In Goes the Garden

Posted on May 12, 2014 by Merridee

Last year’s garden was kind of a bummer. The only things that were really notable were the beans and then the carrots (which I harvested the last of for Thanksgiving.) The winter garden was a total dud — which I guess is fine since it left plenty of room for the baby trees (most of which look like they are going to live — still holding out hope for the front yard dogwood, one crapemyrtle and 2 of the goldenrain trees.) So this year, I added the new satellite dish bed and a big plastic pot for potatoes. I also built the soil up with some good compost. Fingers crossed for a better year.

Started the adventure by going to what is suppose to be Clark County’s best plant sale — the Master Gardener’s Mother’s Day Sale — on Mother’s Day. Pretty much a downer! I did get 4 really nice looking tomatoes, but they were out of everything else. So Monday, I went to Portland Nursery to get the rest. They were out of pabalonos and padron peppers and pineapple sage (which is new favorite) and the herbs were pretty picked over. Everything else: one more tomato (total of 5), 2 eggplant, 6 peppers, 2 cucumbers, 2 winter squash, zucchini, yellow summer squash, pattypans. Already planted from seed: beans, peas (only one came up), beets (will probably resow yellow), radishes, 2 kinds of carrots, arugula. Neighbors gave me walla walla onion and chard starts. I had some little golden potatoes that I didn’t cook and started sprouting, so I threw them in that big black pot.

The veggie haul — all of the stuff I got at Portland nursery. There is also some bedding plants in here to fill in borders and pots. Also the herbs that will go in the herb bed.

Everything planted and looks good so far. I threw in some marigolds just to encourage pollination since the garden is kind of far away from the other beds.

The onions and radishes a week or so ago. The other seeds are also planted here but most have not made an appearance yet. You can kind of see the red beets at the top right.

Potatoes seem to love this black pot. I have already added soil twice and they will need it again in day or so. Crazy — I have never grown potatoes, so they fill me with wonder!

Weekend update

Posted on May 6, 2014 by Merridee

Feels like every time I turn around something else amazingly cute is happening in the yard. I managed to get all of the plants that Mom gave me finally in and have been thrilled with how great things look.

The lupin are beginning to bloom. I can’t believe how big they got. Looks like the iris are going to bloom this year too — surprise considering the hacking I did to them!

The bed under the front window is being fantastic! The hostas are a recent addition from Mom. Aphids gave the lupin a ravaging but I think they are gone. Gets better every day!

With the hyacinth and tulips done, I moved the calendula around and moved some asters.

Columbine have always been one of my favorite flowers. There was a meadow in Colorado, where if you hit it at the exact right time was a blanket of blue columbine — so wonderful! This white one has been a real treat this year.

I was hoping to rip the satellite pole out but it was too expensive. So I made lemonade out of it. Should be a good spot for cooler veggies. Found that bench for free on the side of the road!

Christmas trees of a different kind

Posted on January 8, 2014 by Merridee

A few days before Christmas I was getting ready for work when someone knocked on my door (and Lily went wild barking). Thinking it would be UPS delivering the crock pot I bought myself as a Christmas present, I was surprised when I opened the door and there was a long skinny package bag there. On opening it I remembered that several months ago I had given a donation to the Arbor Day Foundation and they would send me 10 trees. Well here they were — not 10 but 12 little twigs that were suppose to be trees. The biggest was about 28″ tall and the shortest maybe 8″. 3 Eastern Redbuds, 4 White Flowering Dogwood, 3 Goldenraintree, and 2 Crapemyrtle. Here is a gardening challenge — getting these little sticks to someday become a flowery forest.

I didn’t have time to deal with them then, so I stuck the bunch is a vase of water and proceeded to slog through the next 2 weeks of work. On my second day off after the work marathon (first day was spend entirely in bed being ULTRA lazy), I had to come up with a solution for what to do with all of these twigs.

A bucket of baby trees — but what to do with them?

I found places for 3 of them (dogwood in the front berm, crapemyrtle south of the driveway and goldenraintree in the herb garden southwest corner) but I want the rest to go in beds I haven’t dug yet — along the back fence and near the back of the house. So I had to stick them some where and the only bare patch I could think of was the garden.

Most of my new little trees will have to live in the garden until I can come up better plan.

That will do for now.

And that crock pot I was expecting. It came the following day. Here is the first thing I cooked in it —

First crock pot adventure. Louisiana-style short ribs with spicy cole slaw. YUM!

short ribs with spicy cole slaw. Pretty yum! I think I am going to like this new toy but I am going to rename it the slow torture device — it makes the whole house smell AMAZING while the food is cooking!

