Spring Garden update 2016

 We have had a very warm and luxurious Spring so far in Oregon. I planted tomatoes in early April...and they are thriving. That said, it's going to get down to 39 this weekend so I'm going to put a little blankey on them. I refuse to back down now! Favas, garlic and onions doing well though I need to rethink how I plan onions thanks to a tip from my garden saavy neighbor, Ben. (TRENCHES...seperate the bulbs!) Weeding constantly, my Sit N' Do has been really handy...been doing a lot of sitting and doing. Fortunately, OCD weeding of gardens is one of my favorite hobbies! Have a feeling this is going to be a bountiful year for the garden.

Front yard apple tree blossoming in the sun.

This artichoke plant has a mind of its own. I think it volunteered in this spot by our driveway. I never do anything to it or even harvest the chokes because I think they look pretty when they flower. It just keeps doing it's thang.

It's always exciting when you see the first spring of new dahlias starting to emerge. These popped up last week.

The favas are about a foot taller than when I took this picture a couple of weeks ago. It's amazing how they blast out of the ground as it warms up in April/May.

Anton and Colin hammer fertilizer stakes in the evergreen and fruit trees.

Garlic, baby.

Herb garden. The flat leaf parsley is bolting but I'm trying to contain it. Fennel, sage, thyme, oregano, dill and chives all doing what they need to do. I love how I have chives year round...those chives refuse to leave, it has been years and they are still pungent and delicious.

House. Dogs.

Add caption

I have really been please with this new idea of potted evergreens and annuals in the front yard. I think it really adds texture to a flat and hard to fill space. That's the lemon evergreen that almost died...we replanted it in a pot in the backyard for the last year and it totally recovered and is ready to be front and center again!

Tomato, planted mid-April.

Calendula

Sedum/ Succulents

Bulb fennel. Trying it for the first time in the front yard with kale.

Psychedelic colors.

getting ready to load up the backyard with zinnias and dill.

Early Spring 2016 Garden Update

Spring is beginning to, um, spring. And here are some of the exciting signs of that from the garden...still early days, though and still officially Winter...but the silver lining to global warming is that we got an early Spring and the plants are stoked (for now!).

Onions, garlic and favas in early February...they really sprouted up in the last few weeks, though! I really power-planted favas this year *Ariel Pink song reference

Sugar Snap peas...got 2 sixpacks of starts in the ground early this year and rigged up this string contraption which they seem to be taking to. We need some order in the growing process with our snap peas...last year it was like one big snap pea dreadlock and hard to access.

The veggie garden on the first day of March.

After years of discussion, a gate is actually going up to potentially keep deer out...thank you Colin Cigarran for your efforts!

The Camelia started blooming very early. Pretty and also messy.

I totally forgot I planted these bulbs last October. What a pleasant surprise...they are now surrounding the apple tree in the front yard!

I have had to replant much of the succulent garden...that large bare spot is where Missy likes to "guard" the house. She has created pattern baldness in my succulent garden...thanks a lot, Missy. Missy lives with us again which has it's pluses and minuses when it comes to the garden. Pretty sure the mailman isn't too happy about it, however.

Thank you neighbor, Ben, for gifting me with this Lilac tree start...I have big  plans for it and so far it seems to like it's spot in the front yard. 

Is there any smell more heavenly than Daphne? That's correct! There is not.

It brings me great joy to not have to replant the herb garden basically at all this year (except for dill). All that is pictured here just came right back from last year with no additional support from me; chives, parsley, thyme, sage oregano (there is rosemary too if you want sing Scarborough Faire**) and the giant fennel.

Peat pods are already showing signs of life. I planted my peppers and tomatoes earlier than you are "supposed to" but when did I ever follow the rules?!

* Not Enough Violence is a song not about veggie gardening...but it COULD BE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOoYKI3WpBI

**Scarborough Faire is a song by Simon & Garfunkel that references herbs heavily.
https://youtu.be/-Jj4s9I-53g

Jane's Top 20ish Fave Songs of 2015

It's the last day of November, way too soon to be posting a BEST OF list for music...but I have a spare moment and want to "lay a base" from which to edit/adjudicate as the end of 2015 looms ever closer. Without further adieu...

IN ORDER BY FAVORITE COLOR:

Selsun Blue- Lil'Wayne  

Automatic- Zhu & Aluna George  

King- GRADES  

Ad Astra- Deerhunter  

Tearing Me Up- Bob Moses  

There's a girl in the corner- Robert Smith (A Twilight Sad)  **Not doing a NW show on their giant tour. The Cure are dead to me. Love this cover of their opening bands song SO much anyway.

One More- Ne-yo ft. T.I.   

Afterthought- Disclosure  **Anton fave

Right Hand- Drake **everyone covered Hotline Bling instead but this is the one.

Friends of Mine- Ben Browning  **the guy from "Girls" is in this video!

Affairs- Skylar Spence  **Anton LOVES this one.

Heavy- Majical Cloudz  **clearly Canadian. 

Found- cln  **lovely simplicity 

Phoenix- John Monkman & Pete Tong

Cry No More- Vaults 

High By the Beach- Lana Del Rey  **finally getting the whole Lana Del Rey thing and think haters should sit down.

Yes, I'm Changing- Tame Impala  **ALBUM OF THE YEAR! if i had to pick just one...

Lonely Town- Brandon Flowers  **Haters are going to hate. I love pop music.

