Summer Planning

Image from CaptainCat's etsy store - Birdcage for sale!

It doesn't look like we will be traveling much this summer. So I have turned to planning small day trips and treats from home that might serve the same purpose as a mental break from the routine. Which I am actually really excited about . . .

:. Slurping Serendipity's Frozen Hot Chocolate. (I used to go to Serendipity's when I lived up in NYC.)
:. Eating cucumber sandwiches. (Hello, white bread!)
:. Finding the perfect vintage birdcage.
:. Listening to more Bessie Smith.
:. Running more through The Women's Four Miler Training Program. (I ran the 5K two weeks ago, so hope to step it up to four miles by this September.)
:. Enjoying a summer reading list that includes: The Thirteenth Tale, See You in a Hundred Years, The Help, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest and The Girl Who Played With Fire, Bossypants (Tina Fey) and Water for Elephants. All somewhat light and good distractions.
:. Taking day trips - including Richmond for the gardens at The Virginia House and Agecroft Hall.
:. Visiting swimming holes! Cold and shaded. Willa and I love hunting for salamanders and crayfish, too.
:. Going to the movies with friends. Air conditioning + salty popcorn = a mini-vacation. Last night, Sarah and I saw "Midnight in Paris." LOVED!
:. Getting outdoor chores completed in the morning and then napping in the afternoon.
:. Watching Doc Martin on Netflix streaming.
:. Getting back to sewing and upcycling clothing.
:. Letting the garden be for the next two months. Some weeding, some watering.
:. Baking our own bread. (Now reading: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.)
:. Going to see The Decemberists at the Pavilion in August.

What about you?

Trees and Shrubs and Cooperation

Looking up from under a flowering tree is an important part of life.
(Photo taken last weekend in Staunton's Gypsy Hill Park.)

Last autumn, I planted my first tree. A red bud. The power of planting a tree and keeping it alive kind of intimidated me. So every day for the last month, I have checked in with it. Staring at it. Willing the buds to happen. And they are starting to show. I am thrilled and relieved and now want to plant more.

Corey and I got a little stuck in planning for the larger components in our landscape. But I think we have figured it out and will be heading to the nursery this weekend. I will focus on the understory trees and shrubs and he will pick out the bigger trees. That is how our house works/worked, too. He focuses on the bones and structure and then I swoop in with the details. It seems to sort itself out - although I know it made him crazy when I wouldn't have much of an opinion on house construction. I just didn't get into that part of it all and this confused the hell out of his genetic make-up. I would be happy moving into any already completed structure and adjusting to its ways through playing around with furniture and color and light.

My wish list for this weekend includes - a pink dogwood, a weigela, a scented viburnum, a caryopteris 'Blue Mist' (or two) and a fruit-producing quince. I bought a fig yesterday - a 'Chicago Hardy'. I might get all crazy and purchase a 'Brown Turkey' or a 'Celeste', too.

In other garden news:

We bought a few more strawberry plants yesterday and put them in containers on our porch. Willa was so excited about being a part of the planting, she wanted to check on them first thing this morning. I know the feeling, sweet thing.

Also, we picked up some broccoli starts in the same trip. I hadn't grown it before last year and it was a surprising winner. We had enough to freeze from just a few plants. Huh.

I am thinking that some more asparagus is in order. We only have three plants in the ground right now and it is a spring-time favorite at our house.

I got on the Kubota tractor two weeks ago and used the front loader. I now understand the beauty of big machinery.

A friend and I took the little ones the other day for a hike up at Sugar Hollow. She has eagle eyes for and a knowledge of wildflowers. It was like having a curtain lifted - I saw things I hadn't noticed before like - cutleaf toothwort, bloodroot and hepatica.

That same friend gave me a generous bundle of rhubarb. That means rhubarb syrup. This weekend. Hopefully with something cold and dirty.

Wee Molly's Etsy Shop

Look at these stunning bits of loveliness. They are botanical watercolors from Erin of Wee Molly's. As someone who can only capture things with a camera, I am forever flummoxed by artists who can create with their hands and a brush. Erin is a busy mama with three little girls. Go on over and visit her shop!

