Category: garden

And a handful of garlic to go with it.

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Last August, I assisted in this canning class down at the Charlottesville Cooking School. I’ve been canning for years and have taught a few friends, and always have people ask me where they can learn to can. I had suggested to my friend who owns the school that she should consider offering a canning class. To me, if you like knowing where your food comes from enough to grow your own food, you should know how to preserve it, right? So, she found this completely amazing woman to teach it and I got to help. I really did mean to keep in touch with Leni, but let’s face it, keeping in touch with anyone not on my everyday path of school and work can sometimes be a stretch. Honestly, even people ON that everyday path I have a hard time keeping up with. *sigh*. When I went to the 2 year anniversary party of the school last month, I ran into Leni again and she gave me her card and told me to get in touch with her. I finally did and spent the evening out at her house with a very lovely group of women discussing gardening and food and just life. I just feel so inspired now to work in the garden, to get serious about building more vegetable beds, about increasing the diversity of what I grow among a few other new projects. (Somehow convincing Pat to build me an outdoor oven after he paints the house and builds me a chicken coop.)

I didn’t take my camera along, why, I’m not exactly sure, I do tend to carry that thing everywhere. So, no pictures tonight, but, I did come home with a handful of elephant garlic seeds to put in the dirt somewhere, to go with my inspiration and that counts for something. Next time I’ll take the camera, definitely.

Small garden peek.

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It was in the 90’s and sunny here all weekend. I finally found the time to go down to the nursery just south of town I like so much and got some annuals for the hanging baskets. I kept it pretty minimalist this year, with just pinks on the front porch and I can’t even remember what in the baskets on the back porch. And of course a few begonias for here and there. None of my begonias wintered well. Couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that I pull them all into the basement at the first frost and leave them there all winter, without alot of attention (or water)….never mind they have made it through before, which is one of the reasons why I fell in love with begonias to begin with. They seem to do well with my tough love. This winter was a little too much for them. Come to think of it, it was a little too much for alot of us.

I’m wondering how many strawberries the rabbits and squirrels are going to leave us this year. They are starting to look awfully yummy, aren’t they?
I’ve had this pot of strawberries for a few years now. I now also have 2 patches of volunteer strawberry plants that have jumped off this pot that produce way more than the mama pot. I think my goal for next spring is to have a new bed built to put them all in one spot in the ground and give up on the cool planter pot. Maybe I’ll throw some hens & chicks in it instead.


And the pole beans came up today. Literally. I watered last evening and noticed 2 had popped up. I went to water this evening and noticed an entire row had sprung up, just like that. It’s amazing what warm weather can do for the garden.

The Arugula has bolted.

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Last fall, I threw some arugula seeds in the ground and before all of those lovely greens got picked and eaten, it started snowing. And those greens stayed buried under snow the better part of December, January, February & into March. That picture up there is what they looked like when the snow melted last month. I didn’t know if they had actually made it, but turns out they did and of course, bolted first chance they got. Consequently, we’ve been eating some nice, fresh, locally grown greens in alot of meals this week. A nice mushroom arugula risotto one night, tonight a deconstructed arugula pesto, augmented with some arugula pesto from the freezer. Clearly, we like to let our arugula bolt around here. We may even like it more cooked than in salads.

I sauteed some arugula with garlic and pine nuts in olive oil, then tossed in the pesto, then tossed it all with some pasta. It’s darn tasty if I say so myself. And feels great to be able to eat our own food fresh from the garden again. It’s the only thing ready to pick right now, besides some chives, but it feels great to be able to walk outside and pick dinner again. Especially during this glorious 80 degree weather. Barefoot in the dirt hasn’t felt so good in I don’t know how long.

How being a grown up is over-rated.

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I sat down and got spring break planned. At least, I bought train tickets for our trip. I got our summer child care plan figured out – which camps, when. Writing camp, Art camp, Girl Scout camp, and just camp for camp’s sake because we need something that week and I don’t care if cheerleading is the featured activity, it’s alot less expensive than any other option and you can just look at it as a cultural experience and they are touting you’ll learn awesome dance moves which certainly you can take with you and they can come in handy, right?

