Tag Archives: vegetables

It was a rough week

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Last week was a difficult one to get through. But even the short few days since Scott died have lessened the shock of it. It was such an eye opener and reminder to live life to the fullest, every day. And although it shouldn’t be, it is a difficult thing to do. Especially working, it feels like being on a treadmill.
But the good thing is, the weather is improving, business is picking up and the world is full of color!
Sometimes, when I take a photo, I know I “got” it!
Farmer’s Market is open and although I missed the first day, Saturday was so much fun, and took my mind off the depressing reality of the death of someone my age. I met Susan and Janet at Janet’s house and we went on to the market. It was one of those brilliantly beautiful northwest days, when the blue of the sky is so dark and transparent, you swear you can see right through it, the mountains brilliant and snow-capped, silhouetted against blue. Beaver Valley Rd was picture perfect, cattle lazing in the sun, tractors out mowing, really amazing! The market itself was wonderful, early flowers and veges in good supply. Lots of new vendors, lots of young farmers which to me, is one of the best things to see.
This week, I got back to work, and the pr is going well. So packed and sent out several packages of nuts and I just got an email saying the local TV station wants to do a segment about me and the local paper is doing an article. I am to meet Patrick, who I have worked with before, on Friday. It will interesting being interviewed, instead of interviewing :) and I am not too sure about being on TV! What do I wear? And oh good grief! I need Tate up here to do my hair!! Who knows, maybe I will be discovered! Ha ha! 
Yoga is good – and I got the last spot in the next session! I am getting to really look forward to it. It totally absorbs my mind and body while I am doing it, about the only time my mind is not racing around all over the place. Now I just need to start doing it at home every day. I think out on the deck would be fun, nobody is ever out so no one would see me trying to become a pretzel.
I just saw our two resident Canadian geese cruise by with four tiny babies in their wakes! I wonder how many will survive the predatory eagles and coyotes?

A Great Auntie – Again!

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Isabella Sally O’Connor was born this morning in Australia – making me a great aunt for – I think – the eighth time! The Jewitt family expands :) We are a fairly prolific family! Cathy, Lofty and babe doing well. And I am sure Grandpa Mick is just bursting with pride! Congratulations!
Thanks, Julie-Ann for posting this!
The New Year is starting out on a positive note so I will do my darnedest to keep that going though this year and beyond. The New Years Eve party at Scott’s was a lot of fun, met some really cool people and came away from it with a new project! Well, one that has been on the back burner for a while but now apparently the funding is there to bring it forward. Dockside will go digital! And I will take the project forward like I have for mymixednuts. It will be another challenge as we will put the mag online as a flip page magazine, so yesterday I was trying out software to make that happen! It is actually not difficult at all, just time consuming. Then the rest of the site will be pretty basic with some ecommerce attached. And I will work with my Indian buddies who have built the nut site.
It is definitely January around here – gray, cold, wet and windy. But! the irises are already up although it seems a bit early, but that’s ok by me. Pretty soon I can think about planting vege seeds. First I have to build some planter boxes as I am not growing anything in the ground again as the house is going on the market soon and I want to be able to take my garden with me wherever I go – wherever that may be!
I started another round of antibiotics yesterday and have had a reaction to them. Yesterday my face felt really itchy and got blotchy – today it is puffy and my lips are all swollen – think Meg Ryan in First Wives Club! I know Dr Jadin is out of town so have emailed Di, her nurse to find out if I should continue on with them.

brussels sprouts

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Even though the weather has turned to fall, with almost freezing temperatures at night, stuff still grows. Just look at the size of these sprouts! So far, all except one plant are aphid free, but there has recently been a hatching of snails which are tiny and hide in the top new leaves. So spent some time today picking (I got slimed!) them off and dropping them into a salt pile – ick!

How my garden doth grow

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It’s two months since I planted the garden and I have never seen anything grow and produce so fast!
First we had the kale and lettuce, then everything else started coming in. Now th brussels sprouts are waist high with little buds forming, but the plants are so big they have shaded some of the other plants which struggle. So next time I plant, I will have to give them more room.
We had our first batch of green peas the other night and I’ve picked all the cauliflower, including the beautiful purple ones. Last night I made the most delicious cauliflower au gratin. One thing about having a lot of one type of veggie is that I have to get creative with the recipes, which for me, is all part of the fun. The trick now is to start planting for the second part of the summer, and hope things have enough time to mature before the cold hits.
The red cabbage and some cauliflower are already in and I have some scarlet runner beans climbing madly. A New Zealand spinach is doing well, too and it looks like the onions will be ready to pull soon. My tomatoes are finally setting. They were doing nothingfor a while and one of the growers at the farmers market told me the soil is probably too rich and that I must be the bees! So I have been ‘tickling my tomatoes” and the are starting to form en masse and by harvest time, I will probably be wishing I hadn’t bothered!

first salad

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Today I picked carefully and we have our first salad from the garden. It’s amazing! I planted on May 18 – today is June 2 and already our little starts are producing more than enough salad and soon the kale will be big enough to cut. Peas and beans are going nuts; broccoli and cauliflower and brussels sprouts are taking off! I love it!

Square Foot Gardening

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Square foot gardening seems like the way to grow veges and with prices of food skyrocketing, along with the gas prices, I decided it was time to get growing.

So last week Chris and I built the frames and last weekend I put it all together. The hardest part was mixing up the growing medium, and I had to fudge it a bit as the vermiculite was sooo expensive and the nursery hardly had any. The lady at the nursery said that with our soggy weather, it really wasn’t that important, so I went with very good compost ( bat guano, worm casings, chicken manure etc!) and peat moss with some vermiculite for good measure.

I pour the bags out in batches, onto a tarp and layered the stuff and then turned and turned it. Of course, we were actually having a heat wave (90F) so it was hard work. But I got it done and shoveled it into the boxes. (If you are wondering why Chris didn’t help, he was sailing the NOOD regatta in Seattle.) By the end of the day I was pooped!

Saturday was a fun day. I went to the nursery to pick out the plants. It seemed like everyone and his brother was there! Amazing what happens around here when the sun comes out! I had mapped out my gardens so pretty much knew what I was getting but ended up with some different plants. I also bought the dividers (see the pix) to make the squares.

So home I went and started planting. Oh and I forgot, I put bird netting over the mix so the kitties didn’t decide to make it their own. I cut holes in the netting and dug into the very friable mix and got a lot of the veges planted, plus some additional seeds.

Sunday I finished the planting, leaving some open spaces so that when my seeds are up, I can thin them out and have additional space for them.

I planted, peppers, eggplant (aubergine) basil, lettuce (several varieties) celery, cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts, kale, spinach, swiss chard, walla walla sweet onions, red onions, chives, carrots, beans and peas. Whew.