Let there be lettuce

Let there be lettuce
Originally uploaded by subsixstudios

I harvested lettuce from my garden yesterday. I love lettuce. I wait all winter for fresh grown. There is nothing like it.

Fairy House

My oldest son just finished the Spiderwick Chronicles and is obsessed with fairies and all the likings. It tickles me pick that he is so into the world of the unseen. I am reading the books now too so I can have a better feel for what is going on in his head right now. I welcome this new phase of imagination and play and I want to encourage it as much as I can. I figured since most of the family is home sick today it might be a good time to build our own fairy house in the back yard. My kids were very excited about this idea. We found some good info on fairy houses here.

The boys found a hollow log we were using for decoration in our garden and they thought it would be perfect. You can also start with sticks and bark or whatever else you can find. The more natural the better. Using glue and rope might be a sign to the fairies that the house is man made and turn them off from entering. We then used some bark, grass, pine cones, broken shells, and dandelions to decorate our house. The last step is to put a small gift to the fairies inside the house.

We had a lot of fun making the fairy house and plan on making more throughout the yard. I can't deny that I still believe in fairies. These houses are as much for me as they are for the kids.

Make one today. They are fun and easy and require no money. Back yard fun is free fun!

Spring is in the air

The snow in my yard is almost gone. Once the afternoon sun warms up the ground my boots sometimes squish in the mud. I love that. The air smells fresh and the birds are coming back. Signs of spring are all around. Yesterday I got out in the yard to start some raking. I cleared out my front yard garden bed and discovered some tulips popping up. I planted a ton of fall bulbs last year so I am very excited to see what new treasures I will find this year.

my herb and flower flat

italian flat parsley

A few weeks ago I started some seeds inside. I planted Italian flat parsley, oregano, chives and snap dragons. I haven't planted from seed too many times before so I decided to start with herbs and flower this year and stick to buying my veggies from plant.

chives

I have been busy working on my garden plan. I want to add to more small grow beds for my kids to call their own. After reading this great book called Grow it, Cook it each kid decided what they want to plant in their gardens. I also plan on ripping up more grass (hate it) and putting in a new path way that leads to my grow bed area. I will be adding low creeping thyme between the stepping stones and around the edges of my raised beds.

Last fall I started working on creating a children's garden. I moved the sandbox and playhouse to one area of the yard and dug out a half circle of garden space around it. My plan is to grow tall bush like plants giving the area a wall creating a "secret" space for the kids to play.

I absolutely love this time of the year. I sit on my deck sipping warm tea, staring at my yard dreaming of what I can do this upcoming season.

Happy spring!

Garden update

My garden is bursting with flavor. I am growing corn for the first time, pumpkins, peppers (sweet and hot), beans, cucumbers, and lots and lots of tomatoes. I have been making home made pizza sauce, pasta sauce and salsa daily. I love summer.

Here are some pictures from my garden.
Corn


Bean tower



Harvest time




Garden friend

hello friend

I swear dragon flies are modern day fairies. This one let me get so close I thought she was going to talk to me.

Christmas in July

Every summer I wait for my local greenhouse Claussen's to have their famous all you can carry sale. This year did not disappoint. For $50 I was allowed to load up a double decker cart with as much as I could. The plants were layered on top of each other in my car in order to fit them all. I was like a kid in a candy shop.

Here is my car packed with goodness.

I was giddy beyond belief.

So I decided to create a new garden around my once empty brick patio. I wanted to make a garden patio out of it.

I am happy with the results.

The rest of the flowers went to fill in the front yard garden I created this spring and a small one on the side of my house. I was also able to fill many pots for the brick patio and my deck. It was the perfect thing to do on our first day of sunshine in a week.

Garden Updates

Oh how I have been enjoying this season. Each day I crave digging in the dirt, transforming my yard, and growing fresh organic veggies for my family. Gardening cleanses my soul. There is nothing better than going out to my herb garden while I am cooking and picking some fresh herbs to add to the meal. Here are some photos to show how it is going so far. I am trying many new things this year.

I decided to try my hand at two raised beds this year. I put them in a different spot away from my other gardens to see how they do. The one on the left has tomatoes, green peppers, hot peppers, radishes and squash. The bed on the right is my baby lettuce bed. I plant baby lettuce seeds alternating sides every two weeks.

The structure on the left has peas, the one on the left has beans. There are two strawberry plants, chives and several garlic plants. In the very front row will grow corn and sunflowers.
My garden fort is growing. I can't wait until this is covered with lovely flowering vines.

This was my latest project. The front of this garden section is filled with chives, basil, lemon balm, Italian parsley, cilantro and lavender. Behind the herbs is a new edible flower garden I just planted yesterday. Behind that is two rows of pumpkins, one row of corn and two cucumber plants.


Happy gardening.

Garden bug

I have been officially hit by the garden bug. I have waited through the long cold winter to dig my hands in the earth. We finally had some nice weather a few weeks ago and I started on some projects I had on my list.

