A Glimpse at the Gardens

In case you're curious about the status of our gardens, which are now nicely weeded, despite swarms of deadly mosquitoes, I thought I'd share some photos.




And there are flowers too!

Status: No longer amused

I am trying (really hard) to be a good gardener and homeowner. But, it's not easy. I just came in from weeding the garden. Not only is it exceedingly HOT out there, but I am COVERED in mosquito bites.

I was wearing mosquito repellent, but the suckers didn't seem to care. Some of the critters actually bit me THROUGH my clothing. And now, I am a sweaty, itchy mess.

I am no longer amused.

However, while we're on the topic of insects, I thought I'd share this interesting little tidbit with you from a fellow blogger, esprout (Sprouted in the Kitchen).

Slow Times on the Blog

As you've probably noticed, we've been a little slow around here on the blog. There are a number of reasons for that.

First off, Peef has had his head buried in accounting homework for the past 6 weeks. After spending hours and hours buried in homework, he FINALLY finished the course off yesterday! So, give him a big round of applause for that one. I, for one, am not really sure how he made it through. I would have been toast after the first week.

We've also been trying to keep up with tasks around the house (like scraping & painting the garage, and getting someone over here to give us an estimate on the garage roofing job). I'm not sure if we'll be able to paint the garage this weekend or not, since there seems to be a threat of rain showers. But, we're hoping to at least get some of the yard chores finished -- like mowing and weeding. Our vegetable gardens are doing great, but they've gotten completely overrun with weeds with all the rain we've been having!

And, of course, we've been cooking.
This week, our CSA brought us a great deal of bounty, including:

• broccoli
• golden beets
• broccoli greens (these are new to us, so we're excited to try them)
• eight ball zucchini squash
• lettuce
• spinach
• asparagus

We're particularly excited about the greens, since we eat so many of them around our house. But, I'm also looking forward to the first zucchini of the season. We haven't had zucchini since last summer (we try not to buy it out of season), so it's going to be a real treat.

Something I Read Today: Growing Better Tomatoes

If you're interested in raising vegetables, you'll find some interesting stuff at Grow Better Veggies, a site that promotes biodynamic approaches to vegetable gardening.

Their advice on growing tomatoes is really fabulous, although I'll warn you that they recommend putting a whole BUNCH of stuff into those planting holes. We stopped short of the fresh fish heads. But, we are taking a bunch of her advice to heart.

I know this post is coming a bit late for some (after all, it's mid-June), but I also know that quite a few of you haven't quite gotten your gardens underway this year, due to lots of inclement weather. Plus, with all the news about salmonella in the grocery store tomato supply, growing a few of your own might not be a bad idea at all. So, I'm sharing. If nothing else, you can stow away the good info for next year's garden!

The pictures have arrived!

Paul got back from Los Angeles yesterday... and he brought the digital camera back with him, safe and sound. He was a bit jet lagged when he got back, but he's finally had the time to download some photos.

What that means is that you can now see all the pictures of our fabulous yard projects! CLICK HERE or just look below.

Aren't you excited??

If that doesn't flip your lid, you can always check out the pictures of last night's dinner (lamb burgers with a side of grilled asparagus)!

Thoughts on Gardening -- BYO beer... and photos

This time of the year is always viewed fondly at our house.
The anticipation of getting our hands dirty out in the garden begins during the ides of March and it builds and builds until we're finally able to bring our grande plans to fruition. In Wisconsin, that's usually somewhere around mid-May. This year, the weather was pretty chilly so we postponed most of our work until Memorial Day weekend.

Every year, we vow that we won't start any big projects.
And every year... there's always something.

This year, we put in a small stone "patio" to house our grill, hose reel, and umbrella stand. Not bad for a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon, eh?


We also expanded the garden around our lilac bushes. My hope is that this will be the perfect location for our lovely lavendar plants... and a better location for my the scads of lamb's ear that I've managed to propagate.

Although I wasn't inspired to start seeds this spring, we did manage to plant a pretty decent vegetable garden. You'll see we three kinds of tomatoes in there, along with six varieties of peppers (2 sweet, 4 hot), lots of basil, some dill, and a few seedings of scallions, spinach, and kale.


