Sprout

2011-12-31T20:34:00.000-08:00

December may seem like an unlikely time for a garden post, especially considering I failed to post once on my blog all summer. Unfortunately this wasn’t a summer of much gardening for us. Unlike the rest of the U.S., for those in the Pac NW, spring and much of summer brought rain, low chilly temperatures, rain and more rain.

I wish I could say it was the rain that dampened our gardening spirits, but it wasn’t. My fun and casual plans for gardening with the kids this summer never sprouted. Neglected our garden became, lost, forgotten in the midst of our tragedy. My mom’s sudden diagnosis and horrible death from lung cancer changed the shape of our landscape more than any amount of rain ever could.

Full of things that didn’t belong, our garden was definitely one of surprise this summer, not many of which I can say were welcome. Trimmed lavender bushes without a second bloom, droopy, short broken sunflowers, blueberry bushes stunted in their growth, seeds from a package marked lacinato kale grew dark purple beets instead. Only one broccoli plant bloomed from seeds I haphazardly tossed in the waiting composted soil, and that one eventually became the Ohlin Hostel for Travelling Cabbage Worms – their green blending in perfectly with the lose florets. Peas that grew too small or too big, lots of lettuce – big surprise – onions that hardly grew at all, garlic gone crazy, zucchini covered in aphids and arugula grown and bolted in less than three weeks.

Too much water. And then, not enough.

Strange happenings, odd growth, longing, death and regret. If only I’d planted more kale, why didn’t I build the greenhouse last year? If only I hadn’t been so picky? I would have planted more thank-yous to my mom, more hugs and laughter and appreciation.

Unfortunately I can't change the past, and although I'm still in the fog that settled in upon us this summer, I hope that 2012 will be a better year for all of us. I hope that the desire to garden with Lily and Jasper will return as well as my joy in writing about our garden escapades. I hope you all have a wonderful, healthy new year.

Signs of Spring

2011-05-24T20:35:00.000-07:00

A COLD, WET, spring has left us and the plants confused, like we're ready to come out of hibernation, but the weather doesn't want us to yet. Many things appear delayed in the garden this year, but others are moving right along - growing and thriving - despite the damp chill and despite all my complaining about there not being enough sunshine and warmth.

Broccoli starts in the rain

Allium blooming

Allium almost blooming

Strawberry blooms going crazy

Jasper blooming

Lily Blooming

Sill, a little sunshine would be nice.

Playing with Worms

2011-04-03T20:44:00.000-07:00

Lily loves the worms, the worms and the water. Not much has changed from last year in that respect. It seems she will play for eons as long as dirt, worms, and water are involved. The poor worms. She's been making "homes" for them. Which is to say, she takes one of the little expanded peat pellets, finds some worms, (and we have tons) and squishes them into the pellet. She then mashes more good dirt in on top of them and says, "Okay here's your home, wormies." Sometimes we are actually in the garden working or playing side by side in precious quiet for a few moments that I don't quite realize what she's done until after she's done it. Like I said, poor worms. Although she did make hot chocolate for them out of dirt and water, and I can bet these are the first worms in the history of the world that have ever had such a delicious treat as Lily's compost hot chocolate, and all in the comfort of their new home!

Not much actual gardening going on around here as it’s been raining FOREVER. We planted some of our pea starts out, as well as some lettuce, and kale starts and I think I actually shocked them all to death. Yup, once again I started too early, because I am missing an important gene called PATIENCE. Usually Mother Nature looks out for me and somehow my starts make it, but this year, not so much.

The Peas might decide to survive although right now they’re looking pretty pissed off at me, but the lettuce and kale starts, all dead. It is weird and unsettling to see once beautiful, little, bright green seedlings that you and your child nurtured, flopped over, dried up and shriveled. Not fun. Doesn't make for good photography either. Good thing I have more seeds! And good thing the co-op has gorgeous looking starts. So for now we’ll play with the worms and try, try, try to be gentler with our next batch of starts.

Starting Seeds with Lily 2011

2011-02-20T09:54:00.001-08:00

Lily and I started our seeds together last week. We have been looking at seed catalogues, garden books, and talking about our garden for weeks now. I bought the Jiffy seed kit with little peat pellets, and later we will start more seeds with some bigger containers and seed starting mix.

I find the little pellets that come with the Jiffy kit, and ones like it, are great for little kids, and they work really well for big seeds. I prefer the seed starting mix for smaller seeds, like those of kale and onion; it’s more efficient, if you will, for tiny seeds. But things like efficiency and practicality don’t necessarily play a roll in my garden at the moment, not with 2 kids and a dog. Fun plays a roll, though and that's really what this is all about for us right now, playing with seeds, dirt, and water, and spending time together. We hope to make some things grow, learn how to take care of our plants, and enjoy our delicious harvest with friends and family. But truly, for me, I hope to make it fun for Lily, (and Jasper too,) and take advantage of each awesome moment of WOW! they experience in the garden.

And Lily sure had fun starting seeds. True to form, her favorite part is the watering. She'll water anything in sight, including the seed pellets, the table, and herself. We got ourselves all set up at the dining room table. We put our seed tray over some newspaper and watered the pellets with warm water so they would grow. Then we planted the seeds and labeled each row. We have a really sunny south-facing window to put our seeds in, and we've been checking them every day. (Right now, I think I'm more excited by that than Lily.)

We started broccoli, two kinds of kale, two kinds of onions, lettuce, spinach and old nasturtium seeds because Lily loves those seeds. They seem to be just the right size for her fingers. (Oh and we started peas, of course.)

This year we are using seeds from Uprising Seeds in Bellingham, Ed Hume seeds, and some Irish Eyes Garden seeds our friend Vanessa gave us. Can’t wait to see how things grow!

Seeds A Plenty

2011-02-07T22:11:00.000-08:00

Well January flew by; it went so fast I feel like yesterday was Christmas Eve and here we are in the second week of February. What happened in between is a blurrrrr. As usual I'm ready to start digging in the garden, and so is Lily! Daily she's been asking to go outside and play and she wants her garden tools. Unfortunately it's still damp and chilly and her little fingers get frozen faster than mine. We make a good pair.

While the winter chill hangs around we stay warm inside and dream about our garden. I was able to interest her in the seed catalogues that have been arriving. On Saturday mornings we sit on the bench with our breakfast and page through them. She tries to name each vegetable or fruit, she gets extremely proud of herself, and then we talk about whether or not we want to plant each one. As of now she has us planting everything in the catalogue.

In reality here's what we'll probably plant this year: broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, kale, leeks, lettuce - lots of lettuce - spinach, onions, scallions, snap peas, radishes, zucchini, patty pan, lemon thyme, parsley, mint, basil and lots of strawberries. I want to do more, but my gardening eyes are always living in a different reality than I am. Our blueberry plants are looking good. And after growing the GORGEOUS Black Swan Poppies from seed last year, I'm excited to add some new flowers to the yard, but I have no idea which ones just yet.

Some of the seeds I'll buy; I'll use a few from last year, (the ones that still germinate like my sugar snap peas - yippee!) and a friend just gave me a bunch of heirloom seeds to add to our collection. Oh I can't wait to get started. Hopefully Lily and I will start seeds this weekend, but in the meantime we'll put some flowers in our hair and keep dreaming with our catalogues and our gardening books. If you're interested in some great gardening books for your kids, you can check out my article at Suite101.com. Happy Gardening!

Best Garden Moments of 2010

2010-12-31T14:39:00.001-08:00

Lily and I had so much fun in the garden this year, as crazy as the year was. I know 2011 will be another great year, and we'll have Jasper to play with too. I'm already looking forward to it, but for now, here are a few of my favorite moments in the garden from 2010. Not only did we have a great time, we had tons of help from friends and family to make it successful. I hope you all had a great 2010 and that 2011 is wonderful for everyone. Grow veggies!

Planting Pea Sprouts

Our Newest Sprout, Jasper Kincaid Ohlin

New Garden Gloves from Uncle Kevin

Picking Peas

Lily and Greg Plant in the Grow Boxes

My Beautiful Darlin'

Raised Beds in Front, thanks to Transition Port Gardner Work Party!!

Gifts from Dean and Jennie

Lily plays in the Thanksgiving snow and our 2010 garden ends.

Fall Gardening

2010-11-10T09:58:00.000-08:00

This is the first year I've planted a fall garden. We have broccoli and Brussels sprouts to look forward to, and we've been eating lots and lots of arugula, kale and lettuce.

Lily and I, haven't done that much to the fall garden. We planted the plants, watered them a bit and pretty much left it at that. Usually by the time fall comes around I'm ready to be done with the garden until the spring. This year wasn't much different except that we had these new, beautiful raised beds and lots of cold-weather tolerant sprouts to plant. So, even though my interests had turned elsewhere, I couldn't not plant them.Lily must take after me because she lost all interest in the garden about mid-September. She's been a little hibernator, wanting to stay inside and play inside games. Pretty much the only way I could persuade her to play outside was if there were swings involved. Until yesterday. Yesterday we got our first snowfall. Yesterday and today big fat flakes fell and covered the grass and sidewalks and raised beds. Turns out Lily thinks snow and gardening go perfectly well together.
If I had taken the time to cover the plants, they might have made it through this snow and f-f-f-freezing temps, but I didn't, so the gardening for this year really does come to an end. But losing the plants was worth it to play with Lily in the snow.

Poop, Poop & More Poop

2010-09-27T14:30:00.000-07:00

We've been working on potty training with Lily this summer so, as you can guess, most of our conversations revolve around potties and poop. Then there's the little man, Jasper, who is pretty much a pooping machine. So the last place I thought I'd have to worry about poop is the garden!! Boy was I wrong.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that something or many things were munching on my broccoli and kale plants. As I investigated closer, I noticed these tiny green caterpillars or worms. It took me a few days to realize, that yes indeed these little buggers could devour a plant practically overnight. Yikes! As I discovered, they are called cabbage worms or cabbage lopers and they are the children of some pretty unassuming white moths that I once thought of as cute. Cute is the last word that enters my vocabulary when I see them these days.

I've been trying to avoid spraying anything on these pests to kill them. So, I've been in the garden every day trying to hand pick the cabbage lopers off the plants hoping they will survive. I thought I had it under control when last night I realized they also like my beautiful lettuce plants. The ones on the lettuce were fat and extremely well-fed. AND, what's worse, as fast as they eat, they POOP, leaving thier poop behind on what's left of the plant they just decimated. Gross! Gross! And Gross! (You can see the black poop to the right of the lettuce in the above picture.) I'm on the verge of spraying something organic...The good news is, that Lily is potty trained except for overnights, YEAH!!!

