Spring Slacker: falling behind on my garden

Those of us in Northern Colorado woke up to snow this morning. Heavy, wet, thick snow. The kind of snow that seriously puts a damper on my plans to wear my wrap dress tonight at the benefit (don't worry--I'm wearing it anyway! I'll just have to accessorize with a shoulder wrap--).

This weather also got me thinking about spring gardening (risky business in Colorado, if you haven't noticed...), and how I'm WAY behind on my planting. By this time last year I already had sprouts happily pushing out of the ground. I was also reading about the local food movement, researching CSA's in my area, and plotting for more garden space on the other side of my yard.

Alas, none of these good habits have transferred to this year. I haven't planted a seed or read anything about gardening.

In other words, I need a friendly reminder that in spite of the dreary weather, it really is time to get my hands in some dirt. Past time, in fact. So, in order to nurture some garden inspiration, I've decided to revisit a few posts from last spring, which I thought I'd share with you in case you missed them:

1. My Sprouts are Sprouting: my early-spring thoughts on the value of seeds. Maybe last year's enthusiasm will rub off on me this time around...

2. Feeding the Naysayers: why I think growing food is a good idea, even if my hubby has his doubts.

3. A Day at the Farm: last year's visit to my local CSA was so much fun! And even though I won't be joining this year (sadly, too much of my produce went to waste), I will be snatching up their goodies at the farmer's market!

Finally, for a little education viewing, I thought I would check out Food, Inc. Have any of you seen it already? If so, what were your thoughts?

Do you have any gardening plans for this year? Share about them by posting your comment below!

A Fond Farewell

The time for saying goodbye to Retro Summer '09 has come at last. It has been, if I don't mind saying, a fabulous three months of cooking and gardening and sewing and enjoying the outdoors.

Here are a few of the highlights:


Baking with seasonal fruits...


Enjoying the best of summer picnic foods, like ribs and corn...


And indulging in desserts of all shapes and sizes.


Of course there was growing and harvesting fresh food from the garden...



And visiting the local farm animals hanging out in the shade...


There were a lot of summer projects, from handmade jewelry...


To handknit cardigans...

And summer dresses...

There were lots of summer flowers to be picked...

and enjoyed.

And, finally, there was of course the beautiful outdoors to explore.

And plant in...

And make campfire memories with.

Of course, even though summer is coming to an end, there is a fresh excitement in the air for the arrival of fall (one of my most favorite seasons). And I'm sure that even though the days will get colder and the flowers will fade, I'll still be baking and sewing and enjoying nature--and posting all about it here.

Starting next Monday with a new series.

So let's bid summer a fond farewell, and welcome a new season with open arms!

Hope you enjoy a wonderful weekend and I'll see you on Monday!

Runt

Do you see these two tomatoes? Aren't they nice, all red and fresh? One of them is a roma I plucked directly from the veggie aisle at the grocery store. And the other, also a roma, I harvested directly from my backyard. Can you guess which is which?

If you guessed that the large beauty on the right was my homegrown prize, you'd be wrong. Dead wrong.

Because the tomato on the left, dwarfed in its shadow, is the one that I grew in my backyard. It is about the size of a large grape. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've eaten grapes that are bigger than that this week...

Is this tiny tomato an anomaly, you ask? Well...I can't say, because it is the only tomato that has decided to grace us with its presence this season.

Of course it was very, very tasty. That one bite that we had.

Very tasty.

But one bite may be all I get this summer.

Because apparently I've been carrying on from day to day completely unaware that I suffer from a severe tomato-growing deficiency. If it hadn't been for this small tomato, I would have never known.

We might not have caught it in time.

I'll keep you updated on my condition.

Previous Related Posts:
Veggie Revival
A Tale of Backyard Tomatoes
Feeding the Naysayers

Veggie Revival

It is time, I think, to give my little kitchen garden a second wind. The wonderful spring crops of lettuce and peas have been long since harvested, and the tiny plot is frankly a Huge mess.

