If I were a gardener

 If I were a gardener I'd probably wait until the last frost date to plant those tomatoes.

 But two weeks of 80 degree days and 50 degree nights and I. just. could. not. wait.

The garden is bigger this year than last. We (the famous "royal we")
tore out the fence between the Hill at Bag End (anyone?)

and the garden in order to expand into the sunniest areas.

For reference, the fence used to be on the left side of this photo.

The fence you still see separates the horse paddock from the garden.

At least until some equine with a long neck and
a lot of determination needs a snack of corn.

There is really no way to move our garden to another area on the property
(at least without a good deal of expense and
also shuffling the chicken yard or children's play yard)
but we could and did capture a little more sunny footage for the corn and beans.

A new fence may or may not go up on the west end. I kind of like that open feeling. The deer may like it too.

 The original homesteaders here cleared (read: clear cut) the steep hillside to the back of the garden and horse paddocks. They operated a sawmill on our creek and some of the stumps are so huge (and ugly) that they have not rotted in all those decades. We are slowly replanting that hillside on the "back yard/garden" side but we have not decided what to do about the hill on the "horse" side.

Stay tuned because a good idea is bound to emerge.

Between other projects. And dance lessons. A-hem.

Composted manure enriches our raised beds and traditional tilled gardens. Amazing stuff, and free. Last year we had to purchase soil to fill the newly built raised beds because we weren't ready to use the previous owner's compost. I would not like to have to pay money again for what seemed to be mostly wood fiber.

 A very old grapevine that we discovered in the mown lawn is flourishing on its one-year-old arbor. Last year we even harvested grapes! That was a blessing to me because I was loathe to leave behind our gorgeous grape arbor at the old farmhouse. Similarly here we uncovered a 40-foot row of raspberries that were choked with grass just beyond the beautiful existing strawberry bed.

It is a happy report that the raspberries are looking great this spring as are three young blueberry plants that the sweet sellers planted not too long before we moved in.
To that berry garden we added three additional blueberry plants,
a gift from friends with a nursery, and two currant bushes.

My lavender at the front door is huge! Last year it was root-bound in a four-inch pot; this year it is competing with the already-in-residence purple columbines. Soon both will fade and be replaced by the squeal-worthy peony show.
A girl's gotta have flowers. And the odd Grecian statuette.

Are you gardening this year?

I can see for miles

Oh my word. It's sunny and 70 degrees outside.

The camas are blooming.

The lambs are frolicing.

I can almost hear Maria singing.

(the hills are alive)

It's all too picturesque for blogland.

I hope your day is lovely as well. I'm going to plant something now.

I Sedum chairs?

I love sedum... and I love garden art... but I've never done anything to marry those two loves... until now.

When a painted, weathered porch chair lost its seat. That'll happen if you water a basket of geraniums on it all summer long for four years straight. And then, ahem, you use the chair as a stepstool to hang a banner for a yard party.

So the seat parted ways with the rest of the chair... and met up with some scraps of chicken wire. Cutting the chicken wire to size was the hardest part of the project. It helps if you take time to find wire snips instead of figuring the kitchen shears are "close enough." Don't ask how I know.

My lovely assistants gathered moss and carefully lined the chicken wire with a cushy planting area for sedum, which will love the airy drainage. I hope.

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And on a side note, does it seem that my sorta-kinda-how-to is really more of a "how not to"?

Case in point. Moss and chicken wire will not support actual sitting.

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I'll share pictures after I plant the sedum, which I have to dig up from between rocks and in a wheelbarrow I planted last year. Then I'll place the whole sculpture (artfully?) in the garden.

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This was a fun, free project and it feels good to be back to making something out of nothing. Very farmgirl frugal of me.

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Also? I know my puns are not that funny. But I crack myself up. And not just when falling through a porch chair.

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What projects are you planning? Planting? Falling into?

Seven wonders of the weekend

Salvador is nine days old.

The second planting of corn is finally showing up after birds found nine-tenths of the first planting.

Our weather is 90 degrees of summertime bliss.

Salvador's maternal grandmother and great-grandmother are visiting for the weekend.

Sarah turns double digits on Sunday and we will be at the lake with friends to celebrate.

