Cheers, Irene

We have put everything inside, and all that's left to do is sit on the porch while we can, drink mojitos and wait for Irene. 

We harvested as many vegetables and herbs as we could,

including two kinds of mint.  The apple mint has big, pretty leaves, but I think the spearmint makes a better mojito.  Here's how we do it.

Mojitos

1. Make a simple syrup by putting 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water in a saucepan, cooking until it dissolves, which takes no time at all.  Then turn off the heat and throw in a handful of mint leaves, and let it sit for an hour.  The syrup can be refrigerated until you're ready to use it.  DON'T be intimidated by the simple syrup.  It sounds like too much work for a beverage, but it's easy and it's worth it.

2. Get a pint glass, and make yourself a drink.  (This will only fill your pint glass half way.  Double it if you want... a double...)  Add the ingredients in this order:

1 ounce mint-infused simple syrup
1 handful of mint leaves (I used 15, some were smaller than others)
(muddle, or stir)
Fill the pint glass half full with ice, preferably crushed, and stir again
1 1/2 ounces light rum
juice of 1/2 a lime
stir and serve

You can top off the drink with club soda or sparkling water, but we never seem to have any around, and don't really miss it.  You can also garnish with more mint or lime, but we think there's enough in there already, and don't need to be fancy.

Enjoy! 

Making Room for Coneflowers

I finished ripping most of the orange daylilies from a bed full of them and planting new flowers just in time for Hurricane Irene's arrival.  It was a two stage process, and it wasn't fun.  Those daylilies have the most extensive root systems; I like them even less than I did before I started.  Don't get me wrong-  I think they're pretty for the few weeks they're in bloom, but this whole bed was filled with only orange daylilies (I had a before photo but I can't seem to find it), and we needed more to look at the rest of the season.  I did transplant the orange daylilies into areas with nothing but weeds on the edge of our property.

My first attempt at this project was cut short due to lack of patience, but I persevered the second time, refusing to let the daylilies win.  I hope it was worth it.  These alone may make me happy enough for the moment to make me think it was.

They are a type of coneflower called Marmalade.  I also added some purple Profusion and pale yellow Sunrise coneflower.

You can see that some of the daylilies still remain to the right, which was mostly intentional.  There's a lot of remaining cleared space in the middle, which may be filled in when everything else grows, or with another trip to the garden center.  Who am I kidding?  I'll pick up another plant or two. 

In the back there's the tiniest bit of euonymus that may or may not grow, a couple of bee balm transplants that I have just as much faith in, and a new Japanese anemone called Honorine Jobert, which will grow to be about 4'x4' and will look like this when it blooms in the next few weeks.

There's a Russian sage back there, too, and another little Russian sage, hiding behind the tree.

I hope everything is settled in well enough to survive the storm.  I'm also worried about the vegetables, of course.  This is the trellis I just built for our sprouting snow peas.

That looks like it will stand up to 60 mph winds, right?  We will pick as many tomatoes, zucchini, and eggplant as are ready, and hope for the best.  I'm dreaming about making these zucchini fritters just posted on Smitten Kitchen while we're hunkered down, assuming we have electricity.

If you are weathering the storm, lucky enough to have it pass by you, or in a place where the weather is better, I hope it's a good weekend for you.  Let's take one last look at those coneflowers.

Love them!

The Yard-Sale Motherload

I don't go out of my way to go to yard sales, and I often pass right by those that are on my way.  Nine times out of ten, I find that the useless junk someone is selling is also useless to me. But one time out of ten, approximately, there's that something that's worth finding, which is why I occasionally stop to take a look.  On Saturday, I took a stroll through one about fifteen houses down from mine, and found it was chock full of amazing stuff.  It was clear that someone with really good taste had been collecting things for a very long time, but there was nothing I needed, and there were no prices on anything, and I assumed the person with really good taste doing the selling recognized the value, so I left. 

Two hours later, because I couldn't get all the amazing stuff off my mind, I checked Craigslist and saw that the yard sale was over and they were giving away everything that was left.  What??  My sister-in-law was visiting and we hopped in the car and sped down the street.  This yard sale had nothing I needed, but a whole lot of things I really, really, really wanted, and FREE opens up a whole new world of possibility.  It was a dizzing hour of picking and deliberating and contemplating, briefly interrupted by a monsoon, which we patiently waited out under a tree, still with grins on our faces.  Even my neice (5) and nephew (3) got into it, finding some coloring books and pens and bubble bath and a video game among the true gems their mother and aunt were salivating over.