First up was to put up the structures. I have given up my main garden space to create a children's garden. This year I will be planting my vegetables in two raised beds. Here you can see on the far right is our bean tee pee, next to it is a structure that will hold our peas and to the far left is going to be a garden fort. I found the materials for the garden fort behind my shed and put it together last week. I really wanted to create these structures so they become a natural play space for the kids. If all goes well and the plants grow as they should we will have here three different forts for the kids to play in.

Second project on my list was the entrance way into our backyard. This is where my backyard insanity starts to show a bit because last year I ripped up all the grass and put down gravel. This year I decided to dig up all the gravel and try to grow grass again. This is how it looks after I shoveled up all the gravel and made about 7 wheelbarrow trips to my neighbors house to dump it off. I put the stepping stones back in place and I will attempt to grow grass again. I think I have a problem

Third project was to create a small front yard garden. My front yard grass sucks and I have been wanting to create a garden space in the attempt to eventually have the front yard become less and less grass (I think Americans are too obsessed with lawns anyway). This first picture shows what it looks like after I cut out the design, ripped up all the grass and put down some mulch.

This second picture shows it after new top soil has been put down and a few perennials have been planted. It's a start at least.

So that is what I have been doing lately. I hope I have inspired some future yard projects.

Spring is trying really hard to come to Vermont. Something bigger than us all is holding her back though. I started raking out my garden beds last week when we finally had a few warm days which melted the rest of our snow. A lot of the leaves are still wet, heavy and in some spots a bit frozen to the ground still. Despite these condintions the plants are trying so hard to come up and I am trying to get them uncovered as fast I can. I live for spring. I think I live in the wrong place though.

Since I can't really do much in the garden yet I have been busy planning what new things I am going to do this year. I am going to give up what was my main vegetable garden to make it more of a children's garden. I plan on having a bean tepee, pea structure, sunflowers and strawberries. I am going to try out these raised garden beds from Gardeners Supply for my main vegetables, and I also plan on creating two smaller beds for salad mix.



In addition to this I have been obsessed with creating a garden fort for the kids. I just found this at one of my favorite companies Magic Cabin. I am debating whether or not I should get the kit or try to build a structure myself. Has anyone done this before? If so let me know what materials you used for the structure.

BeforeAfter

I dug up my hastas last fall and since then the side of my house has been bare. I thought with the cart load of flowers I bought the other day I should use some to fill in the space.

Flower score

This was my cart at the end of my trip. It barely fit in my car with two kids and a dog.

Claussen's is having a All-U-Can Carry sale starting today.
All you can carry for $20.00 or a cart load for $40.00

I chose the cart and ended up with probably hundreds of dollars worth of flowers.

It felt like Christmas today.

Magic cottage gets a facelift

I have always wanted a purple front door. Today I picked out the most glorious shade of purple and made my dream come true. Now my magic cottage looks even more magical.


Before the purple paint

After the purple paint

After the purple paint

Swing me silly

Thank you to our family and friends who contributed to the swing set for Sal's birthday. It is finally finished and the boys have been playing on it every second of the day.

Digging in the dirt

It has been a busy week working on my garden and yard. I put up a gazebo on my back deck which has almost given us another room. We were unable to sit out there during the day because it gets the direct sun all day and was way too hot. We can actually enjoy the space now. On sale for $69.99 at Ace Hardware.

We had a birthday bash for me on Saturday. Friends came over for some bocce ball and good food. I got lots of wonderful goodies from my friends. A two hour massage, homemade massage oil and comfy salve, a wonderful bag, movie passes and a night of babysitting, a gift card to Gardeners Supply and another one to Made Boutique. Thanks everyone!

The rest of the weekend was spent in my garden. I finished planting my veggie garden. Decided to go small and do it well. I invested money in bags of Intervale compost to make my soil happy and I planted 4 tomato plants in between my peas and chives. I also planted two strawberry plants. They will all live among the many sunflowers my son and I planted earlier. I also added to my herb/kids garden. We built a spiral herb garden and it is now filled with basil, lemon balm, parsley, cilantro and mint. Lavender and Rosemary are planted around it. With my gardeners supply gift card I was able to buy an amazing big blue ceramic pot to put in my back garden (thanks Kim for the tip) and I planted bulbs in it.

It was an amazing weekend of digging in the dirt.

***I have been trying to upload pictures to blogger for two days and I am still unable to. Argh! So for now you can see my recent garden pics that should have gone with this post on my flickr site here

Yes I am a hippie

I am giddy with joy over our new push lawn mower.

lawn mower fact:

A conventional lawn mower pollutes as much in an hour as 40 late model cars (or as much as as much air pollution as driving a car for 100 miles).

Here is a picture of our new beauty. No more smelly gas mower. No more having to hide the kids in the house when we mow because of spitting rocks and sticks. No more having to wait until our neighbors are awake to mow the lawn. Using a push mower is great exercise too.