First "In the Garden" 2014

Peering at the garden through the bright sunshine, I am feeling hopeful.  The strawberries, blueberries and raspberries are flourishing.  The peas, broccoli, lettuce, spinach as well as both red and golden beets planted last month are holding fast and growing well.  I am so relieved.

After last year's soil purchase disaster, my plants seems to be content with the cover crop I turned under, the loads of worms I added and the regular infusions of rabbit droppings (which has been called manna for the garden).    

Yesterday, I worked on trellises.  Knowing how quickly my raspberries and peas will grow tall, they'll have a little support for their efforts.  Note to self for next year: build the pea supports first, then plant (there could be a bit more symmetry that way.)

I'm following along with Amanda Soule's In the Garden posts.  Please leave links and pictures of your garden too!

Secret Gardens

When I was asked to write an article titled 10 Secret Gardens around Seattle for Kids and Families, I was curious what I would find.  There was so much to choose from, which meant I was going to explore my absolute favorite parts of this verdant city of mine.   I was sure to follow up on suggestions about honey bee gardens, fragrant gardens for the blind and deaf-blind, and special community gardens for the elderly and children gardening together.  But to my surprise, I also discovered: a leprechaun hunt, the most amazing driftwood climbing structure ever, a cosmological adventure that answered some of my most mysterious questions and just how far people will go to save old gardens and build new ones that have meaning to them.  Check out this impressive list:

• The West Seattle Bee Garden (WEST SEATTLE)
• Fremont Peak Park (NORTH SEATTLE)
• The Danny Woo International District Community Garden (INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT)
• Picardo P-Patch Children's Garden (NORTHEAST SEATTLE)
• Kruckeberg Botanic Garden (SHORELINE)
• Highline SeaTac Botanical Garden (SEATAC)
• SSCC Arboretum and Chinese Garden (WEST SEATTLE)
• Ethel L. Dupar's Fragrant Garden(SOUTH SEATTLE)
• PowellsWood Garden (FEDERAL WAY)
• Kelsey Creek Farm (BELLEVUE)

More than anything I was motivated to start digging and cultivating myself!  So I grabbed that envelope of seeds that I saved from last year's plants and decided to see what would happen!  Here's wishing you happy start to the growing season!

Raising Rabbits

Meet Brigit and Dot, the bunnies we will be raising for the next twelve weeks.  They are New Zealand Whites, the best breed for meat.  Yes, for meat.  We have friends that are living their dream of a self sufficient lifestyle.  They prefer to raise their own clean food and provide a healthier, more natural diet for their family.  When they mentioned that a new litter of kits was born, I thought raising some of their rabbits for them might fulfill my daughter's need for a "bunny."  So far, two days into it, she seems un-phased by the fact that these animals will be harvested and delighted that they will be replaced by another set of baby bunnies. 

"Raising rabbits can be a true family project, as they are small and so easy to care for that they can even be maintained by young children." 

-homestead.org

 I feel honored to love these cuties up and give them the best life possible and connect with the food which will nourish a family.  We are hoping to start our own foray into urban farming soon and I am excited about this rare opportunity to be able to say "Thank you" to the beings that feed others.   

The Gardens I Leave Behind

My shadow is left behind for a moment in my neighborhood P-Patch like the gardens I leave behind in yards when I move away.  As the years pass, I dig, plant and weed on other people's land.  I often fret at this time of year, "Should I do it again, put forth all that effort, those seeds, the energy and time this Spring?"  

 In February, I dream of wildly descriptive vegetable names, zebra tomatoes, carnival blend multi-colored carrots, sugar baby watermelon or bull's blood red beets.  By mid-March, I risk planting our sugar snap peas in the ground.  Once April rolls around, I open envelopes of seeds saved from last year  and the cycle begins again.  I may live in a rental and question the work I put into the plot each season, but after reading Farm City : The Education of an Urban Farmer, I know that is what I do.  Beautifully described in her book, Novella Carpenter created an entire farm on an abandoned lot in Oakland, CA where she raised veggies for her neighborhood, honeybees, a turkey, rabbits and pigs.  After reading such an inspiring tale, I am even more motivated to turn under this green goodness of winter cover crop into the soil for another season of planting in a garden that I will eventually leave behind.  I promise yet again to grow a bit of our family's sustenance.