So, here's what I got:

Check out the detail on the rocker, and what great condition the wood is in:

a large distressed frame, a mini ?nightstand?, a long basket, 2 silver trays and a ceramic planter

Those silver trays cleaned up nice.

Before



After

I realize that some people might think FREE was just about the right price for those chairs, but they are solid and in great condition.  With new uphostery, which I'll do myself, I will make them beautiful.  Just you wait.
Even though I think these chairs are incredible with amazing potential, I did spend a lot of time laboring over whether or not I should take all three.  You see, I don't know what I'm going to do with them. This concerned me even more when the owner told me that his wife had been collecting and keeping all her beautiful finds in the basement for the last twenty years.  She told me she just didn't have enough time to do all the projects she wanted to do.  Her husband offered to deliver the goods to my house and put them in my basement himself- that's how badly he wanted them gone. 

I am now committing, declaring, right here on this blog, that I will have these chairs finished in six months, so I don't end up giving away all of my beautiful finds on a rainy day in August twenty years from now.  I'm thinking the rocker will go in one of the bedrooms, and the arm chairs will either replace one of two sets of chairs in the living room (but which do I give up??) or they will go on the porch, as part of my long-term goal to make the porch a real room, moving the outdoor furniture outdoors.

Saturday was my kind of day.  I had nothing planned- no to-do list, no goals to accomplish, no set ideas about how I was going to make the most of the day.  I got great free stuff and I had people with me who enjoyed it as much as I did.  The afternoon excitement was followed by an evening on the porch with cool breezes, some delicious bruschetta I whipped up using garlic, eggplant and tomatoes from the garden, corn on the cob, and burgers on the grill.    Did you have a good weekend?

A Plea to the Pepper

People have said pepper plants are slow to grow, but I know others in our area began harvesting them a month ago.  We've had a few flowers here and there, and now, finally, a pepper.

It's cute, isn't it?  Discovering a baby vegetable is one of the proudest moments in vegetable gardening.  Harvesting is the other, but we haven't done enough of that yet this year.  So, now, I would like to make a plea to this pepper.

PLEASE
1. Don't abort like the little butternut squashes did.
2. Don't suddenly attract a bug or animal that had no interest in you during your first three months of growing. 
3. Do ripen before frost.  You have two months.

In return, I will provide you with food and water.  I will believe in you and I will cheer for your success.

And then, I will eat you. 

I hope you all have a wonderful  weekend!

Fall Bulbs

I've just ordered some tulip bulbs to plant in the Fall.

I'm hoping they'll keep these few randoms company around the front rock wall next Spring. 

I went for perennial bulbs, which they say will provide five years of bloom, with bud counts increasing over the first three years.  I would really love to have some dramatic dark purple somewhere, but I don't think it belongs here.  How incredible are these?


I'm also working on ripping out a bed of orange daylilies (I'll keep a couple) and planting a variety of things in their place.  I'll share more once I finish.  Are you doing any Fall planting?

Shell Art

When we were in Wellfleet a few weekends ago, the sand bar was covered in scallop shells, and we gathered a bunch.  So many, actually, that this is my first of three pieces of "shell art."  Maybe four. 

I picked up this frame on clearance at TJMaxx a few years ago.  I liked the distressed wood, but it had no glass, which is probably why it was on clearance.  I hoped it would come in handy some day.

I used spray adhesive to adhere some fabric to the cardboard backing.  I would have used burlap if I had it, but this was some leftover tweed-y fabric from when I turned the coffee table into an ottoman. 

Of course, I didn't have one scrap that was big enough, so I pieced two together and lined them up so the seam would be behind the shells. 

Then I glued the shells on.  I used Gorilla Glue, which is certainly overkill, but there was so little overlapping surface area on the shells, I wanted to make sure they were going to stick well where they did touch.  In fact, a few had to be glued a second time.

And, here's what it looks like hanging on our porch.

I also thought it was overkill when I used Gorilla Glue to cover the shade of that (free) garage-sale lamp in rope, but I'm glad, because it's holding up quite well.  Please note that the lamp does actually work now, thanks to an easy fix with an $8 kit from Lowe's.

You may have also noticed (though I wish you hadn't) that our porch floor is still not stained.  The before-summer-starts project has now become a #1 priority before-summer-ends project.  Stay tuned for more porch improvements, and certainly more shells, coming soon.  Anyone have any suggestions for something to do with large clam shells?

The Fall Garden

We've seen the first few butternut squash form in the last week, which means fall is approaching, and it's time to start thinking about doing some more planting.

We started out the season with these plans for our vegetable garden.