A Different Kind of Gardening

2010-09-13T16:19:00.000-07:00

This year has been a hard one for me and gardening. Obviously I'm learning that two kids are a heck of a lot more work than I ever thought possible. But also I feel like we had maybe a month of summer, four pathetic weeks, and not all in a row. It seemed like it was either mid sixties or ninety-eight degrees. The in-betweens were few and far.

Last year, (maybe because we had such gorgeous weather,) Lily was in tears most days when it was time to come in from the garden. This year she didn't even want to go outside half the time. And when she did, gardening "tasks" weren't always on her to-do list. This alone would be no big deal, but also unlike last year, she's way more demanding of my every-minute attention.
Independent play in the garden definitely wasn't her thing this year. If she was digging for wormies, then I had to be sitting in the dirt right next to her digging for wormies too. If she was playing trucks and cars in the dirt, then I had to be bent over playing trucks and cars in the dirt too. And not just playing trucks and cars, but inventing and creating the activities for the trucks and cars. And while playing the same cars and trucks or baby doll games over and over and over again can kill more brain cells than drugs, we've had some silly moments and lots of fun, like chasing Dizzy, watching our sunflowers grow and discovering dragonflies. And hopefully it's not over just yet!

Fun in the Raised Beds

2010-08-24T21:06:00.001-07:00

I knew I would have a ball with the new beds, but I had no idea Lily would enjoy them so much. The first morning after the work party she went out, sat her cute buns down and started digging with her digger and filling her buckets with dirt saying, “Look, look at my new raised beds.” She planted some old pea seeds, which was super cute to watch because she meticulously digs the hole with her finger, drops the seed in, covers it with dirt and does her pat pat pat on the dirt to cover it up. Who cares if she planted them all within the same two inches of each other, right?

A few weeks ago I gave her some leftover seeds to play with so she planted an egg carton full of bush beans and lettuce mix. She helped me transfer those starts into one of the beds. Okay, she helped me with one plant and then got bored so I planted the rest. We’ll see if they have time to develop into anything before it turns too cold. Our friend, Ingrid helped us plant some broccoli and kale starts in one of the beds and another friend gave us more broccoli starts to plant. For now, we’ll probably just fill the rest of the space with more lettuce, arugula, kale, carrots and spinach. Oh and I’m going to try to plant garlic and onions in October. It’s like having my very own room to do whatever kind of decorating I want. I will have to figure out how to keep the dog out and how to encourage Lily to leave the plants planted.

Raised Beds Work Party

2010-08-18T16:28:00.000-07:00

Yeah! We now have raised beds in our front yard. Our front yard faces south and gets tons of good sunlight, unlike the backyard where the old raised beds are. The first Saturday in August we had a Transition Port Gardner, (formerly Transition Everett,) work party, the first ever! So instead of turning the yard into raised beds by ourselves, we had tons of help, which not only made the work go faster, but also made it more fun. Of course it was raining, because we’ve been having the weirdest summer, and to have a nice day might have been asking too much. But really the rain was great because it kept us all cool. I actually got to help do some of the work too, because a few of the people who showed up to help, including my mom, watched the kids so I could dig in the mud.

Greg had already rotor-tilled the yard, (not fun) which was a huge help. So when everyone arrived we worked on building the beds, ripping out old dead lilacs, pruning the wild rose bush, and bringing in loads of compost from Cedar Grove. We still have some work to do like lining the paths with mulch, planting a winter garden and deciding what to plant along the east fence line, but Lily and I have already started playing in the raised beds and boy are we having fun!

A Garden Full of Slugs

2010-08-11T22:10:00.000-07:00

In my last post when I said, “I’d rather have a garden full of slugs,” that’s pretty much what we’ve had in the backyard this year. In early May I remember thinking we had a peculiar absence of slugs. Well that didn’t last long, especially with all the rain and chilly weather we’ve had since May. I guess it’s partly my fault because I have done absolutely nothing back there this year.

One of the beds is overgrown with oregano, chives and weird cilantro that came back from self-sown seeds from last year. Two beds are empty, and one is full of two-year old strawberry plants. The plants look amazing, but if you look closely the strawberries themselves haven’t been doing well. They’re growing in weird deformed shapes, but that doesn’t really matter because the slugs are devouring any that even try to ripen.A girl could go broke trying to lure this family of slugs into beer, so I sort of let the strawberry patch do its own thing. Lily and I still go out and pick a few every morning, but it’s not nearly as much fun when you stick your hand into the lush green leaves and, instead of strawberry, you grab some fingers full of smushy slugness. And although Lily loves wormies, she DOES NOT love slugs. Truly a girl after my own heart.

Worst Kind of Garden Pest

2010-07-26T18:26:00.000-07:00

You know, I garden because I love it. Because I enjoy the scents of rose, lavender and lemon thyme in the hot summer sun. I look forward to digging my fingers through the dirt, finding worms, growing and eating my own food. I do it for exercise, for beauty, for therapy, for enjoyment, for peace. But it sure can make me mad sometimes.
Early this spring, Lily and I planted nasturtium, sunflower, and black swan poppy seeds along part of the front fence line. In the last few weeks that part of the garden overflows with growth and blooms. Some of the poppies, which are a delicious rich midnight—meets—cabernet color are almost as tall as me. The yellow and orange sunflowers are a beautiful contrast and the red, orange and yellow nasturtiums carpet and climb among them.

Daily there are people who walk by our house and comment about how nice these flowers look, especially the unique poppies. Tall, gorgeous, dark purple blooms are definitely showstoppers. One woman even pulled over in her school bus to chat about them. She asked if she could take some of the poppy seeds with her. A week later she left some of her poppy seeds in a bag for me on our front porch. Thank you!Then there are the jackasses who like to rip the flowers out. Not just pick a flower or two here and there, but grab the sunflowers by the stalk and rip them out from the dirt, roots and all. The poppies, well they just rip the beautiful, fragile flowering heads off, sometimes as they are in mid-bloom. Then, as if that wasn’t painful enough, the idiots just toss the flowers aside on the sidewalk. If you want to piss me off, this is a great way to do it.
Greg and I have talked about planting veggies on the side yard, the part of the lawn that is outside the fence touching the street. This land belongs to the city, and if we did turn it into garden, I guess the city could tell us to put it back to sod, whenever they feel like it, but I think it would be worth that risk. However, after the sunflower and poppy thieves, I’m not sure I’m willing to put the time and energy into making something grow that people are just going to destroy. I'd rather have a garden full of slugs.

Hazards of Brain Dead Gardening

2010-07-14T17:28:00.000-07:00

There can be some issues with planting seeds in your garden while nine months pregnant, and, then trying to maintain that garden with a newborn and ever-busy toddler. For example, I know we planted at least two kinds of onions, spring onions and scallions, but I can’t remember which ones we planted where, and the little signs have gone missing thanks to Lily’s curious hands. ( I know it doesn't look like onions are even growing in the above photo, but trust me, they are!)

And of course, they all look the same to me now. So which ones do I pick and when? I guess, as far as onions are concerned, I shouldn't worry, because for what I’m using them for right now: sliced up in salads, and topping Eggs Benedict, they’ll be fine no matter what kind of onions they are.In one patch of the garden, Lily and Greg planted onion starts with some carrot and lettuce seeds, and it’s been fun to see her desire to pick them and of course to eat them! The carrots, that is, she won’t eat the onions and she’ll taste a tiny piece of lettuce and then spit it back out. I often wonder what is going on in that small, but highly sensitive brain of hers when it comes to taste and smell. When I watch her it’s like I can see the gears clicking along with wonder. She’s just so amazing!

Digging For Potatoes

2010-07-07T19:00:00.000-07:00

Every year we have potatoes grow up out of the compost. We have two compost pits, one that is full of usable compost, and the other that is still a work in progress. Last weekend Lily and I dug them up. I always forget what a pain digging for potatoes can be. Basically it’s me covered in dirt. Dirt in my shoes, dirt stuck in the rolled up cuffs of my jeans, and way underneath my fingernails—because no matter what kind of shovel or spade I start with, inevitably I end up using my bare hands to find just one more potato, certain I am that there will be at least one more. There’s always so much dirt to displace just to get to the potatoes.

I saw an idea of growing them up out of old burlap coffee sacks and then when you are ready to harvest, you just turn them out of the bag and all the potatoes are enclosed in that space. Much easier!

Lily was more interested in reburying the potatoes for a while which was pretty cute, because she makes a little hole with her hand, plugs the potato down in, covers it up with more dirt and says, “Pat, pat, pat” while gently patting the dirt over the potato.

Then she wanted to chuck them into the undecomposed compost bin so we found a different task for her to do. Greg got a bowl with some water and she washed the dirt off of the potatoes. It amazes me the tasks that take up her attention for long periods of time. Anything to do with water is captivating for her these days. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such clean potatoes.

That night we sliced the potatoes ½ inch thick, marinated them in olive oil, crushed garlic and rosemary and grilled them for 8-10 minutes per side on medium heat. Delicious!!

Peas Galore!

2010-06-24T13:44:00.000-07:00

With all the rain, the cold temperatures, the new baby, one seriously busy toddler, and all the sleep I'm not getting, I've felt like the garden has been completely negelcted this spring. I get to it in pieces parts or not at all. But there are a few things growing from seeds Lily and I planted before Jasper was born. All of the sudden the snap peas are ready for pickin'; YIPPEE!

I haven't been as diligent about tying them up as they grow so they're not as tall as they could be, but I'm just happy they are growing at all. And I sure do love the taste of them, right off the vine; that cool sweet crunch is delicious!

Last year Lily loved them, she picked them and ate them. It took her a while to chew each one, but she worked on them till she could swallow them. This year she likes to pick them, chew them up, then spit them back out into my hands. Hmmm. Not exactly what I had in mind. She's definitely a lot more picky about her food this year. I'm hoping all the fresh summer veggies will kick start her taste buds back into gear.

Growing Salad Greens

2010-06-20T22:46:00.000-07:00

You know, I’ve been gardening for years, but every year there is at least one thing that makes me feel like a complete novice. This year it’s lettuce. I had no idea how good homegrown lettuce could be or how easily it grew here.