Fortunately, many of those same spring crops can be planted in the late summer and will mature just in time for fall salads and soups. But before I can enjoy a harvest, I have some work to do.


First, I had to do a little research, which basically entailed me snatching the latest issue of Sunset magazine and flipping to the gardening section. There I copied a list of their recommendations for late-summer planting.


Then I headed out to two of our local garden centers to see what I could find. Don't you love garden centers? They are always so colorful and quaint.


And you can cart your stuff around in little red wagons.


Late summer, by the way, is a great time to buy plants. Garden centers start offering clearance deals, and beautiful fall mums line the benches (like the photos above). Plus, the cooler weather is optimal for planting.


But I came to find seeds. So, I'll follow the helpful signs and see what I can scrounge up.


Truth be told, seed pickings were unfortunately a little slim. Note to self for next year: order your late summer seeds ahead of time! Still, I'm sure I can make these seeds work for my small space.


Which you can see is a weedy, overgrown disaster right now... Frankly I'm a little embarrassed by it.


Which means that obviously the real chore I need to do is clean up! Gloves, pruners and some elbow grease will be my accessories for today as I head out to the yard and start pulling.

Are you planning a fall garden? If so, tell me about it by posting your comment here!

Previous Related Posts:
My Sprouts are Sprouting
A Tale of Backyard Tomatoes
Oogling Outdoor Spaces

Weekend Plans...sans internet

I'm hanging out here in the local bookstore, soaking up their free wi-fi since my modem decided to officially crash this morning. Not that I'm complaining--now I have a chance to snatch up my copies of Julie & Julia literature for weekend reading!

And since it looks like I'll be spending the whole weekend sans internet, here are a few other things I'm planning to do:

Admire this week's raffle gift--this summer-time patchwork pillow--before I hand it off to the lucky winner! (you, too, can enter to win by signing up for my newsletter!)


Play fetch with the die-hards....



Admire the flowers before they fade for good...

Eat ice cream. Lots of it. And maybe some peach cobbler...but more on that next week!


And perhaps dig into this stash of thrift store fabrics I've had laying around. I'm envisioning some cozy throws and pillows for the Fall....

Hope your weekend plans are as fun--if not, perhaps, modem-free--like mine!

Previously Related Posts:
Soaking up to the End
My End of Summer Reading Hit List

Soaking Up to the End

Every August it’s always the same. I wake up around the first of the month, look at the calendar, and panic. Where did the summer go!? I ask, alarmed. I feel like I blinked my eyes and now it’s almost over!

So, I’ve implemented a trend over the past couple of years. It is the “I’m going to squeeze every last drop out of summer” plan where I try to make up for days missed by the pool, and I linger longer on my balcony to watch the stars while the nights are still warm, and eat as many popsicles and fruit desserts as possible. All in an attempt to make sure I appreciate the final days of the season before autumn rolls around.



Naturally, this year is no exception, and so my posts here--as they did last August--will reflect my earnest attempts at soaking up the last of the sunshine. I’ll be sharing photos from my late summer garden and will no doubt oogle over some divine desserts. And post wistfully about summer fashion and leisure before sundresses are replaced by bomber jackets and picnics by football games.

So please join me as Retro Summer ’09 enters its final weeks, and I attempt to make them count!

Previous Related Posts:
A Poodle Skirt Summer
My Community Staycation
Doin' Nothing

A Tale of Backyard Tomatoes

Naturally when I was planning my veggie garden this year, I added tomatoes to the list. I mean, who doesn't want to grow and eat fresh tomatoes? They're arguably one of the best foods on the planet. And this year I had even upgraded my efforts by buying heirloom varieties, which are supposed to be superior in flavor to the standard hybridized types.

So here they are, in containers on the side of my house:


Don't they look happy? All verdant and full. Growing up tall and healthy.



Except for one thing....

Why don't they have any tomatoes? Why are they content to grow up towards the sky, and yet seem to disdain the thought of doing the actual work of growing fruit?

One--count it--one tomato is growing, and looks about as delectable as a lime-green marble.


I fertilize them often, and water them faithfully. Why are they so lazy?


