Spring Planting

It's Mother's Day and I am watching the sun come up over the mountains. Not a cloud in the sky, birds singing in the still morning air. It is a moment of quiet and solitude that nourishes me.
And it is the day earmarked to set out my seedlings and flowers.
I am gambling this early in the season and have no psychic ability to tell what kind of summer lies ahead. Weather wise, I can dream of another summer like the last – long, warm days that brought such incredible bounty to my garden and table. Here we are, a week into May, and I've transplanted pumpkins and summer squash out into the garden. They might survive. I'm pretty sure the cucumbers won't – but it's worth a shot. The peas are up – along with the lettuce; however some thing ate my spinach down to nothing. Slugs that even now are digesting the bait that I left out for them.
Weather like this tantalizes me with visions of vine ripened tomatoes and freshly picked basil. I am ready for sun drenched days, flip flops and shorts.
Planting List 2010 from Territory Seeds and Abundant  Life Seeds:

• Howden Pumpkins
• Small Sugar Pumpkins
• Samish Hybrid Organich Spinach
• Blushed Butter Cos Lettuce
• Heirloom Mix Lettuce
• Dakota Snap Peas
• Sugar Sprint Snap peas
• Oregon Sugar Pod II Snow Peas
• Oriental snap peas
• Eight ball summer squash
• Gold Rush Zucchini
• Orient Express Cucumbers
• Carnival Hybrid Winter Squash
• Cannellini Lingot Bush Beans
• Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans
• Speckled Cranberry Dry Shelling Bean
• Nantes Carrots
• Nantaise Narome Carrots
• Red Ace Beets
• Chioggia Beets
• Sunflowers: Sunseed, Infrared, and Apricot Twist

Planting Onions

It's really easy to plant onions.  Turning the soil, pulling out the weeds, raking last years detris away - now that takes time.  But on a beautiful Saturday afternoon with the sun on my shoulders and soft clouds chasing across the sky - what better time is there to spend outside with my hands in the dirt?

Amazing Bruschetta

This was amazing - especially using the heirloom tomatoes from my garden:
1 T white wine vinegar
1 tsp dijon mustard
2 garlic cloves, crushed and then minced
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp ground pepper
1 T olive oil
1/2 cup sliced, diced fresh from the garden tomatoes

Add the first five ingredients together and then slowly add the olive oil while whisking the vinegar mixture. Add tomatoes and mix well. Let sit for about ten minutes. I doubled the recipe and used a varied assortment of colorful tomatoes.

Slice up sourdough bread, brush lightly with olive oil and broil to make toasty little platters for the heavenly tomato mixture. Strong on the garlic but absolutely delicious!

The tomatoes can also be served over green beans or asparagus.
Recipe courtesy of Cooking Light.

Rain - thanks for finally showing up for the party

We're glad that you finally decided to come around for a visit. Even though the invitation was open ended, we didn't expect that it would take quite this long for you to remember to drop by. I know that there were other parties and places to see this summer and yes, those few times that you drove by were refreshing - but honestly, did you have to wait until Labor Day weekend to finally make an extended visit?
No, no, I'm not complaining. The grass is soaking you in and the rhodendrons are hanging on every drop of water that you release. Stay for a day or two, make the visit count and then if you really have to move on for a couple of weeks and leave me with some mild late summer sunshine - I'll manage to get by until we see you again.

Late August

I've been excited by the amount of recipes that use zucchini. Pulling down my cookbooks and perusing the indexes has given me a number of choices. Marcella Hazan apparently loved the prolific little vegetables and has a number of recipes scattered throughout her cookbooks that utilize them. I can only give so many away. I can't imagine that Andy is going to be too happy over the next couple of weeks but perhaps I can keep the zucchini use down to side dish status so he doesn't have to partake.

The garden has survived quite well my absences this past month. As September comes, I've been trying to get into the garden and harvest what I can. The Gravenstein apples are picked and a lot of the asian pears are ready as well. I had another batch of peas but I think I found another reason to keep them as a cool weather crop: caterpillars and aphids. My tomatoes are ripening, the cucumbers need constant watching and (Yes!) I have pumpkins. Those Howden pumpkins grow a bit strangely – they start out yellow and seem destined for odd shapes. The sugar pumpkins – five that I can count – are perfectly round and filling up the space quite nicely. I'm still watching the lima beans to see when they are ready for harvest. All in all, my garden is giving back its bounty and I want to honor that by using up whatever is given.

I want to plant some more spinach and carrots, swiss chard and kale before it is too late. And then it will be time to put this garden to bed for the winter. The new beds need a heavy dose of composted fertilizer and some time to break down for early spring planting. My perennial beds need cleaning out and certain items transplanted before it gets too cold.
This morning there was a coolness to the air that spoke of changing seasons to come. Even though there is technically a month left of summer, the end of August always heralds the closing of the season. The transition from summer to fall here in the northwest can happen abruptly and suddenly those lovely days of balmy 80 degree weather disappear behind clouds and drizzle. In what feels like a blink of an eye, it is October and the evening temperatures have dropped into the high thirties. I can hope for an extended summer but the abundance of heat over the past two months has given me an explosion of greenery, flowers and produce that has to be managed before the weather turns. And the work calls to me – I want to get out there and get my hands in the dirt – even as I take my youngest child school shopping and help my other daughter get ready to travel abroad for five months. There will be time – I'll have to make the time to happily go putter in my gardens.

Note to Self: Never plant more than one zucchini plant in the garden.

Mid Summer Harvest

My pumpkins are finally beginning to send out runners with the possible intention of actually setting some fruit.

There are fewer and fewer cherries on the tree, but those that we picked yesterday were particularily sweet. I've got carrots and beets and more potatoes than I know what to do with. Thank goodness that all of these crops, with the exception of the cherries, will last for awhile.

It's now time to think about my fall planting - what do I want to be harvesting in October? What do I want to overwinter in the garden? I've got some research to do because first and foremost the soil needs to be amended for next spring.
It is always a learning process as I work out in the garden and yet, the results are so satisfying.