one of my favorites. i love how the buds take on almost an alien spaceship feel. our shastas are crazy tall. i did not bend down for the taking of this photo. i am 5'10"...


so that's the garden in a nutshell. beans are giving me a little hope, but i don't think we'll have enough to put up for the winter. only about 5 of the sprouts are pulling through. i will take what i can get, though.