The July Garden

July 6, 2009 - The garden is officially in full swing. It's incredible to me that all the vegetables that are currently growing in our garden began their life as a seed in my hand, tenderly placed into a small pot of soil. In just a few short months, the garden went from a bare patch of ground to a huge maze of delicious food.

Joe and I returned last week from several days in California. Before we left we were eating peas from the garden in handfuls, as well as onions, leaf lettuces, some bok choi, and a few heads of broccoli. We arrived home to find the garden bursting with food begging to be eaten. Here's the large view of the garden -

But let's go in and take a closer look -

There are big green tomatoes everywhere, and we should be just a week or two from our first taste-

The zucchini is beginning it's massive production, which we already are having a hard time keeping up with. When will I learn to plant only ONE zucchini plant?

The red cabbage is the perfect splash of color in the midst of all the green -

A nice, healthy patch of green beens - not yet producing, but well on their way -

Some romaine lettuces that will bolt if we don't eat 'em quick!

Kale that is just sooo lovely with it's curly leaves -

Purple basil, which happened to star in a delicious Purple Basil Lemonade that I served at a 4th of July party this weekend -

The few broccoli heads that didn't get eaten yet are beginning to flower - very pretty, but they need to be cut so that the plants will begin to produce off-shoots that we can nibble on throughout the rest of the growing season and even into the fall.

The cucumber plants are producing, meaning Joe and I have now had our first cucumber sandwiches of the season!

And a row of onions beside a row of leaf lettuces - Now you'd think we'd be nothing but thrilled with the status of our garden. Unfortunately, what we also found upon our return was that we apparently have a neighborhood deer that has let itself into our garden for some midnight nibbling. How do we know? The obvious clues are the many deer prints scattered throughout the garden -

But when you take a close look, you'll also find that all of our tomato and pepper plants have been chewed off at about deer head height - The deer also seems to have enjoyed several nibbles in the swiss chard patch, but other than that things look okay. Joe made the garden fence higher with some sticks and string, so hopefully that will keep the deer out from now on. But it was pretty depressing to see all the damage that had been done in our absence. Hopefully everything will recover... and if it doesn't, at least we still have a LOT of other yummy food to eat!

TIMBER!

June 1, 2009 - Joe and I went over to the property yesterday morning to do a little tree work. We only had a couple hours, so I was under the impression that we were going to just cut down some really small stuff. But after I had cut down a few new trees, Joe pointed to a huge hemlock and said - 'I'm gonna take down this one. '

Oh.

We moved our cars out of the way, and then he showed me how to check which way a tree is leaning and where it's carrying the most weight. Then he cut a chunk out of one side -

Then he placed me a good distance from any potential landing zones and started cutting from the other side. Pretty shortly thereafter, I heard him call - "TIMBER!!!"

And then boom -

It was down. Joe got to work sawing off all the limbs on the top and sides (you have to leave the ones on the underside initially because they carry a lot of weight and could break a leg or kill someone). I carried all the limbs over to a big brush pile. When the trunk was clear on top and sitting on the few branches underneath, we lifted a branch until the whole thing rolled over onto the ground, then cut off the last of the limbs, leaving a big ole trunk for Joe to play with at somepoint. The job was done in under two hours, and we went on with our day. What a fun project!

Vegetable Gardening - In Containers!

May 31, 2009 - This post is for all of you who have told me that you would LIKE to grow vegetables, but you don't have space for a garden. We had a lot of extra plants this year and nowhere in the garden to put them - so for once I understood your problem... what to do?

Luckily, we have a little deck out of our one room house, and I quickly realized that a few vegetables were all it needed to make it my new favorite room! So I picked up a few cheapo pots and a couple bags of potting soil and here's what I ended up with -

Sooo easy, cheap, and hopefully, fruitful! This is my first time trying vegetables in containers, but I will keep you posted on how it works, so that you can all try it next year. Surely you can find one sunny spot out your door for one precious tomato plant??

Of course, if I was going to enjoy this new space, we needed a table and chairs, so that was my next, slightly more expensive, task. But it makes me soooo happy on warm sunny mornings! Plus it now doubles as my outdoor potting area! :)

Yes Please

May 16, 2009 -


I'll take one FAT pile of that arugula with my supper.

Too Big!

May 16, 2009 - I never anticipated having this problem - many of our plants are getting too big for their own good - These tomatoes are sooo ready to go into the ground, but the ground is not ready for them! Did I start them too early? Did we treat them too well?

We've had no choice but to put things in the ground early and just keep our fingers crossed that it's not too cold for them. We've rearranged what's going where in the garden beds because these tomatoes were supposed to go in the row that currently has our peas and spinach - which aren't even ready to harvest yet, let alone dig up. So far we're making it work, but jeez! Who would have thought THIS would be our problem.

Little Garden Helper

May 16, 2009 - Today Joe and I went over to the garden to do some work, and we were lucky enough to have a little garden helper! Who knew our neice Natalie was a natural in the garden!

To Our Friends At Creekside

May 16, 2009 -

Our friends at Creekside posted a comment the other day asking for a construction update - probably because we're never at the property and the 'site' hasn't moved past the final stages of demolition in the past several months... I'm sorry for the lack of house-building info lately, but honestly it's just because there ISN'T any info!

Yes, we are still building a house. Yes, we would like it to happen this year. No, there is not a foundation contractor about to show up on our property next week.

This house is very special and important to both of us, so it's not something we could really jump into too quickly. Last spring I was hugely optimistic about what we would accomplish right after we bought the property. But over the past year, our ideas about what exactly to build have changed a million times. Maybe we're just waiting for one idea to stick long enough for it to feel right? As you might already know, Joe and I are not huge consumers. We want this house to last us for a good while and we want to be happy in it. So we're thinking everything through. Plus, there's always so much going on! At the moment, I'm not quite sure how anybody gets a house built and has a life at the same time...

The latest house designs have been either timber frame or prefab. Deciding whether or not to put in a basement has been a HUGE issue. We currently have a lovely sunny loft in the middle of the house. We'll have one bedroom, a bathroom, and a spacious office on the north side of the house; kitchen, dining room, and living room on the south. Huge windows on the south side for passive solar. Hopefully a deck? But very few things are set in stone.

I promise we'll build our house, and when it starts happening, I'm going to document every last bit of the process. We can't wait to live there, enjoy the feeling of living on our OWN property for once, put in some permanent gardens and chicken coops, and hang out with our very cool friends at Creekside. :)