growing asparagus

This week we brought home 10 asparagus crowns, purchased on an impulse at our local nursery. You can read about our whirlwind project over at Tend today. We are feeling happy to have this bed made and planted. It feels like we just made a big, exciting investment, though it cost almost nothing and will provide food for many years. If our plants are healthy and happy, the asparagus patch could be a longer term resident of our home than we are!

 

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garden notes // april 16

There hasn’t been a lot of action IN the actual garden yet, but I did plant out my snap peas, runner beans, and pole beans last week. I think we will build some teepee style trellises this year for more vertical growing within the garden.

It’s been pretty cool here at night, with lows in the upper 30s, and by day there has been a real chill in the air. Seems cooler than usual for this time, but I couldn’t say for sure.

My starts are doing super well, and it’s amazing to see how much growth can occur day by day. That’s one thing I really appreciate about tending them so closely in the early days, is I really get to watch their progress. It’s amazing what plants do, and how responsive they are. The slow pokes are finally making an appearance, like ground cherry and hot peppers. I always wish I had started hot peppers sooner. I need to create a little calender for myself to refer to each year. I’m planning to create a planting chart too, similar to Shari’s here. Her idea really got me thinking of ways I could better organize these kinds of details.

I divided up all my double plantings of cucumbers and squash last week, and have started on my tomatoes. I think I’ll start leaving some things in the hoop house soon, to free up my hands a bit. Moving trays in and out each day can start to get time consuming. Steven made me 3 slatted wood trays recently (shown in the top 2 photos), as the odds and ends of trays I had were all full. I love them so much! And they have made moving plants so much easier and more efficient. Once this phase of gardening passes, I think they’ll make nice harvest crates as well.

Today I am planning to spend much of the afternoon in the garden. The sun is trying to come out, and I think we are in for a beautiful day.

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You can find me at tend today, where I shared about a culinary herb project we did here. Come check it out if you’d like!

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slugs and gardening

I have a new post up over at tend today, talking all about slugs! Come on over if you’d like.

 

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garden photos (and some thoughts)

I realized that in my previous post, “garden notes,” I actually didn’t include a single garden photo, but rather my surroundings while in and out of the garden – a break on the porch, a cold drink on the patio, some deer that wandered through.

Sometimes I think I would do well to have a little gardening business, just so I could spend more time out there. I love the work of the garden so much. I like the heavy digging, the weeding, the moving of plants, the tending of plants. I don’t mind troubleshooting and I enjoy garden research. Even though there have been frustrating challenges, I have been able to rise to the challenges and even find interest in working through them (like pests for example).

Maybe it’s the perfect balance of physical labor, which I do so well with (I am a JUST DO IT kind of girl), and the parts that require me to slow down and think things through, plan things out (which I don’t always  have the patience for when I just want to do it!)

Gardening has taught me a lot of patience. And as an organic gardener, there are rewards of that patience showing up in ways I hadn’t known how they would look.

The work of providing for ourselves in a way that is direct, foundational and basic – such as feeding ourselves – is so simple and animal, free of superficial complications. Maybe this is why gardening is like meditation for so many people.

I actually sat down to just share a few photos, but I guess I had some thoughts to share too. Gardening, particularly growing food, is like nothing else for me. It’s satisfying to me in a way that is hard to describe. Maybe you know what I mean.

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I will be sharing over at Tend this year, every Tuesday. I’ve been following Tend since it started 2 years ago, and am looking forward to sharing in this year with them (and you!) as a contributor. Hop on over there if you’d like.

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early spring

I think it’s safe to say that spring is really here. And still light out at 7:30 pm? Yes, thank you! The spring peepers in our little cove of the lake started peeping a week or so ago, and to me, that is the sound of spring and summer. It makes my whole body smile to hear them.

The spring-time garden season has officially begun here as well, and the first seeds have been planted. A few weeks ago, I was a little worried whether my excitement for planting this year’s garden was ever going to come. I became a little bit discouraged at an epic fail of my late summer planting. We have a wormy-looking, root-eating soil dweller, taking over the universe out there, and I need to somehow identify what it is so I can figure out what to do about it. But anyway, all it took was a single afternoon out there – working in the soil, weeding, harvesting a pot of soup’s worth of root vegetables – and I realized my worries were for nothing. I simply LOVE to be in the garden. Challenges and all, the garden is a place where I feel happy and at peace.

Notes: March 9: Planted tomato seeds (8 each – Riesentraube, Black Cherry, Purple Cherokee, Orange Banana), 8 ground cherry, a couple dozen sugar snaps, a couple dozen bush beans, a dozen red onion, and a whole lot of basil. I didn’t plan ahead very meticulously, and assumed I had certain seeds on hand that I don’t, so I have just ordered cucumber, summer squash, more peas and a few different herbs. Also, we are thinking about changing the layout of our garden beds this year, so hopefully we will get that worked out in the next couple weeks.

Will you grow a garden this year? Have you started planting? I love to hear what fellow gardeners are up to. In fact, a quick trip to the food co-op today turned into a 45 minute gardening chat. There are always things to learn from each other.

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easing back into the garden

It was such a beautiful weekend here. Coffees were had on the patio, while we soaked up the warm sun. Deer nosed around nearby looking for tasty new growth. The birds were extra talkative, singing all day long. A little chipmunk even came to visit. It feels so much like spring!

