Food, Not Lawn

We live in a neighborhood full of perfectly manicured, bright green lawns. Ours is not one of them. We choose to use an organic fertilizer that our children and dog can safely play on. And last summer, during a long dry spell, we did not sprinkle gallons and gallons of water on our lawn to keep it green. As a result, we have a spotty, kind-of-green lawn. At the end of last summer, we tore up all the lawn on the south side of our house (what was left of it anyway). We had a stepping stone path and log walk installed, tilled in compost, and let it rest. I am sure our neighbors spent last fall and this spring wondering what on earth we were going to do with that great big expanse of mud. At first, it was going to be a perennial flower bed, but the more I got to thinking about it, the more I wanted that space to be both beautiful and useful. I spent the winter months planning and starting seeds. Finally, after rain, rain, and more rain, we started to shape that big expanse of mud into our new vegetable garden. It was slow going, thanks to me being very pregnant, and then having a newborn to care for, but it is finally filling in!

This first year is one big experiment, discovering what will do well in this area that gets full sun and a lot of wind. From left to right above (all heirloom varieties): bush beans, onions, the boys checking out the tomatoes, pole beans on teepee, sweet corn, acorn squash, pumpkins, and the beginnings of a small cottage garden along the house (sunflowers, hollyhock, bachelor's buttons, zinnias, and poppies). Not pictured, behind me are kale and broccoli (not doing so well), and to the left, more pumpkins.

The boys love to go out and check on their 'Green, Green Garden,' the title of one of their current favorite books. "Every day we weed, water, and wait. We weed, water, and wait some more."

In our raised gardens in the back of the house are our greens, peas, herbs, carrots, cucumbers and more broccoli. That garden has been producing enough greens for my morning smoothie, a giant lunch salad, herbs and greens for dinner, and snacks for pea sneaking boys.

    Dill 'fireworks'

I can't wait to see the growth over the next couple of months, and will be back to share the progress!

Garden

Being gone the entire month of May put of bit of a crimp in my gardening this year. I did get a few things in as soon as possible after we got back, but pretty much missed out on the salad greens. There are herbs, lots of carrots (got those in before we left at the end of April), some sunflowers and cosmos that Noah helped me plant, a few varieties of heirloom tomatoes that I bought as transplants about one day after we got home at the end of May, and a really sad looking bush bean bed.

The first sunflower opened today.

Thyme and lavender.

Cherry tomato.

A wee bit of salad greens. Most of it bolted immediately in the heat.

This is the bean bed. We used seeds from previous years and germination was very poor. I think those tall things are weeds. They looked very much like beans when they sprouted, so neatly in a row, that I left them. And now I don't want to pull them out because the Japanese beetles (HATE those things) seem drawn to them. So, I figure, better for them to be eating the weeds than my beans. The neighbors are probably wondering what kind of new-fangled vegetables I am growing.

Basil, which I have been battling the Japanese beetles for. I will probably have to harvest soon or risk losing all of it to the nasty little critters.

Miss Ella loves sprinting in circles around the (fenced off) garden. Amazingly, when I was outside taking these pictures, it seemed that the temperature was dropping. I am crossing my fingers that this heatwave is finally ending.

June Garden

Thanks to some nice hot days and plenty of rain, our garden is filling in nicely. I decided to plant fewer flowers this year and filled in every last corner with heirloom edibles. We have four different varieties of tomatoes this year, a dozen plants in all, which required the addition of another trellis. We also have four kinds of carrots in red, orange, yellow, and purple, one squash plant that is beginning to resemble something from the jungle, two varieties of bush beans and lettuce, eight basil plants in addition our perennial herbs, some miniature short-season melons, and a wayward Mammoth sunflower that sprouted from one of last year's fallen seeds.The Bright Lights Swiss Chard is living up to its name, looking beautiful, and growing like crazy. Between the chard and our CSA, we are up to our ears in greens right now and will be trying some new recipes from this book. Tonight: Swiss Chard Gratin. Tomorrow: Homemade Braised Chard Pizza.And the lavender is budding. There are few things better than plunging your face into the plant and inhaling deeply. Garden aromatherapy.Thankfully, our not-so-pretty-to-look-at, but pretty-effective fence has been keeping the little critters out of our garden. All except for one that is...
Boy, oh boy, does this baby love dirt! He loves to dig it, squish it, occasionally taste it, and generally get it all over himself and everyone else, all while repeating over and over with much gusto, "Ucko!" Noah, on the other hand, has discovered how to turn on the hose and tries to help wash the dirt off everything and everyone.
Good (and muddy and wet) times in the garden!

Spring Ramble

Time to break the blogging hiatus. I have plenty of excuses for not blogging lately, none of which are very interesting or exciting, so I will spare the details and just move on...