Spring Staging

Posted on October 21, 2013 by Merridee

The storm at the end of September put a full stop on summer. Week before it was hot sultry summer; the week after the air had that crisp autumn bite. Suddenly it was foggy in the mornings burning off to golden afternoons and darn right cold nights. Like I said, the yard was starting to wind down for the year. Especially the garden. The tomatoes all split and the bean vines turned soggy. Time to rip out the garden. And try a winter garden for the first time. So after working 10 days in a row, I finally had a weekend (no one to blame but myself since I AM the person who does the scheduling now.)

Everything got ripped out except the carrots (which have been long, big and delicious), arugula, late august planted peas and radishes.

I threw in some brussels sprouts, leeks, onions, a winter lettuces, just to see. However, the next morning I discovered that bare dirt equals neighborhood cat litter box — Lily was in heaven. So not sure if anything is going to grow or I will be just smelling cat-poop breath this winter.

After sorting the garden, I wanted to get some bulbs in. So last spring, I toured the awesome tulip fields up by Mom and Dad’s and the master plan was to order some bulbs from those farms and have the folks bring them down. But the timing and my vacation lazy foiled that plan. Plus I was nervous about the squirrel epidemic we seem to have going on in this neighborhood. Seriously, there are about a bazillion of them — much to Lily’s delight. She has biffed it on the garden beds and fences numerous times trying to get one. Thankfully she gracefully pretends it didn’t happen and jauntily returns to smile at me. She really isn’t serious about catching them, she enjoys the chase. But the nasty little rodents can be mayhem on bulbs. And, swear on my soul, the more I spend on bulbs the more likely they are to find them delicious! So instead of the fancy Skaggit County tulips, I went the Fred Meyer route. But what I lack in pedigree, I am making up for in volume! So I planted a 152 bulbs in the front yard this weekend (and destroyed my bulb digger in the process). If the squirrels don’t eat them all, I should have a colorful spring.

60 tulip, 60 crocus, 24 hyacinth, 8 paperwhites. There are already some daphs under the window and grape hyacinth by the drive way, otherwise those would have been included in the mix.

Vegetables of My Labor

Posted on August 13, 2013 by Merridee

The garden is hitting its stride! Up to this point things have been trickling in at a reasonable pace — a few zucchini a week, some beans, arugula — enough that I have enough to enjoy but no so much that I am getting tired of things yet. I have been cooking a lot of my old favorites — grilled zucchini, sauteed veggies on coucous and sausage, awesome green bean tarragon potato salad — and adding a few new recipes to the rotation — “Fried” zucchini spears, etc. It is all helping me keep myself feed while I am so busy and stressed out. And cooking has always been another of my destressors — so win, win. But I have been eager for the tomatoes to start pouring in.

Today, a rare day off, I had my first really bumper harvest:

Beans, carrots, zucchini, yellow squash, patty pans, cucumber and a pile of tomatoes! (and one random radish)

And I’m looking forward to more.

Peppers in the front — mostly not ready yet but lots going on there. carrots are still pretty small. 2 tomatoes — getting close to trickling in. zucchini and squash producing a few a week. Look at the big ole weed — gardening fail.

My favorite — the stupice — is pretty small but producing. The green zebra is proving to be the most promising. The black beauty is also doing pretty good.

The beans continue to be the top producers. The winter squash isn’t doing much at this stage. The patty pans aren’t as productive as the other summer squash but doing ok. Arugula has bolted and will need to come out soon. Other lettuces are really bitter and will probably end up getting composted. The cucumber in front is doing better than cucumber usually does for me, but that isn’t saying much.

Another Side Project

Posted on July 11, 2013 by Merridee

I actually finished this project a few weeks ago, but I have been so crazy busy and distracted I didn’t take pictures so I could blog about it. My very good friend and Editorial Page Editor John Laird is retiring so The Columbian needed to fill his position. The Sports Editor Greg Jayne ended up getting promoted to the job and then my boss Micah Rice was promoted to Sports Editor. That left the copy desk without a fearless leader. So as assistant news editor, it made sense for me to try for it. And I got it. I am now, or will be at the end of this month when everyone shifts around, the News Editor at The Columbian. So far it is being really stressful and one of the first things on my to-do list is to fill our vacant position. I am excited for the challenge but also nervous. So we’ll see. The next few months are going to be insane!

Anyway, this project was pretty easy to throw together — just laid down some more of that leftover mulch that I removed when redoing the front patio and artfully arrange some of my pots. Planted a few extra things in said pots and done. But I love how it looks. And it is a good place to have some of my more heat-sensitive herbs — parsley, cilantro, sorrel — so they don’t bolt as fast.

