New Plots and Plants

Remember when I was braggin' on my bro's amazing gardening project? I don't know if it's the early emergence of spring that got him going, or the profusion of food-based documentaries available for instant streaming, but his front yard is quickly becoming a beautiful little farm.   Todd's been sitting down after work each night disassembling pallets to re-use as raised beds. The details give them a beautiful sort of craftsman style. These beds are his newest garden addition and equal about 1/2 of their total vegetable production space. The middle rear square bed has been planted with potatoes.

{In full disclosure, I stole this pic from his facebook account; I've been meaning to take some pictures. I was afraid if I waited til that happened I'd never get to share his handiwork, and I'm so impressed with what he's done.}

As far as my handiwork? I've been great at buying plants, but that's about it for pretty stuff. I've started 2 new compost bins and cleaned up a few areas that were knee deep in leaves so we can hang swings and make play areas for the little one. The changes, so far, are very unexciting visually.

I have gotten a few new food plants as you can see above, including kiwi, pomegranate and mushrooms. I've also gotten my first kiss of sun on my nose, ant bites on my arms and neck, and a few ouchy little blisters. Although I'm reluctant to say, it seems spring is really here. 

{The images are from the links included below. Angel Red pomegranate (though I got mine locally), Anna and Meader hardy kiwi vines from Willis Orchards; reishi, shiitake and wine cap mushrooms from Field and Forest.}

links worthy of collecting

A few nice links to kick off the new week:

Wolfie and the Sneak are part of the new Poppytalk Handmade market. Come check us out, the prints are linked to shops that have them in stock (hooray for easy shopping!)

Sprout (Dispatches from Three Gardens) follows three gardeners through their plant exploits.

A Seed Company That Helped Presidents And Immigrants Garden Falters: If you haven't ordered a D Landreth Seed Co. seed catalog you're truly missing out. Equal parts drool-worthy seed selection and educational gardening information makes it quite a treat.

I saw a link to this Kickstarter and thought it was a link to this past weekend's music-heavy Prairie Home Companion. It kinda is, but without Garrison Keillor {which might make it even better to many. Oops, sorry Gary.}

Garden spots and connecting dots

Charlotte has been a little behind with the urban farming trend, plots with outstanding success are few and far between. I use the term trend loosely, but fittingly, based on the history of Charlotte planning and development, which follows the tide of nation-wide city building trends: suburbs cropping up then a sudden boost to move back to center city; parking lots circling the outer perimeter of strip malls then a shift towards pedestrian friendly shops with integrated shopping; sports arenas on the edge of town getting razed and integrated with the uptown night life. The history of the city shows that in a couple decades (or less) the development trends will change, and the building concentration will again change with the tides.

A recent email discussion among a handful of gardeners got me thinking about why this is, and I think it's because there are essentially a bunch of garden spiders (spiders can be a good thing in the garden!) building webs on top of each other.

These thoughts, of course, are coming from me: a lifelong non-joiner (thanks, debilitating shyness) that is looking in mostly from the outside. Those with insider interest might have a different perspective.

It's great to have successful, well-organized groups, but are we helping each other with such a saturated overlap or are we spreading funding too thin when mission statements are essentially the same?
What about a giant garden mash up? How do we connect the dots?

Family Dinner Traditions

Family dinner is a fantastic thing. Unfortunately (brace yourself, I'm about to let you down) we don't sit at the table and have them very often. Um, actually never. We did for a while, but for whatever reason we haven't found a dining table set up that keeps that role. Instead it's covered in fabric or another project. Right now it's just sitting in a room that doesn't heat very well, so that room stays blocked off through the winter. I know, weird. Whatever.

But the past 2 nights we've made dinner as a family. That, my friends, makes for some spectacular fun while working the kid's brain and forcing C and I to maintain a steady and heaping helping of patience.

Some ground rules: Mabel isn't allowed to get near the stove. She's not allowed to use knives, either. She's a great helper with stirring, kneading dough, and, when all else fails, sweeping the floor. Inviting a toddler in the kitchen makes for messy cooking--none of that clean-as-you-go stuff. The extra bits of time go into engaging her young, active mind.

Sunday we spent the day being lazy and doing whatever we wanted,randomly convening in the kitchen to work on the simmering from-scratch chicken noodle soup. Mabel's job? Take the pasta dough and roll it into little balls, then help roll it out through the pasta roller.

So she's 2 and she's already helped Mama make buttermilk biscuits, egg pasta, and turned masa into tortillas. Now that's a family dinner tradition I think we can keep.

Not too shabby chic

Several weekends ago we trekked to Cabarrus County to pick up some rough cut lumber that was listed on Craigslist. What an adventure it turned out to be--we ended up at a farm of horses, cows and chickens, the hosts were a middle aged farming couple who raise cattle. Mabel, as you can imagine, loved the cows...but from a distance. The couple also had a few horses, all but one were rescues. Mabel and I petted horses and watched chickens while Charlie went through the attic of one of the barns picking lumber: air dried, locally milled walnut. Plank after plank of beautiful wood, thick, unplaned planks full of potential.

Not too shabby, huh?