Archive for the ‘Gardening’ Category

I’ve been such a lazy poster lately, and now that the sun is out… I guess I just have to get up that much earlier.

I’ve actually been rather busy so you can’t completely blame me. I had the Hubby working on a ‘honey-do’ job…

After a least a year of plotting, and planning and trying to figure out a way to get the hubby to do a little building project  AND finish said project now titled “The Husband Project” …

It actually happened.

All household activities stopped for two days as my father and the Hubby put together a greenhouse (on Fathers Day), reminiscent of the Amish barn raising in Witness…unfortunatly without Harrison Ford OR Viggo Mortensen.

The hubby, however, did sport the beard.

The building itself went up without any trouble, the same cannot be said for a pair of tomatoes plants.

It still hurts my heart.

I have come to assume the men in my family do not really realize their sheer strength when it comes to prying posts and toppling into gardens.

Just saying…

PS – thanks Olivia for squealing. Mommy loves you most.

We will be calling this ‘Mommies New Office”… She is very happy.

Perhaps it’s also time to announce summer bookclub books? What could be more exciting – a greenhouse AND new books!

Fine, I don’t get out much.

Moving on, I decided to put both July and August up in the spirit of the two months of summer…

Our July selection is Kate Morton’s The Forgotten Garden

From Booklist

In 1913, a little girl arrives in Brisbane, Australia, and is taken in by a dockmaster and his wife. She doesn’t know her name, and the only clue to her identity is a book of fairy tales tucked inside a white suitcase.  When the girl, called Nell, grows up, she starts to piece together bits of her story, but just as she’s on the verge of going to England to trace the mystery to its source, her grandaughter, Cassandra, is left in her care. When Nell dies, Cassandra finds herself the owner of a cottage in Cornwall, and makes the journey to England to finally solve the puzzle of Nell’s origins. Shifting back and forth over a span of nearly 100 years, this is a sprawling, old-fashioned novel, as well-cushioned as a Victorian country house, replete with family secrets, stories-within-stories, even a maze and a Dickensian rag-and-bone shop.

And, Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog, for August

Description

We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Renée, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, Renée is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With humor and intelligence she scrutinizes the lives of the building’s tenants, who, for their part, are barely aware of her existence. Then there’s Paloma, a twelve-year-old genius. She is the daughter of a tedious parliamentarian, a talented and startlingly lucid child who has decided to end her life on the sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday. Until then she will continue behaving as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not an outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter.

Paloma and Renée hide both their true talents and their finest qualities from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. They discover their kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building. Only he is able to gain Paloma’s trust and to see through Renée’s timeworn disguise to the secret that haunts her. This is a moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.

*     *     *

I have to say I am especially excited about the first of these two books; I have been racing through the Shadow of the Wind just to start it…

*Note to Self
Ah, books and gardening what more could a girl ask for… perhaps a man servant and a latte?

I have a small passion for gardening, in fact I would humbly call myself a gardening enthusiast – so much so, that if this were 1995 I would equate my love of gardening with the number of times I watched Empire Records consecutively.

And that’s a lot.

Meaning…

1. I’ve watched way to much TV
2. Liv Tyler can do no wrong in my eyes… Need I remind us all of Arwen?
3. I really love to garden

Moving on…

Every month I contribute to the Green Living section of TimeFinders Magazine and this month I posted some tips and tricks for your vegetable garden that might prove helpful if you find your hands full of soil in the coming days.

And a little publicity never hurts…

Tips and Tricks for your Summer Garden

It’s after May 24^th so naturally I assume everyone has started their summer planting. Here are a few quick tricks for making a the most out of this years vegetable garden

• Did you know Starbucks offers free coffee grinds for your garden? Customers can ask for complimentary five-pound (2.27-kilogram) bags of used coffee grounds to enrich garden soil. Not only are the coffee grinds great for composting because they provide a good level of acidity to your soil but it also adds a great texture to your compost. And when you mix it directly into your summer garden the worms will love to feed on it.

• Use hanging baskets for some of your strawberry or pepper plants. The fruit can grow down the sides of the hanging baskets keeping them off the soil, well circulated and keeping them clear of pests and rot. Plus they also have more room to grow so you will have a larger yield of produce.

