through the tomatillo jungle... beyond the corn forest...

Bopping around the garden is my favorite way to end the day this time of year. The kids wiggle and play and dig, the grownups talk and unwind, we munch on whatever there is to munch on, and when we head inside for bed it's with a happy sigh. Notes from this week...

:: I want to grow these cabbages until the end of time. They are perfect, tiny little cabbages, just 1 lb each, good for a pot of soup or a batch of cole slaw without having a pesky half-head of cabbage leftover in the crisper, which you have to stare at guiltily every time you open the fridge because you just can't figure out what to do with it. Or maybe that's just me.

:: Ground cherries. GROUND CHERRIES. How have I never heard of these before?? They look like tomatillos, but smaller. The husks turn brown when they're ripe, and you can pop the fruit right into your mouth whenever the mood strikes... which is frequently. They're tart-sweet and wonderful. I'm dying to bake with some, but I only planted 3 bushes and that's turned out to be not enough just for garden munching. I read about them in Little Heathens and about jumped out of my pants when I saw them in the Baker Creek catalog. Next time, I'm thinking, like, a hedgerow.

:: We have harvested (and eaten) about half of our La Ratte potatoes. They are tiny and yummy and so so fun to dig up. Tonight we had a wonderful little vegetable soup that used up onion, garlic, thyme, cabbage, carrots, and potatoes from the garden. I love the thrill this time of year of running out to the garden with bare feet while the onions are sizzling in the pot to grab a fat onion or a handful of parsley.

:: Next time...no lawn between beds. R can't mow without hacking everything to pieces, so it's going to jungle in there. I have been loving The Vegetable Gardener's Guide to Permaculture lately and have all kinds of visions for next time, like mulched paths and keyhole beds.

The season is starting to wind down for us up north, but I am looking forward to keeping this little space going, hopefully until the ground freezes, with some more cool-weather crops.

strawberry cream cake + happy birthday to the little man.

Oh, you guys. You need this cake in your life. I hereby resolve to make this cake once every summer until I die. Simple, spongy, flavorful vanilla cake, fresh strawberry halves with more minced strawberries and stovetop-reduced juices hidden inside, and whipped cream/cream cheese/vanilla bean frosting... sigh. It's so good.

The little man is 1 today. He is pulling himself up, getting into everything (especially his sister's toys), cutting more teeth, and being true to his serious little self. I can't believe it's already been a year. How did this happen?

in the garden

It's explosion time! We wait and wait and wait for the weather to get good, and boy howdy, when it's good, it's good. Everything is finally waking up...blossoming...setting fruit and flower...it's such a pretty thing.

I'm trying out straw as mulch on the potatoes this year. High hopes for a simplified harvest. I just noticed today that the peas are coming in. Glory be! The herb bed is my favorite spot by far. I have dreams of a someday-garden with giant swaths of chamomile and lemon balm and all the zillions of different kinds of basils. The carrots are coming in nicely, right along with the weeds (hagulp). The three plants behind the carrots are ground cherries, which I have read about but never tasted. Here's hoping. I got the broccoli and cabbage seedlings mixed up, so I haven't known which was which until now -- little heads starting to form on each, finally revealing their true factions (ha! I just finished reading Divergent). I'm a first-time corn grower this year. Looking forward to some stalk-to-pot sprints later in the summer. Maren's marigolds are getting ready to blossom. We grew them from seed -- her special choice from the seed catalog this year -- and she is going to hit the moon when it happens. The zucchini are getting ready to flower, too. I know I'll shake my head at their abundance before long. 

And flowers. Never enough flowers.

daddy made a swing

Richard rigged up a swing in our backyard this weekend. It's a little tricky for the girls to navigate by themselves, but they'll probably be swinging on it upside-down hanging on by their toes by the end of the summer. Lately we've been ending most days just hanging around in the yard, not doing anything in particular, just playing tag and swinging and talking. Max's favorite thing is when Daddy holds him while they chase the girls around and around and around. That baby can't wait to get movin and shakin.  

Lizzy is playing on the floor next to me right now and just thought of a solution to a problem, then said, "Wow, my mind just popped out of my head!" That girl.

may day

Flower crowns, fairy houses, maypole dances, and perfect weather. Score!

We used this tutorial for our flower crowns, only I didn't use any wire, just floral tape, and it worked just fine. One girl wanted lots of flowers, and one girl wanted only one. I may or may not have sort of snorted at the lots-of-flowers crown until I went to make my own, and then I couldn't stop myself. My crown ended up being the gaudiest of all. We watched this lovely video to show the girls a pretty maypole dance.

I love how fast spring happens here. You can see in the first picture that the branches were basically bare... today, just 2 days later, new leaves are exploding on every tree, all over town! I'm digging like a gopher in my backyard, trying to dig a few more beds for the garden so I can go to the nursery and get everything planted next week. I direct-sowed a few things last week... the arugula was first to pop up, and now the chard and beets are started to show their heads, too. Summer tastiness is on its way, peeps.

trail walk in april

We are knee-deep into this homeschooling thing. Wading in with so much hope, so much excitement about the future. 

The possibilities!

All my worries, all my excuses, all my what-ifs... God is pitching them out the window, wholesale.

So, to all the many (many) friends of mine who have ever told me some form of you would just love homeschooling! or someday you'll see or you really ought to read this article...

You were right as right could be.

So right.

starting time

I get kinda jealous when I think about all the people who have their gardens in the ground already, while up in the North we are just starting our coldest of the cold-weather seeds. Still, it's a joyful beginning, and we are so excited about this year's garden. We have plans to make it quite a lot bigger than last year's 8x10 plot, with hopes of producing enough veggies to freeze and can for the winter. Last year I froze a few tomatoes, some zucchini, a few peppers, and a whole lot of kale, and it was a veritable gold mine for cold-weather eating. I mean, how cool is it to eat a soup you made from your garden in February? There's a rare sort of satisfaction in that.

autumn leaves

Autumn leaves are so magical. Last night I went to a church ladies' activity where the main point was to bring a pumpkin treat and then eat them all. Can I get an amen! I was all set to make some pumpkin-spice mashmallows, but then I walked away from the stove at a critical moment and burned the sugar syrup. Good one.

We are staying inside today, mostly, nursing some sniffles and resting up with hopes of a nice weekend for garden-mulching. In between rocking babies and watching Wonder Pets, I'm catching up on some old National Geographics and making progress in Turn Right at Machu Picchu and Rough Stone Rolling (they're both really good) and ignoring the housework. Here's wishing you a crunchy-sidewalked, cozy-cidered, warm-footed sort of day.