The raspberries are on.

Mr. Suite learned today he has a new civil engineering and planning project at the gorgeous Oregon coast -- and it will likely require some future weekend site visits.

There are more wonders than seven, by far, in our world. But I have to stop somewhere or I'll be blogging this entire blessed weekend away. I hope yours is wonderful as well.

Three Sisters gardening and then some

The sun came out to play in a big way over the weekend just in time to start our Three Sisters garden. It's been so cold and soggy here that the corn and beans would've molded with any earlier planting.

Sarah and Madeleine and my husband did all the work while the smallest Suites went for a ride with Grandma. That's a good place for them to be when the seeds have to go in the ground in a certain order or pattern. Mr. Suite manned the hoe, the shovel, the wheelbarrow and the tractor.

Still supervising, Jake and I had our duties in the shade. Just close enough to sort seeds and admire the spinach bed. Oh and also to plot out where to put the garden sandbox that Mr. Suite is prepared to build to occupy Grace and Laura when they can't be otherwise engaged during gardening time.

Mr. Suite had to take a minute to baby the asparagus. It's a little out of proportion, how excited I am about those ferny fronds.

I did leave my lawn chair for a while to take some pictures of my big girls with the watering cans. It looks picturesque, but those were full of the fish emulsion fertilizer. Stinky but worth it.

"Vanna" and Madeleine hard at work on our smaller Three Sisters plot. In case you aren't familiar with the Three Sisters, it's an ancient method of interplanting corn, beans and squash. Yesterday I could barely keep the seeds separated, let alone remember the grid. Good thing the girls were on top of this procedure. We planted one bed that's about 10 by 10 and another that's approximately 6 by 6. It should be more than enough corn -- we love corn on the cob but don't really preserve corn in any way. As for the beans and squash, we have other beds dedicated to those alone.

I look forward to sharing pictures as the beanstalks climb the cornstalks and the squash shades the ground all around! I know the little "molehills" of compost look a little underwhelming now, but that's the way it is with gardening. More patience training. It's everywhere I go.

Pushing up daisies? Coming up roses? I forget how it goes.

Last year I saved one little clump of wild daisies at the edge of the garden. I couldn't bear to see them go.

This year they've spread their petals over an area that easily could produce enough, oh, say, peas for my family. What to do? Weeds (be they ever so comely) or food?

Since I didn't plant seventy-five thousand peas like last year, it seems to be working out just fine. The daisies mask my gardening lapse. And they're pretty while they're at it.

Don't be surprised if they work their way up to the house before I manage a solution.

The cherries are green and the rabbit hutch is ... pink

Try to pretend that photo's a depth-of-field experiment and therefore artistic-like. Also? Try to imagine we've already repainted the pink rabbit hutch to its proper barn red.

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I am so beyond excited for the cherries on our new little trees. Last year's planting of the orchard was a milestone for us. This year the cherry trees are the clear overachievers among the spindly saplings. Thank goodness they all survived last summer's drought and last winter's cold snaps. The apples and pears and plums (o my) are looking healthy but fruitless. It's another good lesson in delayed gratification. Sometimes the lessons I need are my least favorite.

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Unfortunately over the winter I lost my Meyer Lemon to a string of seven-degree nights. The tree was a gift from a friend and was actually bearing lemons along with heavenly scented flowers so the loss of it was super disappointing. (Read: I left the blackened tree up until just last weekend, when I finally felt the pressure to give it a proper funeral.) I did replace the lemon tree with a much, much smaller version that can come indoors in the cold weather. As my brother would say, it's on the ten-year track to becoming a real tree.

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More of that patience training is in my future it seems.

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Our Brown Turkey Fig tree is right on track for this area, however; it's just now budding out with what should soon be huge leathery leaves on a five-foot-tall unassuming stick of wood. It's miraculous, really, that something as delicious as a fig should come from (frankly, I hope the tree doesn't repay my compliment by refusing to bear fruit) such an ugly wintertime specimen.

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One more new-to-us tree on the property is the dogwood. Oh, how I love a dogwood tree. Ours is sporting three tiny blossoms. I wonder how the nursery forced it to display those big, fat, glowing white bracts last year? Maybe I need to build it a little shelter. Or, you know, maybe I need to consider that some dogwood trees don't appear to bloom for years after transplanting.

