gift idea: basket of garden cheer!

i love giving gifts. simply put, it's my favorite way to love.

 i also really love giving gifts that are homemade, meaningful & fit within our budget. on my personal blog, i share several ideas for creating thoughtful, unique gifts that are affordable. today's gift idea is no exception! it cost us nothing but a little bit of our time.

walking through our garden, i began to think about our friends who just moved to town. you see, we have moved a lot. i know what it feels like to be completely exhausted, broke, unable to find the pans to cook dinner & instead just order pizza. 

sometimes you just need a bit of cheer to get you through the mountains of boxes. 

gathering bits from the garden, i set out to make a basket of cheer. 

i found a berry basket in our pantry & filled it with fresh cucumbers from the garden. 

i gathered a bouquet of flowers & placed them in a mason jar with a little fabric bow. we collected colorful eggs from the coop & put them in a recycled egg carton.

off to our dear friends & new neighbors with a basket of garden cheer, we went! 

what kind of goodies do you pull together from your garden for dear friends, new neighbors & family?

- natalie

dates in the garden

in our neck of the woods (zone 7a - arkansas), it's planting time! we are in the midst of hands deep into the soil, dirt under the finger nails, working until dark kind of days & we wouldn't have it any other way. there's little time for romantic dates to our favorite restaurants or afternoons spent at the matinee. instead, you'll find us farmers holding hands & kissing in-between the rows. it's our favorite date spot & my farmer knows i'd rather have flowers than diamonds any day.

we had access to a greenhouse this season to grow healthy, beautiful starts. luke spent hours tending to those sweet plants, thinning, repotting & watering. he produced a dozen or more trays of the prettiest plants. he knows the way to my heart.

we're trying out a handful of new annuals this year, including craspedia. i haven't heard of anyone growing them around here, but they're a favorite of mine so we're trying our luck. if all goes as planned, we will dry several bouquets to sell as a value-added product on the farm. 

last night, we had a little date out in the garden. we planted calendula, zinnias, sunflowers, queen ann's lace, craspedia, sage, lemon verbena & basil. with each hole dug & flower planted, we talked about dreams & plans for the farm. 

there are now two big beds filled to the brim with flowers & herbs. with a little bit of love & a whole lot of time, we're hoping for a beautiful flower garden this year.

what flowers are you planting this year? do you do dates in the garden?

love,

natalie

late june blooms

after the long winter, practically non-existent spring, and incredible amount of rain and storms we've been having i feel like i can safely say that summer has finally arrived. and my garden knows it. things are blooming all over the place and today i thought i'd share with you some of my favorite blooms from the gardens at my house...

very pink roses

valerian, kept getting knocked over by my dog, so it's now in a protective tomato cage. it is resilient!

yarrow

clematis and window boxes of pansies, allysum, and dusty miller

mystery cherry tomatoes (from my csa)

borage, on their last blooms already!

chamomile, growing in the cracks of my brick pavers. i planted a LOT of chamomile this year. can't wait for tea!

 

 

what's blooming in your garden these days?

front yard garden: year two

last summer, one of my big goals was to expand our front yard garden. (i wrote about our plans, with some before photos, here. and then a first look here.) specifically to dig up the grass on one side of the small hill in front of our house and plant a perennial herb and flower garden (the other side of the hill already had a garden planted when we moved in). and so, dig and plant we did last memorial day weekend. i thought i'd post a few photos of how the garden is doing in it's second year.

most of the perennials i planted last year came back this year, with the exception of anise hyssop, poppies, and lavender. i was a little bummed about those, but i've added a few more in their places so far this year, and i'll be filling in the rest of the empty spaces with annuals (i have a lot of marigolds!) and maybe some late season sale perennials. even though perennials can be expensive, i always buy them when they're smallest and just know that it'll take a few years for them to grow to a fuller size. they are so worth the investment!

this garden is definitely part shade (which is probably why those perennials didn't come back...they needed a sunnier spot?). it's right under a big tree but gets really nice morning light since we are right across the street from a park and there's nothing blocking the light coming from the east. here are some of the plants that are doing well there: borage, french sorrel, columbine, and chives and garlic chives. so far this year, i've added some tickseed and cushion spurge bonfire. i also planted some rogue strawberries that popped up in my backyard vegetable bed...we'll see how those guys do!

so how about you all? how are any new garden spaces that you planted last year doing? any plans for new gardens this year? we'd love to hear.

may garden highlights

I've been enjoying seeing the garden updates here over the last week, so I thought I would share some of the highlights in our gardens right now.

 

 One of the most exciting new developments for us, is the addition of a blueberry patch. We purchased 5 bushes this week. They are 3 years old and are already full of quite a lot of green berries. It was tempting to bring home even more, but we held back in order to reserve space for some diversity in varieties. This particular variety is Bluecrop.

