I Was Famous Yesterday

It's true.  I was famous yesterday.  Oh, and Adjoa too.  I suppose I should share my glory with her.  I got an email from a friend informing me that there was a huge picture of me on page 2 of the Utah section of the Salt Lake Tribune.  I checked it out online, and sure enough, there I was.  Though not quiet as huge.  Oh, and Adjoa too.

The story was about the Wasatch Community Gardens Fall Planting workshop that I attended and blogged about here.  The photographer took about 5 pictures of Adjoa and asked for her name, etc. so I figured if there were any pictures to be seen, they would be of her.  I didn't even realize I snuck into a couple pictures, too.  Too bad the others of Adjoa didn't make the cut - there was a particularly funny one of her licking the garlic like it was a popsicle.

Anyway, here's the article and some of the pictures:

Fall gardening: Keep your green thumb year round


By alicia greenleigh
The Salt Lake Tribune
August 24, 2010 07:45PM



Summer may be coming to an end, but that doesn’t mean you have to put away the gardening gloves.

There are many hearty vegetables that thrive during autumn when cooler temperatures and less sunlight prevail. Local farmer Pete Rasmussen of Sandhill Farms in Eden says fall is the perfect time to plant leafy greens, root crops and garlic — his speciality.

“Many people think they can’t maintain a garden in the fall, but it’s a great opportunity to get some tasty crops,” he said. “Plus so many of these vegetables are high in antioxidants that they help build the immune system in preparation for winter.”

Cynda Donaldson, manager at Millcreek Gardens, agrees. “Some of the best spring gardens start in the fall.”

Before you put seeds in the ground, follow these tips for a successful fall garden:

Size and location • For first-time gardeners, Rasmussen recommends keeping it small. A 4-foot-by-8-foot area is ideal. Even though fall plants can make do with less light, it’s always best to give them maximum sun exposure. A south-facing plot is always best, Rasmussen said. But any sunny spot where plants can receive 6 to 8 hours of sunlight will work.

Soil • Remove all plants and debris from summer crops. If you’re starting fresh, make sure to aerate the ground and amend the dirt by adding a rich compost or manure available at local nurseries. Mulch is another good additive to keep the soil moist during the last days of summer.

Vegetables • Several vegetables thrive in fall weather, including kale, Swiss chard, spinach, arugula, cabbage, collard greens, leeks, Brussels sprouts, romaine lettuce, beets, radishes, carrots, turnips and garlic. Purchase seed packets or seedlings. Garlic plants sprout from individual cloves, and Rasmussen suggests buying garlic from nearby farms to ensure that you’re getting a mountain-hearty variety. Cloves from grocery stores may come from plants that thrive in non-mountainous conditions.

Planting • Sept. 1 through 15 is the best time to do your fall planting, while garlic can be planted between Sept. 20 and Oct. 20. Most vegetables take 30 to 60 days to mature. Follow spacing and depth instructions on seed packets. Individual garlic cloves should be planted six inches deep, and spaced six inches apart.

Watering • Follow the watering guide on back of seed packets. Keep soil evenly moist.

Harvest • For leafy greens, Rasmussen recommends cutting lower, mature leaves to allow the smaller inside leaves to keep growing. This ensures that the plant will keep producing throughout the season. Garlic grows for nine months and is harvested in the spring. Cure the herb by braiding the green stock and hanging to dry for two weeks.

Pest control • Plant a border of garlic around the garden. Its potent smell will help keep bugs and furry animals away.

Weeding • Familiarize yourself with weeds that grow along the Wasatch Front, so you don’t accidentally cultivate the wrong plant. Books to help you identify weeds and plants are available at nurseries and local libraries.

Copyright 2010 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


For the record.  I followed Pete's advise to the 'T and already have my seedlings planted.  Pete gave Adjoa a garlic clove, and although I tried to cook it up a couple times, she INSISTED we save it to plant.  She planted her garlic alongside the kale, swiss chard, carrots, and other veggies.  She's so proud of "her garden."  She keeps telling me that it is for her.  No one else can eat from her garden.  "Just Adjoa.  And Mommy.  And Daddy.  But not Eden!"  She'll be so excited when everything starts sprouting.
 