Beaming

Both my husband and my brother were featured in the local paper, C-ville Weekly for their beautiful carpentry and finish work. Corey's company, Sugar Hollow Builders, worked on the restoration of a beloved Ridge Street Historic District home and Chris built the end-all be-all wine cellar.

Photos from C-ville Weekly.

Spring Dreaming :: CSAs

Two of my mama friends are also organic farmers and run CSA's (community supported agriculture). Steph owns New Branch Farm and is offering unique options for those interested in a CSA this year. From her website:

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One of the distinctions of our CSA is the season. We are offering both:

• a spring share (12 weeks) and
• an autumn share (9 weeks).

In each season, you also have choice of the "Traditional Share" or the "Salad Share".

Traditional Share: A variety of seasonal, certified organic vegetables and herbs: we strive to provide 6-10 items weekly in quantities ample for 2 people. Our goal is to provide a diversity of vegetables. For example, our popular greens mix, arugula, and lettuces mixed with traditional favorites like potatoes, garlic, and tomatoes as well as more specialty items like haricot vert beans. In the spring, an assortment of potted plants for home growing are also offered.

Salad Share: If you're a salad lover, this share is sure to excite. Inspired by our mixed greens and arugula - City Market customer favorites. The weekly bag includes over a pound of various lettuces and greens (items will vary weekly but will be some combination of lettuce, mixed greens, and arugula). In addition, items to provide your salad with color, crunch, or garnish will be included (will vary weekly but possibilities include radishes, salad turnips, fresh herbs, garlic, etc).

Both shares also include a farm note and recipes.

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I just joined Trish's CSA yesterday - my first CSA ever. Innisfree is literally down the road from us and we are splitting a share with another family (Thanks, Christine!). We are also doing an egg share.

Although I'll be doing my own gardening in Sugar Hollow, I'm still not sure how productive I will be this season and a CSA will get me to try vegetables that I normally overlook in the store (like cabbage and parsnips). If my garden is productive, friends and I have been talking about teaching each other different ways of preserving our harvests.

Spring, you can't arrive soon enough!

Moss Make Your Heart Race? Read on.

When LISH reader Betsy wrote me about what she has done with moss around her home and in her gardens, I asked if she could send some photos. Lucky us! Fawn over them with me.

Betsy says that she just takes a little from the woods around her house, tucks the moss in the spot where she would like it to grow/spread/do its magic and even when it looks like it might not make it, she says that it comes back the following spring - in full. Look at those stepping stones! What little woodland sprite wouldn't love to trollop along that path?!

So there you have it. Moss gardening made simple. With the patience and creativity I can only aspire to having. Thank you, Betsy!

Mossily yours,

Tracey

A Marriage in the (Ignored) Garden

Love means having a husband who doesn't give you a hard time for biting off more than you can chew. Garden-wise. Instead, he quietly helps you reclaim what has become overrun and completely unruly. He spends part of his weekend battling the wicked thistles - because a few months ago, you came inside - weepy. Croaking that it looked as if whoever used to tend our gardens seemed to have either died or up and left. He tells you that the aforementioned gardener was actually very busy doing something else. Bringing another life into this world and nurturing her in the best way possible. And, I melt.

So we worked together this past weekend. Battling the brush and the thorns. Bringing hope for the following spring planting season.

I also called on the experience of fellow gardeners in the Piedmont Virginia Garden Swap for their thoughts on reclaiming an ignored (but much beloved!) garden. Many recommended sheet mulching with newspaper and cardboard (we are trying that - with cardboard only - as we are growing food in these beds and are wary of the chemicals in newspaper). April's comment to me - about wearing my ignored garden as a badge of (mama) honor - made me puff my chest out and smile. Thanks, girl.

Over dinner last night, friends of ours (Reed and Christine of the Blue Ridge Permaculture Network) mentioned an organic farming friend who uses plastic mulch and plants in plastic mulch. We have a supply of black plastic that we'll be trying for the fall and winter - to smother what weeds we can and start anew in 2009. But planting in plastic? Must investigate further. This ATTRA article is interesting.

