My Eclectic Mess

Things have been growing great in both of my garden spaces. The home raised bed garden is my joy right now. I am so excited about it I’m practically giddy. I love that it is practically no-maintenance so far. The fence keeps critters and dogs away so everything is safe to grow. We’ve had just enough rain to keep things moist so I don’t have to water yet.

Seeds are starting to sprout. Here you can see tiny little spinach plants finally making an appearance.

A tiny sugar snap pea sprout popped up yesterday!

As an experiment I’m growing food from our kitchen garbage! No really. We had this celery end that was headed to the compost bin and I decided to just stick it in the dirt and see what happened. It has begun to sprout new growth! So I grabbed another one yesterday and planted it next to it. Growing celery from seed is difficult and takes a long time. This method is free and about the easiest thing ever.

I also rescued a wilted bit of kale from the compost that had started to grow roots while in the composter.

It was rather spindly and yellow when I first planted it but it has started to green up and grow new leaves so I think that is a winner too.

I stopped by the park garden last night to check on things but I didn’t take my camera. There was some damage from the cold weather we had earlier in the week but I don’ think it was irreparable.

This is what it looked like after I got done planting most of it last week. I have since mulched it with chopped straw and composted leaves. I have zinnia and sunflower seedlings growing on the porch that I plan to transplant here when they get a little bigger and the weather warms up more.

If all goes well we will have; sweet corn, cucumbers, watermelon (this is an experiment), pumpkins, tomatoes, peppers, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, onions, basil, dill, mint, kale, spinach, carrots, celery, parsley, beets, and peas from my two gardens this year.

And if it doesn’t go well, we will have some of the above and I’ll have a great time trying anyway!

I’m also enjoying looking at the other community gardeners’ plots to see what they plant and how they do it. Some of my neighbors over there have quite the elaborate set ups and some even seem to move in for the weekend with canopies, chairs, picnics, and wine. I’ve seen greenhouses, solar panels, arbors, and much more put up there in the past few weeks. My bamboo teepee for my cucumbers looks pretty lame in comparison.

		Primrose Farm VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Another thing I really like about my Community Garden plot is that it is adjacent to the park district working farm. So after I get done I can go visit all of these guys. It’s almost like gardening at my grandparents’ farm again.

My Mother’s Day was glorious. I started it by checking on my garden and photographing my finished quilt. Then Steve, Emma and I went to one of my favorite places, Starved Rock State Park in Utica, IL for a day of hiking and wildflower viewing. Sarah couldn’t join us because she was in NC visiting a friend for the weekend. She and I will have to do some other Mother-Daughter activity this week to make up for it. Unfortunately many of my favorite park trails were closed because of recent flooding but we made a nice day of it. Steve had never been there before so we were able to share it with him for the first time. We also hiked to one canyon that we had never made it to before so we got to see something new too. We’ve usually gone earlier in the season over spring break so we’ve never seen the spring wildflowers in all their glory. It was wonderful! The only bummer was that after charging my camera all day Saturday specifically for this day, I left it on the kitchen counter after taking photos of my quilt and garden in the morning. So I have some photos from my cell phone camera but not the usual amount and quality I normally take when I go hiking there. When I get them transferred from the phone to the computer and edited I’ll share a photo album. But as is often the case, the photos just don’t do it justice.

I hope all of you had a fabulous weekend too. Now I really need to go clean my house!

I’m a farm girl. I can’t say I was technically born on a farm, I was born in a hospital. But that hospital was in a small farming town. A town that my parents still live in as does much of my extended family. My grandparents on both sides were farmers as were generations before them. None of my immediate family still farm but most of us find a way to carry on some of the traditions in our own way. We’re doers, growers, and makers.