Looks super cute. On the other side of the walk, the blueberries are doing great. And the chamomile and callengula are filling out. I also threw some sunflower seeds that Eric Murray got in a wedding invitation last year in the ground and was surprised, not only that they came up, but that they are doing great.

And now that things are looking so cute back here, I have been trying to take time to enjoy it. So after a long weekend of weeding, I fired up the grill and cooked dinner.

A rib-eye steak and zucchini from the garden

Steak, grilled zucchini and a arugula, blueberry and corn salad. (arugula and some of the blueberries are from my garden.) Holy crap it was delicious!

And as an added bonus, here is one of my more-awesome day lilies, that I snap a pic of today.

Super cute orange day lily. Have I mentioned that I love orange?

4th of July Tomato Gauge

Posted on July 5, 2013 by Merridee

When I lived at the Rex Hamilton with brother Derek, we always had a 4th of July party. They were super fun and crazy, hanging out in the yard with friends. An inadvertent consequence was I always managed to snap a photo of how the garden was doing. So it became something of a tradition to see where the tomatoes were on the Fourth.

Things are chugging along but not as great as I hoped, considering new soil and all.

Tomatoes look kind of lame compared to former years — One year they were at the top of a 6-foot fence. The radishes bolted before they were really ready to eat. Same with the arugula. Peppers and squash are doing ok. Beets hardly came up. Peas are basically done. The only thing doing really well is the beans.

Things back here are going gang-busters! Tons of cosmos, callengula, mallow. Plus morning glory on my garden gate. So cute!

Oats and Beans and Barley Grow

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Merridee

OK, so I’m not growing oats or barley, however, I am growing beans. But I always sing that Raffy song in my head whenever I plant a garden. We used to listen to Raffy as a family when we were on road trips and it reminds me of happy family times and of home with veggies from my mom’s garden and makes me believe that by singing that song, my garden will be as prosperous as my mom’s always was. Hopefully with this lovely new soil, I’ll have bumper crops this year!

I followed my original plan. Hoping for a great bounty.

The count: 5 tomatoes, 6 peppers, radishes, 2 eggplant, carrots, zucchini, yellow summer squash, patty pans, acorn squash, delicata squash, peas, green beans, arugula, 2 kinds of mix lettuces, 2 kinds of beets.

A Dirty, Dirty Job

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Merridee

I have already proven that math confounds me (see my retaining wall post). And measurements are just as bad. As a page designer for the last 17 years, I have picas and points, even on a scalable screen, mastered. Inches can be iffy but in print I am close. In the real world it gets ugly. Anything bigger than an inch — feet, yards, meters, miles, kilometers — I am useless. That said, I NEED dirt. And a lot of it. After attempting to top off behind the retaining wall with a few bags of soil from the hardware store proved I have no idea what a yard looks like, I knew that it was more than I wanted to buy in individual plastic bags. So to the Internet I went. First to a yard calculator and then to a dirt company who would deliver. They came Friday morning.

6 yards! The picture does not do it justice — it was literally above my waist and took up most of the driveway. Holy hell, that is A LOT of dirt.

So out came the wheel barrow and for the next 3 days nothing but sholving and dumping — first into the garden boxes and then behind the retaining wall. Because this was happening on a lovely Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I got to meet a lot of my new neighbors out for a walk and enjoying the beautiful day. Lily made a ton of new friends and got a lot of exercise following me back and forth from the front yard to the back and out again. Neighbor Charles (who I really like and who Lily LOVES to bark at) made it a point of coming out and making sassy comments ever few hours — Thanks for that Charles!

But I triumphed!

3 days later. And some seriously sore muscles, I had moved it all.

And now ready for the fun part … planting.

Full and ready for planting

Another blank canvass ready for some fun!

Pow-pow Power Tools

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Merridee

After my little jaunt to Whidbey, I quickly got the majority of my haul from Mom in the ground and things were looking promising.

Things in the ground but need some time to grow. Plum tree is looking great!

Some of the things from the old house were bigger and helped make the new plantings not look so sparse.

The existing iris and snap dragons stayed put. Also Mom brought me some japanese iris and peonies and they were doing great!

Front yard well on its way, time to think about the back yard and the garden. I decided on raised beds for the garden, partly because that is sort of the trendy thing to do and partly because I am weary of digging out sod. I found a website to help me plan what I wanted to grow …

Site helped me map out how much space all of the things I was hoping to grow would take.

Now to build the beds. Hello power tools!

Lowes cut down the long boards for me but I had to cut the 4x4s myself. And then I got to screw them all together. The back bed has a bean trellis made from a 2×2 and leftover mesh fencing from the old house. Sturdy and super awesome looking!

Now time to get some dirt and let the growing begin!

The Overall[s] Adventure

Category Archives: Garden