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Practice patience. Focus on the positive. Bring the lemon tree inside in the winter.

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All lessons I could have learned by reading books, made real by my garden.

I decorate with garden gnomes

Laura likes to make herself useful in the weeds at the edge of the garden. Try not to notice her hair. Her outfit. Her general disheveled state. It's the country; no one will notice. Right?

Sarah decides to help her out with the task. I am thinking of adding to Mr. Suite's never-ending list of projects to ask for a wooden sandbox with fitted lid for inside of the garden gates. This is my imagined solution to managing 2-year-old Laura in the garden. Any advice?

Farmgirl alert! Sarah's actually very good with the hoe. She has an attention to detail that should make the mere dandelion sprout cringe. I'm pretty sure I saw the crabgrass quaking in anticipation of its demise.

I had both of the big girls at work on weeds in the existing garden beds. Then when the soil was weed-free we spread big flakes of straw as mulch. I am determined to beat any possible drought this year. Also to not have to weed as much.

Meanwhile Madeleine's determination to learn how to not only drive the lawn tractor but to back it up puts my pride in my own back-up victories to shame. I think there's a lesson here. I think it's something about "at least she uses her powers for good and not evil." Because put to other purposes, that girl's focus is scary intense.

Gracie, for her part, spread the weed-blocking newspaper over the bare ground inside the new raised beds. She did get distracted by reading the ads several times. "A swimming pool! Just $299!"

"Barbies are on sale at Toys R Us! ... HEY. They put the 'R' backwards. You should call them."

Scary intense focus? Not so much. Attention to detail? Depends on the detail.

Here she is, the original sassafrass girl, taking a break from her reading break.

We're grateful for all the help we can get.

The decorative aspect of my garden gnomes is just a bonus.

The rain, the sun, the bipolar weather

I've been reading too much Anne Lamott and Barbara Kingsolver.

It gets me all melancholy.

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Or maybe that's the weather talking.

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After a mostly gorgeous weekend of gardening-perfect sunshine (with only the smallest of hailstorms, and, um, a windstorm now that I think of it) our Monday and Tuesday have been nonstop rain. I've been staring out my windows at sideways rain, rain that makes it difficult to walk the 300 feet to the chicken coop from the back door. This rain has exhausted our indoor activities of board games and books and made us resort to organizing dresser drawers. It's that bad, people.

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It's been a brand of rain that hits the skylights so hard that my kids take up an improvised beat and dance to the noise. Of course that adds to the general din of our farmhouse's usual soundtrack: Legos clacking, clarinet tooting, teakettle whistling.

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Yesterday we did brave the weather to attend a meeting for a possible new homeschool cooperative. That was fun. It allowed the girls to run wild in the basement of the church with other children who'd been large-motor-muscle deprived for too long. Also it allowed me to realize how very happy I am to be conducting school at home. Whatever the weather, we have enough time to read and play and read some more.

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Today is supposed to be gorgeous outside. I am under strict orders from Mr. Suite to not "go out and plant for six hours."

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I wonder whether that means anything less than six hours of outdoor work is acceptable?

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Just kidding.

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Hope the weather, inside and out, is lovely where you are.

Nesting and listing

This weekend we:



Climbed a lot of trees.

Contracted poison oak. (Again.)

Found a tidy little pile of snake eggs in the compost and took pictures of the natural wonder. (What can I say? My kids have taken the farm girl spirit to the extreme.)

Moved the bunny hutch to a nice shady spot between the chicken yard and the garden. Perfect for composting. (Not so perfect if the rabbits escape. Think Farmer MacGregor and Peter Rabbit, only not so friendly am I as he to lettuce-munching pets.)

Watched the asparagus grow more than four inches. Except for the one crown that the chickens scratched back to its roots. Those hens are headed for the crockpot for sure, I tell you! (Reference earlier grandstanding statement about my mean nature.)

Finally got the lawn tractor working in conjunction with just enough sunshine just in time to save the property from grass tall enough to obscure a toddler.