When I first got married and we had our first house I was a grower and a maker. I put in one garden and when that one wasn’t quite right I put in another one that was bigger, better and prettier than the first. I grew and I preserved. Then we moved here and we had a “landscape” but not a garden. I toyed with the idea of a real garden for years, had it all planned out in my head. But I didn’t have the time or energy to make it happen. Then we put a pool in the spot I had dreamed of for my garden. I played with tomatoes in flower boxes and herbs in pots but none of it was quite right. I changed from being a grower to being a groomer of landscape and occasional ripper-outer and divider of hostas.

Since I have been rediscovering myself and who I really am and what I want out of life I knew I needed to get my hands back in the compost and sow some seeds. I reserved a Community Garden plot through the Park District and I started making plans for a small garden here at home. We live on a wooded lot so I don’t have a lot of open sunny spots but I have an almost perfect partially shaded spot that was begging for a kitchen garden full of greens. It is an area that we had leveled, bordered with railroad ties and filled with pea gravel, for the girls’ play set. The play set went to another home years ago after the girls grew too old to enjoy it. We briefly had a trampoline in this spot but that too has found a new home. I now had that perfect place for my raised bed potager with gravel paths.

Last weekend Steve and I got to work and got it done.

Supplies for 3 – 4’x4’x12” cedar raised beds:

• 3- 1” x 12” x 12’ cedar boards (have the lumber yard cut them into 4’ lengths for you.)
• 2” x 2” boards cut into 12” lengths (we found enough in the “scrap” wood bin at Menards and a 4’ piece only cost $.49)
• 2” galvanized wood screws

We had everything pre-cut at the lumber yard so all we had to do was screw it all together when we got home. Plus it fit in our car much easier at 4’ rather than 12’.

Some directions will tell you to staple hardware cloth or landscape fabric to the bottoms of your beds. I would do that if I were placing these on a lawn area. But the area ours are placed already has plastic and sand under the stones so I’m not too worried about weeds coming up through all that.

After we put them together I spaced and leveled them where I wanted them. While I worked on that Steve pounded fence posts in around the perimeter of the entire garden area. For now we are just using metal fence posts and coated wire fencing. It is easy and economical. I’m just hoping it keeps everything out that needs to be kept out. After putting up the fencing we went around and stapled the bottom of the fence to the railroad ties for added stability and protection from varmints.

I have my compost tumbler in one corner and plenty of room to add more beds in the future if I need them. For now there is some campfire wood stacked up along one side but as soon as that is used up I think a long narrow bed may go there with some blueberry or raspberry bushes.

I spent yesterday morning filling the beds with soil mixture. I bought bags of garden mix that were compressed to 2 yards and were supposed to expand to 4 yards each. I bought 8 because that is what would fit into my car.

The soil mix ended up becoming a little science experiment. The middle box is completely bagged mix (it took almost 5 bags). In the first box I put a thick layer of partially composted leaves in the bottom before adding the bagged stuff. The end box hasn’t been filled yet but I’ve emptied some post in there as well as a half a leftover bale of peat moss and some other topsoil bag I found in the shed. I’ll top it off with more of the bagged stuff from Menards. I’m also going to top off all of the beds with some composted manure before I plant because I don’t think the mix I used has a lot of nutrients.

The best part about the soil in these boxes is how light and fluffy it is. I’ve always been faced with heavy clay soil wherever I’ve gardened in the past and had to spend years amending it to get it good to grow stuff. With this soil I may be able to finally grow carrots.

My plan is to grow all my greens and cool weather plants here. I may throw a tomato plant in just to see how it does as an experiment. But all my sun loving plants and herbs will go in at the Park District garden. I’m hoping it has been warm and dry enough lately for them to finally get it tilled and ready to plant. I started one tray of seeds indoors and some of them are already coming up. For this year most everything will come from the garden center as transplants or be direct sown into the beds.

I have visions of this being a peaceful, green sanctuary in my own backyard. (Everyone wave to my neighbor Sue working in her woods yesterday morning too!)  I moved the picket fence, old wheelbarrow and pot to the back corner for some decoration. I’m going to fill them with flowers and herbs. I just need a little table and chair so I have a place to enjoy a cup of tea in the morning or a glass of wine in the evening. I also need to remember just how excited I am about all of this right now when the mosquitoes hatch and it gets hot and humid.