Here's a few pictures from the article of Pete's farm and produce.  Isn't it beautiful?  I love the garlic!
 

Wow, that's FRESH!

So we were finally able to enjoy our first tomato of the season.  The was only one ready, so I sliced it up, drizzled some EVOO and sprinkled some salt.  Was yummy.

Adjoa picked up a slice, took a delicate bite, then exclaimed, "wow! That's FRESH!"

Robert and I snickered for a second and then I said, "You're right, Adjoa.  It IS fresh."


The next night I sliced up a GIANT cucumber that had been hiding in the depths of the garden.  I bathed the sliced in lemon juice, and again, sprinkled on some kosher salt.  Adjoa picked up a slice, sniffed it, then stuck the whole thing in her mouth {much less delicately than when she ate the tomato}.  After she managed to chew and swallow the cucumber, she picked up another slice, held it above her mouth, declared "DelicEEEous Muchias!" and then gobbled up another slice.

I love this kid!  And I love that she appreciates and recognizes food that is delicEEEous Muchias!

Fall Planting - My First REAL post for WCG!

Here's the link to my first REAL post for Wasatch Community Gardens.  It's on fall planting.  Never mind that I have NEVER planted a thing in the fall {or rather a thing that is edible - I've planted loads of plants in the fall what with our constant landscaping updates and revisions.  This year I will even be trans-planting some plants in the fall}.

So anyway, check it out.  Share any fall planting tips you may or may not have, and at the very least leave a comment and say hello!  We're really working hard to promote the community gardens and the vast array of resources available to the community.  Oh, and of course, yummy food.  We like to promote yummy food too!

Guest Blogger for Wasatch Community Gardens

I was asked to be a guest blogger for Wasatch Community Gardens.  And by guest, they mean contribute on a regular basis {yikes!}.

Check out my intro post and leave me a comment.  Unless you are going to contest the fact that I am "experienced."  For bloggin' purposes, WCG will take my one full season of gardening as experience.  Lucky me.

Anyhoo, I'll be posting regularly over there, so check it out and subscribe to the feeds.  {It's also worth subscribing to because the other guests actually DO know a lot about gardening!} 

Oh, and if anyone has tips on working with wordpress, I'm open to suggestions!

Here a Chick, There a Chick, My Six Chicks are now Seven

Technically, hens shouldn't be able to reproduce, but the six chicks have expanded.  {I guess life does mimic art - or entertaining movies at the very least.}

After a traumatic wiener-dog attack, my cousin's chicks perished in battle.  There was one lone survivor, and Jeremy just didn't feel like building a coop for a single chicken.

So we brought her home.  Our Six Chicks picked on her a little at first, but we gave her space to escape and she grew quickly.  Now that she's the same size, the pecking and chasing have stopped.

Robert has been feeling neglected on the blog. He works so hard to build everything on my list - the list keep growing - and I haven't displayed his handiwork for a while.

So here's a tribute to the work he did on the coop.

He's so handy {and that makes me so lucky}.  I drew a cartoonish sketch of what I wanted the coop to look like, and he worked his magic.  We had neighbors asking if he was building a play house for Adjoa - that's how awesome it looks. 

Robert added some nice features - a window that slides open so the coop gets additional ventilation, poop drawers that pull out for easy cleaning, a faux mailbox where I can dump feed directly into the coop {this is especially nice for winter, or rainy days, or when we go out of town}, and an automatic waterer that is hooked up to the sprinkler system.  He's still working out some kinks on the indoor waterer.  We're hoping the insulation in the coop walls will keep the water from freezing in the winter with that indoor waterer.

Here's the base. I wanted it open under the coop so the girls can get out of the sun and rain.  Robert cut grooves in the redwood so the chicken wire could be inserted.  It made the wire a lot more stable, and there aren't any sharp edges that could hurt the girls.  It's super strong and looks fabulous!