I like this Royal We business an awful lot. Because while "we" did all of that strenuous outdoor work and play, "I" took some naps, a lot of photos, a couple of long baths, time for baking bread and time for a trip to town with Madeleine, who needed new jeans. AGAIN. (And some books. AGAIN.)

To tell the truth, my weekend was pretty restful but I am such a homebody these days that the trip to town just about undid me. Three stores and their requisite dressing rooms, not even for me, mind you, and I'm down for the count. As I said to my wonderful, truly hard-working husband upon our return from town, "There. I've had a date day with each of the big girls and so now I'm free to have this baby and stay home."

I'm sure I've entered some sort of nesting phase beyond even my normal hermitlike homesteading state because last week the girls and I rearranged furniture and purged cabinets and in general acted like company was coming. My sewing machine is perpetually out and the cushion covers for the den couch are 90% done. I chose a rust chenille corduroy for the main fabric and I am in love with it. I'm already envisioning a nap on the couch, waking up with telltale lines on my face. I keep getting distracted by new, smaller projects though -- like this easy pattern for a customized baby seat/shopping cart cover. We have new beds to assemble for Laura and Grace and a new ensemble of red and white gingham and floral bedding for their room.

I joke around that pregnancy doesn't make me "nest" but makes me "list." As in, I keep adding to my lists of preparations and projects. But then? Only a few weeks to go until all I'll be doing is watching the new one's eyelashes grow. Delicious.

But wait! It's a gardening post!

The dog found that harmless little garden helper snake during our recent outdoor project weekend. Thank goodness for "zoom" on the camera. Regardless of its reputation as a soil helper and pest deterrent, Grace and I stayed far, far away. Everyone else thought it was cute. (I'd like to redefine cute for certain members of our family.)

I think it's more than a little ironic that Laura will literally and unashamedly roll in chocolate and will happily but surreptitiously eat cat food, but has a conniption over a little garden dirt on her hands. She gets only one of those traits from her mother.

And now we get to the gardening part! (Those are not sea creatures but rather small hairy representatives of being truly rooted at this home. In fact, we've now lived here nearly four years... a record in our oft-moving marriage. Planting of a long-term crop is significant, I tell you. And also? When a parenthetical statement gets this long it probably should be another post.)

Mr. Suite dug two 12-inch-deep trenches for my new asparagus crowns. The dog just supervised. I explained to him more than 10 years ago that the only unforgivable dog sin is digging in the garden. He seems to understand.

After the trenches were prepared, Madeleine carefully mounded dirt at 15-inch intervals and lovingly placed the roots over the mounds, staking each mound as she went. For two weeks I've been sifting soil onto the new growth. In three years we'll eat homegrown asparagus. I'm pretty sure there's a lesson in delayed gratification here. (Um, and at the risk of getting all philosophical on you, there might be a lesson in the totally foreign concept that we won't move in a seven-year span. Yikes.)

So we started the garden with some cabbage, a few rows of peas, a dozen rainbow chard and a half-dozen varieties of lettuce. My role is greatly reduced (to that of supervision) by virtue of being in the magical third trimester. See how that's working for me? It's better than last year's unending physical labor. So far. In a month and a half or so I guess I'll make up lost "ground" with another kind of labor.

Hunky delivery guy comes through

Several months ago, I posted a picture of this sparkling gem:
... in a birthday fairy plea that was mostly wishful thinking.

But lo and behold, what should pull into our lane today but a trailer full of this:

And then the most handsome man I know started doing this:

And some more of this:

And pretty soon I'll be telling you all about how a greenhouse is a farmgirl's best friend. (Or, more to the point, the husband who's willing to build that sparkly folly is a girl's best friend.)

Blooming

I'm waiting for spring.

It can be hard to do.

While I wait, I keep myself busy, mostly indoors (because it's pouring down rain as though El Nino is a little bit of a liar, that's why). I spend my spare time on a little sewing (that cute gathered knit top with fabric button flower), a little seed starting (peas and spinach, anyone?), a little bit of virtual shopping on craigslist (so far of the window variety only although I did find a tempting LOG CABIN for $2,995, "you move it"), a little bit of dreaming of sunnier days when this baby will be born at just about the same time as the summer garden goes in (if it goes in).

