So this spring has been very weird. well... maybe it has actually been "Spring Like". Spring and Fall are the transitional season right? They are meant to be a bit unpredictable. our last frost date is listed as May 10.  I always wait though until memorial day weekend to do my planting. I figure I am pretty safe then, and our local garden club (which I keep meaning to join...) has a plant sale so I just buy them all and then plant them all and have a grand old weekend! 


I have been researching the straw bales and while some people recommend new ones each year that seem insane. (I have bought 17 in the last two years and they are $5.00 each and that just seems like a lot to spend annually....) so I figured I would just supplement and condition the balkes very well this year so they are still viable. 

Thus began my search for fish heads. Alas after posting twice on facebook asking for fish heads no one responded, I sometimes post things that are a bit.. shall we say "off" just to make people scratch their heads. For example a year or so for christmas I got amy sedaris' new book. “Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People.” I was VERY excited as I love her and her wacky sense of humor. So I changed my facebook user picture to this picture :



(just the bathing suit image actually) with no explanation. or caption or anything. No one asked, I never told. but I am certain people wondered. why? who? why? so I am guessing that my requesting fish heads was seen as a similar "tiffany is twisted" "do not make eye contact" "back away slowly" type situation. So long story I did not get fish heads. I did get epsom salt, aspirin egg shells, and some shrimp skins or whatever it is that shrimp have and fertilizer. Hopefully this will be enough.

As I said this Spring has been odd and our area had a frost warning Fri, Saturday and Sunday nights (may 25,26 and 27th!)!! I waited till Sunday to plant and still had to cover everything (I think I lost some celery (pictured in the last post) but nothing else, thankfully!)






I bought, 4 zucchini plants, 4 cucumber plants, 3 full sized tomato plants (green zebra, shady lady and hillbilly) 1 paste tomato (yellow banana) 1 currant tomato (sungold- my favorite! they are like little candy balls!) 1 grape tomato (grapette), 4 'sweet banana' sweet pepper plants, 1 'Hungarian wax' medium pepper plant, 1 'ring of fire' hot pepper plant, 1 'sweet pickle' sweet pepper plant 1 'jalapeno' hot pepper plant 2 tomatillo plants ('toma verde' and ... hmm can't recall the second variety). the plants were all strong and large and we have already gotten a few peppers! YUM! picture when i can.... i also built my own potting bench and will post a picture of that too! :)












***the above picture is from the book but i found this copy here: http://bostonherald.com/entertainment/books/2010/11/amy_sedaris%E2%80%99_crafts_book_will_leave_readers_stitches

Well spring has finally sprung! It has been slow coming this year! The yard is coming along well.  the retaining wall has gotten its second layer, the front beds are mulched, the herb spiral was renovated and replanted. No time for a real post but isn't a picture worth a lot of words?  so basically this post is going to be crazy wordy! lol  get ready!

toad house

herb spiral

daffodil

potato towers I will do a post about these soon

herb sprial

Regrowing celery

Light bulb vase that I made

first flower of the year, a crocus

lettuce in a basket

added a wee pond to the her spiral

parsley (curled and flat leaf) and tarragon came back,  added lemon thyme, english thyme, rosemary and oregano

strawberries

toad house with chives and the pond

azalea

she's a New age girl

So, I am not Irish, but my house has a big shamrock on the door and I am planning to make a split pea centerpiece to celebrate an Irish saint.  I am also not Catholic but I love giving things up for Lent! I always have, it is fun to see what you can live without, an exercise in self discipline, and even more-so since I know no one but me cares if I stick with it.  So this year my new years resolution was a vague "be more healthy" and I started by limiting how much pop I drink and what I eat.  So for Lent I decided NO MORE POP! and  wonderful GF gave up meat.  HMM kinda a two-for there. since she has given it up I am now eating a lot less, since we shop for,  cook and eat dinner together.  This should be interesting!

We normally try to eat at least one vegetarian recipe per week but GF doesn't like pasta very much, especially sans meat, and I don't like beans. so we focus on mushrooms a lot of the time. but 40 days is a lot of mushrooms. lol.

In non Lent related news, We are building a retaining wall around the front garden bed.  We are doing this for many reasons.  1. It will be pretty/increase curb appeal. 2. It will actually retain the dirt and mulch that seem to love to cover the sidewalk and 3. b/c Maya likes to pee right there. GROSS. She doesn't get that my garden is a bad choice.... so hopefully this will stop that!  We went to Home Depot and picked out the pavers but had no clue they weigh so much (20lbs each!) so we only got 22 to start (we need about 100 total) since we drive a regular little four door car.  and are not super tough. I am thinking this project will be bigger than I imagined but seeing how nice the pavers look with just the one layer, sitting there (eventually it will have 4 layers and they will be level.. eventually...) I think it will be well worth it!

I also got (with my tax refund of course, tis the season right?) a cast iron dutch oven (summer campfires look out!), cedar shims (for an awesome DIY Sunburst mirror project I have planned.), and reed fencing    (for potato towers and to cover an ugly chain link fence. ) so I have lots of good things in the works...  if the snow will ever stop.  :(

** bonus points  if you are wondering.... yes the title of today's blog IS a reference to the 90's one hit wonder song..

blog fail, update and reinvention

So I kinda failed at blogging.  Summer took hold, and with the 90+ temps we ended up with  a lot less garden and a lot more pool. lol. We got one of those inflatable rim pools and set it up (note to self: a slanted hill-y back yard and a pool,  do not an easy situation make) and spent the better part of the summer sitting it in (it was only 30inches deep) watching our garden shrivel. We did get some cherry tomatoes, some small onions, some potatoes, a handful of tiny peppers , a cucumber, and some education, so it was not a total failure.  The herb spiral rocked once again. All the herbs did superbly and tasted delicious! I will update later and add some pictures.  I also think I may start adding a few other dimensions to this blog. I will probably always stink at keeping up with it, but maybe it will be easier if I also talk about less seasonal things.    Since Pinterest came into my life I have been doing a lot of crafts and have also been trying lots of new recipes, so maybe I'll blog about those as well. And maybe hiking since we stopped smoking (after the asthma hospital scare, so almost a year ago now!) we started really getting into hiking it is so much fun!  Oooh and the Oscars! lol that is my latest obsession.  Each year we try to see all the nominees for best picture, best actor and actress. We have 3 more to go (plus two more that we will not be able to see, due to them not being shown anymore and not yet available on DVD) So far I really liked Argo, and Beasts of the Southern wild.. I also enjoyed Silver Linings Playbook and The Impossible (though i do not think Naomi Watts is best actress!, she was practically  in a coma for 1/2 the movie!   ok back to the grind! (which reminds me i also got a juicer and started making my own juice.... lol)