• Tired of zucchini plants taking over your garden? I’ve got two solutions:
  1. Remember seeing all those upside down tomato plants last year? Zucchinis love to grown upside down. It’s great for air circulation and keeping the plant from raiding your garden with its sometimes gigantic reach…
  2. Try growing them vertically. Stake the plant along a trellis, and as the plant grown tie the arms loosely along the trellis. (An old pair od pantyhose works great!)

  Also, harvest your plant often, if you let them get ripe on the vine, the plants will stop producing. By keeping the plants plucked, you keep your harvest going longer

• If you don’t have room for a vegetable garden, herbs are the next best solution. You can grow herbs anywhere and in almost anything from an old boot, to pots, to tires. All they need is a little sun and a lot of love and you have herbs all summer long. Harvest and dry them out in early fall and you have herbs all winter.

• Plant your tomatoes deep! If you pick up young tomato plants from the nursery, plant them in the soil below the first two rows of leaves. It’s really important tomato plants have a good root base, so the deeper the better.

• And the most important: It’s all about GOOD SOIL! Mulch and compost should be your summer mantra.

My last tip, there nothing like a really good book (and google) to help you out, try The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible. It’s a wonderfully written, easy to read handbook based on the WORD method of gardening: Wide rows, organic methods, raised beds, deep soil.

Have Fun!

*Note to Self
Now, if only the rain would let up…

I noticed something very peculiar going on in my backyard yesterday; new green leaves are poking through the old shoots.

I felt a pang in my stomach, wondering if these poor little buds are all sprouting too early and if an evil February frost will sweep in and kill them.

But it does, however, give me a little inspiration to get my hands dirty. I decided to rake a small section of leaves left behind from the walnut tree in attempts to put some order to the back yard.

I swear I could hear a squirrel snickering off in a tree somewhere.

It is amazing how that one simple act of tidiness not only uplifted my spirits but, I think, uplifted my backyards spirits as well.

It looks much happier.

I wanted to immediately run out and start planning my garden.  Why, why must March be in… March? And the last week of March no less. My impatience is insisting today is soon enough.

Ironically, as I just finished typing that last sentence, I went to check on my two sweeties who have been unusually quiet in the other room. I followed a trail of toys to the bathroom, where an entire bottle of toothpaste has been smeared all over the floor, and the baby, innocently enough, is sucking the bottle of hand soap.

Excellent.

Perhaps gardening can wait until…

Tomorrow?

*Note to Self

At least the bathroom is now minty fresh.

I have a small obsession with Indian food.

And by obsession, i mean i crave it nightly. If I had money, i would immediately hire an Indian Chef… who would also bring me chai tea in bed with nan khatai’s…

I would also not hesitate to hire a driver, a housekeeper and a masseuse.

I digress…

CHICKEN TIKKA MASALA

1 cup yogurt

1 Tbsp lemon juice

2 Tsp ground cumin

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 Tbsp minced ginger

1 clove of garlic minced

1/2 tsp salt

3 chicken breast cut up into bite sized pieces

SAUCE

1 Tbs butter

1 clove of garlic

2 Tsp ground cumin

2 Tsp paprika

1/2 Tsp salt

2 Tbs sugar (or to taste)

1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce

1 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

In a large bowl combine, yogurt, lemon juice, cumin, cinnamon, cayenne, ginger, garlic ande chicken. Marinate at least an hour.

Heat oven to 350

Place chicken pieces on a greased cookie sheet – discard the marinade – cook until done about 15 minutes

SAUCE

Melt butter in a large pot, saute garlic, cumin, paprika and salt about 3 minutes

Stir in tomato sauce, cream and sugar

Simmer on low until sauce thickens

Add chicken pieces simmer for 5 more minutes

Add cilantro

Serve over rice

*Note to Self

I would also buy Clive Owen…

I know technically the season isn’t over until harvest time, but September has a tendency to bring out the “clean up the backyard and put it away” feeling in me. I can no longer tolerate the kiddie pool, waterless, filled with tree shrapnel, sides half empty with air, (…or is it half full?) sitting on the middle of my deck? Yes… I keep a kiddie pool on my deck… I am far to cool for a circular patch of dead grass in the center of my lawn. There, I said it, my lawn is more important than my own children’s happiness.