Also I spend a little (lot of) time on parenthetical type thoughts. Clearly.

Is it still snowing where you are? Or, like me, are you teased by the first daffodils but thwarted from outdoor fun by the fact that it's not. yet. spring?

Birthday Fairy? Are you there?

My niece Kayla told me there are no fairies. She's 9 so I suppose she knows.

But just in case? This greenhouse, cute as a bug and Earth-friendly as all get-out, would surely fit in the southeast corner of my garden.

How many fairies would it take to deliver that, do you suppose?

(Just your everyday side note: Do you think anyone likely noticed me as I trespassed my big red Suburban onto these nice (completely unknown to me) people's front drive to steal a photo of their newly delivered beauty? I'm not sure because I sped away quick-like when their big (huge) dog came charging out.)

Fermentation, shots and one day at a time

It's not what you think. The seeds and pulp from two heirloom tomatoes attempting to ferment in my sunny (slightly schmutzy, it appears) kitchen window. Saving heirloom tomato seeds is easier than I had thought. This year I spent a small fortune on organic heirloom plants in four-inch-pots. Next year (Lord willing and the creek don't rise) I will start these seeds and have some to share as well.

The worst part of the experiment (outside of having my shot glasses otherwise engaged for three days) was the scummy disgustingness that develops as a byproduct of fermentation. It's important to ferment the seeds before drying. I understand that it helps to prevent next year's plants from developing any diseases too.

But gross nonetheless.

After scraping the bubbly gooey crust off the top of each shot glass (stir each container one time per day; remove fermentation crust approximately three days later) I rinsed the seeds very thoroughly and laid them on wax paper to dry. In our climate it took just a day and a half for them to skitter around, dry as can be on wax paper.

Then I labeled them in little envelopes and put them to bed in my seed catalog file.

Elsewhere on my kitchen windowsill: sprouts. This is very, very easy. Also easy to forget. It seems my chickens are getting my sprouts with regularity this summer. I don't have a hard time rinsing and draining them every day. It's the remembering to harvest (which just means eat the dang things) that's my apparent downfall. So one morning they're just perfect, and I mean to put them on top of some salad or in a pita for goodness sakes, but then by nightfall they resemble a tangle of full-grown invasive vines and I have to send them out to the henhouse. Sigh.

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I'm still dieting. Will this never end? Sixteen pounds down and one size down. I do think the low carb lifestyle (I just gagged a little on that phrase) is big in Hollywood for a reason. But what, my friends, will I do about bread? My lovely homemade loaves of egg bread. The crunchy crusty French bread. The homemade pasta.

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I can see myself now at a CA (carboholics anonymous? it must exist) meeting. "Hi. My name is Miriam... I used to think I could take just one bite. But now I'm taking it one day at a time."

Heirloom tomatoes and other sun worshipers

I heart heirloom tomatoes.

And sunflowers, especially the volunteers.

The unfurling promise of a tiny seed turned into a giant flower.

So glad the birds didn't get this one.

Our personal drought at the Suite homestead seems to have regulated itself. I can water the garden every third day as long as I don't also care to do any dishes or laundry on that day. And you know I don't mind that arrangement!

In other self sufficiency news, I am sorry to report that we experienced a septic tank issue last week. The issue was too disgusting to report in all its gore, so I'll just tell you how glad I am (once again) to be married to a civil engineer. With a specialty in wastewater management. How lucky could I get?

Plus: Now we can shower again. Madeleine and Seven have walk-trot-cantered their way through six weeks of successful equitation. The stars are all in alignment and the hobby farm life is never boring.

Tomorrow I'm going to try to ferment and save some of the heirloom tomato seeds. Want to watch?

Mr. Sun, sun, Mr. Golden Sun

Alright already with the hot!

Our well, traditionally a fantastic water producer for our area, is straining under the responsiblity of my big garden and new flower beds. Not to mention the new trees: apple, cherry, pear, dogwood, fig, plum and more.

Last night I had the yummiest zucchini-tomato scramble ever. A little olive oil, a little garlic and onion (my own garlic and onions!) and then of course the fresh veggies from the garden into the pan for just a minute. As soon as the tomatoes popped it was dinner time. And everything except the olive oil was from our little farm. I love when that happens. You could call it Eating Local, Extreme Version.