Drop That Kitty- Ty Dolla $ign ft. Charlie XCX & Tinashe  

Planez- Jeremih ft. J. Cole

Selsun Blue- Lil' Wayne

Late Summer/Early Fall 2015

I admit that I'm a basic b*tch and totally love Fall...no it's not the pumpkin spiced world that we enter, it's the way the season changes...in the garden there are all kinds of exciting bounty and at the same time we get to start downsizing and chilling out. NO WATERING!! This weekend I started to "disassemble" the summer garden. I pulled all of the zucchini and summer squash as well as the peppers (of which there still tons). I am leaving tomatoes for now but with the rains starting to come back it's only a matter of time until they go too. And that is fine because we got more than we can handle, y'all. Thankfully though, because my tomatoes this year were pretty small and unassuming, they aren't splitting too much. Yay for boring tomatoes! I have a freezer full of sauces, crushed and sliced ones and am pretty much over seeing, touching tasting tomatoes at this point. I know I'll be really excited about them in a couple of months, though. The big question was what to do with all of these excess peppers???!!! I made homemade pickled pepperoncinis which were very yummy and worked well in a greek quinoa salad but I feel would have been more popular with the dudes in my house if I dyed them bright yellow like the ones from the store. Well not this year...but see below for my adventures in fresh peppers and food dye!

We had some really delicious early apples from our espalier tree that has never given fruit before...hope it keeps on going next year? NOTE TO SELF: I need to pay more attention to this tree. We also have many squash that look exactly like this one...they are good for grilling but how many squash can a person grill? I don't need to plant this squash next year.

This is where the peppers and squash lived at one time. Making way for favas, leeks and onions.

Romaine lettuce and leaks are intermixing with the soon to be phased out tomatoes.

 

 

 

 

 

Pink beans!

Colin's commitment to buying lots of unneeded used things at garage sales has finally paid off with this Scoot n' Do rolling gardening seat. I am doing a lot of scooting and doing in the weeding department thanks to this contraption and my lower back thanks me for using it.

Anton and I had fun picking all of these unpickled peppers off of the pepper bushes. At least 6 cups worth. And what do make with them?

How about some PEPPER JELLY courtesy of *gasp* Paula Deen! Seriously folks, she's the only one who has a recipe for pepper jelly online that I could find, and I also kind of trust her on recipes likes this. 6 cups of sugar? Yes please! No, I'm not trying to use the low sugar pectin, we are doing this old school. Spread it on your holiday pork roast! You may get one of these for the holidays if you live nearby, get excited!! They are actually quite tasty.

 

Mid-Summer Garden Update

Some shots over the last few weeks from our mid-summer harvest. Not pictured: a HUGE amount of plums this year which I'll document if I ever get around to making jam with them. Plums, grapes, garlic, kale, lettuce, shallots, peas all doing great this year...tomatoes, cukes, peppers and zucchini you have some catching up to do.

Shallot harvest

This is our sick plant recovery center located by the puppy door. Currently in rehab are that sad little sun damaged blueberry bush and an evergreen that didn't like it's spot. We have one more sick bed currently available.

Zinnia goodness on the back patio and a gorgeous pot, courtesy of my mother in law, Anne. I love it!

Dahlias are standing tall this year...the rebar stakes worked! (so far)

little green tomatoes on most plants but only the little sungolds are ripe yet...let's get this party started, kids.

The beginnings of the greenbeans. Never have grown these before, but so far so good, they seem to like this trellis.

Since this picture was taken the fennel has not only crested the room but then started curling in on itself. It's about 5 feet taller now. #monsterfennel

Baby apples on the espalier tree, finally!

Shallots, onions and garlic curing in the sun. The patio smelled like an Italian restaurant for weeks and there's more on the way...these are just the ones that volunteers, the elephant garlic is still in the ground.

I never pick my artichokes...they are too pretty when they flower.

grapes are on the way!

Echinacea, yarrow and moss in the front yard.

My wish for Love in the Mist has finally come true, they finally sprouted from seeds planted in early spring! I love this flower because it's gorgeous when it blooms but also when it dies. Oh how poetic and twee, yay.

Early Summer Garden Update 5/17/15

It may not officially yet be summer but given the early Spring that we had I feel like plant growth-wise we're in to June already. The impetus for this particular blog was the removal of the fava beans...a rite of passage each year, and always fun. Lots of beans to harvest and then planting the waiting tomatoes and peppers. This year I did them all from seed EXCEPT for one, small golden something or others. My hunch is that these will produce earlier with big yields but I may be wrong...or I may be half riiiight. ("Reel Around the Fountain" is on while I type this).

The sky is bright at 5:30am, it's summer, folks. Get out and enjoy it as much as I plan to!

CHALLENGE: For this photos series try to spot the Elizabethan Missy Misdemeanor lingering in the front yard.

Veggie garden, favas removed, tomatoes and peppers (and a zucchini) planted.

A "Jerusalem" flower of some sort...it spoke to me so I made an impulse buy. We'll see what happens. 

I think my "Love In A Mist" seeds might finally have bloomed...i wasn't sure this would happen and I'm THRILLED!!!!

It's not all sunshine and moonbeans around here....something was eating my clematis and my kale...slugs. Sluggo purchased...lighting a candle for you darn slugs, you just picked the wrong bush to eff with. 

Well the lacinto and lollipop kale is looking lots better since I killed all of those damn slugs. 

early Summer in the front yard...i like that it keeps changing.

raspberries, mint and blueberries

Just about to see our first Lupine of the year.

Peas, pweese!

I like black plants #goth

Missy approved fence. Great job, honey!

Going to try rebar for my dahlia stabilizers this year. If this doesn't work I really just don't know what.