We are enjoying warmer days here and there, though Mother Nature has a nasty way of playing tricks on us and giving us nice warm days one week followed by snow and sleet the next. Isaac is mastering the new challenge of walking in the grass and dirt, and particularly enjoys eating the bits of bread that we have thrown outside for the birds and rabbits when I am not looking. Meanwhile, Noah is back to his favorite outside activity of mowing and raking. And while we don't have a sandbox, the boys seem content to dig in a corner of mulch for hours on end, filling and dumping the same bucket over and over again. Isaac only sampled the dirt once or twice.

The garden is in need of some fresh compost and soil (our compost bin doesn't produce enough for the whole garden) before it is ready for planting, so I am a bit behind in my spring planting. However, we do have a few seedlings growing nicely in the basement. I am keeping it simple and starting only basil, Swiss Chard, and a few varieties of heirloom tomatoes inside. The rest of the garden will be directly sown as soon as the weather is more consistent and we get our rabbit-proof fence back up, lest I make the same mistake as last year and feed all those nurtured seedlings to the rabbits.

Speaking of rabbits...I am pretty sure one of them lives under our back steps. Though we rarely see it, he or she leaves behind plenty of um...evidence. However, last night as we were eating our Easter dinner, I happened to glance out the big sliding glass door in our dining room and there it was, just a few feet away, nibbling on the bits of bread (the ones Isaac hadn't eaten) and joining us for Easter dinner. How many people can say the Easter Bunny joined them for dinner? :)

That brings this Spring ramble to a close. I promise to be back soon with an update on some new projects and the boys' latest antics...

~Jen

September Garden

I try to do most of my gardening while Isaac is napping. Unfortunately, there hasn't been much napping happening around here lately. Isaac has had a lingering cold and is also teething. The only place he isn't fussing when out of our arms is when he is outside where he is distracted by the grass and the breeze. In the garden, he even sat nearby and let me harvest some of the last vegetables of the season. As long as he had some grass to pull and a cool carrot to soothe those swollen gums, he was content.

Our sunflowers are still standing, though they are bending greatly under the weight of the heavy heads as we wait for them to dry so we can harvest the seeds. I have given in to the rabbits, leaving the fence down for the last few weeks. Actually, it just never got put back up after the lawn was mowed. But I am more soft-hearted and willing to share than I was at the beginning of the season when they were chewing off everything as soon as it sprouted. They have a little nest in the strawberry patch, and I have now decided there is not much left that needs protection from them. They might as well enjoy those stray carrots tops and get nice and fat before winter. Our rabbit guests are color discriminate when it comes to the Swiss Chard, eating only the red and leaving us the yellow and white. I harvested the last of it, along with a few carrots for an Indian Curry dish. I am still contemplating whether or not to plant some lettuce and spinach for a fall crop, and thinking of what to do differently in the garden next year. More tomatoes, more beans, more chard. Fewer rabbits and beetles. I can dream, right?

~Jen

August Garden

The tomatoes are ready! Finally, lots and lots of Brandywine tomatoes. They were worth the wait. So far we have been slicing and eating them as fast as we can, but we are getting a little behind and I see a batch of spaghetti sauce in the near future.

The most dramatic growth in our garden this year has to be the Russian Mammoth Sunflowers. They tower above our heads and are bending over from the weight of their dinner plate sized flower heads. I told Curtis we should have planted these all around our yard and we would have had plenty of shade on the hot days we have been having. The bees seem to love them too. I haven't decided yet if we will dry the seeds for ourselves or leave them for the birds.

There has also been plenty of cucumbers and pear tomatoes. I found a great recipe for Quinoa Tabbouleh that uses almost all ingredients we have growing right in our own backyard (if only I had a lemon tree!). I have made a couple batches now and we eat it over several days, adding the feta just before serving. It is such a fresh, summer salad!

Today as I was outside harvesting some parsley and mint for another batch, I saw these little guys munching away on the carrot tops.
They are Black Swallowtail caterpillars. There are two large ones and a few smaller ones. I brought them inside and we will continue to feed them and watch them grow and change into butterflies. They are supposed to like parsley, which we have a lot of. It is funny that they were on the other side of the garden eating the carrot tops instead. Noah calls them 'ducks,' and I don't know why.

Because they had already eaten down a bunch of carrot tops, I had to harvest a few. I steamed these pretty Cosmic Purple carrots and mashed them up for Isaac to eat for dinner. He loved them of course. They were his first taste of garden goodness.The garden will soon be winding down for the summer, though I might try planting some more lettuce and spinach as the weather gets cooler. We shall see...