 The tomatoes have been planted. There are still quite a lot left over, so we're working on coming up with ways to fit them in, in other places. We could never have too many tomatoes!

Flowers are blooming everywhere, with colorful new faces each day it seems. A lot of herbs are starting to flower right now, which adds such a diversity of colorful texture.

 Tiny summer squashes are forming already! At least one variety that I chose this year is resistant to powdery mildew. I am hoping they fare better than past years.

 

 It's going to be time to have some artichokes any moment now. These particular plants are now about 3 years old, and are producing so well this year. 

We are planning to build cucumber trellises rather than let them sprawl as I usually do. They will be ready to start climbing soon.

There is so much growth happening right now. Looking back on some photos I took just a week ago, I am amazed at the changes and how quickly things are filling out. With June just a short ways off, the garden will really start to change and grow rapidly.

And just for fun, a photo of the native Rhododendron. I don't think I will ever get over my amazement of these impressively large, colorful blooms. The woods are lined with them right now. Such a beautiful contrast to the lush green of the forest in May.

late spring happenings: up north edition

after natalie's post yesterday i am once again in shock about the vast difference between the seasons down in arkansas and up here in minnesota! we are just barely scratching the surface of spring here. here's a bit of what's happening up here these days...

over the weekend, i finally cleared out all of last year's remains from my community garden plot. jared and i added some compost and turned the soil (well, he did that part...i've been banned from shoveling duty this year!) and i weeded the plots, dug up the ever expanding garlic chives that i plan to gift to friends and neighbors and transplant into my home gardens, and continued on my annual quest to corral the strawberries back into their designated areas.

back at home, i cleared off the leaf mulch from my perennial gardens and began planting some flowers. i didn't really get around to starting any flower seeds early this year (except for marigolds), so to satisfy my impatience and excitement over spring's belated arrival, i picked up some pansies, alyssum, and dusty miller (we love that name!) at my local garden store to pretty up the front of our house. we brought home another clematis to accompany the one we planted last year. my mother-in-law says they do best in pairs (or more) so we'll see how it turns out.

i also planted a few more pots of flowers with seeds that my friend mary sent me (zinnia and morning glory) and used the extra pansies, etc. to start planting my garage wall garden.

on the vegetable front...the kale starts that i was so generously gifted by a neighbor did not survive the neighborhood squirrels, so i'm starting over with direct seeding. in the next week or so i'll be planting seeds for cucumbers, summer and winter squash, chard, and dry beans. i'm also beginning to harden off my  tomato seedlings that have been growing like mad in the basement.

even though it sounds like a lot (and is!) i am intentionally trying to simplify my garden this year. with the new addition to our family coming in early august, i know my time and energy (and physical ability to bend over, ha!) will be limited. but i just can't stop myself! so...get ready for loads of flowers and herbs in addition to the slightly limited veggies i'm planting...

early fall harvests

 

okay, i'll admit it.  i am guilty of neglecting my gardens.  i know i'm not alone, which is why i feel comfortable admitting this here.  clearly taking on my most ambitious gardening efforts the same summer that i was planning a wedding [mine] and that my full-time job was extremely demanding was not the best idea.  but still, i do not regret it.  i know i could have actually pulled out the peas once they dried up back in july.  and i know i could have planted some fall crops in their place, and in the place of the garlic i harvested months ago.  but i didn't.  and you know what? it's okay.

as much as i may have neglected my gardens these past two months, it is still producing.  still making me happy every time i pick a tiny little cherry tomato off those volunteer plants wedged between the chard and beans.  still surprising me when i pulled up over a dozen small onions that i thought were dead and shriveled [even if they're not much larger than the starts i planted back in the early spring, i will still eat them with pride].

so. even though my garden could have been better, more productive, more lush, more organized.  it's not.  and i am still so very grateful for what it produces.  because of my efforts, or in spite of them. 

Trying something new, gomphrena

This year we expanded our planting space to improve a strip of land behind my studio. It's by the alley, where the trash gets picked up and honestly has never been tended. We killed the weeds by covering the area with epdm rubber, (which we had leftover from construction projects) and leaving it there for several weeks. Old carpets could also have been used. Then we raked out the dead weeds and removed the gravel to prepare to plant. The soil isn't great back there but it's suitable for flowers. This season we got it partially planted and hope to completely fill it next year. For now a section is filled with zinnias and globe amaranth, or gomphrena. I had never grown globe amaranth before but really am enjoying them. And they are great for this spot, as it is very sunny and dry, and they tolerate drought and heat, which we have certainly had in abundance this summer. I want to harvest some to dry but for now will tuck a few into zinnia bouquets.

Another new plant we're trying this year is delicata squash. Which I hope to talk about here soon.

Did you try something new in the garden this season?