As we mentioned earlier, we have been filling space with meadowfoam because it is green during the fall and reseeds itself nicely. I had ordered a large packet of seeds for white meadowfoam (Limnanthes alba), and tried sprouting them various ways with some success just throwing seed onto one of our ecoroofs. Of those I tried to start indoors only a few sprouted, and those that did looked quite different from those that were growing on our ecoroof. Read more »
One of the nice spring surprises this last week has been that our camas has decided to bloom. Read more »
With the onset of spring, and our recent beautiful weather, we have been able to enjoy one of our favorite aspects of the house: Dinners on our ecoroof. We have a small area of pavers sitting amongst ferns, strawberries and camas with a little round table and a lovely view of the neighborhood, downtown, and the sunset. Just about the best way possible to enjoy a warm spring evening.
We have recently started up with the Portland Audobon’s Backyard Habitat Certification Program and picked up plants from one of their seasonal sales this last weekend. Read more »
Over the last year we have become pretty enamored with a particular group of plants -Meadowfoam… Due in large part to one great reason, they are an off season plant. Read more »
Just as before, it seems that our ecoroofs seem to know when the season is about to change before anything else does. Over the last week or so, camas has been popping up all over the place on both of our roofs that have some. Read more »
One of my favorite parts of Harpoon House is the siding. Early in the process when developing the initial concept for our house we were really interested in the idea of aging gracefully… And that certain materials, when allowed to show their age, can be extremely long lived with very little maintenance. I’ve been noticing lately that this aging has begun to happen in a very visible way. Read more »
News came in today that Harpoon House has been awarded LEED Platinum. Its been a long, long process and its good to be done. Our house went counter to many of the assumptions that LEED for homes takes (heating load too small for mini-split heat pumps, no landscape irrigation), but through a few appeals we were able to proceed. Its exciting that despite the setbacks, and without currently having any power generation, smart design was able win us a Platinum rating.
This time of year our upper ecoroof starts looking a little scrappy. It gets a lot of sun and is generally too hot and dry for anything growing up there to be very happy. So recently after talking with some of our neighbors who have been enjoying the benefits of their solar panels, we’ve begun to look into the possibility of installing a small array on our upper roof. Read more »
As the season transitions, many weekends have been filled with marathon canning sessions, putting up the last of the season’s bounty, as well as getting the garden prepared for the winter. Other than an early experiment with pickled carrots, this is the first season that I have undertaken pickling and preserving with seriousness, and I’m hooked! Read more »