~Jen

July Garden

When I look back at the pictures of the garden from just one month ago, I really cannot believe how much growth there has been in such a short period of time. The lettuce, spinach, arugula, and mesclun are done, though I have planted a new crop with the hopes that they will survive the hot summer sun. I can't bring myself to buy lettuce from the store again. Here is my garden update for July (all pictures taken with baby on my back, so not many close-ups!).
The Scarlet Runner Beans grew up the tepee and then back down again. I did not realize how tall they would get! The sunflowers are getting tall as well. Maybe a little too tall. I think they are providing too much shade for the zucchini growing beneath them.
The two varieties of cosmos starting blooming this week. I planted them with the hope that I would have enough blooms for a couple bouquets of cut flowers. The dill is also getting really tall. These were volunteers from last years crop and they are more sturdy than ever. I think they look like little yellow fireworks bursting open in the herb garden.Soon we will have some little cucumbers to nibble on. Or rather, I will have soon cucumbers to nibble on. So far, I am the only one in this house that likes them in their natural, pre-pickle state.Curtis is waiting patiently for the tomatoes. These are a yellow pear variety, good for snacking. We also have four plants with a larger heirloom variety that are doing quite well.A couple weeks ago I pulled up a carrot, just to see how they were coming and was surprised to see how big some of them were already. The Cosmic Purple and Amarillo Yellow carrots are pretty and tasty too. Along with the carrots we have harvested bush beans, onions, and Swiss chard. And last week I went out and harvested most of the basil, but not because I wanted to...The Japanese Beetles are back in full force. It is so frustrating! Every day we go out with our pail of soapy water and handpick dozens of the nasty little things. They are especially fond of Genovese basil (they leave the Purple Opal alone, for the most part), runner beans (I tried a new variety this year hoping they wouldn't like them, but no such luck!), and the strawberries. So before they destroyed the entire crop of basil, I decided to go ahead and harvest most of it to make into pesto.

If you would like to make some pesto, good on sandwiches (Curtis uses in his paninis) and adding to pasta sauce, here is my 'What To Do When The Japanese Beetles Are Eating Your Basil' Recipe:

3 cups basil

4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped

4 tbsp olive oil

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/4 cup pine nuts or walnuts (optional)

salt to taste

In a food processor (or with a stick blender) blend together 1 cup of basil, garlic, nuts and olive oil until a thick paste forms. Add the rest of the basil, Parmesan cheese, lemon juice, and salt and continue to blend. Add more olive oil as needed to reach desired texture. Adding just part of the basil to start makes it easier to blend the garlic well. The lemon juice keeps the basil from turning brown in color. I then spoon the pesto into an ice cube tray and freeze it. Once frozen, you can store the pesto cubes in a freezer bag and just take out one or two cubes as needed.

Despite the beetles, it is really a treat to be able to go outside and pick our own organically grown vegetables for dinner. I like searching for new recipes and building our meal around what is in season. The best part is when Noah actually eats what I have prepared. It makes for one proud mama :)
~Jen

June Garden

The garden is finally all planted and everything is growing quickly thanks to warm days and a bit of rain. If you were to take a stroll through our garden you would see...

Lots of greens, including...European Mesclun Mix

Swiss Chard

Arugula and Paris Island Cos

Many varieties of herbs...Munstead Lavender

Genovese and Dark Purple Opal Basil

German Chamomile

A few fruits...Striata d'Italia Summer Squash

Alpine Strawberries (Noah's favorite)

Finally, some vegetables, of course...Little Finger, Amarillo Yellow, Cosmic Purple carrots in the front. Red, yellow, and white onions in the back. Contender bush beans on the far right.

Not pictured (unless you look really closely at the first picture): Big Boston lettuce, cilantro, dill, borage, spinach, French and Lemon thyme, bee balm, lemon verbena, Greek, Golden and Mexican oregano, purple sage, Curly Leaf and Italian parsley, mint, chives, cosmos, Scarlet runner beans, Mammoth sunflowers, Early Russian cucumbers, Thai White Ribbed eggplant, Brandywine, Yellow Pear, and Red Robin cherry tomatoes. Whew! I think that's it.

I love to watch everything grow and fill in. I even like pulling weeds! Now we look forward to the fun part; harvesting and eating!

~Jen

Rascally Rabbit

Our garden got off to a bit of a slow start this year thanks to a furry little nighttime visitor that I will refer to here as the Rascally Rabbit (though it has been called much worse...believe me!). We tried unsuccessfully to live trap the Rascally Rabbit, but alas, nothing I could put in the trap was as appealing to said creature as the blossoms on my strawberry plants. After bringing me to tears the morning that I went out to find all the seedlings I had been growing for months and had just planted the previous day chewed down to the ground, we gave in and put up an inexpensive, ugly, but so far effective, fence around the raised garden beds to keep the critter out. It is amazing how much the Swiss Chard, strawberries, beans and lettuce have grown this week thanks to some sunshine, a little rain, and the absence of the above mentioned munching herbivore. Meanwhile, Noah is officially ready for summer after a trip to the store earlier this week for a new hat, SPF 55, sidewalk chalk, and Popsicles. Bring on the sun!
~Jen