Working in the Garden (Part 2)

Remember the garden I told you about?

I have a little secret: It's not the only garden I'm in charge of this summer. I'm also taking care of a little raised-bed garden at an elementary school, which is part of a grant-funded school garden project I started last fall.

The problem is, school isn't in session over the summer. So I don't have any elementary students to help me keep things going. Instead, I just bop on over to the elementary school once or twice a week to weed and water and (hopefully soon) to harvest, too.Things are going along pretty well so far.


As long as I remember to bring my gardening clothes to work, that is. I learned the hard way gardening in dress clothes in the heat of the summer is not fun. Just sayin'.

Working in the Garden (Part 1)

You're probably thinking that I must not be gardening at all this summer.

You're probably wondering if pregnancy has slowed me down so much that I haven't even done any planting, and that's why you haven't seen the frequent garden updates that undoubtedly sustained you through the past couple of summers. (You did spend every waking minute waiting for my next post about plants, didn't you?)

But if you're thinking this sort of thing, I must correct you.

The truth of the matter is, I'm gardening more than I ever have before. It's just that most of my gardening isn't happening in L-Town and it isn't happening on evenings and weekends.

Yep, now it's part of my job.

The giant garden you're seeing here is 20-plus plots that are roughly 2ox20 feet. (They're roughly that because guess who divided them up? Yep, me. So they're rough.)

No, I'm not gardening this entire giant garden. It's our LLCC community garden, which is located right behind the Workforce Development building I work in (that's the building with blue you see here).

But I do have a plot in the garden and am in charge of overseeing the whole darn thing. So the person who divided up all the plots and assigned them to willing gardeners and purchased all the plants? That's me. And the person who sets up the sprinklers and keeps the walkways relatively weed-free and sprays the (nontoxic but frightfully smelly) Liquid Fence that keeps the deer and rabbits away? That's me, too.

And when I have a bit of time, I try to keep an eye on my own plot, which you see here. That's been a bit tough lately, with the rain and the other garden to-dos. But I did manage to put down a layer of wet cardboard and some straw in my plot recently in the hopes it might keep the insane weeds and grass that have overtaken our garden at bay.

And though things are progressing much more slowly than in my fertile little front-yard garden at home has in past summers, there are finally some tomatoes making an appearance. There are flowers on the (tiny) zucchini and cucumber plants.

Things are growing. Yahoo!

Wishing You a Happy Mother's Day

As you probably know, today is Mother's Day. (If you didn't know this already, hurry! It's not too late to call your mother and let her know you're thinking of her.)

Although I think many holidays are manufactured by the greeting card industry in order to increase their profits, I think Mother's Day and Father's Day are particularly important. Parents deserve our love and appreciation every day, but sometimes life gets busy and we forget to show and tell them just how much they mean to us.

And so today is the perfect day to tell your mother (or favorite aunt or grandmother or friend who is a mother) how important they are to you.

I hope that my mother knows already just how wonderful she is and how much I admire her and how I hope that I can be even half as good of a mother as she has been to me.

But, Mom, because those words went unsaid when we spoke on the phone a few minutes ago, now you have them in writing, accompanied by some photos of the flowers I planted this afternoon. Consider this an extra Mother's Day gift to you, along with the one we already sent.

And these well wishes and admiration also apply to Conservative Mom. And to all of you grandmothers out there (Grandma Phyllis and Grandma Barb, plus Conservative Hubby's lovely grandmothers ... and Grandma Collins, who's celebrating Mother's Day in heaven this year with her honey).

Happy Mother's Day!

Tiptoeing Through the Tulips

Unlike their friends the daffodils, the tulips in the front yard don't think it's absolutely necessary to be among the first flowers to bloom each spring.


Sure, they're excited to make an appearance and to open toward the warm April sun. But they're going to wait until they're good and ready to do so.


Good and ready happened to be, for the most part, last week.

This also happened to be when the rain showers and thunderstorms and tornado warnings settled in. So today was my first opportunity to snap some photos of the trembling tulips as they danced in the breeze.


Most of the tulips in our front yard were planted long before we arrived in our house. They were a pleasant surprise our first spring.

This year, however, I supplemented those tulips with a few bulbs of my own.


Once they bloomed, I realized just how different these bulbs are from the ones that came before.


A little variety is kind of nice, isn't it?


Butter thinks so too.

Little Pretties

A steady stream of little pretties appeared this week ...


in the palest of pale yellow


and purple


and more purple.

And there's more on the way too ... for months to come. Hooray!

Building a Hoop House

On Sunday, I participated in a 10/10/10 Global Work Party at Jubilee Farm in Springfield. My task for the day: helping to build a hoop house, which will extend the growing season on the farm.

You can get a peek at the hoop house here.

It was a bit of work but beautiful weather. Unfortunately, things progressed slowly because there were only a few of us working at one time, so I never got to see the finished product. But that just gives me an excuse to go back.

