We have had the pumpkin stomping and I wouldn’t be surprised if one or more of my neighbors has helped themselves to an ear of corn.  After all, if this were Kansas the first 3 rows would be “public domain”.  However, I only planted 4 rows so pretty much all of my corn falls in the “public domain” category.  I’m used to the neighbor children wreaking havoc on my garden.  I’ve repeatedly chased them out kindly explaining that I don’t walk through their yard so playing hide-n-go-seek in mine is not a smart use of their time.

This evening my son and I went out to disperse ladybugs to try to combat a massive black aphid problem.  I’m sure it is rather late for this method of control, but I have a 5 year old and that’s right up his alley.  After we finished our dispersal we did our usual garden tour and harvest of the day’s produce.  It is the highlight of my son’s day.  Many times a day he takes a mental inventory of what is ripe and what is coming along nicely.  One thing he pays particular attention to is the watermelon.

I mentioned in the previous post that I have a goal to grow at least one watermelon.  I don’t set my sights high.  Just a “personal sized” one would be nice.  With the dismal weather we’ve been having I all but ruled out watermelon.  I felt that I started my seedlings too late and they were slow to begin growing.  However, when I returned home from China the plants were becoming enormous.  I still didn’t see any life of an actual watermelon, but I let the plants remain just for the green.  A few days late my son comes running to me exclaiming there was a watermelon.  I “yes deared” him and dismissed it as something a 5 year old would say.  Upon further inspection my son showed me a softball sized watermelon.  Holy cow!

As the weeks went on our little watermelon (the only sizable one on 3 different plants) grew to be almost a personal sized watermelon.  My son inspected it daily and tapped it for that “ripe” sound.  I was willing to let it go until the last possible minute except  one of my neighbors had different plans.

While we were out doing our nightly inventory of the garden my son noticed that our watermelon was gone.  Sure enough, the small, but probably now ripe, watermelon had vanished.  My husband believes it was the act of raccoons, but I find it unlikely that a raccoon could carry a watermelon that far.  There is no trace of a smashed watermelon anywhere.  I believe that one of our neighbor kids stole the watermelon out of our garden.

What I don’t understand is how someone could do that.  The fruit wasn’t anywhere near the street so someone had to walk into our garden to take it and honestly, who steals a watermelon from a 5 year old child?  Sure, it was my goal to grow one, but I was growing it for my son because I don’t even eat the things.

Our Tagro was delivered Tuesday afternoon after I frantically spent an hour laying down cardboard and wetting it down.  I then spent all day Tuesday and Wednesday shoveling Tagro.  I did have help from my husband and son.

I didn’t have the opportunity to take photos yesterday, but this is the progress by the end of the day Tuesday.  One half of the garden is complete and two of the beds are filled.  I am go to go with planting the lettuce, beets, carrots and onions… finally.  Theoretically I could plant pumpkins too since that bed is done.  However, the weather is not that nice.

As things progress I’m noticing that I have much more space than I thought I would have.  I’m considering designating a special part of the garden for my son to plant whatever he wants.  I go back and forth between “oh dear lord what did I get myself into” and “holy cow look at how much I can grow!”

Now if the rain would stop and I can find more newspaper I can get it all finished.

A favorite in our house is “Purple Soup,” aka Borscht.  Sadly, I never had Borscht in Russia made by an actual Russian.  We did have a potluck one night and my dear friend Suzanne fixed a lovely Borscht.  It was near the end of our stay so I didn’t have the time to taste the rich soup in every restaurant I came in contact with. Had I known it was so good I would have been on a one woman mission to find the best Borscht in Khabarovsk.

Two years ago I started creating our weekly menu and posting on my personal blog.  During the summer we have “market night.”  This meant I go to the farmer’s market and pick up a bunch of stuff and make dinner out of it.  One week I found beets, carrots, potatoes, onions, dill and ground beef.  Hmm, sounded like a certain soup I’d had in Russia.  When I got home I searched the internet for recipes that looked easy.  I didn’t find any that I particularly cared for so I combined a few and made it up as I went along.  What resulted was the best soup I’ve ever made.  It was a hit with the (then) two year old crowd.

