Early Summer Garden Update

Since my last garden update, it has rapidly moved from feeling like spring in the garden to feeling like the beginning of summer.  When the snap peas started to peter out, I pulled them out to make room for the tomato plants that I had started inside.  I planted cucumber seeds a month or so ago and they are growing heartily, as you can see in the photo above - they look like they will have their first flowers soon and so hopefully we will have cukes in a few weeks!  I also planted some dill which should be useful if we make pickles again.

I started three types of cherry tomatoes from a seed packet with a variety of types (with the seeds dyed different colors so you could tell them apart).  In addition to a traditional red cherry tomato and an orange one (that I am hoping is similar to a sungold, my favorite), on Lawson's request I also started a pink stripe cherry tomato (on the left in the pot above).  I am curious and excited to see how that one turns out!  On the left above is a volunteer tomato that came up that must be from one of the plants I grew last year, so I am also curious to see what that is - it already has a few flowers so hopefully we will find out soon.  My other plants aren't as far along, because I started them pretty late this year, but they should catch up soon and hopefully this means they won't get so out of control scraggly this year.

I also started a few basil plants, essential to go with the tomatoes...

The swiss chard, (overcrowded) scallions, and parsley are all coming along well.  At the back of this photo and in the photo below, you can see that the cut and come again lettuce has continued to regrow well (after a few rounds of cutting back).  I haven't tasted it recently so I'm not sure if it is still good or starting to get bitter and bolt, I will have to cut it back soon again and see.

And the arugula has also grown back pretty well after I cut it back recently (which I didn't totally expect it to).

How about you?  What is growing in your garden lately?

Lettuce Season

Our spring garden is in full swing and Lawson and I are super excited that it is finally "lettuce season" - when we get to eat delicious salads fresh from our garden.  I have a few pots of mixed mesclun lettuces like the one shown above which I grow as cut and come again, and I sowed them much too thickly so we had some good salads last week from the thinnings.  I am trying to hold off really cutting too much until they have gotten a bit bigger, but it is hard to resist much longer!

I also am growing these adorable baby butterhead lettuces, which grow into mini-heads each of which is just the right size for a dinner salad.  I bought the seeds a few years ago and finally used the last of them this year, I will have to get more for next year!

As you can see, while we call this "lettuce season" really our whole little garden is pretty green with spring greens and veggies!  In other garden news...

The sugar snap peas are starting to produce.  Yum!  I'm hoping I planted enough plants (about 15) to get a decent harvest).

The herb pot (with rosemary, oregano, marjoram, thyme and chives) and the arugula are doing well - I will probably harvest the arugula soon, especially since I have a few pots of it that I planted more recently.

The kale and swiss chard on the back left both overwintered and the kale are finally growing a bit, so maybe they will amount to something before it gets too warm here (and before the cabbage worms take over completely).  Next to them are some more mixed lettuces and arugula sprouts, and in front are the radishes.  I am not a huge radish fan but Lawson loves them, so I grow them for him and his face always lights up when he realizes that I am growing something special just for him.

I also started some nasturtium and marigold seeds in small pots - I would have just stuck the seeds in the soil but I wasn't sure where they were going to end up, so this gives me flexibility to decide later.  Probably some will go in the front garden, and some in with the veggies.

Finally, a few weeks ago I got my act together and belatedly started some seeds indoors, including three kinds of cherry tomatoes (a traditional red, a sweet orange, and a pink striped one that sounds interesting).  I also started basil, dill (to make pickles with our future cucumbers), some zinnias, and peppers.  Everything has come up except the peppers - they are always slow to germinate for me, but hopefully they will come up soon!

How about you - do you have a spring garden planted?  How is it growing?

Garden Apron/Tool Belt

I have been sewing a number of projects for gifts but I snuck in some time over the weekend to sew up this gardening apron/tool belt for myself.  I seem to always be sticking things in my back pockets when I am gardening - from garden tools to seed packets to my phone and keys - so it seemed like a good idea for me to have someplace to hold everything while working in the garden.  I have to admit, though, that the idea was more than a little inspired by the fabric (Suburbia by Caleb Gray) and wanting to have a project to use it for.

The basic design is pretty simple - the pocket has the quilting cotton on the outside and canvas on the inside, and the body of the apron is also made of canvas.  The pocket is attached to the body with bias tape, and then the main canvas piece is folded down to create a waistband (and a spot to attach the ties).  I added some non-essential details to the basic design, including making the ties out of two layered fabrics, and putting a bit of decorative trim in at the waistband (just a folded piece of fabric).  I am really happy with how it turned out!