On a side note, Jubilee Farm is an awesome place to visit. It's a small working farm run by a group of Domenican sisters. They have a CSA and grow lovely produce sans pesticides (basically, what they do is organic farming without officially being able to call it organic). They're always looking for help, so if you get the urge to pull some weeds or pick some produce, go visit! While you're there, be sure to check out all the cool stuff they have on their land, including a pottery studio and a labyrinth. For real.

Pretty Little Flowers

The last couple of weeks, I have been grocery shopping on Monday or Tuesday nights. And I've hit the jackpot each time I pass the flowers: Buckets full of seriously clearanced buds that still look beautiful. The other day, I snagged three bouquets of various sizes for $2. No joke.

And so I have been scattering little vases of fresh flowers around our house.

Only this week, I shopped on Saturday. And I wasn't about to spend $7 a bouquet for the sale flowers, so I went home empty-handed.

But then I realized that was just plain silly, because I have my own zinnias to cut.

In the backyard, two transplants (one pink and one yellow).


And in the planter out front, a few zinnias I planted from seed are finally blooming, with the most lovely petite blossoms.


This has led me to believe that I should include more flowers in next year's garden.

Because there's something so wonderful about a little bouquet of colorful blossoms you've grown yourself—blossoms that have not been drenched in pesticides or shipped from who knows where—sitting on the kitchen table.

Don't you agree?

Aprons

If someone had told me 10 years ago that at 27 I would spend my spare time baking and would get incredibly excited about a new apron, I would have laughed.

No way. No how. Not a chance.

Yet here I am, ecstatic about my most recent purchase and the mixed berry pie I made the other night. And I'm not the least bit ashamed.


Many of the mothers that raised my generation somehow, miraculously, juggled the demands of full-time work with the challenges of raising a family and maintaining order in their house.

They—my own mother included—did so with grace. And while they did it, they taught us that we can do anything we want. That our lives are what we make of them.

We can have a family and a successful career. We can travel the world if we want, all alone or with a companion. We can go ahead and not get married—ever. We can "settle down" and live a happy, traditional life. Or we can live a life unlike any that's been lived before. There is no formula. There is no right or wrong way. It's up to us.

We can do it all, these mothers told us. We listened.

And so, young, motivated, empowered (stop rolling your eyes, Conservative Boy), we set out to make over the world. To do anything and everything we set our minds to.

We went to college. We jumped into jobs that excited us, that energized us, that we loved.

Along the way, we're finding that sometimes our dreams have changed. The original career path we envisioned for ourselves (for me, being an investigative reporter the likes of Woodward and Bernstein) has moved in a new direction.

Our aspirations shift and change over time, but are no less important and relevant and possible. We have discovered that things we never thought we would be interested in—gardening, cooking, marrying—aren't something to be feared and shunned as the antithesis of who we are and ought to become.

Rather, some of those actions are to be embraced. Not because society tells us it's what we are supposed to do, that being domestic goddesses is our calling and all we were made for in this life.

But because there's something wonderful and relaxing and, yes, even empowering about spending time with your hands in the earth, about tending to a garden and watching the seeds you have planted grow into plants producing food that fills your own belly.

There's something worth rejoicing in the process of learning how to transform raw ingredients into a dish to be savored. There's something strangely exciting in finally finding the perfect pie crust or discovering a cookie recipe that makes everyone who tries it swoon.

It's a bit selfish, in fact, this love of all things domestic. It's another challenge to conquer, another new activity to try. It's something to succeed at and, when we fail, to keep trying to improve.

But there's also joy in making good food to be shared with loved ones. There's something satisfying about planting a garden that can be enjoyed not just by the people who harvest its fruits or cut its flowers, but by everyone who passes by.

And so I forge ahead, finishing up my master's and still figuring out what I'm going to be when I grow up. Dreaming about writing novels and somehow making a difference in the world.

And when I need a break from all that work, I find a moment of absolute joy by donning a cheerful apron.


When I'm bleary eyed and worn out, I find solace and strength and enjoyment in the kitchen, baking pies and trying new recipes.

I find happiness and serenity in the garden, playing in the fertile soil.

And that's OK.

Garden Update

The first year we lived in our little brick ranch house, I went a little crazy planting vegetables in pots. Then a bit of bush removal allowed me to plant a tiny late-season garden in the front yard, with mixed lettuce, zucchini, Roma tomatoes, and cantaloupe that grew about the size of my fist and then decided to quit.

Last year, Conservative Boy thwarted my front-yard gardening by planting grass over my vegetable patch, so I took my passion for vegetables down the street to Conservative Parents' backyard instead.

The site ended up being shadier than we realized, and it was a bad tomato year to boot. Still, it satisfied my garden cravings.

Then this year, I decided to heck with all the patchy grass C.B. planted in the front yard. I wanted my vegetable garden back. So I dug up all the grass while he was golfing and decided to load up my little patch.

