First Harvest

This city girl has grown her some greens. Just cut the outer leaves of some early lettuce and spinach and you’re looking at our first salad from the garden. There was enough spinach to make a delicious quiche courtesy of “the girls,” who have all started laying again after their first molt.

There was even some tender red lettuce to add to the mix.

The perennial herbs are doing well, as they always seem to do, year after year. Just add some compost and they give back another year of flavor, beauty and nourishment.

I put in some more lettuce seeds, so hopefully we’ll have lots more salads before it gets too warm.

Peas are coming up fast…

…and lots of tiny carrot, beet and annual herb seedlings are poking up their heads.

Both pole and bush beans have burst through, but something seems to be chewing on some (grasshoppers?), although I’ve yet to catch them in the act.

Now that a lot of the garden work has become more routine and, hopefully, our fear of frost is over (some say Mother’s Day, others Memorial Day, I’m hedging my bets with duplicate plants in the garden beds and the greenhouse), I plan on getting back in the studio to make some jewelry to put up on my Etsy shop. And you can bet the garden will be my inspiration.

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The Garden Makes It. Right.

Today was one of those days. Sunny: check. Warm: check. Breezy but not too breezy: check. Chickens happy: check. Dogs content: check. Plants growing: CHECK!

Let’s take a wee tour, shall we?

  Blackberry bush blossoms.  Bee balm made it back through the winter!

Always reliable multiplying onions.

   These keep company in what I call my first “tank.” It’s a waist-high raised bed that’s perfect for someone like me with a bad back. Also in Tank number 1 are chives, oregano, sage, lavender, lemon verbena, lemon thyme and maybe, yes, an errant asparagus spear I forgot to transplant. But wait. There’s more!

  These are peas protected by what I’ll call “the cage.” More about these in a minute. Four different kinds of peas coming up in Tank number 2 along with lots of garlic and three kinds of onions, planted as sets last fall.

  Tanks number 1 and 2 are in what we now call “The Dog Yard.” That’s where Obi Wan Kenobi, Sheba and Posey play. Also there are the composter, the berry bushes, a climbing rose bush, two different kinds of honeysuckle and the grapes. There are also containers full of mint. This one has chocolate mint, another peppermint. It was looking like the grapes were dead (this is my first attempt at growing grapes so who knew?), but never count a good grape out.

  The red Concord grape is starting to bloom and the green grape vine has two tiny sprigs coming out.

  Now you can see the “cages” in all their glory. Here you see Tanks number 3 and 4 and they reside in what we now call “The Chicken Yard” for obvious reasons (see previous chicken posts!). There are two more Tanks you can’t see. The cages are a collaborative effort between my Mister, my friend and handyman extraordinaire, Kevin Jordan, and moi. When my peas were being eaten as they began to sprout I could see it was going to be a constant fight between The Gardening Humans and The Critter Kingdom. We are determined to win. So far, so good (she whispers so the critters can’t hear).

  Nothing fancy, my greenhouse. More like a tent than anything else. But it works. See?

  Lots more going on in here, but, well, you’ve probably seen enough. Let me leave you with the best part of being out in the garden…the loving company of my furry friends.

  Obi and Sheba seem pretty content, no? When we’re all together outside there is no wrong.

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Dance Like Nobody’s Watching

After a week of scary stuff — floods and terrorists to name a few (I have a daughter that lives near Chicago and one in Massachusetts) — when I saw this I thought “THIS is what we must do! Dance like nobody’s watching. Take the moment and give it our unique stamp of joy. The only one to keep us down is us.”

If you haven’t seen this, please enjoy with my compliments. Made me laugh out loud and vow to dance a lot more, sing out loud and smile every day. I’m out to tend the chickens and see what’s coming up in the garden. I’ll show you later.

Just click on the link and enjoy.

Bus Stop Dancing Queen

Happy weekend and smile as often as you can.

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Learning Frugality From the Past

I stumbled upon this gem titled “The Wartime Kitchen & Garden” from the BBC on YouTube and thought I’d share. It really gives you a feel for the time and how the individual household coped with an historical world-changing event.

My favorite parts: making an onion “rope” for drying, the news clips, the songs of the era, and the re-enactments of the evacuees coming to stay and share Ruth’s garden and kitchen. Look for other programs on wartime farms, gardens and kitchens from the BBC. They’re well worth your time, I’ll wager. I intend to watch as many as I can find. Better than most of what’s on TV these days!

Certainly gave me a new appreciation for my home garden and efforts at self-sufficiency.

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Spring Chickens

Is there a prettier color than that of the sun shining on the feathers of a Rhode Island Red?

I’ve finally got the girls so they’re pretty much getting along. Two runs with two coops, side-by-side, seems to have done the trick.

It’s not like they have it hard or anything. Here’s the view from the coops:

Poor pitiful things.