Robert made the base, house, and roof in 3 different sections.  They can be taken apart so the whole coop can be moved.  It also makes it possible to do any adjustments, repairs, or deep cleaning without too much trouble.  The roof is SUPER heavy, though, so it still takes a few good men to take it off.

Good thing he enjoys all the projects I give him!

Adjoa was super eager to help with the coop.  She loved painting - and climbing in and out of the coop, declaring "Look!  I'm a chicken!" and flapping her "wings" while strutting around the coop.

Here's the coop in it's spot near the garden.  I had just started painting it.  You can see the base, door, and egg boxes.  I painted the inside of the coop white so it would be nice and bright in the winter, but the nesting boxes are gray because the girls like cozy, dark places for laying eggs.  Or so I heard.  Robert made the ground slope slightly and added a drain pipe that runs along the fence.  That should keep the run nice and dry for our girls.

Here's the inside.  You can see the black indoor waterer.  There is a large tube between the walls, and a door on the outside so people can access it, fill it, and maintain it without having to climb in the coop.  The walls are insulated, so we are hoping it will keep the water from freezing in the winter.  On the right is the interior food tray.  There is a faux mailbox on the exterior where I can dump in food and a shoot that holds food between the walls.  the flooring is chicken wire, so poop will fall into the drawers below.  Makes for super easy cleaning.

This is where the drawers slide in and out.  There is a cover that flips down to allow access.  The cover will prevent drafts in the winter and keep mischief out.

The girls are learning how to use the ramp.  This was the first day they could leave the coop voluntarily.  It took a few minutes and some logistically scattered scratch, but they got it.  I painted the ramp white, which looks nice, but I think was a mistake.  It's covered in poop now and doesn't look so nice.  I think I'll repaint it gray next year when it's time to freshen up the coop.

This is Ariel, one of Adjoa's chickens.  As you can see, we have been enjoying gardening so much, we decided to expand our garden space.  It's going to be about 3 times bigger!

Funny faces.  It's darn near impossible to take a picture of a dog, a child, and a chicken and have them all cooperate!  Eden is doing one of my favorite faces - some strange lip thing that makes her look like she's more human than dog, Adjoa's eyes are closed, and Ariel looks like she's about to bail.  Oh, and yes, those are 3 foot tall weeds in the background!

This is "the white chicken."  That's what Adjoa calls her.  I call her Dirty Gerty {Britt gave me the idea for the name} because she always looks filthy. Adjoa loves holding the girls - especially "the white one" and Ariel.

So that's the chicken update.  We're loving our girls, and can't wait for some eggs!  We should be getting some at the end of the month, or beginning of September.  Fingers crossed, of course! 

Garden Love

I snapped some pictures of my garden today. The veggies are coming along nicely - and we have peas this year! {last year the peas succumbed to a late frost and promptly shriveled up. Our harvest was a meager 7 pods! I tossed them into a salad. They were yummy, but the overall result was disappointing} I'm trying a few new things this year: watermelon, cantaloupe, and eggplant. I also found a purple bell pepper that I am excited to try.


See those beautiful, full peas - with loads of blossoms?!? I'm super excited.


Hey, look! Peas!

I think overall, the garden is doing better this year. Maybe I just feel a little more confident, or maybe it's my super awesome compost. Really, though. I am proud of my compost. And I think secretly Robert is too. He thought it was going to be a disaster.

I was happy with last years results {and my veggies seem to be happy too}, but I decided to move the composters to a different location this year. They should still get plenty of sun, but they will be closer to the garden, the chicken coop, and I will have easier access from the back door. Last year I had a kitchen bowl that I would throw scraps in throughout the day. Then I would transport them to a bucket out the back door. When that got either full or gross looking, I would take it over to the composter and dump it out.

This year, the composter is just outside the back door - so I can walk the scraps directly from the kitchen, out the door, and throw them over the balcony into the composter. So far I like it. We never really use that back door, so I'm not concerned about possible smell or flies. We'll see how the compost does, but I have my fingers crossed because it's a much more convenient system for me.