I know people said it was easy to grow, but every time I tried, the slugs and bugs got to it before I could enjoy it. And to be honest I never tried that hard because I was never a big fan of lettuce, and why grow something you’re not going to eat anyway, right? Of course now I know why I’ve never been a big fan of lettuce, because, like many veggies, store-bought lettuce can be tasteless and BORING.

This year when Greg built the Earthboxes, or grow boxes, Lily and I planted some arugula, spinach and lettuce seeds, using seeds from Uprising Seeds in Bellingham, WA. I also planted a few French Crisp lettuce starts, also from Uprising Seeds.

Well, the seeds went crazy, and the starts loved their spot under the pea tepee. And we’ve been having fresh salads three to four times a week for over a month now. Delicious salads with simple, minimal dressings. Our favorite is a lemon vinaigrette: mix 1 to 2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice with 1 minced garlic clove; whisk in 3 to 4 tablespoons olive oil and a pinch of sugar. Yum! It goes perfectly with the arugula. Lily likes to pick the leaves and eat them too, especially the arugula which she calls “picy” for spicy. And she's a pro at watering them!

Rain, Rain...and Snails!

2010-06-12T08:44:00.000-07:00

The rains have been assaulting us for the past few weeks. We even had a thunderstorm which is so odd for this neck of the woods. And for a few moments in the dark afternoon light, with the rain pouring and the noise of thunder, I dreamt I was sitting on the screened-in porch at the Maple cottage on Lake Erie watching a storm rise over the lake...

Back to reality. Now our yard looks like a jungle or rain forest, a forest of weeds, (and snails!) I swear, it's like the weeds quadrouple in growing strength when it rains. Lily helped me pull weeds and clean up the back yard a bit which was way more fun with her than by myself. She even got to wear her new gardening gloves that her Uncle Kevin gave her. I pulled the weeds and she swept them up with her mini broom and dust pan.

Catching Up

2010-05-20T15:51:00.001-07:00

I've missed a few milestones over the past few weeks, like Lily's 2nd birthday and Mother's Day. Lily had a great birthday with lots of visits from friends and relatives and the weather was gorgeous. My mom, Nana and Lily go on walks around the neighborhood all the time and Lily loves to see the garden art or, stuff, if you will, that people display in their yards. She sees stone lions and metal chickens and pink flamingos. It's like there's a zoo right here in our neighborhood. So Nana bought Lily her very own ladybug art piece for the garden. I have to say, it's pretty darn cute. Greg and I repurposed an old mailbox into a bird feeder for her to put in the garden too, because this kid loves birds!

For Mother's Day we took a walk to the hardware store to buy some plants and enjoy the sunshine. Lily rode in her brand new handmade wagon (from her G-pa, Greg's dad.) I picked out a couple of cherry tomato plants and Lily picked out some marigolds to plant in some teeny tiny pots she found in our shed.

I'd like to make planting flowers a tradition for myself on Mother's Day, although, next year, I'll plan ahead like I did last year, and buy the plants before the actual day so that I can spend Mother's Day doing the planting instead of shopping with crowds of strangers.

Newest Little Sprout

2010-05-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

It's been five weeks since Jasper Kincaid Ohlin arrived and yet I can hardly remember life without him. Lily is excited to have a baby brother, but to be honest she's more interested in all the stuff that comes with him like his little onesies, his diapers, his blankets.

If I thought maintaining my writing and gardening selves while parenting Lily was a challenge, I had no idea what two sprouts would do to my life. At the moment, I have absolutely no desire to write, but I'm determined not to lose that part of me; so once again, as with Lily, I'm going to let the garden be my muse for now. Thank goodness she and Jasper both like to be outside!

Earthboxes and Impatience

2010-04-06T13:54:00.000-07:00

Greg’s been building Earthboxes for our front yard this year. Earthboxes have lots of pros…you can control the soil quality, control the amount of water, grow in small spaces, move the boxes around if you want, and they allow you to plant a garden even if you don’t have a yard. Check out the easy how-to instructions on the website, http://www.earthbox.com/consumer/instructions.html

One thing I’ve noticed this year in the yard is my impatience. I’m blaming it on being pregnant, but I’m not sure if that’s really the whole truth. Lily likes to pull things out that we’ve just recently planted. She’s curious and getting more curious as she learns which is awesome, but please could she not pull the sprouts out!!

For instance this past weekend when Greg was planting some of the seedlings in one of the Earthboxes he had just made, I gave Lily some of her own seedlings to plant to keep her busy because she wanted to be doing what Greg was doing, only of course she was more interested in pulling out the seedlings right after Greg planted them.

Then there’s Dizzy.

Picture Greg planting seedlings in the Earthbox while Lily is pulling them out faster than we can stop her, and Dizzy has his nose right in the middle of things trying to eat the fish fertilizer pellets that go down the middle of the box. Not the easiest thing in the world, but Greg accomplished it.

After he finished, Greg, Lily and I went to the backyard for a few minutes. And when I say, a few minutes that is exactly what I mean. Which was just enough time for Dizzy to destroy the top of the recently planted Earthbox, plastic, seedlings and all, to get to the fertilizer. Ahhhhh! All this time I’ve been worried about how I can plant a garden, keep Lily from uprooting everything, stay patient, and have fun all at the same time. And the real garden pest turns out to be Dizzy.

Spring Blooms

2010-03-29T13:39:00.000-07:00

Well it almost feels like winter has returned around here, grrrrrr. It’s amazing to me how so many of the plants don’t seem to mind, though. Like the daffodils and tulips which are blooming like crazy around us. I remember the week before Lily was born two years ago, we had a nasty return to winter for a few days then too. All the tulips had bloomed, when out of nowhere we got a really wet snowstorm mixed with a bit of thunder, two things that don’t happen that often around here, let alone at the same time. I have pictures of the tulips covered in snow, but they survived.

All the bulbs in our yard are from the previous owners, but it sure is nice to enjoy all their hard work. Lily especially loves them. When our tulips opened this weekend she was immediately drawn to them and wanted to eat them. We talked about how the bumblebees go inside the flowers and eat/drink from them, but we don’t eat the tulips ourselves. I’m not sure if that bit of information will stick with her or not; I have this feeling I’ll find her out there tasting one any day now.

Compost and Worms

2010-03-24T08:35:00.000-07:00

Lily is totally into the compost these days, compost and worms. Actually I’m pretty sure it has to do with the worms and not the compost or the idea of compost at all. For her it’s about “digging for wormies.” Although, she did head right back to the compost pit the other day, the one without a front, and pick an old gross half decomposed strawberry and put it in her mouth. The kid knows how to develop a great immune system.

When Lily’s GramS was here she went to Cedar Grove Compost here in Everett and picked up two loads of compost for part of the front yard we are turning into garden this year. Lily helped her unload it and dump it into the yard with the big wheelbarrow and her tiny one. She had a ball!

Now every time we go out to play/garden, she gets her wheelbarrow and pushes it around, or she digs in the huge pile of compost still waiting to be planted in. No matter what she’s doing she always wants to dig up worms. I love that she is getting so into the bugs in the garden, especially worms because of their part in the garden.

Here’s the gross part, the part I don’t love, she is alos into exploring how things fit together, AND how they come apart, including worms. She, Greg and I were outside the other day digging and working next to each other. I happened to glance over at Lily, and she is crouched down and stretching a worm out between her two hands. Yuck! I mean that poor worm, she was trying to pull it apart. Besides being totally grossed out, I didn’t know whether to laugh or yell.

I remained calm long enough to nudge Greg so he could see her before I grabbed the worm out of her hands and buried it back in the dirt while saying, “You have to be gentle with the worms, Lily, they’re fragile. We don’t pull them apart.” Needless to say, she quickly dug up another one and when I looked over she was butchering it. And before I could stop her she ripped it in half and said, “Oh, it ripped.” And went on with the digging. Sorry worms!

Starting Snap Peas

2010-03-10T19:48:00.000-08:00

Lily, Greg and I transplanted some snap pea seeds into the ground tonight. We’ve been using more of the front yard for vegetable growing because it really has much better sunlight than the raised beds in back.

I started some snap peas a few weeks ago between two damp paper towels and put them on top of the fridge. I learned this technique last year from Scott Conner who has an awesome gardening show on AM 1090 every Saturday from 10-12 called Gardening in the Northwest. I love his show; I learn something from him every weekend, that is, every weekend I am able to catch the show. I swear he knows everything about gardening out here, and if he doesn’t know something, he’ll find out for you.

You start the pea seeds between two damp paper towels on an old tray or cookie sheet and place it on top of the fridge where it’s nice and warm. The seedlings are stronger this way than if you start them directly in the ground; plus it’s fun to watch them sprout up under the paper towels. The only problem for me is you have to keep them damp; and when they are up on the fridge I tend to forget about them. It takes anywhere from 7 to 20 days, I’ve found, for them to be ready to plant in the ground. They get to be more than an inch tall with almost two sets of sprout leaves and the roots start to go crazy; that’s when you know they are ready for the ground.

Greg made a pea teepee out of bamboo stakes for us, and he took pictures while I poked holes, and Lily put the sprouts into the dirt holes. She got through about six of them before she found it more interesting to pull the seedling apart into many pieces. She’s having fun pulling things apart lately, more on that later.

Feeding Chickens

2010-03-06T08:45:00.000-08:00

Lily has had a busy couple of weeks outside. Her GramS, (Greg’s mom) has been visiting from Michigan. GramS is house sitting for our neighbors’ across the street who have CHICKENS. Lily gets to help feed them and collect the eggs and it’s become her favorite thing to do. Every morning now she wakes up saying, “GramS, go feed chickens.”
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These chickens are very well taken care of in their beautiful backyard. In addition to their organic chicken feed, their diet is supplemented by greens from the garden. They have access to the sun and outdoors every day, and nice sturdy coops for sleeping. And their eggs are delicious!

Last fall these neighbors wanted to give us some chickens, which we would eventually like to have, but we decided to wait until we could build them a nice coop and penned-in area in our yard. Unfortunately this seems to have taken a backseat to some other projects around our house that actually need to get finished. But I think in the near future we will have some chickens of our own.

Starting Seeds

2010-02-28T16:32:00.000-08:00

Lily and I started seeds this morning. How fun and hilarious at the same time. Here’s what we tried to plant: snow peas, snap peas, jalapenos, sweet onion and sunflower. We planted not necessarily based on what seeds should be started now, but on what packages Lily liked best. The snap peas and onions were her favorite, I think. She likes the big seeds and the teeny tiny ones as well.