Ever since my son has begged me to plant beets in the garden so we can make “Purple Soup.”  Beets are so easy to grow and I don’t know why I didn’t plant them in years past.  What we are finding now is that summertime is a little too warm to be eating hot heavy Borscht.  I love the flavors, but the idea of standing over a hot stove when it’s 80 degrees in your house is unimaginable.  To make up for that we created a summer version, Borscht Salad.  The best part is the whole salad is grown in our garden.

Borscht Salad

Various lettuce (we use oak leaf, red leaf and butter crunch)
Various salad greens (arugula, cress, escarole, whatever is on hand)
3-4 baby beets (I grow Choigga) cubed
2-3 carrots sliced
Dill
blue cheese crumbles (purchased from a local cheese maker at the farmer’s market)

Throw all the salad fixings into a large bowl and top with a balsamic vinaigrette (my husband makes our vinaigrette so you’d have to ask him what is in it).

Perfect salad for a hot summer day.

Our market isn’t the biggest in the world, but it is growing.  When we lived in downtown Tacoma it was a seldom visited little market with more craft vendors than actual produce.  Today it is over flowing with the bounty of spring.  Sure there are a few handmade goods to be found, but there is more food.

When I told my son that today was market day is first response was, “can we get some fish?”  He is referring to Rolf’s Smoked Salmon.  We indulged and purchased a package that will likely be consumed mostly by me (only because I hoard it).

In addition to our fish we picked up a few herbs (including 2 cinnamon basil plants), Walla Walla Sweet spring onions, asparagus, 2 kinds of cheese (from 2 different vendors), baby lettuce and a bowl of West African Peanut Soup (for my lunch).  My son opted to not have lunch at the market, but was sad when I didn’t get him soup.  Next week baby.

I was quite excited to see the variety in the produce available.  There were more plant vendors than usual and the choices in prepared foods has grown as well.  My favorite Indian place (Gateway to India) even has a booth.

To make life easier we were gifted a beautiful new wagon over the winter.  This will make hauling my produce from the market to the car much easier.  I apologize if I run over any toes.

The nursery I selected was Windmill Gardens in Sumner, WA.  I’ve visited this nursery a few times, but always in the off season.  That is no way to experience a nursery for the first time.  The best way to see what a nursery is like the first time is to visit them during the height of the season, between Mother’s Day weekend and Memorial Day weekend.  We hit the nail on the head by visiting yesterday afternoon.

We arrived at lunchtime and since we were toting a 4 year old along with us, as we often are, we needed to feed him, and me.  It just so happens that Windmill Gardens is also home to Windmill Bistro.  Handy.  I looked up their menu online before deciding to eat there.  I wanted to make sure we weren’t getting ourselves into something that would turn out badly (poor food, nothing for the 4 year old or very expensive).  Much to my delight everything was reasonable.  It was the lunch rush when we got to the nursery and the restaurant was full with a 20-30 minute wait.  It just so happened that it was full of retirees and those that were waiting were complaining about the wait.  My response was, “well there’s a whole nursery to look at while you wait.”  They didn’t like that very much.

We put our name on the list and took the opportunity to look around the garden and a small part of the nursery.  We returned to have our lunch and I was quite impressed.  They had a children’s menu for my son and a nice selection of dishes to choose from.  I found a nice salad, mom had a sandwich.  My son’s fish and chips was just the right amount for a child.  Well done Windmill Bistro.

After lunch we returned to the nursery and stopped at The Tea Madame tea shop where I could have spent a small fortune.  I would have browsed a little longer had it not been for that pesky 4 year old.

The rumors were correct about Windmill boasting some of the most beautiful hanging baskets in the area.  They grown their own and that is often a sure sign of good quality.  Along with the high quality baskets came a high price.  The least expensive basket was $44.99.  That actually isn’t a bad price considering the size.  The most expensive I found was a $149 moss basket.  It was so large it would have ripped the hook right out of the soffits of my house.