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Signs of Spring

Mister and I have lived in Prescott, Arizona, for almost 19 years. Most folks think of Arizona as desert, but those of us who live in the northern parts know better. It gets cold up here in the mountains. We get snow. And there’s lots of green.

This is the coldest winter Mister and I remember since moving here. Oh, we’ve had nights with colder temperatures, but we don’t remember a long cold period like we’ve had this winter. It seems, however, that the spring thaw is upon us and none too soon.

As I walked around the garden I was uplifted. First were the chives, green sprouting from brown. I may even cut some tonight to put on the fish I’m planning on making for supper.

Then, in one of my plastic tubs, the chocolate mint said hello. Ah, mojitos. Happy memories from last year abound!

The next harbinger of things to come were several clumps of daffodils and these were a special delight. I planted them years ago but every spring the bunnies seemed to find their way in and devour them before they had a chance to bloom. Last year SuperKevin (my miracle worker handyman) shored up all the fences and patched all the holes and it appears he “done good.” At least so far. I can’t wait for that first sunny yellow bloom.

Finally, the onion and garlic sets I put in last autumn are going crazy! I’m going to try seed onions, too. Both sets and seeds are a first for me this time around. I may never have to buy another onion or clove of garlic, since I planted every variety I could find.

So what am I doing tonight? Getting out the heirloom seeds I bought and gathering everything for the coming days! If the weatherman is telling the truth, it’s supposed to get up into the 60s this weekend and the nights are supposed to stay above the mid-20s. I think it’s time to move into the greenhouse.

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A Note of Nostalgia

Mister and I were cleaning up the other day and we came across this publicity photo I had taken a few years before we met when I was the vocalist in a jazz band.

As you can see, the name of our band (I was its founder) was “Group Therapy” (notice a theme here?). We did jazz standards, mostly from the 1930s and 40s, and for a few years in the 80s made some extra dough playing at corporate parties and weddings.

It made me sad to be reminded that two of its members have passed away and I have lost touch with the other two. Funny how life moves forward, people come in and out, memories fade and are rekindled.

The true constant is that music, for me, will always be there. Listening, playing, singing, learning. Without a song, what would life be?

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No Idling Here

Time whooshes by, doesn’t it? But I haven’t been twiddling my thumbs. Not this gal!

Lessee…an update.

Had a nice class with one of my favorite beaded flower students. We made tea roses. I adapted the pattern from a Japanese book I have, interpreting the instructions as best I could. I really like this white one!

I’m putting together a Carnation class for April. Photos to come!

But the biggest development is my transformation into Farmer Jane. It all started with a garden. Then a bigger garden. Then a greenhouse. And now, chickens! Seven of ‘em, to be exact. In a later post I’ll share some of the drama with you (little did I know, with chickens there is lots of drama). Right now, however, all is calm in the chicken world and we are getting the best-tasting, freshest, most beautiful eggs you could want to see. This was our very first one!

Like everything worthwhile, it takes time to learn the ropes and get systems in place. Sometimes it takes several tries before those systems are humming. I think we’re finally there, so hopefully I’ll have time to share a lot more on these pages in the coming days.

If you thought I was sitting on my duff all this time…well, no.

 

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An Ode to Excellent Tools

As some of you may remember I’ve been canning. A lot.

The last of the cucumbers came in and I decided to make more refrigerator pickles. And then I remembered.

I had a mandoline. Not the instrument, the kitchen tool (different spelling). And, yes, it’s French. Trust the French.

Now I’ve had the cheap plastic kind. They work. They’re Okay. But I was shopping at Tuesday Morning a couple of years ago and saw this one, at an unbelievably good price. And Martha said everyone should have one. A good one. So I got it.

My beautiful (sharp) mandoline sat on my lazy Susan next to the pots and pans. It seemed a little much to drag it out for one onion. One potato. One cucumber.

But now I have a garden. And I had all these cucumbers and onions to slice for refrigerator pickles. God bless you, Martha. Tuesday morning, too.

 

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Summer of Peaches and Cream

 

This single peach dahlia from my garden seemed like this summer’s emblem. Warm, lush and filled with hard work and its fruits (and vegetables).

 

 

Life pretty much revolved around the garden and growing things, then figuring out what to do with them.

 

 

Most of the harvest has been eaten, frozen, canned or dried.

 

 

The peaches were more abundant this year than all of the fifteen years we’ve spent in this house. It was as if my extra efforts at planting sparked the three old trees that remain in our yard to give us their best.

For a few days I’ve been relaxing, catching up and just taking in the late summer beauty. I’ve been reviewing our full larder with the pride that “I grew that!” and the satisfaction of knowing we’ll have some homemade fruit and vegetable delights when we start to see our breath on the air and the snow begins to fall.

Ah, but I see the tomatoes are coming in…

 

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