I always forget how much work a garden entails. But, gardening teaches me good lessons. It reminds me that everything that's worth having takes a little bit of blood, sweat, and tears to bring around. Nothing in a garden performs well unless we're paying attention, so it's also a lesson in humility. If we don't stay on top of our game, the gardens suffer. So, we can't be selfish. And we can't rush things. We just have to be diligent and patient -- and the rewards will follow. I can actually say the same for the photos that go along with this post. Peef took the camera with him to Los Angeles this week... and the photos I need haven't been downloaded to the laptop yet. harumph! Rest assured, we'll get them posted when he gets back!

My favorite gardening reward?
A warm tomato, fresh off the vine in mid-July. Just what the doctor ordered.

What's yours?

Adventures in Herbing

8:00 a.m.
*WHEW* We made it. The event officially starts at 9am, but the early bird really does get the herbs in this case. And the crowds start gathering early!

9:00 a.m.

Finally, they open the doors, and everyone starts gathering in the harvest. That's Lo in the yellow shirt (moving so quickly she's all in a blur)!

9:15 a.m.
Some of the vendors are already having a hard time keeping their tables stocked!

9:20 a.m.
Sometimes our eyes get bigger than our arms, so we have to label our boxes and leave them for pick-up near the cash registers. Those gardeners have got to LOVE us.
9:40 a.m.
Eventually, we have enough of everything... and we load it all back into the car.
10:15 a.m.
Our reward for all of that hard work? Why, a bit of brunch at Comet... complete with a couple of Bloody Marys, of course!

Checking In

We had a crazy busy Memorial Day weekend! But, we can't complain.

In between bouts of reading (me) and studying (Peef), we spent lots of time working outside. The weather was fabulous, and there was plenty to do out in the yard. In addition to routine tasks, like mowing the lawn, we also got the chance to tackle some fun stuff. We got the veggie seedlings and seeds all settled into the vegetable garden, planted some new perennials in the flower beds, and even managed to cut ground for the expansion of one of our existing beds to make room for even more plants!

One of the highlights of our weekend was our visit to the Herb Fair and Heirloom Plant Sale at Concordia College. This sale has become an annual tradition at our house. We love fending off the crowds in pursuit of delicious herbs, spending too much money, and coming home loaded down with more plants than we really need!

Stay tuned. We'll share pictures just as soon as we have a moment to spare!

Spring has sprung! Really.

The week is just flying past. It's a busy time for universities, so my work life has been anything but boring. And it seems that our home life has been just as nuts.

Spring has sprung here in Wisconsin, and we've become suddenly overwhelmed with new chores! The lawn needed to be fertilized... and the gardens needed to be purged of all sorts of dead leaves and debris... and we even found that we needed to do a little bit of weeding. We're pleased to report that we're winning the war against the dandelions in our lawn (we took a fairly "organic" approach and started to dig them out by hand two summers ago). This year, we did have to fend off a few seedlings that were trying to invade from the neighbors' yards; but, by and large, we're dandelion free. VICTORY at last!

A very HAPPY side effect of the warm weather is that we have a lovely assortment of tulips out front that are in full bloom.

In Which Lo Shares a Tale About Decomposing Foodstuffs

We try as much as we can to reduce the amount of waste that we produce, so we're big fans of composting our food scraps (of which we have many). Not only is the habit good for the environment, it's VERY good for our gardens (which shriek with delight at the sight of a bucket of the stuff). Because we have a limited amount of space on our city lot, we have two lovely compost bins in our yard, which we purchased a couple of years ago. We maintain a fairly simple system of rotation -- using one bin during the summer months, and the other in the winter -- so that we have a fairly steady supply of black gold for our gardens. This is, as Martha Stewart might say, a very good thing.

Anyhow, before he left for NAMM, Peef took out the compost.
And now, he is my HERO.

Peef normally takes out the compost for me, because he is a very nice boy. It was dark outside, which makes him an even NICER boy (I must confess to an irrational fear of going outside in the yard when it is dark).

The IPOD was playing some lovely song, and I was dancing merrily around in the kitchen, when Peef came stomping back into the house with a look of horror on his face.

"What was IN there?" he exclaimed, as he ran over to the sink and turned on the water to rinse off his hand. "It was stuck on the bottom of the bucket, and I had to reach down in there to get it out... and when I tapped the bucket to get out the last of it... it splashed on my face!!" He looked like he was going to be sick.