So inbetween all this running around with spring fairs and swimming and soccer and art and working more and having to plan ahead (which really bothers me to no end, I hate feeling I have to be on top of things because if I don’t have my kid’s summer planned by spring break, I might not have any options besides paying a college kid more than I make an hour to sit around my house with my kid but planning that far ahead makes my head spin and makes me think I could cause a late March snowgedden.) I’ve not had alot of time to enjoy this divine weather we’ve been having. Spring has sprung in a most delightful, welcome way, especially after the month of February here (well, December and January weren’t too popular either for a number of reasons, mostly starting with the letter ‘C’ and rhymes with ‘Old’.). I did find time the other day to sit under the dogwood and notice how it is budding and there are birds checking out the new birdhouse Pat hung on it the other day. And Garden Gnome seems to have weathered the winter just fine, despite being buried in snow for a good few months.
I haven’t had much time to be productive in the way I’d like to be productive – I’ve pulled out the bins of my warm weather clothes, but haven’t yet swapped them out for my cold weather ones, nor have I figured out what’s going, what’s getting altered (a lot of it) and what’s just getting tossed (should be a healthy portion, we’ll see). I haven’t made anything all week besides some lack luster dinners, but I’ve been productive. Spring break and summer are planned as much as they need to be. I started doing some serious restoration in the garden (and am sore all over thanks to it) and got some of the outdoor rearranging I’ve been wanting to get done since last summer, but had to wait until the right planting time, done. Nothing picture worthy though, just replacing the soil and lambs ear border carried away by the floods of late January, moving the butterfly bush to begin to replace the now dead hemlock and moving the lilac to replace the butterfly bush. It took 400 pounds of topsoil to replace what we lost and I still need some more.

But, I did get some lounge time in, even if I did need to schedule it and that feels completely wrong to have to schedule. I think I need to schedule alot more and just let some things slide….even if that’s how that basket sits for so long untouched….

Springing back.

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After a long and busy week of single working motherhood it’s finally Friday. And oh so delightfully warm in that sun. It’s nice to see the earth again. Even better to see things springing back to life.

This time of year always inspires me. After walking around surveying the yard and making a mental list of what needs to get done, I went inside and walked upstairs and pushed aside my current to-do pile and quickly whipped up a welcome home present for my dear husband. Amazing how a frustrated, cranky mood can turn around by just spending a few minutes being creative and wandering around in the yard.

Warming up.

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So I realized that what I really like about Edie taking swimming lessons during the winter is that I get to sit in a (nice) warm environment and knit for a good 45 minutes. I have been freezing since last December. Every time I touch Pat & Edie, they tell me how cold my hands are. Apparently ice cubes have replaced them. The parents viewing loft at the pool is really humid and warm and I was loving it today.
I took a few projects with me to to work on. I went on this flower knitting kick a while back – no idea what I was going to do with them, just did them because I could. I pulled one out, put a button in the middle of it, sewed a bar pin on the back and voila, a fabulous little gift for a friend who’s having a birthday tomorrow. When I pull that kind of stuff off, I don’t mind having piles of unfinished projects lying around.
A woman who has a son in Edie’s class at school and a daughter in her swim lesson today sat there and talked to me during the lesson. I can’t say I know her very well, and so as we were talking about our kids and what kind of year they were having at school and all that other good getting to know you parent talk, I found myself admitting I have one child and she’s dreamy. Really, I sort of have the perfect child and she’s really got no complaints (except for the fact that we’re making her take swimming lessons and she has so many other things to do and really, we’ve overscheduled her once again…also, I’m a mean mommy and didn’t let her watch any tv today….) and so therefore, neither do I. As I sat there knitting in my little cardigan sweater, saying that, I wondered if I was coming across as smug and perfect and you know, one of those people that I sort of dread and wonder if they are really that perfect all the time. I mean, my kid’s not perfect, but I realize that she is quite dreamy in grand scheme of things and we are very blessed with her. And I hear quite a bit from people about how great my kid is and how I’m sort of spoiled by that and yes, I know it and openly admit to it. Of course as soon as I say that, my dreamy girl is doing the backstroke in a definite diagonal line across the pool and about to take out her swim instructor….
In other news around here, I noticed signs of spring trying to pop up in the back yard. The hellebore has buds. A crocus is starting to open. A daffodil has a bud shooting up. This long winter just might end after all. I started getting excited about being able to dig. And plant. I think I want to grow some tomatillos this year. I got some from William & Sally last summer and made some salsa and stuck it in the freezer and man, that was good stuff. I want to grow that myself this summer.
Edie is sleeping upstairs with me again tonight, so there will be no work in the happy corner this evening. We both miss daddy, so it’s okay. It’s nice to have someone warm to snuggle with. I think I’ll just go knit and watch some Olympics. Did I really tell myself I was going to knock out that pile this week? I did wash the ironing board cover in a procrastination move. Well, tomorrow is another day….