Forgive me dear family and friends if I don't return your phone or texts over the next week. My garden has taken my life over and I have such limited time to work in it (given my four young children, a baby who likes to eat dirt, a husband who has to work 75 hours this week). I'm just grateful I have such an awesome garden that gives me such huge opportunities to hone my talents and craft!
Tonight we had spinach quiche for dinner. Around 1:00, I realized that I didn't have enough spinach in my freezer. Then I remembered I had an abundant supply growing in my yard.
Check out my gorgeous organic spinach! They were so happy under the plastic row covers. Some leaves were as big as my hands! 1.5 lbs harvested and fit into a gallon ziploc bag.
Quick tip: if you decide to grow any sort of leaf vegetable-like lettuce, spinach, chard - invest in a salad spinner. Trust me. It spins the water off the leaves and saves you soggy leaves.
I've been in the PacNW (pacific northwest) for 17 years! One of the most endearing qualities (and I sincerely mean this) of this great region is that you have MANY days in May and even June where the daily temps stay in the mid-60's. As someone who HATES hot weather, this is a blessing.
However......this is not a blessing for a vegetable gardener. I've only been seriously growing fruit and vegetables for a few years now and I understand why PacNW gardeners lament over "cold" spring temps. With cold soil and unpredictable rainfall, we have to figure out methods to trick our plants into thinking that it's okay to start growing and producing.
This is the first year I've done this and so far so good. I bought a box of black yard trash bags and I folded each bag up and laid them flat over the beds I'm going to put the tomatoes and peppers in. I laid some rocks I had laying around the yard on the corners to secure the bags and then basically let them m sit for a few weeks. When I went to go plant, I cut a crisscross slit in the bag and planted the plant directly in the dirt. The soil felt incredibly warm despite the outside temp being 63°. I tucked the plastic back around the base of the plant until daytime temps are consistently warm (prob around mid-June). I also have plastic milk jugs with the bottoms cut out that I put over the plants for cold nights.
Hopefully my efforts will pay off and I'll have tomatoes in late June!
My garden has sprung up almost overnight. There is so much to share that I thought I would take the opportunity to share all my updates throughout the upcoming week. Enjoy!
{and please feel free to comment or ask questions}
Happy
Spring!
This year I get a really special mother's day treat. I get to be a mom to a daughter. So special to me on so many levels.
One of the best parts about my daughter is that she isn't a carbon copy of me (something I had wished for), but rather a carbon copy of MY mother. Every day she is looking more and more and more like "Janie". She has curly brown hair and big blue eyes and she just looks like a Brown you know? (i think we need to insert tribe or brown into her middle names)
The kicker- the other day she woke up with the frizzest curly hair ever-something my mom complains about always. So mom, here is your tribute, your copy, your granddaughter, enjoy :-)
A few weeks ago, Blake told me he couldn't see very well when he read books. He also frequently complained of headaches. I figured he needed to get glasses. Off we go to the eye dr. who tells me at the end of the exam that Blake can see just fine, but perhaps needs the glasses as a sort of ego booster. Considering our insurance covers one pair of glasses per year, we figured we would go ahead and get our older middle child some symbolic attention- a way of carving himself out of the fray (he's the only one who wears glasses so far).
Today we picked up his glasses (I think he looks rather dashing) and he announced that indeed he reads better and is 50% smarter! Well...great!
Enjoying a warm sun-filled day in the comforts of our home victory garden. No screens, no bulk-laden over consumption stores, no artificial noise. Just sun, wind, pebbles,a watering can, hanging laundry. Simple.
Both of my older boys are playing upper division little league. J in his second year of majors and B in his first year of AAA. Between their combined playing and practice schedule, we, as a family, are at the ball park six days a week- and we're not even in playoffs yet!
The thing is, even though it is quite intensive time-wise, I really like baseball season. The two little kids have a ball playing in the grass, dirt and flowers. There is always a little sibling to play with (and slide down dirt hills with!) We've been with the south league long enough that we've made good "baseball" friends with other parents. And it is a way to get out of the confines of our safe house to be outside every evening with fresh air and in our community. Not a bad way to transition out of winter and fully appreciate spring!
For you baseball nerds out there, I'll tell you that the family baseball gene has been passed on to our boys. Jer has been working with Jackson on playing catcher and he took to it like a fish to water. It is amazing to watch him play. Blake plays catcher as well and mimics the major league movements his dad taught him.
You don't hear a lot about the older boys on this blog partly because they are older and have a growing social life outside of the home with sports and school. However, I am proud as punch of them! They're my boys!
The other day when I went out to pick some fresh cilantro to add to our dinner, I noticed that there were lots of tiny holes all in the leaves. Upon further investigation, I identified several teeny tiny slugs buried among the base of the plants. If there is anything that makes me mad, it's freakin' slugs eating my plants! (okay, it's up there with mice eating my plants. Oh and ants eating my plants too).
Anyway, after a quick search on my fave garden blogs, I saw two (organic) methods I could try. The first method is to hand pick out all the slugs you see and squash them (check) and the second one is to place eggshells around them- the rationale being that slugs don't like to crawl over jagged surfaces.
I'll let you know how out works out (and I always have the option of breaking out the slug bait, I'm not above that!)
This morning was the final straw. I went out to the garage and most of the tomato plants were eaten within an inch of their lives. Blah that makes me so cranky. So the survivors were air-lifted to the warm comforts of my kitchen and joined my other plants in the south facing window. This is commitment, people.