Actually, I think the real reason is the spiders. I know those little suckers come out on the eve of August 31, build hundreds of invisible webs all over my yard, (and by all over I mean right in front of the backdoor – thanks Mr. Spider, whom I now suspect is living in my hair… bastard) making it completely annoying to harvest anything from the garden. There is nothing worse then picking green beans with a spider stick.

I digress…

I am in a reflective place these past few weeks, and as I stood outside on my, now,  kiddie pool free deck I was looking out to the garden and wondered what I had done differently this year than last, and what I would do differently next year.

In fact, I think it might be a handy bit of information for all you other beginner – or wannabee- gardeners out there… let me share my experience…

This year I moved the garden and chopped down a tree. Those were the big changes. Last year, my garden was tucked nicely away on the left side of the yard, grew a fine crop – lots of lettuce and zucchinis, but sickly little green beans, and oddly shaped carrots with fingers… strange… creepy carrots…with fingers.

Needless to say its location was annoying my chi and needed to move. So this spring we moved it to the back half of the yard, under a lovely tree.

The second major change was the removal of the lovely tree. Tree blocks the sun and the garden needs sun, try to explain that to my husband…

To the tree huggers, keep in mind I did have to put up with a husband who criticized the entire tree removal process and complained about its absence- ALL SUMMER LONG. Insisting he loved THAT tree and feels threatened that I may also cut down – THAT SUPER ANNOYING PINECONE TREE THAT DROPS PINECONES EVERYWHERE, AND WHEN I GO TO MOW THE LAWN THEY SHOOT OUT AND ATTACK DOGS AND SMALL CHILDREN (… don’t worry, I will…I am an arborist!)

Moving on… Now that the garden was in a lovely new sunny spot I decided to use this year as the year of the “experimental garden.” Kind of like an ornamental garden… but not. I decided to try planting a  lot of different things in clusters and see what happens.

This is what I learned…

Tip 1 – SPACING IS IMPORTANT. That’s why on the back of seed packets it tells you how far to space the seeds… who knew?

This year, like last, I started my seeds indoors and grew huge specimens for transplantation. Now my father, he thinks himself to be a wise man (actually he is, in fact he’s the smartest person I know, after me – excluding this one time) and recommended I wait to plant on Memorial Day. What he was not taking into consideration, was that this was a week before, and i wanted to do it NOW.

Needless to say the seedlings succumbed to a monsoon. And I re-planted on Memorial Day.

Tip 2 – Plant on Memorial Day, because my Daddy said so.

As the summer progressed everything started to grow really nicely. In the main garden, I planted, spinach, onions, edamame, tomatoes, green beans, leeks, carrots, cucumbers, garlic and herbs for filler. (Like i needed filler…)

In the second section, I had two raspberry bushes (which morphed like gremlins into 50) and three tires  filled with zucchini. Yes, I said tires – and they worked great! Look how environmental I have become…that totally makes up for the tree.

Tip 3 – Tires are awesome

The early stage was the easy part, planting seeds, labeling the rows, watering… the challenge comes with the growing crop and fighting with bastard squirrels for a piece of your own zucchini. In fact, I would call these squirrels Basterds.

The carrots – Carrot seed tape is wonderful, except for one thing, when the package says ‘no need to thin.” I now have two hundred little carrots with no room to grow. I did like the ease of the seed tape, so I have decided next year I will make my own – PRE SPACED- tape. (Instructions at the end of the post… thank you internet – how society ever survived without you, I will never know)

Tip 4 – Spacing is everything (did i already say that?… It’s important) 

The onions – For some reason they never grew. The internet told me beans and onions don’t grow well beside each other – that would explain 50% of my problem. Onions = little sad sacs.  Beans = Jack quality giant beanstalks (get it Jack… giant… beanstalk… Jack and the Beanstalk…the fairytale…anyway…)

I also believe I planted them too late. Same goes for the sad little garlic’s I grew. I will try replanting them again at the end of September when I harvest/remove everything else for the winter.

