If you build it, they will come

Who's they? Veggies? Little baby bunnies who will eat all my veggies but who will be so darn cute that I'll let them? Evil slimy little buggies? In any case, it's built, and something [winter?] is coming.

Filled with a haphazard toss of lawn dirt (so.much.clay.) and "Mel's Mix" components - peat, compost, and vermiculite

This one's a preview of sorts - the pieces of the grid are just resting on each other and the sides of the bed.

I planted the starts in their appropriate squares and put up a couple of trellises for the cucumbers, watermelon, and peas. I'll take a sunny shot of the final product tomorrow.

Raised bed: Waiting for the sun

We've had a couple of nasty, rainy, outdoor-task-killer days, so to feel better about the progress of our garden sans plants I spent a little time this evening treating the cedar planks that will line the bed. We used Watco Teak Oil, which takes two applications with set times of 30 and 15 minutes respectively, and a final dry wipe. Easy peasy.

Though the cedar wouldn't have rotted, the oil will keep it from greying over time, and the finish brings out some especially beautiful grain in a couple of our boards. Hooray pretty cedar!

We're building the bed with four 4' cedar planks (6x1), four 4x4 posts for the corners, and we grabbed six 1/2" moldings to put together a square foot garden grid. That will do for now, until my paycheck allows a trellis. 

The weather is supposed to be gloriously clear tomorrow, and since I have seeds sprouting in the kitchen and plant starts sitting expectantly outdoors, I'm itching to get this garden going. We should be able to build and root the bed tomorrow, and if the stars align (read: if we have enough dirt/compost/happy veggie fill), we'll be able to get our plants in then too. 

Moving and a late start

Better late than never!

We're in a new place on Cape Cod, and have gotten permission from our lovely landlords to dig up their backyard for gardening purposes. Though I was tempted to dig up everything and plant ALLTHETHINGS, I've settled for a reasonable 4x4 raised bed.

This is before:

And this is after our mosquito-ridden spade, dig, and soil-shake session:

The lovely cedar boards are stood up for preview purposes. We're planning to cover under the original sod to keep out existing weeds and grubs, to do a true raised bed. We did save lots of the original soil, though, and found some big scary moths-in-progress inside:

Judging from what we've seen in the trees, outside on the porch, and outside of our window, this is one of the growth stages of a blinded sphinx. The males of the household (my boyfriend and the husband of our husband-wife landlord pair) wanted nothing to do with this bug.

Hoping to get some more work done today, digging in a couple of the posts and covering the base of the bed. We picked up some starts since it's a bit late to begin from seed - here's hoping we build quickly and they take well!

Garden pictures

No crazy progress yet, but as I am prone to giddiness over even tiny events...

Pumpkin patch is not a name in vain!! The pumpkins have sprouted, hooray! We also have boyfriend's special sunflower above ground, flowers on both peppers and peas, and some ladybugs makin' whoopee on my pea trellis. 'Tis the season.

The Pumpkin Patch

After two seasons of wandering, I finally have a garden plot to call my own! (Our own. This one is shared with my wonderful partner-in-crime.)

We picked up a community garden plot a couple of miles from our current apartment, and have since divided it into four 4x4 blocks and planted it with perhaps an overambitious multitude of vegetables. So far so good, though my last visit was before this wacky 90+F weather set out to murder my little lettuces.

• radishes
• beets
• carrots
• lettuce
• kale
• cabbage
• leeks
• potatoes
• onions
• tomatoes
• peppers
• corn
• beans
• cucumbers
• squash
• pumpkins
• strawberries

...phew.

Pumpkinfest!

My word it has been a long time. My poor garden was left to its own devices for quite a while, but I managed to snag some small-yet-delicious ears of corn along with butternut squash, tomatoes, and yes, ridiculous amounts of basil. I have a red kale that has been going since spring and hasn't bolted, and the cool weather has made cuttings especially delicious. I also have a spring broccoli plant that is finally looking harvestable. Back to the nom nom nom of fresh veggies.

The air is whispering frost at me so my first job was to get all my basil out of the ground. Chop some up with a bit of oil. Freeze in cubes for fresh basil options later. Make oodles of pesto. Freeze in cubes for later. Checkcheck.

Anyway... pumpkins. I do not grow pumpkins (yet!), nor was I resourceful or patient enough to buy and "deal with" fresh pumpkins. I found a can in the pantry, and it was a perfect fall day, and I hadn't cooked in a while, and... well. Pumpkinfest.

Pumpkin baked ziti
(with caramelized onions and sage breadcrumb topping)
- probably my favorite fall pasta recipe
- a combination of many of my favorite flavors
- one of those "i can't believe it's vegan!" dishes
- and as is typical of amazing baked pasta, the leftovers keep getting better and better!

Pumpkin cookies
- my first pumpkin cookies ever, and they are knockouts

All served with apple cider... now if I only had my little container of mulling spices from that farm shop in Hadley... le sigh.

NEXT STOP: Butternut squash ravioli made from scratch.

Harvest Monday Addendum

At the last minute I decided to harvest Audrey II (see Sunday's post) as well. She was a cute little cabbage head (mon petit chou!), but no more - now she's chopped into little bits into a coleslaw. My improvised coleslaw was pretty rockin', if I do say so myself. My first cabbage was pretty rockin' too! Now if only I had written down the recipe...

(Let's see... the acid was red wine vinegar.. sweet was agave.. base veganaise and veg sour cream.. added pepper, salt, fresh parsley, dried oregano, and a little garlic [just because I had minced extra when I made herb butter].. I think that was it? Oh, and of course carrots that I shredded in my ancient food processor. Now that was an adventure.)