There are a few bean and pea plants that I may have planted too late. Four tomato plants.


Two pepper plants.


An eggplant plant.


A smattering of marigolds and lettuces. Two little ever-bearing strawberry plants that have yielded a whopping two strawberries. Radishes.


Zucchini. And a cucumber plant that was supposed to be tiny and contained but instead is taking over every spare inch of space.


Not bad for a little last-minute front-yard garden, eh?

The Backyard Garden

The little perennial garden I started last year in the backyard isn't nearly as lovely as the one in the front yard.

It has had a few growing pains and could still use a little work, yet slowly but surely the plants are growing and flowering and making our back patio one of my favorite places to work in the morning when it's cool and even in the afternoon when I don't mind a little heat.

Once I situated a couple of small fences so Butter couldn't use the new garden as his personal bathroom, he's taken ownership of the site. He regularly watches over it to ensure there aren't any intruders.

Usually there aren't. But you never know. In Butter's world, you can never be too cautious.

The newest additions to this garden are the two zinnia plants I added last week. They were a bit of a splurge, because I was dying for some more vibrant color and wanted a few plants for cutting flowers.

The old standbys are doing pretty well too. The first of the coneflowers are slowly blooming.

The Asiatic lilies and daylilies are in their prime right now.

And whatever this plant is (I can't recall and need to do some research), it's flowering too. I have mixed feelings about it, as it's not nearly as lovely as I expected. But I'm working through my issues.

Besides, variety is supposed to be the spice of life, isn't it?

Praising the Perennial Garden

Oh how I adore the perennial garden in our front yard.


I love the way the flowers sprout from the ground, spread their leaves, and form their precious blossoms without any encouraging from me.

I love the way the different hues bloom in rapid succession, beginning in May and continuing through the fall.

I love the way the garden looks from the front window where I stand and appraise it periodically throughout the day. I also love the different views it offers from the lawn and the street. (I think the streetside view is the best, actually.)


Two years ago at this time, there was no perennial garden. Instead, there was a rather ugly bush. It wasn't removed until July, and that's when the perennial garden came to be.

Having never planted perennials before, I decided—as I do with so many things I try—just to wing it.

I purchased flowers that were already blooming and that I liked the look of. I selected ones with names that seemed familiar. I picked some that were on clearance because it was already July. I tried to make sure they were all suited to our climate and, when I could figure it out, that they were native.

Around this time last year, I added some mulch and a few new plants, but mostly let the garden do its thing.

And this year, I only added one new plant—a purchase from the master gardener's plant sale, one that will hopefully add a bit of late-summer color. Beyond that one planting, I have weeded and mulched and little else.


This year, it's all about enjoying the fruits of previous years' labor. Like the blooms shown here, which made their appearance the other day.


The first flowers of the season, all in hues of purple, are giving way to a more vibrant assortment of oranges and yellows.


Fun, isn't it?

Catching Up

Oh boy oh boy have I ever let you down this year.

You should've had your fill of "hooray for planting," "look at the plants growing," "oh wow this one's budding," and "eek! flowers!" posts by now.


Only I'm a slacker. I didn't even get things in the ground and in their pots until this past week.

I've failed to document the way my perennial garden in the front yard has taken off, no thanks to me.


And I haven't even mentioned that I yanked up all the grass Conservative Hubby planted over my garden last year and put another lovely little veggie patch in.


And yes, there are even some "eek! flowers!" moments already.


I guess we have a bit of catching up to do, don't we?

Yard Work

Finally ... a weekend day warm enough for some yard work. And boy did our yard ever need it.


In front, it was attack of the sweet gum balls and dead leaves. In back, let's just say Butter left me a lot of little presents over the past couple of months I needed to clear out.


Yes, that was my discreet way of saying out backyard has been overrun with dog poop. (Sorry, people, but sometimes I just have to spell these things out.)


So Conservative Hubby got out the rake and set to work, while I handled the delicate work of clearing leaves and sweet gum balls from around the perennials starting to sprout up in my front-yard garden. (That's what you're seeing here, in case you were wondering.)


Then we bagged all the leaves and debris and I headed to the back for some more yard pick-up. And no, I will not share a photo of the little presents. I'm going to trust that you've seen that sort of thing before, although I hope for your sake you've never stepped in any of it. Because that's gross. I speak from experience, many times over.


I really hope my talk about dog poo isn't distracting you from these lovely green things. I'm ecstatic to see so many plantings making an appearance already.


Most of these were planted in the perennial garden last spring, so this is the first time I've witnessed them peeking up from the wet earth, slowly stretching out toward the warmth and sun and promise of spring.

Of course, there are the regulars that I've met a few years now getting ready to bloom too. Not many of the daffodils are to this point yet, but a few little buds are teasing me.


By Monday, I think this little one will be ready for its full-fledged greeting.


What do you think?