I also made a trip to 4 neighborhood Starbucks' and asked them for their coffee grounds. {Thanks Shelley!} I ended up with just over 5 bags of coffee grounds and mixed them in with my existing compost. I think any time the compost starts to smell, I'm going to do this. The area around the composters smelled heavenly for days! But I guess that only works if you like the smell of coffee.....




We put in a rose bed last fall when the roses were half off. It's right next to the brick house, facing south. They seem to love it there. One large rose bush existed when I bought the house, but it didn't produce very many blooms and was pretty sad looking.


After 3 years of pruning and fertilizing, it's in full glory this year. I'm so glad I kept it! The bush is over 8' tall. You just can't buy a rose bush like that. With so many changes to the house, it's fun to have something that was original. This rose bush and the huge pine tree will probably be the only survivors when I've had my way with the yard!


One of the new rose bushes. I love the soft yellow against the green leave and dark bark. We debated over bark color for a while, and settled on this charcoal black. I think the plants look fantastic against it, and it complements all the stonework Robert did last summer.

This is the first bloom for this rose bush. I like the variety of colors in this single bud. We have Red, pink, yellow and orange roses and this one blends them all together.

This white rose bush is growing profusely. None of the rose tickets specified how large they would get, and I think this one is going to be a doosie. I am probably going to have to transplant it this year so it has more space. I'm already praying I can move it successfully. I love it - the contrast between the pure white and the dark, glossy leaves is stunning. I want to give it space so it can be seen better - and so I can allow it to grow larger.

I took this picture before I removed all the spent blooms. The buds start out a vibrant orange, change to pink and they open and enlarge, and then fade to a soft pink - almost white. I'm about to wax poetic here, sorry. I just had to take this picture because I thought it was such a beautiful, natural representation of life. The vibrant young bud, the full and mature blossom, and the fading, spent bloom. It stuck a cord in me, I guess. Even though this is not a perfectly beautiful picture, I thought the beauty was in the truth of it.

Gardening is turning me into a nut. I love it, though!

Nice Weather + New Princess Gardening Tools = Hours of Entertainment and a Few Less Weeds

For Easter, Nana and Pa sent Adjoa a set of gardening tools featuring all your favorite Disney Pricesses, of course. She LOVED it. {Think those hours of helping Daddy in the garage has had an effect on her?}

Saturday we finally had some nice weather, so we spent the entire day outside working. I forgot how much fun it is to do Spring yard work. {I will NOT be thinking this mid-summer. I will be wondering why on earth I bother with gardens at all, they are "so much work"} I also forgot how tiring it is :)

Adjoa was eager to jump right in, so I put her to work on a new flower bed. Robert finished the raised stone planter toward the end of the summer last year, so it is currently featuring nothing except bare dirt and weeds. Adjoa's job was to pull/dig/wrastle the weeds. She came over to check-in with me and was dripping sweat - I think the weeds were winning. She wiped her brow, sighed, and asked if she could water the pretty ones. Not really knowing what she meant, I agreed because water doesn't usually hurt anything.

I walked by the planter later and found that she had "removed" all the weeds except those that had any sort of little flower on them. Those she had lovingly and carefully watered.

I supposed I'll have to pull those out myself when she is not looking - or while she is taking a nap. Turns out yard work makes 3 year olds tired too.

Eager to begin her first outside chore of the season. Hopefully she will be as eager at the end of the season...I know I will be struggling!

Hard at work, wrastling the weeds!

I love the little tongue sticking out. Such determined concentration!

3 Months Later....

Our concrete project is finally finished! Ok. 3 months might be an exaggeration, but it has still been a lot longer than expected. We were initially quoted something like 1-2 weeks.

We learned recently that the products Jaron ordered well over 6 weeks ago were never really ordered at all. The supplier just took Jaron's money and never placed his order. Awesome.

You know, the worst thing about a tightening economy is that it really brings out the nastiness in people....

Anyway, 6 weeks, many phone calls, and a potential lawsuit (Jaron suing the supplier) later, we have our finished walkway and patio area.

It's the color we wanted, and I just love the way the tiles have so much depth in texture. It's going to be really fun decorating our patio! I can't wait!