What will grow from those little pellets remains to be seen, because let’s just say, it wasn’t quite as organized as I thought it would be. Actually, I knew it wouldn’t be organized at all, no matter how much I tried, but I had hopes. The way it turned out was too much fun to care about the organization anyway, which is definitely something Lily teaches me over and over again. And who knows, we might come up with some interesting new hybrids altogether, like a jalapeno flavored sunflower or a snap/snow pea combination.

I thought she would enjoy watering them and watching the pellets expand, but really she liked the seed packets and the seeds best. She also had a blast sticking her finger into the water between the wells to “drink” it.

It was awesome to see that she enjoyed it far more and for a lot longer than I thought she would. We practically had to tear her away from it.

Climbing Trees

2010-02-10T18:12:00.000-08:00

Okay, it’s taken me a while to get this blog post out, but last Saturday was absolutely gorgeous here. I’m talking 60-plus degrees, blue sky and sunshine. And not a chilly breeze to be found. We got lots of work done in the yard. And when I say, “we,” I mean Greg got lots of work done in the yard while Lily played and I weeded a tiny bit weeds and thought about all the work I wanted to get done, but couldn’t.

Greg pruned the big trees which all needed some intense pruning. As I have pretty much no clue about pruning trees aside from lilacs and forsythia, I let him do the hard work, not that I could have done it anyway in this stage of a pregnancy, but still it’s not something I enjoy. I know it needs to be done, but I just feel like cutting huge branches away is such a major commitment and could so easily make the tree look ridiculous. Greg did a great job and now, instead of our plum tree looking ragamuffinish, it looks clean and refined. And the one lilac shrub that’s grown into a tree doesn’t smack us in the face anymore when we walk by it.

Of course Lily wanted to help with the pruning because she loves trees almost as much as worms, but it’s not really something she can do yet. Maybe in ten years or so, right? Climbing trees is a whole different issue, especially with her daddy around to “help” her. I love these pictures almost as much as I loved seeing her smiling in the tree with the sun around her, but they remind me she’s not my little baby anymore and she’s growing up way too fast for me to keep up. Although, I imagine any speed would be too fast for us parents, right?

Digging For Worms

2010-01-29T13:09:00.000-08:00

We played outside a lot this week. Greg built us a second compost bin, while Lily and I pulled weeds and dug for worms out front. Okay, so I pulled weeds while she dug in the dirt looking for worms, snails and bumblebees. Even though she only found a few worms and one snail, she was way more successful than I was. My plans, especially my weeding plans, always turn out to be larger than what I actually accomplish, even when I’m not pregnant.

But we had so much fun! I was already outside weeding when Lily woke up from her nap, so as soon as she came out and saw my tools, she was hooked. She loves the spade and the weeder, and once we found the first worm, that’s all she was interested in. “Find wormy, find wormy, find wormy,” she kept saying over and over and over again.

Every time we would find one, Lily wanted to hold it and watch it wiggle in her hand. But I think the worms were a bit shell shocked because they didn’t do much wiggling. Eventually Lily would drop it back into the dirt and just watch it and anytime it moved she would tell me, “It’s moving!” It’s so cute to hear her talk because so often her words or sentences end with the inflection of a question, so instead of, “It’s moving!” It sounds more like, “It’s moving?”

Another silly discovery we had were a few old, forgotten carrots in one of the pots I never emptied out last year. I thought we were just digging through the dirt for worms, but out came several small carrots. She only found one tiny snail, and she tried to squish the body out of the shell with her finger. Yuck!

Mushrooms

2010-01-25T14:23:00.000-08:00

Lily likes mushrooms which is kind of cool. When we chop them in the kitchen and she’s standing on her stool, she’ll take a slice and eat it. Not usually more than one, and I think she’d rather play with them than eat them, but she does try them. During one of our gorgeous, spring-like days this week, when we were outside playing, she found some in the yard. This kid is good, I mean not only did she spot them when they weren’t that big, and when they blended into the muddy grass, but she knew exactly what they were. And she actually asked me if she could eat them. Nice going kiddo! Who would think that a 21-month-old who puts everything in her mouth, even just to try it, would ask me if she could eat a mushroom.

Scavengers

2010-01-18T13:56:00.000-08:00

Lily, Dizzy and I went out to play in the gorgeous weather yesterday. We unearthed lots of old things from last year's garden, a few rotten leftover tomatoes, some toys--mostly Dizzy's--but a couple of Lily's too. Then she found an old empty snail shell which she immediately put in her mouth and tried to eat, maybe it looked like a veggie or fruit of some sort. She didn't, however, end up swallowing it and we saved it to show her daddy when he comes home from work. I don't know why she is fascinated with snails, but she is.

We even found a very old, fat, red Christmas light with a sharp broken edge under the Magnolia tree. Luckily I got to that one before Lily did. We dug in some of the dirt with our fingers and took turns smelling it. Smells like good dirt this year. Can't wait to get out there and plant some veggies!

Lily and Gardening Books

2010-01-13T13:30:00.000-08:00

There isn’t much gardening going on around here this week, since the monsoons have arrived, but there are plenty of gardening books to look at, for Lily too. She got a new one for Christmas called, In the Garden, by Leslie Bockol, illustrated by Jillian Phillips.

It’s a Green Start book which means it’s printed on 98% post-consumer recycled materials with only eco-friendly inks. Awesome! It’s been one of Lily’s favorites since she opened it and with each reading, (and depending on who is reading it to her,) it sort of goes through metamorphoses with her.

The first few times she just looked at the pictures and pointed out things she recognized like bumble bees, butterflies and ‘piders’, or spiders. Then, with Greg reading it to her, it became important to count how many bees or butterflies on each page. Next it was discovering even more animals, like the squirrel hiding in the tree and the worm eating through the apple. When Izzy came to visit, the new rage was to pretend picking all the veggies off the pages and eating them. Of course the book does say, “I pick it and eat it,” on every other page. So Izzy taught Lily to do just that.

After that it wasn’t enough fun just to pretend to pick it and eat it for ourselves; instead we had to feed the kids in the book too. So all the kids get bites of cauliflower, Lily’s new favorite word, tomatoes and apples. Yum! Yum!

We're Back!

2010-01-09T19:44:00.000-08:00

We're back! Lily and I finally got out and played in the garden today. I know it's only the 2nd week of January, but it sure felt like spring had arrived and you bet we took advantage. I got out the pruners to cut away dead twigs, stems and flower stalks that I should have pruned back in the fall, but tried to ignore instead. I guess ignoring them didn't make them prune themselves, did it.

Lily brought her baby doll out with her in the baby doll's stroller and wheeled her around the yard showing her things and picking off the soft dried-up buds of the Japanese Anemone.

For a while she was content until she got this look on her face like she was contemplating something way too serious for a 20-month-old. All of the sudden she smiled and said, "Picking tomatoes," and "Lily wants tomatoes." Sometimes I can't get over how amazing her memory is. At the end of last summer we came outside every day in August and September to pick tomatoes from our plants and Lily gobbled them up.

I tried to explain to her that we have to plant them and wait for them to grow, but her toddler mind wanted them pronto. I sensed a min-tantrum coming on, but as quickly as she was starting to get upset she saw my pruners and wanted to use them. She loved them and called them "sarps" for sharp because I kept saying, "Be careful, they're sharp." I think if we hadn't eventually come in she could have squatted down and played with them for hours, which is more than I can say for myself. After five minutes hunched down my legs were killing me. Guess it's time to get back into gardening shape.

We are back, but I'm not exactly sure what that will mean for our garden this year seeing as April is a big month when it comes to planting out here, and I’ll be ten months pregnant, i.e. due any day, which means completely unable to bend down and dig, and more important, completely unable to get back up by myself.

So we know when the real spring arrives, we'll have a new baby. As for the garden, I guess we'll have to wait and see, which really isn't all that different from most years.

Pumpkin Patch

2009-10-28T19:49:00.000-07:00

Lily and her friend, Violet got to visit the pumpkin patch a few weekends ago. Too cute! They both loved the tiny pumpkins and the HUGE ones. We all should have worn boots, because, duh! It's a farm and there's mud and stuff, but we had a ball anyway, and we got there before the crowds and rain so it was perfect.
In addition to the pumpkins, the girls got to pet a goat and see some pigs and peacocks. Plus there were huge horse troughs full of water for washing off your pumpkin that Lily and Violet seemed to like most of all. Isn't it always that way with little ones; they'd much rather play in the cold, dirty water than pick the perfect pumpkin.

Garden Clean Up

2009-10-20T13:30:00.000-07:00

Lily and I finally spent some time cleaning up the garden beds this weekend. Actually I did the clean up while she sat and explored the dried cilantro plant full of seeds. I thought she would enjoy pulling out old plants and tossing them into the compost pit, but the fun for her came in picking the coriander seeds and trying to eat them. I was amazed at how much scent the plant still gave off as she picked the seeds and played with them. I felt like I was eating fresh pico de gallo.

She was very helpful in putting down cardboard over the beds. We just tiled our kitchen back-splash and had about 30 square foot pieces of cardboard left over. Instead of recycling them I decided to cover the beds with them before I toss the fall leaves over to help compost into the soil. Every one I placed down, Lily picked up and moved to a new spot, her spot. I began with a pile, placed them all over three of the beds and by the time she was finished, we had a nice pile of them again. She likes making piles these days.

And now I'm going to stop writing because my computer is making a sound like a cat dying a cruel death and I'm worried it's just going to stop working; it's on it's very last, last leg, or life, if we're talking cat lives.

We're Back

2009-10-01T11:31:00.000-07:00

Well, we're back from a beautiful, sunny, relaxing vacation in Florida, but I'm not really sure to what extent we're back to garden. Normally I love the fall clean-up in the garden, but I'm not ready to face it just yet.

Last week before we left, Lily and I picked all the winter squash, 4 acorn and 2 delicata, to be exact. The plants were thriving, as squash plants like to do. And then it seemed like overnight the powdery mildew swept in and devoured the leaves. I noticed it was happening all around the neighborhood too, suddenly lush, green plants looked like they'd been snowed on, or more appropriately, ashed on.