Talk of the garden has been ongoing around here, even though somehow it still feels so early to me. I looked back on my blog, and to my surprise, I was planting seeds less than a week from now last year. And I started journaling about last year’s garden in the beginning of March.

On Saturday, we bundled up in the late afternoon to do some outdoor chores. We took all the compost down to “the big bin”

and then we headed down to check out the hoop house, still full of a dried-up tangle of tomato plants.

We gathered up a few tools, and jumped right in.

Between us, we made pretty quick work of cutting the overgrown grass path and clearing out the beds. There is now just a bit of weeding to do, and then we will ready the beds for planting.

We talked about a few improvements to be made, and what we will grow in there this year.

When we were finished, we headed inside to the most amazing smell of fresh bread, just finished baking. I mean AMAZING. I wish I could display smell on the blog.

This was somewhat of an experimental loaf, and it turned out to quite possibly be one our all time favorites, ever. I love when that happens. Onion, chili, caraway, dill, with a fresh flour blend of quinoa, corn, millet and rice.

We made a huge pot of soup, with mostly root vegetables from our garden, and then settled into a long and relaxing, productive evening.

I often have no concept of weekends vs weekdays, but this weekend felt like a real weekend. Yes, I really do like weekends.

Welcome to the new week, friends. How was your weekend?

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indian summer

It’s common, on the Oregon Coast, to have a bit of an indian summer. September is often referred to here as “the best time of year.” The wind calms down and the late season sun shines intensely. We have arrived at this time, and I am loving it.

Today I got another big part of my fall planting done. I am pretty close to finished, I think.

I harvested the last couple Golden Delicious (which are indeed delicious), and the first few Bush Buttercup squash.

I picked more beans and more cucumbers. It’s been a great year for both.

And I did all my digging and planting and compost turning in a mini skirt, and (even in the privacy of our yard) felt a little bit risque for it.

Have a great weekend sweet people.

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a day in the garden

Today I found myself in and out of the garden all day. There is so much to be picked and enjoyed this time of year. I thought I’d share some of the gifts of the day.

 

This morning, after making coffee, I went down to the blueberry bushes and picked a bowl full for us (we ate them too fast to even think about a photo). On the way back, I stopped at the hoop house and picked a little pile of tomatoes. It’s been really nice to have a few varieties this year.

 

Then I headed back up to sit and finish my coffee. I was a little grumpy this morning. Picking tomatoes helped some.

 

After I drank my coffee, I snipped some green and purple basil, oregano and thyme.

 

Later in the afternoon I did some planting, and transplanted some of the things we started a while back in the hoop house. I feel more organized than ever with the fall garden this year. Fingers crossed it comes together well.

 

Does that big orange winter squash make you think of autumn? It does me. This is the first of the golden delicious and it’s a big one! They are usually kind of petite.

 

The lettuce is starting to bolt, one by one, so I pulled a few full heads today to start making way for new lettuce plantings. We have been eating big salads daily. Need to eat bigger ones!

 

While cleaning up the lettuce bed, I was shocked to discover how big the turnips are getting. I had no expectations for these, and planted them as an afterthought, so it feels like a little gold mine in there.

 

This crazy beast of a tomato is one I picked last week. Today it reached prime ripeness (and tonight we ate most of it!). Here’s a photo taken when it was picked, which gives some reference of size.

 

All that picking got me thinking about what to make for dinner. A summer veggie torte seemed like the natural choice (what would have been your natural choice?).

 

I layered sliced potatoes, turnips, turnip greens, summer squash, mushrooms, fresh herbs, red onion, cheese and tomato. All but the onion and mushrooms were grown here at home, which felt super satisfying.

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[footnote] So it would seem as though this blog is turning into a gardening blog… Don’t worry, I’ll be around with other things to share about soon enough. For the moment, the garden feels so central to the season, I just want to soak it up.

I’d love to hear what’s happening in your garden, or what you’re cooking with the fresh foods of the season. And if you haven’t tried a torte yet, I recommend it! So easy and versatile, and crazy delicious.

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ground cherry

The little fruits of our ground cherry plants are ripening bit by bit. Coco asked about them recently, so I thought I’d show them in a little more detail. I think they are beautiful and amazing, such interesting little fruits with their lantern husks. The fruit is sweet, and the flavor is delicately reminiscent (to me) of pineapple.

More info on this plant here.

 

 

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saving seeds

Sage – seed heads, and seed

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Arugula – seed pods and seeds

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Calendula – seed heads and seed

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Carrot seed head… I am patiently waiting…

This year I’ve been working on saving more seeds. It takes patience waiting for seeds to ripen, and the harvesting of seeds can sometimes be a bit tedious. There is also the sacrifice of a bit of space in the garden, while waiting for plants to complete their process of going to seed. For these reasons, saving garden seed has been something that’s taken me a while to fully embrace. It’s becoming something that feels like a natural part of gardening though, and it’s super satisfying – even more than I imagined it would be – and I have barely scratched the surface. I would love to get to the point where we hardly buy seeds anymore, and in terms of sustainability, it just makes sense to complete the cycle of planting and growing in this way.

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