Happy Spring!

I’ve been having to tell myself that a lot this week. It comes from when I portrayed Edith Frank in The Diary of Anne Frank last year at the Albright Theater. I found myself getting so caught up in my character and the lives of these people we were playing that I was stressing myself out. As you can imagine this was a very intense show for all of us. Anne and Margo reminded me so much of my own two daughters that I found myself forgetting at times that we were only acting and this wasn’t real. My cast mates and friends would just tell me, “Calm the #$%! down Mrs. Frank” to remind me that I didn’t need to be so intense all the time.

I am not by any means comparing my day to day life with that of Edith Frank, I definitely have “First World Problems” and not anything meriting the stress she was under. Instead I’m just reminding myself that my reality isn’t her reality and I just need to keep some perspective.

Things that are frustrating me right now:

• Not having enough space in the kitchen cabinets for everything to be organized neatly.
• Too much crap we don’t use in the mudroom cabinets so I can’t put other things away in there.
• Not having enough energy to keep the house as clean as I’d like.
• Not having as much help keeping the house as clean as I’d like.
• Trying to figure out what window treatments to make for the kitchen.
• The bedroom drapes.
• The cheap living room end tables.
• The disorganization and ugliness of my sewing room.
• The mess in the unfinished side of the basement.
• The orange cat situation.
• Emma’s unfinished bathroom.
• The dogs sleeping on our bed so the sheets are always gross and not giving me enough room so I can sleep well.
• Being fat and not having the time or energy to do anything about it.
• Being the only one that notices and seems to care and want or know how to do anything about all of these things.

Last weeks’ painting job really brought this into focus. I had to practically empty out half the first floor. There were so many cobwebs and dust bison behind everything I was embarrassed. I have been slowly returning things to their places and washing everything down before putting it back. Some things have overstayed their welcome and are being sent packing. Other things are better appreciated now that I have a chance to give them the honor they deserve.

For so long now I just haven’t had the motivation or energy to put toward doing these household things. It frustrates me. Yesterday and today I spent more time outside working and left the inside work for another day. Over the last 15 years I’ve put a lot of time and energy (and money) into the yard here and barely feel like I’ve accomplished anything. Problem is that if I ignore it or let it go for even half a growing season it goes to hell and I have to start over. Today I decided to try to appreciate it and look at it through different eyes.

Garden May 2012 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I’m looking at what I have accomplished and appreciating it. There will always be more to do. I will continue to get too tired to finish it all and my body will ache at the end of the day. But that is okay. I’m grateful that I have a beautiful yard to work in and a fairly healthy body to work with on this gorgeous day.

I’m trying really hard to take all this positive energy to heart but I still feel a bit of bitterness and frustration. What is that saying? “Fake it until you make it?” Some days I just end up feeling like a big old faker and think I’m just lying to myself and everyone around me. Will I ever be satisfied? When I say I don’t give a shit and let it go I feel momentarily better but later when I now have more work to do because I let it go I get frustrated again and the vicious circle begins again. How do other people deal with this? How do other people both delegate work and not get annoyed when it isn’t done the way they’d like or find a way to instruct the delegate to do it without sounding like a bitch?

I don’t like being such a Negative Nellie. I read a lot of blogs that are all sunshine and rainbows (even when it rains) and I find them beautiful, inspiring and like a little vacation in my blog reader. But I can’t help but wonder if they ever have a bad day? Do they ever get weeds in their gardens? Do their dogs ever shed and make a mess all over the house? Do their cats poop on the hall floor just because they are being dicks? Or is it all a sham and an artifice and they have the same frustrations and set backs that I have but just don’t air it out for the world to see?  I guess if I were just funny it wouldn’t matter.