Their selection of perennials was outstanding.  Several varieties of each item and some unusual ones to boot.  Shrubs were plentiful and the rain kept me away from inspecting their tree stock.  Always a favorite past-time of mine.

Prices were very reasonable (given the exception of the hanging baskets).  However, I did find a 1 gallon Oriental Poppy marked at $29.99.  My belief is that it was either mis-marked or it was a rare variety.  I was unfamiliar with that particular poppy, but I do have a very old and rare Korean Poppy in my garden that would warrant such a price if it were still sold in stores.

I was also impressed at their selection of heirloom tomatoes.  The weekend of the 23-24th they are having a salsa fest where they will put out more varieties of rare and heirloom tomatoes, but I was able to pick up 3 plants on my list.  My little treasures cost me a total of $9.

The nursery was spotless, the staff was friendly and overall we had a great experience.  The nursery is located out in Sumner so it is a little too far for me to drive out there on a regular basis, but it makes for a fun afternoon outing.  Despite the fact that my mom did not walk away with her Mother’s Day gift we had a lovely visit.

In between rain showers we dash out to the garden to throw a few seeds in the ground and hope for the best.  So far my spring planting has looked like this:

2/16 – planted out pea seeds, greenhouse planted broccoli, onion and pumpkins

3/3 – planted out black seeded simpson lettuce out, greenhouse planted tomatos

3/8 – seeds finally arrive

4/9 – planted out cress, lettuce, beets and carrots

4/18 – planted out early frost & sugar sprint peas, dill, tarragon, spinach

4/28 – planted out broccoli sprouts from greenhouse

Sprouts have emerged here and there.  Pumpkins are almost ready to be put outside, but I’m waiting for the weather to warm up just a bit.  Nights are fairly cold around here.  I also don’t have a place prepared for them yet.

This afternoon my son and I plan to finish planting some of the seeds that we have left.  This includes beans, more squash and a few remaining herbs, although I’m still holding off on basil.  We also have to work on getting the support system finished for the second set of peas and the beans.  This will require a trip to the local mega home improvement store and likely result in my having to look at dryers to appease my child.  Maybe I can avoid that with the promise of planting some flower seeds.

The goal is to take advantage of the sunny days.  Come this weekend, the weather is supposed to be colder and rainy and you should all be at my lecture at the South Tacoma Library at 1:00 anyway.  It will be fun and there may even be a little project to work on.  You’ll just have to show up to find out.

I emailed Heirloom a week or so ago and asked when I could expect shipment and they said the first part of April.  I was saddened by the news.  They gave me the option to cancel my order, but after some consideration I decided not to.  This is a very small company.  We are talking all family members who work 15 hours days 7 days a week.  I’ve very sensitive to the nature of family run businesses and hate to take away from their sales.  I decided to wait for my order.

When I opened up my mail box yesterday to find an envelope stuffed with seeds I knew there was a reason I waited.  My son and I took out all of the seed packets and I told him what each of them were.  We talked about what we could make with each thing that would grow from the seeds.  I wished the packets had pictures of the plants on them, but he’ll figure that out soon enough.

So even though I’m late in getting my seeds started it’s still better than no garden at all.

Being the frugal gardener I am I didn’t go out and purchase a fancy worm bin.  That would be too easy (and not to mention expensive).  I did some internet searches and found a few ideas.  The one I went with is courtesy of WSU Whatcom County Extension.  Honestly, is there anything a county extension office doesn’t know?

The gist of the whole thing is to get yourself two 8-10 gallon Rubbermaid containers.  Drill a bunch of holes, insert shredded newspaper bedding, a little bit of soil and some worms.  Feed the worms regularly and viola!  Instant (or not so instant) vermicompost.  And if you want to be super frugal you can collect the worms right out of your own garden.  I went the easy route and purchased mine from Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm.  He had a great price, and I do believe he takes paypal.