I've never been able to control it or stop it once it starts and I know it's common, but it sure doesn't fail to annoy me. I saw a photo of a pumpkin farmer in his acres of maturing pumpkin plants and they were all green, not one spot of powdery mildew in sight, and it got me wondering, do pumpkin farmers use pesticides? I know that might sound like a naive question, but I guess I just never thought about pumpkins and pesticides.

Greg and I also made fruit leather from our plums which we both like and Lily definitely does NOT like. She does like the winter squash, though so that's a plus. I can't wait to make some squash bread, YUM! YUM!

Lily's Garden Pals

2009-09-22T19:22:00.000-07:00

Lily has lots of pals in the garden, but one I've forgotten to mention is her stuffed bear, Victoria, made especially for Lily by her GramS in Michigan. Lily loves Victoria and takes her everywhere! She's just started calling her "Toria".

These pictures are from July, holy cow, July! It's already fall; I can't keep up. We've definitely been absent from the garden and the main reason is because I'm ten weeks pregnant and feeling mostly like Death warmed over. Lily's going to have another gardening pal come April and we're really excited but dang I hate this first trimester. I've let everything go, gardening, writing, cooking because I'M SO TIRED I COULD FALL ASLEEP STANDING UP. It's about all I can do to take care of Miss Lily and you can bet that when she naps, I nap.

And now we're going on vacation for a week, but we'll be back with more gardening adventures in a few days. For now, happy fall everyone!

Park(ing) Day 2009

2009-09-18T17:34:00.001-07:00

Sorry Lily and I have been completely absent from this post lately. (More on that later.) Today, September 18th, was Park(ing) Day.

Transition Everett had one parking spot and we made our spot into a bit of a garden just to show how much could be grown in such a tiny space. We didn't even fill up the space, but we did have planter boxes overflowing with two kinds of lettuce, broccoli, strawberries, carrots and herbs. It was a beautiful day in downtown Everett and lots of people stopped by. Hopefully next year we will have more spots!

Potatoes

2009-09-10T18:12:00.000-07:00

Lily helped me pick potatoes this past weekend. It was pretty easy seeing as there weren't that many. Sometimes I feel like in gardening I learn a thing or two, then take a few steps backwards, then try again and learn a few more things and then again I take a few steps backwards. Is this how it is for you other gardeners? I guess it's kind of like writing, awesome and really frustrating at the same time. I can't even compare it to parenting, because in that realm I'm pretty much walking backwards the entire time while Lily leaps ahead of me.

The first potato I planted on St. Patty's Day didn't do a thing. I tried again almost two months later. I planted the potato in the large garbage can in just a few inches of soil mixed with compost. As it grew I mounded up over it. It grew some more; I mounded more; it grew; I mounded...you get the picture. And all this time I had such high hopes, dreams of being buried under the enormous piles of potatoes we were going to harvest.

Pipe dreams, baby, pipe dreams. I can count the spuds on two hands, 8. Yep, that's right 8 potatoes. Hardly enough for even a teensy tiny pile. Two of them are barely the size of a quarter so I'm not even sure I can count those. Honestly I had more luck doing nothing, and I mean nothing. The potatoes that spontaneously grew out of our compost pit this year grew like they were on acid; we had meal after meal of delicious, sugary-sweet, fresh picked potatoes without me doing a thing.

Oh well, at least Lily had fun chucking them around the garden. She's learning to throw which right now is her holding the potato/ball up over her head and tossing it off behind her. Pretty cute. It sure is hard to stay mad at my potatoes when she's around.

Success with Kale

2009-09-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

I was looking at my raised beds last night and thinking, I'm not really a gardener, but rather a dabbler. I dabble in the garden. Every year my beds are a big mish-mosh of random plantings. This is the first year I've taken notes and drawn good illustrations so that next year I can plant much more efficiently and rotate my crops, but that's a long way away. Right now, thanks to my childlike enthusiasm to just plant a few seeds here and a few seeds there, everything is still mish-moshy. I do follow many of the rules about companion planting and what to plant to attract beneficial insects, but really my beds end up looking more like a wacky finger-painting.

My most successful crop this year has been the kale, Black Tuscan Kale from Uprising Seeds in Bellingham, WA. Oddly enough I didn't even like kale when I planted it. Why then did I plant it, you ask? Good question. If I can see clearly enough through the fog of my brain, back to May, I think I was trying to plant things that grow better in our mild and rainy climate. Well, we all know it was anything but mild and rainy this year, but the kale didn't seem to mind. It grew and grew; we picked a bunch and it grew and grew, and so we picked some more. And still the rows of kale are pretty and lush. It also didn't get bothered by bugs or disease, YEAH! (Maybe that had to do with the rows of scallions I planted in-between the rows of kale to ward off pests.)

And I discovered a way to cook it that makes it taste delicious. Cut out the hard, bitter, middle stem. Saute it with lots of chopped garlic and olive oil on medium for a few minutes and then on high for a minute or two to kind of caramelize it. Turn off the heat and squeeze a slice of lemon over it. Fabulous!

Lily doesn't so much share my enthusiasm for kale, eating it or harvesting it. She likes to run her hands across the leaves, but that's about it.

My Little Harvester

2009-09-01T12:14:00.000-07:00

As far as gardening tasks go, I think Lily definitely prefers harvesting to everything else, (except maybe digging.) I can hardly keep her from picking fruit and vegetables when we go outside. She knows where the plum tree is, where the tomatoes are, the zucchini, strawberries, even the chives, which she will put in her mouth and suck on if nothing else is available in the garden. And of course she still has memories of snap peas from the spring.

We've been trying to teach her colors which is a lot of fun, or rather, funny in the garden. It's starting to work for the Sun Gold tomatoes, but not so much in strawberry land.

Now when we pick the Sun Golds she says, "lello" for yellow which is actually her word for yellow and orange, but hey, I'm not going to argue with her. The fact that she can now tell the yellow/orange ones from the unripe green ones is pretty awesome.

Unfortunately she thinks strawberries should be picked when the color is anywhere from white to red. But then of course when she picks the white ones and eats them, she spits them out and wipes the remains all over me.

Gardening & Eating

2009-08-24T08:43:00.001-07:00

It occurs to me that more often my posts tend to be about eating, not necessarily gardening. For me the two go hand in hand. Yes I have lots of gorgeous flowers in my garden, fuchsia dahlias and pure white phlox, deep burgundy knautia, roses, lavender, bright yellow coreopsis and more. We have bees and moths and butterflies a plenty. But the real satisfaction for me is in eating food that I grow myself. Ten times a day I'm out there checking on my acorn squash to see how they've grown. I sit and stare at the tomato plants, trying to determine what went wrong. I poke at the carrots daily to see if they are big enough to pick. And knowing that something is chowing down on my new arugula seedlings is enough to turn me into cranky gardener for hours.

As much as I'm addicted to gardening, I'm also addicted to cooking and eating. We love to eat in my family, and talk about food, and eat, and reminisce about great restaurants, and eat, and plan menus, and eat.

This summer we've been enjoying delicious veggie sandwiches made with our own tomatoes, spinach and zucchini. The other night we had a divine Vegetable Frittata with Asiago. All the vegetables were either from our garden or from the local farmers' market. The eggs were from our neighbors. The only non-local ingredient was the Asiago.

Somewhere in the back of my mind when Lily and I started planting seeds together in May, I knew that I wanted to share gardening with her not just to garden, but to enjoy the whole process of planting, nurturing, watching stuff grow and then eating it. Today when we made veggie sandwiches on crusty sourdough bread from Essential Baking in Seattle, she wanted mine. The kid only has five teeth and I didn't think she could eat it, but I broke off some anyway and handed it to her. It took her a while but she managed. And of course when she was finished, first she said, "Yum!" Then, "More 'mato, more 'mato." Damn is she cute!

Corn on the Cob

2009-08-22T09:40:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago when my dad was here for a visit, we sat outside in the 100 degree heat shucking corn. Of course Lily was very interested in it. So interested, in fact, that she wanted to eat it raw. I wasn't too sure how her stomach would like that, so I quickly cooked it and put a tiny bit of butter and salt on it. Then she wouldn't eat it because she couldn't hold onto it, too slippery. So I ate the ends to give her "handles" and she loved it. Now we can't keep her away from it and it's hilarious to watch her eat it.

One of the most stressful things for me when it comes to parenting, is feeding my daughter. It's stressful because I worry that she's not eating enough, or not eating enough of the right things. I worry that she might have some of the same allergies her dad has, gluten and tomatoes. I worry because half the time she doesn't eat at all, but feeds her food to her pal, Dizzy instead. I worry because so often she gets more of the food on her than in her, and it seems like she enjoys that. I know many of my worries are shared by other parents out there, and that I worry about things that are normal for a kid her age, but it still stresses me out.

Seeing her pick food from the garden makes me take a step back and realize, this kid loves food. She loves to play with it, yes, but she loves to eat it too, especially when she picks it herself like the strawberries, peas, plums and tomatoes from our garden. Already she loves fresh, local, organic produce; what more could I want?

Picking Beans

2009-08-20T10:53:00.000-07:00

This week, or was it last week? (It's bad when the days run together, but what about when entire weeks become lost and hazy?) Lily and I went to our friends' 1/4 acre farm on Ebey Island to help pick green and yellow beans and I could have sworn it was this week, but now that I'm looking back on the days I'm pretty sure it was last week. Does that mean I'm only one week behind, or that I'm only aware of losing one week? I swear I lost most of my brain cells when Lily was born. Do they every come back?

Okay, I'm straying way too far from a garden post here. Lily and I did go to pick beans, or at least that's what I thought we were going to do. At first Lily was thrilled to be there. She had her new tennis shoes on for the first time and loved waddling up and down the long rows, usually looking at her feet more than ahead of her. The fun didn't last long.

Their farm is right near highway 2 and as soon as Lily heard the noise of multiple cars and large, lumbering trucks going back and forth, she became Cling-on. She has this oddly strong sense of hearing or some feeling in her bones. I swear this kid hears airplanes in the sky long before I do and they freak her out. She'll immediately stop whatever she's doing and throw herself at me. I don't even have to hold onto her because she's attached like Velcro. The sound of the traffic over Ebey Island was very similar to planes flying overhead, only it was more constant. Fun.

Ever pick beans with one hand while carrying around a 24lb whining kid with the other? Not so easy on the knees,or the back or arms. Not so easy. Plus it was HOT. And of course Lily only likes wearing a hat for about 10 seconds; then the novelty is gone. So I was worried about her Lily-white skin burning. Eventually she got a hold of the camera and seemed to be happy for a few minutes during which time I got to pick a few meals-worth of delicious beans. I'm not sure Dean and Jenny will ever want us to return. Whew! I'm exhausted just remembering it all.