Ushering Us Into Winter

It was a chilly morning when we started our Mama and Son Day so we warmed up at the donut shop.  Then we parked our bike at our local P-Patch and I was astounded by the frosty gardens, the beautiful combination of lichen & berries and a tree that surprised us with a canopy of persimmons overhead.  I'm loving this string of cold sunny days, ushering us into winter.  It's perfect for playing around with my iPhone camera and sun glare.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will too

  

I don't want to forget that I awoke to November sunshine and a hummingbird buzzing nearby, because soon this will not be the case.  With the time change this weekend, I have been saying my new mantra more : "Winter's Great!"  It's actually working to keep me present in what is right now, the last month of a beautiful autumn.  As the days get shorter and the holidays approach, I realize how much I appreciate the colder months.  It already started snowing in the mountains and I love to ski!  However, the view out my window is what I am most enamored with.  It will be slow growing, but I am delighted to watch my cover crop.  I have no idea how high it will get, or what it will do, but I am so curious.  I'm also in awe that our kale garden, which my daughter planted in May has become a kale forest, and continues to provide a bit to our green smoothies.  Seeing all of these plants that I hope it will over-winter, remind me that I will too and soon it will be spring again.

08 May13

Garden Enough for Them

So what is it for you?  What is that nagging task that you wish you could get to?  What's on your mental to-do list that you yearn to do, but know it might never happen?  Does passing it by feel like ignoring a part of you too?   

For me, it's my garden.  Everyday I walk by and think, "I love to garden!  I need to get out here."  Each day, there are other imperative parts of my life that need attention.

Until tonight!  After weeks of a busy schedule, this evening arrived like a long autumnal exhale of golden, setting sun.   Maybe it was the brainstorming session about wintry ways to get families outside that I was invited to this morning.  Maybe it was how rejuvenated I felt after leaving that table of ten talented writers and moms who genuinely cared about getting kids outdoors.   Maybe it was the reminder that it's best to bite off small chunks.  My intention was to spend thirty minutes starting to put my garden to sleep by planting a cover crop that would amend our sad soil disaster.  As my kids dumped out the worm bin and perfected balancing on the beds, I remembered how I had such high hopes for my garden this year. 

Then, like the color changing on the leaves of our strawberry plants, I decided to change my attitude and appreciate what did happen.  I remembered how my son and the neighbor's boy preferred the "berry patch" to any other part of the yard.  I thought about how our children ran between the sandbox and our garden all summer.  I couldn't keep them out of it.  Although I was often disappointed that we did not get a single carrot, beet, collard, squash, or pumpkin, the children could have cared less.  There was a handful of green beans, tomatoes and two basil plants that survived and that was garden enough for them.

While the kids were digging, planting and gallivanting, my hope was being restored.  I decided to try to save some seeds for next year's sungolds.  When we opened the bag of cover crop, we were astounded by the beauty of the seeds inside.  I was reminded that I am a gardener and it's a gift to have the space to grow food even if it yielded the smallest harvest ever.   

This week in my garden :: July 11

It all started when my husband took a look at our kale bed and frowned.  One of the plants was badly infested with aphids, soon to infect the others.  "We're off to buy ladybugs," he said immediately hopping into the car with both kids.  He was motivated.  In the meantime, I took matters into my own hands by pulling the infested plant out of the ground, washing the salvageable leaves and blending them into a berry smoothie. 

Once my crew got home, they gave the soil a good water and released the little red beneficial insects.  They'll only stay long enough to lay eggs.  It's an ephemeral experience, a frighteningly fascinating backyard phenomenon.  How strangely comfortable I was allowing numerous insects to crawl all over me.  This is our story of how one bag-o-bugs can provide hours of cheap fun.

 

While we all loved the ladybug extravaganza, my husband and I have been mourning our soil purchase for our new raised beds.  It looked fine and dandy in last month's garden post, but we now realize, it's a disaster.  Our plants are stunted and barely growing at all.  It is terrible soil.  I'm in the process of writing to the company, but just trying to focus on all the green that is growing healthy (in the soil I saved from my pots last year.)  I am lamenting over the carrots, beats, collard greens, tomatoes and basil with which I could be asking my children to fill their baskets.  My main reason for growing food is because my children easily eat vegetables in the garden, not as easily on their dinner plates.  All I can do now is appreciate what we do have: squash blossoms that have been saved from powdery mildew, lettuce that is lasting forever but surprisingly still delicious, oregano that started growing in the pot from the free pile, abundant flowers, tall, tall sunflower stalks, snow peas, beans, sugar snap peas and chubby feet in puddles. 

 

Note: do not buy from Pacific Topsoils. "They are extremely irresponsible with regard to the environment, have been cited numerous times for unlawfully filling wetlands, and on top of that, their soil is terrible.  I have had experience with them personally and professionally." 

- My plants and I agree, as does a friend of mine who is a forest ecologist