And then there's this guy. Sad, sad tomato plant. I give it Exactly the same care as the other two. Does it look happy? No. Not at all. It is weeping over more and more daily. Like it has lost its will to live.


It is curling up to die.

As you can see, perhaps my dreams of making batches of homemade tomato sauce and piling my late summer sandwiches high to the sky with juicy goodness are just that--a dream.

Hopefully your tomato tales are better than mine--

Previous Related Posts:
Feeding the Naysayers
Slow & Steady
Ode to Peas

Feeding the Naysayers

My husband and I have had arguments about my little experiments in growing food. They go something like this:
him: you know you’re not saving money by doing this, right?
me: what do you mean? of course we’re saving money. Have you seen how much veggies cost these days?
him: yes. But you aren’t factoring in the water, soil, fertilizer and plant costs that are going into your little garden, are you?
me: well....no.
him: so long as you agree that this is just for fun and not practical. Because if you want efficiency and cost savings, you should just buy your produce at the store.
me: well aren’t you a party-pooper.


He, of course, has a point. It is more efficient for large-scale industrial farms to churn out food which is then harvested prematurely and hauled across the country in freight trucks. And yes, it is a very cheap way to eat. This is why, in a market-based system (propped up by giant farm subsidies...ahem), it has become the primary modus operatus for food. God bless efficiency!

However, I have to disagree with him when he says it isn’t practical to grow your own food. Because practicality should not only be measured in monetary savings (as many in the testosterone camp are inclined to do). So here are a few reasons why it is practical to have a veggie garden, party-pooping husbands excepting:

* it increases food security. We’ve become highly dependent on the big corporations that grow and deliver our food, but what if something were to happen to them? It is comforting to know that my yard can produce at least some sustenance if I need it in a pinch.

* it delivers more vitamins and minerals. Not only does homegrown food taste better (remarkably better!), but because the journey from ground to table is so short, those important nutrients that are in fruits and veggies don’t have an opportunity to deteriorate.

* it decreases our risk of contaminants and pathogens. With all the food scares lately, it is nice to know that the chances of something poisoning me from my own vegetable garden are significantly smaller than from commercial veggie sources.

* it is good for the soul (can you picture my husband rolling his eyes right now?). Seriously--getting out into the dirt, planting seeds, tending to their growth, and then eating their fruits, is very rewarding. It connects us to one of the most basic functions that defines human civilization: cultivating food. Thankfully we don’t have to strive as much as our ancestors did for this cultivation, but it feels good to strive a little. Sort of grounding in a way.

There are, of course, multiple other reasons why growing your own food is practical, but you get the picture.

As for my party-pooping husband--well, he loves the taste of freshly shelled peas, thank you very much.

Previous Related Posts:
My Sprouts are Sprouting!
Ode to Peas
How to Eat your Garden Peas (aka last night's dinner)

Slow & Steady

I know I've only been talking about growing and eating food for two days, and already I'm deviating, but we've gotten so much rain lately that my veggies are a bit lackluster!

The weather, however, has been really good for planting. Shrubs. Groundcovers. Perennials. And planting I have been...

Every year in the past it's always been the same thing: I'm bursting with ideas and energy to work on the yard/garden once spring rolls around, my head full of landscape visions. I last about two weeks, and then it gets hot, causing me to get hot and well...my motivation cools. Pretty soon it's September and I've wasted a whole planting season!

So this year I decided that I was going to try a different strategy--the slow and steady approach. I buy 1-2 plants per week, and head out to the yard on Sunday evening to put them in the ground. So far it's working! I've already accomplished Way more than years past, and my yard is actually starting to fill out.

These pictures are the most recent Sunday planting. I divided two 1 gallon wooly thymes into a dozen plants and set them in the ground. Since they're a groundcover--and a fast growing one--I should have a whole section of my still-a-baby front yard covered in wooly goodness soon!

Do you have a yard? What are you planting this year? Share your comments below!

Previous Related Posts:
Good Bones
Get in the Zone: knowing which plants to choose
A Girl Can Dream