growing a green ... thumb

i've never been much of a gardener - much less a/n (urban) farmer, but i married a man with a magic green thumb - one who has managed to keep our (flowering) rosemary plant alive through 2 winters! this year, after some serious contemplation, we expanded our previous garden of pots sitting along our retaining wall to take-up the entire strip of land in front of the airstream. half of me was sad to see some of the minimalist qualities of our yard give way to the half of me that was excited by the idea of designing an affordable garden and growing our own food - organic and "handmade" all the way!

so, we started by building a frame and then digging/rolling-up the grass in the planting beds and using it to fill the walk-ways. we then covered the walkways with landscaping-clothe (to keep the grass from growing back) and then filled them in with gravel. we ordered a truck full of 4-5 yards of black dirt with manure and other 'organic' things.

by the 29th of april we had the main bed done and ready for planting. we also worked to make a third gravel walkway between the new bed and a narrow ground bed from the previous year. on the 3rd of may we planted numerous seeds (radish, carrots, beets, golden beets, kale, spinach & brussel-sprouts) and a few starter plants (broccoli, peppers, celery, tomato and dill plants) as well as transplanted lettuce, arugula, basil, green onion & tomato starters that souliyahn had started from seeds back in march/april.

you can see (click on image to view larger) how much the garden has transformed in the first month. from empty beds of earth to food that is ready to be eaten already! we had our first meal from the garden on june 2nd: tuna salad on a bed of baby greens & cilantro with radishes. so fresh, tasty and ...... gratifying!

2009 will the year that i can say my thumb turned a lovely shade of green. i cherish my early morning time to exercise and garden before the boys awake. it is easier to grow food than i used to think...it has taken baby steps each year for this big garden to not be so daunting. i must also say a word or two about radishes.....they are so easy to grow! they sprouted first, could almost entirely be harvested already .... but i must ask ... anybody have creative ideas/recipes for radishes????

weekend

last weekend we took the long route to duluth to see family - stopping in wisconsin for a meeting with new {architecture} clients along the way. we drove through some of the most brilliant fall colors i've seen in a long time: golden yellows and bright/burning reds - stunning. but i was most impressed by this little apple that i picked from one of the apple trees on their property. my son and i picked a couple to eat - YUM - they were crisp and sweet with a bit of sour ... certainly best tasting apple i've picked from a non-orchard tree! but this one {in the picture} i couldn't eat right away, because i was obsessed with its nearly perfect proportion, and look at that leaf sticking out from the little apple's stem! i grew-up making drawings of apples with leaves - but none of them looked this perfect .. even in my mind.

breaking the "rules"

for whatever reason, i have tried to keep this blog about my jewelry and making ... separating the personal & mom-stuff into different blogs. (perhaps my perceived need to keep things "professional" -- perhaps silly???)

well, when i saw this stack of cookies over at assemblage (half a world away) i couldn't help but get excited ... first to make the cookies (lucky girl, me!) and second because it gives me a reason to talk about my rekindled desire to make food from scratch, to eat in my home, and to not eat out or take-out so much. i find the same sense of pride in the food that i've been making as i do in my jewelry. it's not that my meals are anything out of the ordinary - just that there is something about taking individual ingrediants and putting them together to make a nuorishing meal that is akin to making an object - to designing. beyond that, though, it satisfies a small part of the need in me to feel like a good mom -- basic, old-fashioned, and real.....

this morning i took an extra 45 minutes to stop at the playground before dropping my boy off at his grandmother's house......he rejuvinates me.