However, like I mentioned, it took me months to get it right.  The first week I had the bin I dumped loads of vegetable peels, scraps and the like into the bin.  I just wanted to make my worms happy.  I had done lots of research on how to do this and thought I was doing it all correctly.  What I failed to realized was that I only had about 250 worms and worms are small.  They may be voracious eaters, but they are still small.

Within a few weeks my bin was over run with gnats.  And ohh how I hate gnats.  In fact I have one flying around my office that is tormenting me to no end.  Tried as I might I could not get rid of the gnats.  My bin was also a wet soggy mess… resulting in worm loss and proliferation of more gnats.  I would try leaving the lid off in the warm sun for hours.  The gnats didn’t go away and it just baked my little worms.  In an effort to sop up some of the moisture I emptied my shredder bin into my worm bin and mixed it in with the little vermicompost I did get.  Unfortunately, I didn’t realize I had sent credit cards through the shredder until it was too late.  (I still deal with little bits of plastic).  I was about ready to give up on the whole endeavor.

We went away for the summer, school started, then the snow started.  All the while I neglected my little worms.  No fresh bedding, no new food.  I was sure that the prolonged cold we’d experienced would put an end to my little friends.  At some point in February I took the lid off of the bin hoping I could at least salvage a little bit of vermicompost.  To my surprise my worms were still alive… and hungry.  So I started feeding them.

Here’s what I do that works.

1. I keep my worm box in the garage.  I put it on the lid for the other Rubbermaid container and elevated by two pieces of 2×2.  This lets the worm tea collect in the tray below.  I empty the tray in the warmer months and put the tea on various stuff in the garden.
2. I always have a 3-4″ layer of moist shredded newspaper on top of the worms.  If it starts to get a little thin I add more.  I think the newspaper is vital.
3. I bury the “food” deep in the vermicompost.  Covering up as much food as possible helps to keep the gnats away.
4. I never ever put any moldy food into the bin.  If it sits in the bucket in the house too long and gets moldy it goes in to the trash.
5. Once a week (or less often) I take all of the bits out of my inside bin and run them through the Cuisinart to chop them up in to a fine food mash.  That is what I bury under the verimcompost and newspaper.  I have some non-chopped food in the bin right now and it has been there for weeks.  They are very slow at breaking things down.

The bin I have inside was purchased in the kitchen section of IKEA.  It has a lid, sits next to the garbage can and works quite nicely.  I peel vegetables onto a paper towel and throw the whole pile into the holding bin (paper towel and all, the towel helps absorb moisture so mold doesn’t grow).  I wash the inside bin out once a month or so.

This is a great project to do with children.  It helped my son get over his fear of worms.  He asks almost every day if we can go feed the worms.  This way he sees that we don’t waste anything and that is a good thing.

I talked to David Domkoski and we nailed down three dates for the lectures.  This is the excerpt from the library’s website and what’s being given out.

Fresh & Simple (just add kids)!

Playing with dirt is a natural for kids, so why not encourage them to garden. Gardening with your children can be fun and rewarding and lead to healthy eating. Really. Join Lisa Lindholm – a horticulturlist, a gardener AND a mom as she talks about strategies to get your kids happily involved in starting a backyard vegetable garden. She will discuss getting your entire family involved in garden planning, selecting vegetables that actually get kids excited about gardening – ones that have great color form, flavor and are just plain fun. She will share recipes that encourage kids to eat the vegetables they grow and provide lots of resources. Lisa Lindholm is a horticulturlist with 10 years of experience in the garden. She has been a nursery employee, a buyer, a nursery manager and a landscape designer. She blogs at http:www.sproutingoff.com

I am very excited to do this.  I love to talk about gardening and I believe everyone should be growing at least one thing they can eat.  I also believe that children (and everyone) should know where their food comes from.  The trick will be following the “simple” part.  I always want to dive right in with both feet.

So if you live in the Puget Sound area come out and listen.  I’ll be at the Kobetich Library on April 11th at 1:00, the South Tacoma Library on May 2nd at 1:00 and the Wheelock Library May 9th at 3:00.  I’d love to have the extra support and hopefully you’ll learn something in the process.