		Butternut squash
Leeks		Cucumber (2)		Zucchini (2)
Spinach		Garlic		Tomatoes/Cherry Tomatoes
Arugula				Peppers (2)
Beets		Shallots		Eggplant
				Basil (2)
Potatoes		Carrots		Parsley (2)
				Dill

And then, they changed.  We decided to maximize the sunniest areas by changing the walkways, and we wound up with a lot more room, so we planted more stuff.

		Leeks			Waltham Butternut Squash
Leeks					2 Diva Cucumber/Dill			Costata Romano Zucchini	Costata Romano Zucchini
					Garlic (German Extra Hardy)				Cherry Tomatoes
Spinach									Brandywine Tomatoes
Arugula					Shallots				Banana Peppers (2)
Cilantro									Eggplant
Edamame					Carrots				Basil (4)
Arugula									Parsley (2)
									Dill
									Sun Gold  Cherry Tomatoes
Scallions	Arugula		Scallions	Beets		Arugula	Beets	Black Cherry Tomatoes/Basil (2)	Edamame

The late additions were yellow and black cherry tomatoes, edamame, scallions, more basil, and cilantro.  (We can also attribute some extra room to the fact that I didn't get to ordering potatoes on time, so that's something we'll have to try next year.) 

Here's the hot mess of a garden this morning.

The leeks are growing, slowly.

I've probably planted 40 cilantro seeds, and this is my one success story.

The cherry tomatoes are ripening regularly now.  These are the black cherry, last to ripen, so we haven't tried them yet, but it looks like we'll have the chance soon. 

The Brandywine tomatoes look like they're being eaten by a worm of some kind, but I can't find it. 

We have zucchini growing

and have harvested a few over the last week, though we've definitely got a cucumber beetle problem.

That may be the reason the cucumbers are doing so poorly.  Or maybe it's these things.  (I don't know what they are.  Anyone?) 

Or the slugs I've been picking off the plant.  (I promise I won't show any more pictures of gross bugs.)  I've been removing any bugs by hand, and I'm going to spray for slugs as soon as it stops raining. One plant is gone, but the other seems to be bouncing back, so there's hope, but so far, no cucumbers.

The peppers are slow, and I worry that if we do get fruit, it won't ripen before frost.

So far, the baby eggplant is the pride of the garden.

We've lost all the arugula to flea beetles, and all the beets and edamame were lost to the deer.  I can't prove the deer did it, but at the same time something tall was chomping at the tops of our pee gee hydrangea (see the one lonely bloom at the top?), so I think it's fair to assume they're responsible.

The spinach was a bust- I'm not sure why.  The first round of carrots were okay, but I learned my lesson and will thin the seedlings next time to give them enough room to grow.  They were harvested mid-July around the same time as the garlic and shallots, which are now dried and stored.

Not all of the garlic survived, but the shallots are great.  I sauteed some with zucchini, eggplant, basil and parsley the other night.

Alas, we're approaching the fall garden with vigor, hoping to redeem ourselves.  We've got more cilantro, beets, arugula and scallions, and parsnips and kale waiting in the wings.  I've just ordered purple, yellow, and white carrot seeds to liven things up, as well as some rainbow Swiss chard, Boston lettuce, and snow peas.  Here's the plan.

		Leeks		Waltham Butternut Squash
Leeks		Snow Peas		Diva Cucumber/Dill			Costata Romano Zucchini		Costata Romano Zucchini
				Parsnips					Cherry Tomatoes
Kale									Brandywine Tomatoes
Bibb Lettuce				Beets					Banana Peppers (2)
Cilantro									Eggplant
Edamame				Kale/Arugula/Scallions					Basil (4)
Arugula									Parsley (2)
									Kale
									Sun Gold  Cherry Tomatoes
Scallions	Carrots		Scallions	Carrots	Swiss Chard	Carrots		Black Cherry Tomatoes/ Basil (2)			Edamame

As the tomatoes, basil, cucumber and zucchini fade, we'll plant even more greens.  I may even give the spinach another try.  Leeks, kale and carrots can stay in the ground after the first frost.  The parsnips can stay in the ground until spring, when reportedly they will be at their best.  We'll plant twice as much garlic sometime in October, right where the Sun Gold tomatoes and edamame currently reside.

The satisfaction of picking things from the garden for our next meal is still worth all of this trouble. I'm hoping the opportunities to pick things from the garden for our next meal will increase as we get better at this.  And as our knowledge slowly grows, so does the garden.  A couple of weeks ago we realized that if we clear the brush to the left of the garden, we'll free up another 10 feet of useable space.  Maybe next spring we'll plant some rhubarb, and some berry bushes....  But maybe before we do that, we should build a fence.