UPDATE: Since it sounds like a number of folks may want to make something similar, here are the dimensions of mine in case it is helpful: it's 25" wide and 10.5" tall, the pockets are 7" tall and I sewed the divisions between the pockets at the midpoint (12.5") and then 4.5" from the midpoint on either side (eg at 8" and 17") - this creates two narrower pockets and two wider pockets.  But really I just eyeballed it and thought about what would be helpful to me, so you can of course do whatever you think makes sense!

Having a fun new apron/tool belt made me excited to dive into the task of weeding our (small but weedy) front garden - here's the pile of weeds from my gardening session today.  I found that I actually liked to wear the apron in back so that it didn't get bunched up while I was kneeling/bending over.  It worked great to hold all my stuff and is now well broken in and dirty!

Have you made any fun projects for yourself lately?

Spring in DC

 

[Reminder - today is the last day to enter the Japan relief raffle of baby items - I will keep it open until ~9 pm Eastern time]

Spring is one of my favorite times in DC, with generally nice weather and a beautiful sucession of flowering trees, bulbs, and other plants.  Earlier this week, when it was a bit warmer out, I took a stroll around town with my camera to appreciate it all.   I walked by the Capitol, where the magnolias were starting to bloom, or in the case of the white magnolia below, in full bloom.

This weeping cherry was also right by the capitol:

I wandered through the small but well-landscaped gardens at the nearby U.S. Botanical garden where I saw some of my favorite plants.  I have a real soft spot for interesting plants that you don't see all the time, and which may not be as colorful or splashy as some others, but which have a subtle beauty that you really have to get up close to appreciate.  I guess it may be related to my love for wildflowers (which I actually used to study in college, but that is another story).

Hellebore (Lenten Rose)

Frittilaria

Japanese Andromeda

Not sure what this is - do you know?

I also saw lots of great bulbs and other flowers growing in people's gardens on my walk.

Daffodils and Narcissus

Creeping Phlox - one of my favorites

And we have a few things in bloom in our front yard, too!  A year or two ago my mom sent me some sweet bulbs, so I have the standard jonquil daffodils that I had before and a few other more interesting things too.

Jonquils and Scilla

Chinodoxa

Meanwhile, it is supposed to snow tomorrow in DC, and we are actually in New Hampshire this weekend (this post brought to you by the magic of pre-scheduled posting).  Hopefully spring will be back in DC soon, and whereever you are too!

What are your favorite spring flowers?  Are things in bloom for you too or not yet?

What's Sprouting in the Garden

A few weeks ago (on my birthday, actually!) I decided it had warmed up enough to plant my spring seeds - mostly greens and a few other things, and I am happy to report that nearly everything has come up.  Shown above are the radish sprouts, which were in need of thinning in this photo but I thinned them out a bit today.  I don't actually really like radishes, but Lawson loves them so I always plant some for him.  He didn't realize that I had planted any this time until the other day I mentioned it and he lit up with excitement. While I am the main gardener in the household he gets very excited about having fresh vegetables and really appreciates the effort that goes into the garden.

I planted several of my self-watering containers full of lettuce mixes, which I usually grow as cut and come again.  I planted them fairly thickly and will definitely need to thin them out too. 

I planted a number of containers of sugar snap peas (I believe they are the Sugar Ann variety); last fall I grew these with just a stake to support each one since the seed catalog said they were self-supporting, and they grew all over the place, so this year I planted them around the base of some tomato cages.  I also only planted a few plants last fall since my garden was so full then, and didn't really get much out of them - I am hoping with 10-15 plants I will get a more meaningful yield.

I planted a bed of arugula, which is one of my favorite greens to grow since it is so fast and easy to grow.  Again, this will definitely need to be thinned although I may wait just a bit so that I can add the thinnings to salad.

I also still have a number of things growing that overwintered from the fall, as I mentioned before... the kales in the photo above are purple so they are a bit hard to see, but I am hoping they will grow bigger before it gets warm (and the cabbage worms return, grr).

I had this pot of spinach too, although I actually cut off all the larger leaves to use in tonight's dinner, which was great since it worked out to just the amount the recipe called for...  I love it when the food growing in the garden comes in handy like that, like a strategic vegetable reserve!  Now I just have to bide my time (and do a little thinning) until the spring plantings get to be a more edible size.

I'm linking up with a new weekly Urban Homesteader blog party on Food. Soil. Thread.