Oh, and we had a little garnish of fresh basil from the herb bed on top of that.

Wish you could have been here.

Except the washing up was problematic, because the well.... Well. How do I put this?

I envy all my city farmchick friends who turn on the water and worry only for their utility bill.

But this morning my handsome and resourceful engineer-all-the-time husband found a likely contributor to our water crisis: A LEAK. It's underground. Right under the spot where everything stays inexplicably green. He dug for a minute and VOILA, water. Lots and lots of water.

Except now there's none because he had to leave for the weekend and we turned off the water supply at the well. And this leaves me with no recourse except to consider going to the garage sales.

After all, without water I can't garden. Or do laundry or dishes. (Let's not think about the bathing, mm-kay?)

Garage sales it is. It couldn't be helped. If he asks.

A Little Peas and Quiet

We took break from weeding amongst the peas to visit the garden center. Is there anything to top a trip to the garden center in late May? I submit that there may be something to top that incomparable experience. And that would be a trip to the garden center in late May that includes my four goofball children.

Are you guys feeling okay? You haven't moved since I've been here.

Don't let my sisters bother you.

(No statues harmed in the making of this post.)

(No plants either.)


(Except maybe that fuschia.)

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The astute reader may notice a distinct lack of goofiness from Grace recorded here. That would not be due to her suddenly becoming a quiet, reserved child. Nor would it be due to her being absent on the trip to Gray's Garden. Nope. Just one of the small weirdnesses of life that stack on top of one another and make things what we call normal. Grace goofed off plenty, even dunked herself (accidentally) in a display pond. This, for us, is normal. Inexplicably so. But of course there are no photos of that episode.

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Update on something ELSE of which I didn't take pictures! (Strange sentence construction aside, let me say, it was difficult to not snap pics of the weird neighbor incident. SO HARD. War-photog-in-Bosnia-with-no-lens hard. Ansel-in-birch-grove-with-no-film hard. It was hard, people. But I was afraid of their Pit Bull. And them. I imagined myself some sort of anti-papparazzi (sp?) wanting to chronicle the oddities of having a greengrowing homeless camp across the road but worried they'd snatch my Nikon away and smash it when I least expected it.)

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So they're gone. I feel guilty. Which is nothing new. I challenge any of my Catholic and/or Jewish friends to rival me in the guilt gut. Honestly, I can work up a good-sized molehill of guilt over blackened toast. A little thing like begrudging some (probably pot-dealing) homeless people their week of flopping across the road? GUILT MOUNTAIN, y'all.

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When they left on Saturday night, they didn't go far. The church elder who gave them permission to stay a week was very clear they had to be gone by services on Sunday morning. Now this seemed a little backward to me. We want to show our Christian love but we want you gone before anyone shows up to worship God. Crikey. Mind you, I didn't SAY anything about this thought, because, as I mentioned, I couldn't get my sun tea jar off my front porch without getting a whiff of them in all their multi-pet micro-gardening traveling (not so much) glory.

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So they left Saturday night to our other neighbors' property, just five or so driveways away from us.

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Oh, the GUILT, people. The guilt. Now this nice grandma had them in her back yard. She'd already been feeding them a couple of times a day, she told me. And they were using her shower. And since it was just "one night" (actually, that would have been two, but I kept my mouth shut and it turned into five) until they were leaving for [state unknown that changed depending on the questioner's identity] on Monday, it was the "least she could do."

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Oh. I thought the least she could do would be to say "you're welcome for a week of food and showering." You see why I deal with guilt. You see.

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Of course they overstayed their welcome there, but not by much. I don't know how this went down. Maybe another, gutsier neighbor helped out my sweet grandmotherly neighbor and towed them from beside her tomato plot in the dark of night. Or maybe she ran out of food. Or (not as likely) patience. But last night, just before midnight, the Blue Bayou was parked across the road from me again, fixin' to get on the road. Fixin' their headlights and tying down their crates and such. And on the road they are. As far as I know, they are at least a mile away by now.

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Tomorrow I'll be introspective. Tomorrow. Today I'm just breathing a little easier.