Walkway up to the house.

Porch that wraps around the house. I have some pieces from my grandma that I will put out on this front section. I'm hoping her green thumb comes with the planters and furniture...I sure need the help!

A lovely view of the dog run that was meant to be a lovely view of the compass rose Jaron designed. He hand did every last bit of this project. It's amazing!

This is a good view showing the different levels. Oh, and that's some of the furniture we had to move off the concrete while Jaron was working. At the bottom of the picture, you can see a letter "E". That's the east point on the compass rose. It's a metal inlay and it's really cool. We did them for all the points.

Last one. This is the front porch again. I will be so glad to have this extra porch space. That little tiny stoop just wasn't enough space to really have fun with.

Well that's about it! Thanks Jaron! We really love it. I'm just sorry our project will be labeled the nightmare project because of all the problems we had - at least they were problems with outsiders....

Color Me Frustrated

Apparently it's time to update everyone on the walkway/patio we are *still* working on. We've been getting a lot of questions about the progress of it all.

Here's what it looked like after Jaron worked his magic - he created each "tile" by hand! Can you believe it?

He wasn't quite done with the patio area when I took these pictures.

So, on to the frustrating bit. After Jaron spent 3 or 4 days adding the stain (again, by hand) the concrete just wasn't taking the color correctly. Typically, he can spray the color on, but because we needed to have a slope for water drainage, the spray would just run off too. So, Jaron was forced to apply the stain by hand, that way he would be able to contain the color better.

Well, after 4-8 (that's right folks, in some places there are 8 coats!) the color still wasn't absorbing correctly. Jaron was applying color for 3 days! He decided to take a different approach and ordered more materials. They will take about a week to get here. In the mean time, here's where the coloring is right now. It's not perfect - but it's getting there... I think!

The border will be a dark charcoal color, and the inner tiles will be lighter.

Anyway, let me know what you think! P.S. Please ignore the torn-up, dead lawn. We have decided there is no way to save it (it wasn't really worth saving, anyway) and plan on replacing it all next spring.

Looking Awesome!

Here are some shots I snapped as the sun was setting. It's looking awesome! We are so excited! These guys worked really hard to get the project finished when they said they would (there was a 3.5 hour delay on the cement truck!).

Jaron will be coming in a couple days to stain and seal everything.

Progress...Sort of

OK. So it might not look like much to you, but after nearly 3 weeks of a torn up front yard, it sure feels like progress.



It rained (of course) most of the morning today, so it wasn't until late afternoon that the concrete guys showed up to put in the forms. It looks great!



If the weather remains sunny, they will pour tomorrow!



P.S. Eden was a little confused. It took her a minute to figure out how to access the front yard with all the posts and framing boards sticking up everywhere. Then she just took a mighty leap and cleared it all! I tried to take a pic, but she was too fast. it was just a grey blur flying through the air.

Someday: A New Concrete Walkway and Patio

After about two weeks of scheduling conflicts and off and on rain, it looks like we might get our concrete done!

We've been living with a mess of a front yard for WAY too long. Can't wait for it to get finished!

Chop! Chop!

I forgot about these pics.

So after we had the tree removed (professionally), we decided to chop everything up ourselves. it saved us about $1000!

After many, many people drove by and asked if they could take some of the wood off our hands, we weren't left with very much. Robert was very relieved! Less wood for him to chop and take care of.

Anyway, here are some pics we took of our great display of strength.

Landscaping

Here's how the house started out. I spent the winter months drawing up plans and selecting all the colors and finishes. It was SO much FUN! When I get into something, I really throw myself into it. I spent hours making sketches, changes to the sketches, and then throwing it all out the window when I saw something else I liked. It was a great way to spend the cold months....dreaming about summer!

We couldn't wait for spring to come so we could get started. The way things are going, it's going to take 2, maybe 3 summers to get everything finished up...

It all began with the removal of a rather large, mostly dead tree in the front yard....

Eden had A LOT of fun playing on her new agility course! It was fun to watch her climb and jump over the huge logs. She's a character!