Spring Garden Cleanup

Yesterday it was really beautiful out and so I went out in the garden and did a bit of a spring cleanup.  In front of our house we have a (very small) garden in the ground which is all decorative - mostly perennials and bulbs and then I stick in a few annuals every year.  I didn't take any photos of that but did clean it out pretty well.   Our back patio where we do all our veggie gardening is bricked over so everything is in containers.  Most of them are self-watering containers, including these ones that I made out of big Ikea bins which work pretty well.  I had mostly cleaned out the containers in the fall but I went back and removed the leaves and debris which had accumulated, loosened up the soil, and pulled out any large roots that were still in there.  I was tempted to go right ahead and plant a bunch of seeds but since we are now having another cold snap I decided it would be better to wait a week or so.  There are still a few things growing in the garden from last fall, though, including the parsley you can see above.

There's also a few spinach plants...

Some scraggly arugula...

And some swiss chard.  I'm guessing all of these will grow a bit more as the weather warms up and then I will see if there's anything worth harvesting.  There's actually also a few lettuce plants that overwintered that seem pretty tough - not sure if they will be at all edible - and some scallions which I think should be OK.

Finally, I have a big pot with several kinds of herbs, but the thyme and sage had died off over the winter so I picked up some new plants and stuck them in with the surviving chives, oregano, marjoram and rosemary.  Having fresh herbs on hand all the time is one of my favorite parts of having a garden (especially at times like this when there isn't a whole lot else going on on in the garden) so I am glad to have the herb pot fully stocked again.

How about you?  Is it warm enough where you live to start cleaning out your garden and thinking about planting seeds?  What are you planning to grow this year?

Trip to Atlanta

We went down to Atlanta to visit friends for the long weekend and had a great time, despite my losing my wallet right when we arrived.  Our friends made us delicious meals which we meant to photodocument to put up on the blog... but we were too busy relaxing and catching up.  They made us super delicious pizza with carmelized onions, yellow squash, mushrooms and a blend of special cheeses.  Another night they made homemade Indian cheese, paneer, for Palak Paneer and homemade samosas for a delicious Indian dinner.  I definitely need to try making paneer sometime, it sounds like it is similar to making mozzarella cheese (as I have done before) but you don't use any rennet and you basically just drain and press the curds.  Which also reminds me that I have been wanting to make mozzarella again soon, too.

I had never been to Atlanta before and our friends were kind enough to show us the sights.  We visited the MLK center which was very moving, I highly recommend it if you are visiting Atlanta.  We went to the Cyclorama, which is a ginormous painting/diorama depicting the civil war battle of Atlanta.  We also went to the Atlanta Botanical Garden which had a fantastic orchid display going on - which I did manage to take some pictures of (albiet with my iPhone, so they are not the best quality).  They had some really funky and weird orchids, and some which were really beautiful; here are some highlights, mostly of the weirder ones.

I like how this one sticks way out (and the flowers are cool too)

Check out the ruffles on these!

We thought these looked like spiders

They had tons of these - isn't the mottling cool?

Love the frilliness on this one!

We of course also fit in some time to explore local crafty spots... I did some fun browsing at the local craft coop/store the beehive, which is kind of like getting to visit a collection of cool Etsy shops in person.  I was also super excited to visit Whipstitch Fabrics and check out their beautiful fabrics in person, and we of course brought some home.  I have been checking out Kate Spain's new line, Central Park, on line and loved it even more in person, so I am very excited to get to make some fun projects with it!  I mostly got prints in the orange/yellow/green colorways but I also picked out a few favorite purple ones (not shown here) and some other fun things while we were there.

What fun places have you visited lately?  Do you make sure to visit craft stores when you travel too?

Fall Garden

The luxury of living in DC as opposed to farther north is that when you have a hectic summer and you don't have time to clear out space for fall planting until October, it's not totally too late to even be worth it.  As usually happens, a few weeks ago my garden was looking raggedy and overgrown in a lot of areas, so two weeks ago I pulled out the cucumbers and a few other things that were clearly done, weeded, put down compost, and planted a few seeds.  Mostly I planted greens which only need a month or two to be ready to eat, so despite the late start I should still be able to make something of this late fall planting.  By last weekend mostly everything had sprouted.  Here are how things look now.

Radishes

Kale (planted in with some swiss chard that has been going all summer).

A few spinach plants

Arugula (plus I planted some in with the tomato plants)

Lettuce (may need to plant some more)

Scallions