Taking Shape

Even with all the chaos in our garden, brought on mostly by the dog, the HUGE snails, and my two kids, our garden is taking shape.  Several plants like the spinach, arugula, kale, lettuce and chives overwintered from September.  The garlic we planted in October is going crazy, and our peas, strawberries and sunflowers are growing, growing, growing!!!

I love to watch the garden grow and I love the literal shape of things in the garden.

First Peas!

We picked our first peas last week.  Okay, so it was only a handful, but it made us smile!

Peas are such an all around fun plant for our garden.  The seeds are big and easy for little hands to grasp.  You can start a bunch indoors with just a little water and some paper towels, and they sprout really quickly which the kids love.  And my kids can’t get enough of them once they are ready to pick and eat.  And I love hanging out in the garden with them while they pick yummy crunchy vegetables and enjoy eating them.  I think this is why I am forever spoiled over a delicious garden tomato, because my dad always grew tomatoes in the garden and we got to pick them right from the vine and eat them; there’s just no comparison!

Getting a bit of a late start ourselves this year, Lily and I started two different kinds of peas from Uprising Seeds in Bellingham, Sugar Ann and Cascadia.

Once they were an inch or so high…

Lily helped me plant them in the garden and water them.  Actually, this year, she pretty much did it all by herself.

Usually we make pea tepees, another aspect of peas that delights Lily and Jasper.

And this year we also just planted the Sugar Ann in the raised bed without support according to the Uprising Seeds Guide.   I wasn’t sure at first, and they are sort of gangly and hanging all over each other, but they are flourishing and giving us peas already.  Yeah Peas!

In May we planted some directly in the soil because I decided, if we are going to have another spring/summer like 2011, which was cold and rainy and cold and rainy through July, we could have peas all summer long.  Here is a pic of Lily taking care of our latest set of pea seeds.

I would like to show you the better photos, the close-ups of her actually planting them in the tiny holes she makes with her tiny fingers, but the amount of snot coming out of her nose would scare you.  I really need to brush up on my photo editing skills!  That is definitely one ongoing adventure we have in the garden, how to get good photos of the kids' faces, minus snot.  How 'bout you?  Any gardening adventures to share?

As much as I love peas, I’d really really rather have some sunshine and higher temperatures and enjoy a few other crops as well.  A good mix of peas and sunshine would be fabulous! But for now, let them eat peas!!

Ladybugs! Ladybugs! Ladybugs!

My blog and garden are getting some much needed attention, and with work and life being sort of crazy I haven't made much time for my own writing.  Hopefully that will change soon, but in the meantime, here are some happy thoughts from our garden.

We love ladybugs!

I mean what's not to love? They are bright and cheerful, beneficial to the garden, and in many cultures, they are considered lucky and even a bit spiritual.  This spring we have seen so many beautiful ladybugs.  The kids and I see at least one a day...

sometimes more. 

A few years ago, Nana gave Lily a ladybug ornament for her garden and although it's in need of a spruce up in the paint department, it still sits in our garden reminding of us of Nana.


Not only do we see ladybugs, but they seem to love my kids. They are perfectly content to hang out in the palm of Lily's hand while she counts their spots, or on Jasper's arm, tickling him into giggles.  We've even seen a few with no spots, something I've never seen before.

Jasper even tried to eat one...he didn't like it. Of course I was laughing too hard, as he spit it out, to get it on camera!

I'm not a religious person, but I believe in signs, in ritual, in nature, and I like to think the ladybugs in our garden are my mom, Nana, looking down on us.  At the least, we see a ladybug every day and we think of all the fun we had with Nana in our garden.

Seed Starting Ritual

Since I began gardening with Lily 3 years ago, starting seeds indoors has become an early springtime ritual for us. I have given up my high expectations of what those seed starts would amount to; instead it’s a fun and wonderful activity I love to do with the kids. We get to play with dirt, seeds and water!  And we end up with a sometimes tidy, sometimes untidy bunch of little containers full of dirt or peat pellets, with hidden seeds just waiting to sprout. 

Afterwards we put the trays of seeds in our large south and west facing windowsills and check them every day to see what might be popping up. It fills me with hope, childhood delight and anticipation.

When it was just Lily, things went smoothly; we took our time; I had everything ready and usually Greg, GramS or Nana took some great pictures. Lily loved it and would stick with it for over an hour. I can’t say I miss those days because Jasper is such a cutie, oh wait! Yes I can!  A cutie indeed, a cute monster monkey bulldozer of noise and energy!

This year, starting seeds was like a mini tornado sped through the kitchen. Fast, so fast, loud and dark with lots of damage leftover after all the dust had settled on the kitchen linoleum.  Not only was Jasper the tornado, but he also provided the warning alarms with his screeches of excitement over first wanting to eat the dry peat pellets, and then pure delight in squishing and completely destroying  the ones swollen with water.

At first interested in watching her own peat pellets expand, Lily quickly became amazed watching Jasper’s antics. We both did, amazed and unable to look away.

I convinced Lily to plant some sunflower and poppy seeds (her choices) in the pellets Jasper hadn’t obliterated, and then it was over, both of them too distracted and ready to move onto something else.  The whole thing was over in less than 5 minutes.  And as I tossed in a few of my own seeds (kale, Swiss chard, and broccoli) I decided there was no way I could put the trays in the windowsill this year. Jasper would have a blast, but I can’t say the same for the seeds.  

After I was done cleaning up, I put the trays on top of the refrigerator with the snap peas we had started between damp paper towels and realized I took absolutely no pictures of the actual event.  If this is a clue as to our future summer of gardening, it’s going to be way more crazy than I anticipated. Have I mentioned that dirt + water + seeds + one 4 ½-year-old + one 2-year-old cannot be “under control.” Perhaps the theme of my garden this year should be chaos!  

Let's Garden 2012!!

Okay everybody, it’s time to get this garden and garden blog going again. I have no idea what this garden year will be like for us. There are so many things I can’t predict, serious things like the unexpected and tragic death of my mom we had last year.  And not-so-serious things, like the weather, the amount of slugs and cabbage worms that will infest my plants, Jasper’s sudden impulses to pop the heads off all the tulips just before they open, or show off his running ability through the newly planted seedlings. I don’t even know what my motivation will be like with a full-time job, two kids, and un-routine garden time.

So I decided to try my hardest to lower, lower, lower my expectations and have simple garden goals.

1. Plant lots of flowers because that’s what Lily wants. I love my girl! 

2. Plant a garden of deliciousness. We’re going to plant lots of strawberries and peas so we can hopefully pick them and eat them all summer. 

LOTS OF STRAWBERRIES!!

3. Appreciate the moment, because having control over a garden and having fun with a 4- and 2-year-old in the garden cannot happen simultaneously.

There’s no predicting in a normal garden year, let alone a not-so-normal one.  There’s only hope. So here we go Garden 2012! Hope you’ll join us for the moments!

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

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

Still, a little sunshine would be nice.