Sure enough, I looked into the bucket, and the bottom was coated with the remainders of an ecto-plasmic green slime. Bleh. (Apparently, copious amounts of chopped cilantro decompose exceedingly quickly when given the right conditions at the bottom of the compost bucket...)

The Amazing Towering Rosebush

And now, it's time for another episode of Living Myths With Peef & Lo.

This installment features a happy abberation -- the miraculous 8 foot rose bush, which graces the flower garden in front of Peef & Lo's home.

We planted this particular rose about two years ago. It behaved in a perfectly normal fashion until about September of this year. That's when it had a remarkable growth spurt.

We've taken a photo of the bush so you can see just how tall it's gotten:

Lest any of you suspect we have some gardening prowess which might have contributed to this marvel, I would assure you that it's not true. We do fertilize our roses in the spring; but, aside from that, our gardening secret is neglect, neglect, and even more neglect.

Sustainable Thinking

As most of you know, Peef and I are pretty devoted to the idea of eating locally and supporting the philosophies of slow food. We haven't gotten to the point where I feel that we really do enough; but, we've made progress. We belong to a CSA, we make weekly trips to the farmer's market, we belong to a local co-op. Despite our lack of acreage, we even cultivate a small yard of vegetables and herbs during Wisconsin's short summers. Sometimes we pay just a little bit more for food that we know is ultra-fresh and flavorful. We also spend time nurturing our families and friends with food that we prepared with them in mind.

But, despite those things, it occurred to me that we probably haven't taken the time to really lay out the details of why we do what we do. So, I took the time this week to get down to business. And here are some of the reasons why we've chosen to support local agriculture. Some of the answers are familiar (trite, even). Others maybe not quite so much. You can decide for yourself.

1. Local food just tastes better. No lies... that warm sun-kissed tomato I just picked from the backyard will ALWAYS win when compared to the pale, under-ripe variety I can find at the grocery store.
   
2. Nutrition. Pure and simple. Some would argue that the jury is still out on whether organic is more nutritious than conventional produce. But, I have a hard time believing that food produced on factory farms and transported sometimes thousands of miles before it gets to market can beat out locally-grown produce. Well-balanced soils produce strong, healthy plants that become truly nourishing food. So, I'm going to put my money where my mouth is.


3. Doing what feels right keeps us healthier. Totally getting a kick out of eating luscious, local strawberries (or apples, or soybeans, or chard) means that, in the end, we eat more fruits and vegetables. How can that be a bad thing?


4. Buying local supports the local economy. I mean -- why not? We live here.


5. Buying local conserves fuel. Australian apples? I don't care HOW organic they are! Give me freshness from my own backyard as often as possible.


6. It's fun to buy from someone you know. Don't you have more fun when you buy your veggies at the farmer's market? For me, nothing beats meeting the farmer that grew my veg. And talking with him about how much he enjoys his work.


7. So really -- the final reason really is that buying local FEELS good. And right.

Great Gobs of Garden!

Dear Loyal Reader (yes, there may only be one of you out there):
It gives us great joy to announce that summer has arrived. Yes, even here, smack-dab in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The sun has shone. The rain has fallen. And Peef and Lo's garden has exploded with bounty. Ours is a SMALL garden, mind you --just two very simple 4'x8' raised beds on a city lot.

And yet, these little spaces are producing like mad. Just take a look at what we picked from our little garden today:





Dear reader, I want you to know that Peef (who happens to be sitting right here, censoring my typing) has declared that I DARE NOT type the following phrase: Tomatoes and peppers and eggplants, oh my! So, I've made it very tiny. He can't see it from where he's sitting.

The fact is, we have boatloads of produce. And this is a very good thing.

We are most titillated by our HUGE crop of lovely heirloom tomatoes. We have all we can do not to just grab them and bite into them right out in the yard, letting the juice dribble down our chins in streams of sticky-sweetness. In fact, these very tomatoes inspired us to create our absolute favorite summer treat -- Bleu cheese BLT's, which we are pleased to report, were composed of completely local ingredients (yay for locovorishness!).

If the thought of that doesn't make you drool, you might be interested to know that the inability to drool can be related to a condition called "cotton mouth" (often a symptom of larger, more serious disorders). According to WebMd (a site we go to often to appease our hypochondriasis) Xerostomia (dry mouth) results from an inadequate flow of saliva. You might also want to know that constant oral dryness and the lack of protection provided by saliva can contribute to bad breath.

You might want to get a drink of water.