 

The cucumbers – these were an afterthought. They were dinky little plants that survived the monsoon and I felt sorry them. How could I rip them out of the ground after they had been through so much? They had no room to grow, and as a result never did amount to much (don’t tell them that) just a pickle and a ball… Ha! That’s dirty.

Tip 5 – re-read Tip 4

The green beans – They grew beautifully. And then they grew and grew and grew. What didn’t help was that I planted about 20 seeds in a 6 foot area. So I have tons of plant growth and to much overcrowding to grow a lot of beans. I also get attacked by sticky leaves every time i climb in there while holding a spider stick…

(Did I mention tip 4 and 5?)

The tomatoes – Okay, I never expected 8 foot tomatoes.

Tip 6 – Plan for 8 foot tomatoes.

When they started growing beyond the tomato cages I knew I was in trouble. I read some suggestions about staking the stalks, but I was far too late to try it. So I did what every person that gardens with tires does… I tied them up with ropes suspended from a shed and tree stump. The whole situation is embarrassing.

Tip 7 – If you buy your tomato plant as a little seedling ( I have never have luck starting tomatoes straight from the seed) bury them in the dirt past their first two rows of leaves, about 2 inches up the stalk. Tomatoes need a solid root system to grow well.

Tip 8 – Plant basil beside them, they like it, they become friends.

Tip 9- Stake the stalk  if you are growing them in a garden. They go crazy in a garden with all that freedom! Potted tomatoes tend to stay small enough for cages.

The spinach – I don’t know what happened to my spinach, but it wasn’t like the kind you buy at the store. It was weird and had long thin leaves. Maybe I bought the wrong kind, not sure…

The swiss chard – It’s wonderful! Especially as a replacement for spinach in cooking – very hearty, love it, love it, love it.

The edamame – Planted them with the green beans, didn’t yield a crop worth the effort, buy them frozen, its easier.

The Broccoli and Brocoflower- Okay, so apparently you need a TON of room to grow these and when I mean a ton I mean 2 feet between each plant. I had tiny broccoli’s, not even cute little broccoli’s, just tiny ones I thought would grow bigger but they bloomed and wilted instead.

The zucchini – These never fail. I love growing zucchinis because they yield a great crop and for the first month I had zucchini, after zucchini, after zucchini. It was wonderful. I love zucchini – I had so much zucchini that I made zucchini brownies!!! Soooo good. And then the unthinkable happened. Some little bastard squirrel found my zucchini plants and has been munching on them ever since. The little shit.

Tip 10 – Kick squirrels in the face.

Raspberries – I started raspberries at the end of last year.  I bought 3 plants from Rona for $3.  They were wilty and unimpressed with life, but I figured it was a good deal and decided to see what would happen. Two made it through winter, and today I have about 50 new shoots. It spreads like a weed.

Tip 11- Tie raspberries back early – with wire! Make little raspberry enclosure. It can be aggressive.

In retrospect, we’ve been eating pretty well and I have cherry tomatoes growing out of my ears, and I’m okay with that. I have been lucky with hardly any pests – excluding a mother fucker of a squirrel – and I know that as I write this, next year will be a very pesty year…

My last little tip is the most important. And can save you the most trouble from the beginning.

Tip 12 -The internet. The internet can be your best friend. Forums are very good for advice, helpful tips and ideas.

I think it has been a very good year …for small town girls, and soft summer nights… see, Frank agrees… I AM an expert gardener.

*Note to self
I always preferred Dean… You can’t beat a rainy fall day, warm scarf, latte and Dino singing…

 

Carrot Seed Tape

1. Unroll a strip of 2ply toilet paper on a table and mist it with a sprayer, and place the seeds along the center of the strip. SPACE THE SEEDS

2. Fold a third of the paper over the center (leaving the seeds in the middle section) and cover the seed with the remaining third again. Mist the seeds again.

3. Place your seed tape in a strip down your garden furrows and cover with soil.