What's Growing?

2009-08-14T11:33:00.000-07:00

Miss Lily is taking a nap, so I thought I'd get a quick post in about what's growing right now, more for my own garden journal notes than anything else. Aren't the coreopsis beautiful! They're blooming along the west-facing fence in the backyard, behind a lilac shrub, and they don't get much sun. I planted them two years ago next to some dahlias and a gorgeous blue perennial salvia that is almost in bloom, and as tall as I am. Every year I say I'm going to move them all so they will get more sun, and I have yet to get to it.

The zucchini are done, I ripped them out because they had powdery mildew, bummer. But Early Girl and Sun Gold Tomatoes are ripening, and we've had a few small bunches of carrots, that Lily loves to pick.

The kale is still going strong, but the broccoli raab and snap peas are done. Every day we go to the garden to check for peas and now Lily brushes her hands together over the empty space and says, with her high-pitched questioning tone, "done?"

I'm not sure about the cauliflower starts I planted. Out of 6, three of them got devoured by some pest and the three that are left look really unhappy. The Brussel Sprouts I planted in the back beds are growing, but the leaves are being eaten by a tiny green worm. And the ones I planted in front are not doing much at all.

I planted Acorn squash and Delicata, (I think, I saved the seeds from last year's farmers' market purchase. Of course I only labeled the Acorn. Oops!) and they are both going crazy. More potatoes should be ready soon, and I planted arugula, more spinach and beans for the fall. Oh, and I pruned the strawberry bushes back in June, after the first batch of berries, and now they are also going crazy with runners and blossoms. Lily will be so happy to pick more berries.

And one lonely stargazer Lily, which I thought had been devoured by the slugs, bloomed. Sooo pretty!

Lots of Tomato Help

2009-08-12T07:50:00.000-07:00

Many of you replied to my tomato question, thank you, thank you! My dad thought it might be the heat and he also suggested using blood meal. His first thought, of course, was that Lily was eating them all before I could pick them.

My uncle Kevin guessed the abnormally high heat we've had and he also made the good point about not planting my tomatoes in the same spot every year. Very good advice for someone like me who is LAZY about rotating her crops!

Several of you suggested calling a county extension service through the department of agriculture or some sort of garden helpline. I took Annette's (from www.sustainableeats.com) advice and emailed The Garden Hotline through Seattle Tilth Association. There web address is: http://www.gardenhotline.org, and their email is help@gardenhotline.org. You can also call them at (206) 633-0224.

Falaah, the Environmental Educator at The Garden Hotline replied this morning.

"Hi Sara, I am sorry that you are having trouble with your tomatoes. You did identify some causes: excess nitrogen, extreme temps (over 100 or lower than 55 degrees,) inadequate pollination. It also could be drought stress, or shady conditions (doesn't sound like this is your problem.) I think it was the over 100 degree weather that caused your flowers to fall without setting fruit. Wait for new flowers to form. Protect plants with a row cover if our night temps dip below 55. Keep your tomatoes evenly moist (not soggy); do not let the soil dry out. I hope this helps."

Wow am I learning a ton! Thanks again, everyone, for all your help. Hopefully the great advice from Falaah will be helpful to those of you out there who shared in my tomato woes. Maybe all is not lost for tomatoes this year. I'll keep you posted.

Help! Tomato Problem

2009-08-10T13:58:00.000-07:00

My Early Girl tomato plant has been thriving all summer, until about two weeks ago when I noticed that the flower blossoms were dying and falling off. They're not producing fruit any more and I'm more than a bit pissed off. I've read a few things: 1. that it could be too much nitrogen fertilizer, 2. the extreme heat we had a couple of weeks ago, or 3. a lack of bees doing the pollinating. We have tons of bees and I quit using a nitrogen fertilizer back when they first began to flower. Does anyone really know what causes this, and, what, if anything I can do about it? The tomatoes that were there still seem to be growing and ripening.

I guess you could call me stubborn when it comes to growing my own tomato plants. My dad grew tomatoes all the time when we were growing up, and I've grown them successfully in Los Angeles and Georgia with little effort or worry. If I have a summer addiction it's the taste of home grown tomatoes. In fact I can't understand why in the world anyone would ever, ever, ever want to eat an unripe or pretend ripe tomato that was picked way too early and has NO ACTUAL FLAVOR. Unless you consider mush a flavor.

Here in Everett my tomato growing adventures have been less than successful. In 2006, our first summer in this house, I planted two Early Girl plants in the backyard raised beds. They grew like crazy with lush green leaves and tons of blossoms, but that was the year I learned about the path of sun over our house. By late August the raised beds back there get maybe three hours on sunlight and it's mid-day sunlight at that. And cold came earlier that year, like mid-September if I remember correctly. I think I got three tomatoes before a frost came.

I spent a few months in mourning, then, in January ordered tomato seeds from The Cooks Garden and spent February, March and April nuturing seedlings. Of course I had too many so I gave a few away and planted the rest in the front (south facing) yard. The Sun Gold, Cherokee Purple and Organic Garden Peach did the best. There were so many Sun Gold turning yellow and orange that I had nightly dreams of home made salsa, fresh salads with sliced tomatoes and cold blue cheese dressing to dip them in. Then during the last week of August I found out I was pregnant and my body decided it couldn't stand the taste of fresh, ripe tomatoes. Cruel.

Last year Lily was born at the end of April and I had no vegetable garden to speak of.

This year I decided to try to grow things that do well in this climate, you know the rainy, cool, breezy weather we typically have here in Everett. I purchased beet, carrot, spinach, kale, scallion and two kinds of pea seeds. I swore I wasn't going to grow tomatoes anymore, after all I can purchase them from the farmers' market. Well that oath didn't last long, especially when Central Market lures me in with beautiful tomato starts just outside the entrance.

Turns out our wacky hot weather we've been having this summer has been great for tomatoes, but could it have gotten too hot? My Sun Gold is thriving, but that Early Girl, I just don't know. Maybe I'm really not meant to grow tomatoes here. If anyone has an answer as to why the blossoms are withering and falling off without producing any more fruit, I'd love to hear it.

Compost Goodness

2009-08-07T08:24:00.000-07:00

Years ago during summers my dad had a garden, I remember him adding food scraps to the compost heap in the backyard. In fact, he even meticulously cut up the scraps into smaller sizes so that they would break down quicker. At the time I rolled my eyes at his ridiculousness. Now I'm a compost nerd myself, adding, stirring, watching. And I love to see how many worms we have. Who would have thought? Here's a picture of my dad, "Papa" with Lily.

We do have a compost bin in the backyard which Greg made for me a few years ago out of some old pallets the previous owners left. It's a great size, plus I love that he made it using materials that were already there. However we're constantly adding scraps and debris to it, especially in the summer, so I never really give it enough time to turn into usable compost for the garden. Plus, this summer it became a potato patch and there was no way I was letting those go to waste.

I know they make some really handy composting machines that close and spin and turn the scraps to compost much quicker, but that would involve me spending lots of money which I'd rather spend on seeds and plants and, oh books, of course.

A few weeks ago we found some more discarded pallets and grabbed them so we could eventually make a second compost bin. That way one could be "cooking" and turning into that black gold while I add stuff to the other one. In the meantime I buy compost from Cedar Grove to top-dress my vegetables and flowers. Lily is fascinated with the bags of compost, so much so that she decided to taste some. Annette from www.sustainableeats.com said there is an old saying that says you need to eat a peck of dirt before you die to keep healthy. Well, Lily is definitley one healthy kid, then.

She also prefers to "help" put the compost on the plants by smothering it on the leaves. I'm not too sure how the zucchini feel about that, but Lily sure had fun with it.

Neglectful Gardening

2009-08-03T13:51:00.000-07:00

I was reminded today how much the garden really does grow without my tinkering and checking and watering and pruning. I think I hover too much when I'm here, because as soon as I leave town for a few days, I return and it's as if the plants had a party in my absence, growing like crazy, thriving without me around to pester them.

I left town on a Tuesday morning and returned Thursday. While I was gone, the garden phlox bloomed, tomatoes turned red in bunches, and the winter squash began its garden takeover.

Really it seems like they grew more in two days with me away, than in two days with me present. Hmmm... what does that say about my gardening? Should I be more neglectful? Is there a good way to be a neglectful gardener? Or writer? Or parent?

As for writing, it's kind of a fine balance for me. I can't go away for long periods of time, because not only does my writing really suffer, but I feel like a discombobulated mess when I return, and I become an incredibly cranky person. But, when I'm struggling with an essay, or with a difficult revision, or the end of a chapter, sometimes it helps me to walk away from it for a day or two and do something completely different, like work in the garden. Often when I do this, and let my mind wander about other things, something clicks way back there in my writer brain and I can return with a fresh take on my writing. It's literally refreshing.

Obviously I can't just leave Lily alone for a few days to fend for herself, but I do try to let her explore. I try not to hover and prune too much. Playing in the garden has been fabulous for that. I get to see her touch soft green leaves, pluck chive blossoms off, search for more strawberries and snap peas, clean rocks off in her mouth, learn words like "nee nee", and my favorite so far, plunk herself down on the grass in front of the blooming oregano and watch the "bums" (bumble bees) with patient curiosity.

Of course one could say I'll use any excuse I can to get out and play in the garden.

Hot Weather, Cool, Cool Water

2009-07-28T21:29:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been a while since I posted. We've been having fun with visiting family and trying to stay cool! It's only 10am and already it's 80 degrees!!

Lily loves the water. A garden hose, sprinklers, watering cans, swimming pools, dog bowls, whatever you can give her with water in it, she's in heaven. We haven't been doing a ton of gardening these past few days, aside from watering veggies and keeping them from wilting in this heat, but we have been playing with the garden hose. Fun! Fun! Fun!

She tries to drink from it and inevitably gets doused under the water, which then makes her shriek and ask for more. Nana and I can barely take pictures because we are laughing so hard. She even got to help her uncle Kevin "water" his garden.

