A Return to the Blog and the Garden!

After a bit of a blogging hiatus, I'm back. The past month was a flurry of out-of-town visitors, trips to Fillmore, yard work, and sewing, sewing, and more sewing. I really thought the Piddies orders would slow down as we get closer to summer, but apparently I was wrong. With lots of return customers and referrals from past customers, things in the Etsy shop are hopping. It's great news for our bank account, and bad news for the house & yard. Mainly just the house, because I'm dying to be outside, so that's where I spend every minute I'm not sewing.

The vegetable garden has been great fun this year, and we've been reaping a small harvest already of greens, radishes, and herbs. It's amazing what a few fresh herbs will do to wake up inspiration in the kitchen. The early part of spring was so cold that despite planting in early March, a lot of the plants are only now in full swing. This has thrown a wrench into what I thought were brilliant plans for planting the warm weather vegetables after the cool weather vegetables had been harvested, and I am now having to be a bit creative about where I plant things. Squashes and cucumbers are being nestled in amongst the radishes in anticipation of the radishes being harvested by the time the squash gets large enough to take up significant space. The peppers have been planted in the same bed as the tomatoes, which should work well considering the tomatoes are trained to grow on a trellis in the center of the bed, leaving the edges free for peppers. With any luck, it will still work out well and we'll have a nice variety of veggies this summer and fall.

Radishes, spinach, and lettuce in the closer bed;
herbs, strawberries, beets, and cabbage in the far bed.
Two other unseen beds hold tomatoes, peppers, carrots, and greens.

Young lettuce.

Ella and I planted our beans today. It proved to be so much fun for Ella that I found her repeatedly digging up the seeds we'd planted so she could plant them again...and again...and again. Sean's genius idea of giving her some small pebbles to "plant" worked like a charm, so hopefully the beans have been exhumed for the last time.

Planting (and replanting) Purple King beans around
the outer perimeter of the pea tower.

We planted two bean varieties today, both pole beans, and will plant the bush beans as soon as there is space in one of the beds - likely where the lettuces are now. My hope is that planting the Purple King pole beans around the outer perimeter of my pea tower will make double use of that space. The peas will have been harvested by the time the beans grow large enough to set fruit (I hope I hope). I also built two bean towers nestled in the spaces between my garden beds, using 6-foot poles, some small pieces of iron flower bed edging I haven't been using, and twine. They turned out quite lovely, and the ornamental Apricot Runner beans should be beautiful on them in a few weeks. The seeds for the Apricot Runners were some of the most gorgeous I've ever seen, and Ella had great fun playing with them before we planted them.

Seeds for the Apricot Runner beans.

Planting and laughing.


Peeking through the pea tower.

Ella so wanted to play inside the bean towers ("It's a HOUSE, Mama," she told me again and again as I was pulling her out from what looked to me like a twine prison) that I was inspired. What fun a little bean "teepee" would be for little ones! The bean towers I made on a bit larger scale would be great, and any quick-growing climbing vine would work well, provided it's not prone to cause skin irritation. Beans would actually be just about perfect, and probably a lot of fun to go inside the fort to harvest! I'm going to scout the yard tomorrow to see if I can find a good place to give it a try.

One of the bean towers, about 5 feet tall and
just under 2 feet in diameter.

An empty snail shell perched on the top of the bean tower,
head-on-a-stake style, in hopes that it will strike fear
into the hearts of those slimy bastards and make them
think twice about eating my tender bean shoots.

I'd love to hear from you about your own gardens! What are you growing, and how do you deal with limited space?

Backyard and photos

The seeds *finally* arrived for my spring garden, so in go the peas, arugula, lettuces, spinach, and radishes. Hooray! I'm so excited to get the yard cleaned up, and especially for the backyard. We have 1500 lbs of bamboo sitting in the garage just waiting to become a fence, 6 raspberry and blackberry bushes waiting to produce my future jams, jellies, pies, and crepe fillings, and I'm sure there's some sod out there somewhere just begging to be my new tiny lawn. It will be so great for Ella to have a nice place to play in the backyard, and I can't wait for the backyard barbeques!

While I dream of a finished backyard, here are a few photos:

Ella and her favorite guy, Connor.

Connor helping Ella bite her teething ring (the teething ring has recently re-emerged as an acceptable alternative to chewing on scissors, nails, and knives).

More of the "picture smile".

Favorite Things

This sunny day has me in such a great mood! I've been thinking about things that make me happy today, and decided to post a few here for reflection on a less-sunny day.

• Sunny days!
• The Bakery's incredible Choux La Creme (cream puff). Their choux pastry is some of the best I've had. Sean surprised me with one the other day and I just finished it with a late cup of coffee (they're gigantic). Delicious.
• Cute little Ella eating lunch! With a fork! I had to record this event for posterity.
• Listening to the birds chirping outside at the bird feeder.
  
• The feeling of having accomplished something. I just dug up my much-maligned patch of Star-of-Bethlehem, and am hopeful that I won't have to do it again this year.
• Sweet anticipation of my spring vegetable garden. On the list this spring: peas, lettuces, spinach, and a few other cool-weather tolerant veggies I haven't decided on.
• My raised garden beds! This is the first year that I won't have to do loads of work just to prepare the soil for a garden. My spring garden can actually happen!
  
• Ella hugging me this morning and saying, "I love you so."
• Last but certainly not least, a husband who is so incredibly supportive, helpful, and thoughtful. Sean calls me every single night on his way home from work to see if I need him to pick up anything. He cleans up my inevitably huge dinner mess every night. He takes Ella to the park on his days off so I can have some time to myself. He does all of the grocery shopping. He is in charge of Ella's bedtime and usually bathtime. And he surprises me with Choux La Creme!