Archive for February, 2009

Alex’s First Few Days at Home

You know how it is when there’s a new baby: you just can’t take enough pictures, and every single thing he does is insanely cute. Come to think of it, I’m still that way with my five-year-old, so maybe this never ends

Anyway, here are a few more Alex photos (the one I posted before was taken minutes after he was born)

Alex on his first day at home.

Alex dozes as "big sister" Elizabeth checks him out.

More snoozing. He does a lot of this during the day. At night, not so much

We’ll be getting back to gardening now. I’m still ordering seeds and other goodies for the garden, but I should be just about done. That is, until the next catalog arrives, full of fun stuff that I just can’t pass by.

Thanks for all of the congratulations and well wishes. It was a very long, very trying pregnancy, and it got pretty scary for a while at the end. I feel immensely grateful that he is here and healthy, and that I am as well. There comes a point in everyone’s life when they finally realize that there’s only so much of them to go around, and that they can’t take care of anyone else if they aren’t taking care of themselves. I’m at that point now. I’m going to allow some of my writing projects fall by the wayside, and look at how I can make the most of my writing time. I’m going to focus on the five people who matter most in my life. And I’m going to focus on my health, which is something I’ve neglected for a long time now. Thankfully, gardening is a very, very healthy hobby. I look forward to sharing both my garden and my progress with you, and thanks again for the support. It means a lot.

8 comments

It’s A Boy!

alexannouncement

We’re both home and doing well. It’s so nice to have everyone together. The girls are thrilled, and mom and dad are ecstatic but exhausted. He’s a sweet, mellow baby, absolutely made for cuddling.

I’ll have more later, but right now I need a nap

26 comments

Book Review — Fresh Food from Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener’s Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting

freshfood Inspired by GardenPunk’s “Book Week,” I’m going to use the next few posts to catch up with some of the book reviews I’ve been meaning to write. The first book on the list is Fresh Food From Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener’s Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting by R.J. Ruppenthal.

I think that any of us who try to produce food on less than a couple of acres (and some of those lucky acreage owners as well) eventually throw our hands up in disgust. We’ve only managed to scratch the surface in terms of producing the amount of food we want, but we’ve already run out of room. We can get pretty creative. In my own garden, I know I’ve monitored my sun/shade situation closely and made small beds wherever there’s a decent spot of sun. Ditto for plopping a container into a sunny area of an otherwise shady border. I’ve planted salad greens in hanging baskets and planted strawberries in window boxes. And I’ve still run out of room.

What Ruppenthal’s book does (besides totally inspire you to try something new) is make you look at your space in a whole new way. Got a bathtub in a spare bathroom that doesn’t really get used too often? Grow something in it. Enough exterior wall space for a hanging chicken coop? You’re well on your way to fresh eggs. Do you have a spare three square inches of space on your countertop? Sprout something.

Ruppenthal covers common ideas, such as gardening in raised beds and containers, but he also tackles less-common ideas for producing your own food, such as making your own yogurt and kefir, adding nutrients to your diet through sprouting, setting up a beehive in a small urban lot, and growing mushrooms indoors.

I think that those of us who have been gardening for a long time sometimes need a little something to shake us out of our gardening rut. This book does just that. I’ll never look at my exterior walls and fences the same way again. And I’ve already put my countertop to work producing tasty sprouts for sandwiches and salads. There’s something uniquely satisfying about growing something (anything!) fresh and green indoors while winter still reigns outside. I highly recommend Fresh Food from Small Spaces for experienced and new gardeners alike.

More reviews of this book:
About Herb Gardens
Gardenaut

3 comments

Back on Twitter

Just a quick post to say that I’m back on Twitter. I was on it for a while last year, but I found it to be too much of a distraction. I’m thinking that this time I’m going to only follow my fellow gardeners and garden bloggers. So, if you’re on Twitter, let me know. I’m easy enough to find

2 comments

How to tell you’ve gone over the edge

Yesterday, I alluded to the fact that I think I may have gone overboard with my seed purchases this year. I’ll find a way to fit everything into my garden, one way or another. But I’ve been taking a look at some of my activities of late and have realized that I’ve gone a step or two beyond “gardening fanatic.” Here are a few of the things I’m talking about:

1. I garden on 1/4 of an acre, half of which is shady and/or loaded with tree roots. Yet I’ve ordered and plan to start 23 varieties of tomatoes, six types of lettuce, three types of winter squash, watermelons, four types of beans, and several types of greens.

2. And two types of pumpkins. I wasn’t counting them with the winter squashes.

3. It’s a very good day when ten pounds of worm shit gets delivered to my house.

4. I order worm shit on top of what my own worms produce.

5. I order worm shit, period (Ooh, look—free shipping!).

6. Food in the fridge “disappears” to make way for flats of seeds that need cold stratification.

7. Even though I have every type of seed, supply, and tool I need for this year, I manage to find one more “must-have” item when a new catalog arrives in the mail.

8. I don’t care about the house my inlaws just bought. But I am envious of the fact that their yard is 1/4 acre bigger than mine.

9. I’m wondering how many trees we can remove to make way for more gardens.

10. I can justify any gardening purchase, plan, success, or failure by uttering six simple words: “I can write about this later!”

So, there’s my list. At what point did you realize that you have taken a step or two over the edge when it comes to gardening?

6 comments

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