Hungry Little Sprout

2009-07-15T10:01:00.000-07:00

When the strawberries started to ripen, I showed Lily how to pick the delicious, deep-red, ripe ones and feast on them. One berry and she was hooked. After that I showed her how to pick sugar snap peas and raspberries; she was a natural. The sugar snap peas are still growing and she checks them out every morning, chewing them into little pieces and then usually spitting the entrails out here and there throughout the yard, or trying to feed them to Dizzy.

After reading the "Zucchini" poem a gazillion times she can recognize zucchini in the garden. She points and says, "Nee nee," and tries to pull them off the vine. It's very cool to see her little mind make these connections and remember from day to day. This isn't to say that she only picks things that are edible. After all, everything goes in her mouth these days, including the mulch, the rocks and seeds from plants that are neither vegetables or fruits.

And she's fast for such a little sprout. So I'm like her shadow following her around the yard. I actually had to rip out a small bush this week that she kept honing in on. I have no idea what it was, but along with it's waxy, long oval-ish leaves, were hard, dark blue berry-like seeds. Since I didn't know what it was and couldn't let her eat the seeds, and she insisted on eating them, instead of fighting that battle over and over again, I ripped it out. Sorry small bush.

Last night she and Greg and I were playing outside, and, unprompted, she went right over to the Sun Gold cherry tomato plant, plucked the first ripe orange tomato, squished it into her mouth and said, "Myum-yum." That moment might just be worth every moment in the garden put together.

Mornings in the Garden

2009-07-11T09:37:00.000-07:00

Morning is my favorite time in the garden with Lily. Now when we go outside in the backyard she walks right over to the garden to check things out. First she heads straight for the strawberries; she sure has a good memory; I guess juicy, sweet, homegrown berries will do that to you.

We inspect all the plants, dig a little dirt with the garden tools, play some peek-a-boo, and eat peas. Lily likes to stick them in her ears too.

Appreciating the Moment

2009-07-08T19:11:00.000-07:00

So much of the time I feel like I don't get nearly enough done in the garden. And gardening with Lily often heightens that feeling. Gardening with her is a bit like watching the monkeys at the zoo; they're here and there and swinging and flying and chasing and never sitting still. I spend more time chasing her around and trying to persuade her to spit the rocks out of her mouth, than actually planting, or weeding or fertilizing, blah, blah, blah.

But when I think about it, even the days I do get to the garden chores, no matter how much I get done, it remains unfinished, always. Plus, there are moments with Lily in the garden that I wouldn't trade for all the perfectly manicured gardens in the world. Last night I happened to look up on the porch where she was playing with some new cauliflower, lavender and sage starts I just bought, and she is spontaneously playing peek-a-boo with me behind the plants.

Roses

2009-07-05T09:19:00.001-07:00

This is the first year I tried planting bare-root roses. Yes, I'm a sucker, I love the scent of them. I bought two climbing roses called, Joseph's Coat. They can also be pruned into more of a shrub rose. I bought them for the orangy-red color and the description on the tag, "fragrant and long lasting."

Greg and I planted them on a cold, drizzly night in February as it was getting dark. Lily and Dizzy helped by sitting nearby and offering a comment or two. While Greg dug the holes and I buried the roots, Dizzy taught Lily how to chew on sticks, and as soon as we were finished planting, she threw up. (I hope no one is reading this blog for tips on planting roses or parenting.)

One of the roses is not growing very well; now that it is summer I can see that it is not getting nearly enough sunshine. I will try to move it next winter/spring. The other one is thriving and last week it finally bloomed, yeah!

Dog Days

2009-07-02T11:15:00.000-07:00

I feel I've been horribly neglectful in mentioning and including one of the main character's in Lily's life, her big brother, Dizzy the dog. Dizzy likes to garden and hang out with us in the yard too. In fact, when Greg and I first bought the house, and Greg built an additional raised bed in back, as soon as he was finished, Dizzy waltzed right over and climbed in, basking in the sunny dirt as if it had been built for him.
The raised beds in back have a low fence around them with a charming, (falling apart,) gate. Dizzy used to be able to get into the garden from the back, and once inside, couldn't figure out how to get back out. So he would sit by the gate and bark a sort of high-pitched, "help me I'm stuck in the garden, Mom!" bark. He's awesome at digging too. Dizzy is a regular gardening genius.
It's been so unbelievably gorgilious here lately that it's really hard to do anything but laze around and play in the sunshine. Soak up as much as we can while we can mentality. Dizzy and Lily have no problem with this.

Picking Raspberries

2009-06-30T09:53:00.001-07:00

Lily got to visit her pal, Zoe, on Bainbridge Island this past weekend. We climbed a tree into an awesome tree house, played with a cat and two dogs, and camped out overnight in their yard.

Zoe, her mom and dad live on a beautiful piece of land with a huge vegetable garden that had me drooling. There was lettuce galore, Swiss chard, several kinds of squash, peppers, tomatoes, strawberries, potatoes, corn, blueberries, rhubarb, and more. The best part was watching Lily pick her first ripe raspberries. I think she'd still be there if we hadn't pulled her away.

Zucchini on Acid

2009-06-25T08:38:00.000-07:00

Seriously our zucchini plants are growing like they're on drugs or something, doubling in size overnight, every night. It's not even July yet and already we have two zucchini blossoms and many more on the way. I've never had zucchini ready to eat in June before from my own garden. Apparently it likes the soil and all the sun it's getting in the front yard.

Every year at the end of the summer I rip out the gargantuan zucchini plants and tell myself I'm not going to grow it the next year. By August I've had enough zucchini to last me forEVER. Those of you who grow zucchini know what I'm talking about. It produces a lot, quickly, and I can never seem to keep up no matter how many ways we fix it. And believe me there are tons of ways to fix zucchini. My favorite is sliced and grilled with a drizzle of olive oil and some salt. "Myum-yum!" as Lily says.

"Zucchini", one of Lily's favorite poems to read over and over again, is from her picture book, Busy in the Garden, (by George Shannon, pictures by Sam Williams.) It begins, "Zucchini meeny miney moe," proceeds to list many of the ways zucchini can be fixed, (it's a long poem,) and ends with "Zucchini meeny miney MOAN." No kidding!

But it's only the beginning of summer and I always get suckered back into growing it, especially this summer since it's been abnormally warm and sunny. Plus it's an easy vegetable to grow with great results, just the thing I would love for Lily to see and be amazed by, hopefully.

Rain and Slugs

2009-06-22T09:14:00.000-07:00

Well, the rains came finally. I think we had a record of over twenty days without rain. Twenty days in June, in Everett, without rain...it was awesome! But of course we need the rain, badly so I'm trying not to complain. Plus I love the way the garden smells in the rain. Our old rose shrub, the lemon verbena, even the grass and the dirt, yes, garden dirt in the rain, what a wonderful scent.

It's also nice not to have to water everything. It lets me take a step back and observe more than I do when I'm constantly worried if I watered all the newly planted seeds enough, or gave my zucchini and tomato plants that long deep drink they crave.

And there is so much to observe. The radishes were a huge disappointment and I think it's because I didn't thin them enough. The green leafy parts grew huge and tall and the radishes themselves hardly grew at all. I need to get over my aversion to thinning. I guess it's sort of like editing my writing, I have to remember that always, always, always my writing is better when I revise and cut away unnecessary words, paragraphs and sometimes entire pages. Pulling out newly growing sprouts just feels wrong to me, even though I know it's necessary.

The snap peas are doing awesome, so is the kale, although I think I planted the green onions too close to the kale because they seem to be buried under the broad, fast-growing kale leaves. I planted more beet seeds this weekend because half of the first batch I planted did nothing, not sure what happened there, but the tomatoes and zucchini are doing awesome in the front yard with all the sun they've been getting.

As much as I love and crave the sun, I love the rain too. It puts such an intense infused look on the world, colors appear deeper, scents hover and permeate, everything looks richer. However, there is one thing I hate about the rain here in the Pacific Northwest, and yes I mean hate. Slugs. Rain invites slugs, and boy do they come. Obese, slimy, gorging-on-our-plants slugs. It's like they appear out of nowhere with appetites ten times their size. Do they even have teeth, I mean how can they devour a lily or dahlia or pea sprout so damn fast?!

I've learned a few techniques--all of them gross--to deal with them, from drowning them in beer to spreading coffee grounds around the plants, but every year they still manage to win a few battles. This past weekend, to my horror, Lily actually found one, picked it up, squished it between her fingers and tried to eat it in the span of about three seconds. YUCK! Oh the things she like to put in her mouth!

Lilies in Bloom

2009-06-16T10:16:00.001-07:00

We have lots of lilies growing in the garden. I planted some Stargazer lilies that the slugs got to this year when they first poked through the dirt, so I'm not sure they're going to make it. GramS sent us a Stargazer lily last year for Lily which will hopefully bloom soon. And the side yard is full of orange day lilies that were here when we bought the house. But the first one of the season to bloom is a beautiful yellow one called a Bright Pixie, from our neighbors Andy and Mary Ann for Lily's birth last year.

Strawberry Season

2009-06-14T09:41:00.000-07:00

Lily picked her first strawberries from our garden this week. It was probably the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life. Unfortunately I only bought four plants this year so right now there's only about one ripe strawberry per day, and she wants more! I think we're also creating a food snob here. She ate the garden strawberry and loved it; then we came inside and gave her some store-bought ones for breakfast and she tossed them over the side of her high chair.

Lily's Friends

2009-06-10T06:05:00.000-07:00

Lily had visits from two of her pals this week. Her flower friend, Violet came up to picnic and play in the grass, and it was a gorgeous day. The girls are hilarious together; they look like little old women complaining to each other. We haven't seen Violet in a while and she's growing just as fast as Lily. I feel like I blink and they've grown, or like they secretly grow at superspeed overnight, like spinach and zucchini.

Our friends Shannin and Jason came over from Bainbridge with their daughter, Zoe, who is also growing like crazy, which is awesome to see because she was born with CDH, (congenital diaphragmatic hernia) and has major health challenges to overcome. Her name means Life which I think is just perfect because she's one tough survivor.

We also have some fun news about Lily's pal, Molly and her mom and dad, they just moved into a house a couple of blocks away from us. They're neighbors, Yeah!!!

Hopefully I'll have more pictures to show of all the girls as the summer goes on. Lily changes so much every day I can hardly keep up.

