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Mushroom Takeover
While I anxiously await some color and more growth in the garden this spring, the mushrooms have been appearing en masse! Big white ones, tiny white ones, clusters of white ones on a mostly barren landscape. If feels like Star Wars out there. I wish I was a mushroom expert, but I’m not. I still think they’re cool and funky. I do know they’re a sign of healthy soil, and when they break down, they will add even more organic matter to my raised beds so that’s great. I have broccoli growing in two raised beds. One also has mushrooms growing in it and that broccoli looks like it’s on…
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Blogging Again
For some reason I’ve been thinking about getting back to blogging. There’s something about spring and gardening and all the colors in my yard. Even the deep brown hue of compost next to the bare wood of my raised beds excites me. The promise of what’s to come. Every year around this time the warmth, the sunshine, and the scents in the air wake me up from the cold, damp darkness of these Pacific Northwest winters. I’ve written before about how gardening has things in common with writing and with raising kids. But what’s different about gardening, unique in a way that speaks to me, is that there are instant…
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The Garden in Fall
Often by the time fall comes, especially late October and November I’m over the garden until spring. Hibernation has set in and I’m completely fine with that. I’m ready to hibernate too. But even during this season of dormancy it seems there is so much still happening in the garden. Fall is the perfect time to plant bulbs like tulips and daffodils, and my favorite, garlic. Because of my apathy towards the garden by this point I’m usually racing to get my garlic planted in October, digging quick holes and tossing the organic cloves in. Luckily this year I got it planted right before days of rain came so I…
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Making Homemade Syrups
There’s so much I want to write about right now, so many things happening in the garden, some good, some weird. So many delicious things I’ve been eating and drinking, some gorgeous cookbooks I’ve been having fun with, writing deadlines from goals I set for myself that I’ve been trying to meet while my two mini-dictators still insist on me actually paying every single second of my attention to them, and weird, weird computer photo issues driving me insane. But since we are having another gorgeous weekend here (I’m pretty sure I’m bragging at this point), let’s combine the garden, food & drinks, and cookbooks together, and make some homemade syrups…
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Summer Evening Light
Can we talk about the summer evening sky? June in the Pacific Northwest is so brilliantly beautiful, especially when it actually acts like summer and we get to see the sunshine, feel the warmth, smell the drying grass and geraniums, the roses and jasmine, and where we live, the salty sea air. And perhaps my favorite thing about living here in the summers, especially as June takes flight, is the evening sky. It’s breathtaking in so many ways, the pinks and lavenders stretching out across the sky as the sun’s rays make their long, arc across the horizon, making our days stretch out into forever. And the way that…