I can't wait to get back to growing our own food. With the lean times and the world being topsy-turvy lately - it will become more and more important to tend to our own plots and harvests. Our century's version of a Victory Garden.

Fall Garden Chores: Steph of New Branch Farm

I asked several of my gardening friends to tell me about their favorite fall garden tasks.

Stephanie owns and operates New Branch Farm - an organic farm just outside of Charlottesville. She is also a new mom to Ryan. How she does both befuddles me. Make sure to visit Steph at the C'ville City Market on Saturday mornings. She will be selling arugula, basil, eggplant, green beans, greens mixes, garlic, lettuce mixes, radishes, tomatoes and tomatillos.

From Steph:

My favorite fall activity is planting garlic. It's a welcome break from all the fall field "clean-up" - tilling in earlier plantings, bringing in tomato stakes and row covers for winter storage, etc. You can plant garlic late in the fall so it usually one of the last outdoor farm activities I do (I usually plant between late October to mid November).

Good catalog resources for garlic are Johnny's Selected Seeds and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.

Gardening Roots That Run Deep

L to R: My mom, my grandma and me.

Among the marigolds and black-eyed susans. 1971.

As Corey and I await the arrival of our Little Bean, I can't help but think about times spent with my mom and my grandma among public estate gardens, among backyard gardens, among rows of plants within a greenhouse or nursery, among whatever drew their attention and sparked their curiosity in any garden. Visits were usually peppered with my grandma's sharp, quick-witted, hysterical observations and my mom's unabashed enthusiasm - usually punctuated still - to this day - with a head-spinning "Look-it!"

I only hope that I can give our Bean memories of the same ilk. If she falls as deeply in love with gardening as I have, I'll be tickled.

And if she ends up preferring to play in a punk garage band and dyeing her hair with Kool Aid, that'll be cool, too.

A Visit From Leora

As if a recent visit from my dear friend Leora wasn't already a huge treat, she also brought freshly-made homemade pesto and Wild Bergamot (from the Innisfree CSA). Lucky me - all around!

Merry, Mellow Summer Solstice

I am celebrating the beginning of summer with a memory.

This is me and my brother, Chris - washing our Grandpa's "Beep Beep" (VW Bug) - around 1974. Things didn't get much better than this. Except maybe for a post-"chore" snack complete with pink lemonade and Pepperidge Farm cookies. Or maybe some of those ice-cube tray orange juice treats - with toothpicks frozen in place - for our little hands to hold.

I had planned on putting this photo up for my brother's birthday - this past May.

Me: "Yeah, I was thinking of doing a blog photo tribute to you for your Big Day."
Chris: "Ugh. Man. Am I in my underwear?"
Me: "Er, uh, well . . . drats . . ." (Temporarily foiled)

He has since come around. I'm pretty sure he loved these summer afternoons as much as I did.

Field Trip: Durham, North Carolina

My gardening world was temporarily put on hold this last weekend as I went to visit my close friend Suz, down in Durham, North Carolina. It was a much-needed girls weekend. I still feel a little lightheaded from the feasting of debaucherous proportions, mindless, fluff movies and the third pedicure of my life. But, I mean lightheaded . . . in a good way.

Weeding, dead-heading, mulching and harvesting were replaced by pulled pork BBQ, fried okra, hush puppies, Durham Bulls baseball stadium hot dogs, some crazily yummy baked goods from a local bakery - Guglhupf, as well as shrimp and grits. I also made my yearly pilgrimage to Foster's Market. As they say, "When in Rome" - yada-yada-yada. Excuses, excuses.

I took only one picture. Of the BBQ place - The Q Shack. You can see, I had my priorities straight. While packing on Sunday, I feared that I might need a U-Haul rental trailer for the extra junk in my own, er, trunk.

So, I'm off to go find something green to eat . . . something with color. Oh, yes, and my running shoes.

I am also thinking of okra for next year's garden. Inspired by my trip to North Carolina. Cause fried anything rarely sucks.