Fun with the Garden Hose

2009-06-07T08:44:00.000-07:00

We had such a gorgeous, hot week here that we had to actually water the plants. Often, at this time of year in Everett, with enough mulch and compost I can get away with watering the veggies once or twice a week. And the perennials survive on near complete neglect. Not so this past week. On Thursday I watched our new young hydrangea go from thriving and blooming to one big sagging heap in less than an hour. All the blooms withered and weeping. So I drowned it and then repeated the drowning two more times on Friday and thankfully it sprang back to life.

I let Lily play with the hose too; she loves it. Loves to water the sidewalk and herself, and she loves to try to catch the water in her hand. I put some flower pots near her to see if she would water them, and she did, too funny!! I bought her her own little watering can, but she's not too keen on that yet; she just dumps all the water out and walks away from it, but the hose is her new favorite. Apparently she's also good at deadheading.

What's Growing?

2009-06-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

We've been having tons of sun and hot days lately. It's awesome! The yellow-orangy ceramic sun in the raised beds is from Lily's uncle Kevin. It's radiating behind some snap peas, lettuce and kale. In between the kale we have green onions and carrots. The spinach is almost done, but new things are coming up every day, radishes, strawberries, beets, cilantro, parsley and more! Yeah sunshine!

Mulch Addiction

2009-05-28T13:45:00.000-07:00

So I have this addiction to mulch lately. This is the first year, since we bought our house in 2006, that I've really been working on the front yard. For the past three years I sort of let it "maintain" itself. In fact, I've treated it like my writing, peeking in once in a while and not staying very long out of fear. I avoided the perennials that were healthy and lush as much as I avoided the barren, weedy, overgrown sections, because so many of the plants are plants I've never grown or taken care of before. But Lily is teaching me to just barrel forward into the unknown, (hello raising children!) and see what happens.

There are parts of our front yard that have survived my neglect, and then other parts where ugly things like quackgrass and creeping buttercup have taken over entire sections of the garden beds. And of course there's the very hardy blackberry vines, that happen to love my neglect. Even the sections that look like they did maintain themselves are overgrown and stagnant.

Avoidance is never good, so this year I decided to dive back in and try to recover the front yard. And I've had tons of help, which always makes the seemingly impossible more like a fun challenge. Greg's mom, GramS was here a month ago, and she and Greg spent hours digging up the brick path and turning over tightly bound grasses that had pushed their way into everywhere they didn't belong. She also cleaned up the raised beds in back and planted strawberry seeds for Lily. We had so much fun, I just wish she was still here to see how things are progressing. Of course the reason I get to spend so much time in the garden is because my own mom, Nana lives with us and helps me keep track of Lily. My friend Joie did a ton of manual labor too, showing me how to lay down cardboard over the grass and then mulch over it so that it will compost over time. And our neighbors, Andy and Mary Ann stop by and help me identify plants once in a while; plus they always have dog biscuits for Dizzy .

And then there is the mulch, thank goodness for mulch! Lily loves the mulch, (not sure if that is a good thing or not...) I feel relief once the mulch is down because I feel like I really can maintain things now, like beginning with a strong foundation so that I can move forward, and not keep taking ten steps backward.

Planting Seeds with Lily

2009-05-24T15:16:00.000-07:00

Lily and I planted lots of stuff this week! Two tomato plants, an Early Girl and a Sunburst went in the front yard. Some Brussels sprouts from seedlings, which were a lovely gift from our new friends, Jennie and Dean, went in near the Early Girl up front. And carrots and broccoli raab, from seeds, on Wednesday night with Greg's help. I actually got Lily to play with the seeds and try to put them in the dirt. Mostly they just stuck to her fingers. But she sure loves the seed packets, the noise they make when she shakes them close to her ears, the way she can carry several at once in her hand and crawl at the same time. And she loves my garden tools, so I got her some cute pink ones of her own.

My Own Little Sprout

2009-05-20T15:37:00.000-07:00

I'm learning, that gardening with a 1-year-old is not so much about what I want to do, but about DISTRACTION, which is the word that pretty much rules our life these days. Lily is everywhere all the time. She's both attached to me and determined to do things on her own. I could literally spend all day saying,"no" to her, while constantly taking things away from her that are dangerous or inappropriate. Torture chamber anyone?

Instead, I've realized distraction is the way to go. I didn't say it was easy for me to come to this place, but once I did, I realized Lily and I were having much more fun. And, anyway, who cares that I have yet to plant some of the seeds that should have been in the ground weeks ago? Who cares if every single last weed does not get pulled?

Lily prefers to shovel dirt out of the pots and climb into them. She also likes to pull the plants out of where we've just planted them. Hmm, if I could just get her to pull only weeds...

To Write or Garden...

2009-05-18T18:26:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend at the SCBWI Western Washington Writing & Illustrating for Children Conference. It was amazing! I got to listen to talented, published authors and illustrators speak, including one of my all-time favorites, Jon Scieszka. And agents and editors gave great advice about the business side of writing.

It's always inspiring to me to be in the company of so many other writers. To hear about their struggles and successes, and simply, just to listen to a great story. I also love seeing the work of the illustrators, because in the end, even though my writing doesn't have illustrations, I want it to create a picture, an image that just won't leave the reader alone. And I find that so many things - in addition to great books - influence my writing, such as art, music, and of course gardening.

Ahhh gardening. Another beautiful weekend spent without you. Lily hung out with her daddy, Greg and her Nana. They watered for me and enjoyed the lazy days in the yard. I came home rejuvenated. And I came home with a TALL pile of new books, including two wonderful picture books about trees and gardening, A Grand Old Tree, by Mary Newell DePalma, & Busy In the Garden, by George Shannon, pictures by Sam Williams.

Flower Shopping With Lily

2009-05-15T09:49:00.000-07:00

Here's a look at what Lily and I bought at Sunnyside Nursery last week. The visit was a little bit fun, a little bit crazy, sort of like this picture. I was going to crop it and make it look prettier, but what fun would that be when I show the after pictures?

Shopping with Lily generally causes one or both of us to go into meltdown. But sometimes it has to be done. I thought flower shopping would be different; I thought it would be lovely. Who am I kidding? I knew it would be insane.

We went with our friends, Joie and Molly, and while Molly is still content to hang out in the baby carrier, Lily is not. Plus the sun was out, I know, shocking in the Puget Sound area in May. Even more shocking that I should complain! While Lily struggled to get out of the carrier and chase the soft grey cat around, I struggled to convince her she was perfectly happy strapped to my chest while the sun beat down on us and my blood pressure took its usual climb. It didn't last long.

But we did come home with some pretty plants and honestly Lily probably saved us a lot of money because I should not be trusted at a nursery with endless amounts of time and a credit card. It could be worse than setting me loose in the bookstore.

I decided the next time we go to Sunnyside, I will leave my expectations at home, along with the baby carrier. And I'll let Lily get down and explore to her heart's content.

Raised Beds

2009-05-12T14:46:00.000-07:00

I should tell you a bit about our yard. The front is full of perennials, bulbs, trees and a few patches of lawn that were here long before Greg and I bought this house three years ago. It seriously intimidates me so we'll talk about that another day.

The back is sort of a charming disaster. There are two dilapidated old sheds, random slabs of concrete, in shapes that almost remind me of leaves, a section of gravel and weeds, and a narrow brick path between two flower beds.

Nestled in the back right corner are 4 raised beds and a compost bin. This is my favorite part of the yard; this is where I truly feel like I get to start over every year, planting whatever fruits and veggies I want. Plus it was completely overgrown with weeds when we bought the house. I dug them all up, each and every one, so I feel a bit of ownership.

Mostly, so far, I keep plopping Lily back there with me hoping she'll become interested in pushing seeds down into the dirt. Seeds are tiny, though, so we've tried some snap peas and nasturtiums, which she can actually hold between her fingers and push into the dirt. I said, can, not that she does, exactly. Yes, she'd much rather put them in her mouth. Seeds and rocks taste good! Although, she does like to water - a girl after my own heart.

In the first picture, she's playing with the rocks by her trusty watering can. The second is a raised bed from the early stages. I love watching it all grow, including my Lily.

Happy Mother's Day

2009-05-10T21:29:00.000-07:00

Mother’s Day is pretty cool, I must say, now that I am a mom. Not only is Lily one amazing, goofy, smart, cuddly kid, (okay, she’s also Crankenstein when she’s teething which just happens to be right now,) but I got to spend the entire day in the garden. My friend, Joie, and I planted gorgeous flowers in containers, vegetable seeds in the raised beds and strawberries a plenty, yum! We dug up stubborn, unwanted grass, and mulched. Oh I love how the yard looks with a little bit of mulch. Lily was there, along with Joie’s seven-month-old daughter, Molly. But so were the dads. I know it’s Mother’s Day, but HOORAY for great dads!

Gardening with Lily is a whole different thing than gardening alone. And I’ll be honest, I like to garden alone. I get into my place of Zen; gardening is meditative for me; it’s exercise; it’s therapy. Gardening with Lily means completely changing my expectations of what’s going to get done, or rather undone, as she prefers to take the flowers out of the dirt that we’ve just planted them in. She’d rather rip the pea sprouts in pieces with her little hands and shovel dirt onto her dog’s nose.

But speaking of noses, gardening with her forces me to appreciate things in a whole new way. She’s just learned where her nose is and while I know she doesn’t get the same pleasure we do from the scent of lemon thyme or lilacs, showing her how to stick her nose into the Nemesia, (instead of ripping the flower heads off), and watching her do it over and over again, was priceless.

It's Spring

2009-05-06T21:30:00.000-07:00

It's spring in the Pacific Northwest and every year just about this time when the tulips start to bloom, and the weather feels like just maybe it's time to start gardening, I go to the library to check out more gardening books than I can carry. Every year I do this. Every year in the garden in spring I feel like a beginner all over again. I guess in a way I am a beginner every year. Even though so much of my yard is full of perennials that emerge year after year, there's also so much space left untouched, my blank canvas to begin anew.

But this year I'm not alone. My daughter Lily, 1-year-old as of April 23rd 2009 is with me. I've hardly written a thing since she was born, and that's what I should be doing, writing. But the scent of an almost-in-bloom, old-fashioned rose bush, fragrant from the spring rain, lures me outside and whispers that I want to be gardening, not writing. Can I find the time, with Lily in tow, to do both, garden and write?

These days Lily is happiest when outside, eating rocks and digging, literally digging through the dirt. So that's what she and I shall do, dig through the dirt. We'll plant, nurture, weed and try to put something good back into the Earth. Hopefully we'll have a ball, and maybe it will even inspire me to write again.