Author Archives: Megan

Cedarbrae Community Garden, 2015

Posted in 2015, Cedarbrae Community Garden by

For another year, I’ve decided to rent a plot at our local community garden. I wrote about growing there last year, but I didn’t mention it too much after that until the Fall. I like having a garden there, it gives me a lot more growing space for vegetables, and it is also nice to get out in to the neighborhood. My hope is that I’ll be a bit more diligent about documenting the progress with this garden, but then again, I’m famous for neglecting my community garden plot, so who knows. I do have the best intentions though!

Cedarbrae Community Garden

There are a few things I need to keep in mind when planning this garden. The first is that whatever I’m growing needs to be somewhat low maintenance, so if I’m being neglectful (out of sight, out of mind) or if we end up going out of town for a few days, this garden will be pretty self-sufficient. The other thing that I need to keep in mind is that it is a garden out in the open, with no signage, and pretty minimal monitoring, and things could get stolen or damaged. I’ve been pretty lucky with my plot as it is kind of plunked in the middle of the garden and the worst thing that has happened has been a few pulled out and abandoned carrots, but I have witnessed other nearby plots almost completely wiped out (darn hooligans!), so I always keep this thought tucked away when I plan this garden.

Beans

Clearly I need to do a little bit of weeding, but I prefer to wait until everything has come up – some beans are still breaking through the soil right now, so the weeding will have to wait another week.

I decided to continue with the tradition of keeping it simple, and planted kale, bush beans, cow peas, fava beans, and a couple of zucchini plants that wouldn’t fit in at home. But, I also decided to throw in a few marigolds and zinnias that I started from seed indoors. Most of the gardeners here grow flowers alongside their vegetables, and I’m always admiring it – plus, I do this is my garden at home, so I went ahead and did the same thing here.

Baby Kale

Baby kales. And yes, I was overcrowd my plants, but they don’t seem to mind in my climate.

I also want to mention that everything I grow in this space I’ve started by seed – most (with the exception of the flowers and squash), were sown directly in to the plot about the last week of May. Mainly, I do this because I don’t want to spend a lot of additional money on this garden. With having to pay plot fees, and with the chance of things getting stolen or vandalized, the thought of spending more money on this garden is just not very practical for me. My garden at home is an entirely different story though!

That’s about all that’s going on in the community garden right now. I’m hoping the next update will be in a month or so when everything has had a bit more time to flourish.

The junking bug is back!

Posted in 2015, Junking by

For about the last couple of weeks I’ve been flying solo as my husband has been away on a trip. I was pretty excited at first with the prospect of watching a ton of click flicks and getting a bunch of projects done around the house. But the truth is, the novelty wore off after a couple of days and I was getting a little tired of eating crackers for dinner (cooking for one just seemed pointless). Also, those projects? Yeah, I really didn’t get to any of them. Chick flicks? I mostly just watched Beverly Hills 90210 DVDs for the millionth time (I heart that show). Most of my time alone was spent finishing things I’d already started pre-husbandless or doing work in the garden. So much work in the garden.

But I was getting bored with being around the house with just myself and the cats. It all started with an impromptu visit to the Goodwill when I was running another errand. I had some good luck there, so then I decided to try another place. More luck. Then another and another. And the next thing I knew I was calling a friend to go to a big vintage market. Of course, then the bug had basically taken over my entire body. It needed to be fed.

Vintage Finds

This is where it all started! A little metal filing drawer I will be using for my seed collection, a crystal candy dish (I’ve been looking for one for under $5 for a long time!), a couple of little china plates, and my favorite find from this hunt was the little Siamese kitten (because apparently I need more ceramic cats in my life)!

Vintage Finds

The next hunt was just as good! Some large china platters, a few heavy flower frogs, a little crystal & silver bowl, and two little lead piggies! The pigs are my favorite and remind me of ones we played with as kids that came from my Grandma’s house. After doing a bit of research, they are most likely pre-war, which makes them a bit more special in my mind.

Vintage Finds

I was in heaven when I stumbled upon this antique shop in an old church. Not only was the architecture absolutely stunning, but the curation was unbelievable. I will definitely make the trip out of town to this shop again! And the best part was I totally stumbled in to it, I had no idea it existed until it was right in front of my face.

  I thought it was finished feeding the bug after that 2 day ultra junking marathon, but then the next week I felt it coming back. So I went online and searched for upcoming estate sales. And starting making a list. And then I discovered some upcoming vintage markets which I thought were promising. It was basically a two week long junk-a-thon.

Vintage Finds

And the haul from my last excursion. I already have a bit of a teacup collection and I really haven’t bought any for several years. It was actually a point of conversation with a friend recently, where I mentioned I was laying off on the teacups as I needed to be selective about what I was bringing in to the collection. But I couldn’t resist when I saw these at an estate sale for $2.50/set! Plus the colors on the blue and pink sets are like nothing else I have in my collection. Trust me, it took all of my will power to only come home with four sets at those prices. And am I kicking myself now? Maybe a little, but more over the vintage vanity table I passed up for some stupid reason.

This bug usually hits me in the spring time, but for some reason this year it was much harder than normal. I guess I could be doing worse things. I’d love to hear about some of your junking adventures/scores!

Fabric De-Stash

Posted in Random by

As I get older and acquire more things for my various hobbies and whatnot, I am becoming more aware of the clutter. I hate clutter, but it seems like lately I am having a more and more difficult time of controlling it and that is causing me some stress. I’d love to live a minimalist lifestyle, but that just isn’t me – I love making and cooking and books, and all of the things that go along with them, but I would like to pare it back a bit. Look at me complaining about living a life surrounded by material possessions and a roof over my head.

Anyway, I figured the best course of action to organizing and making the load a little lighter was starting with the obvious suspects – the paper pileup, clothes that I don’t wear or that no longer fit, old gross and barely held together shoes (they were well loved!), and so on. But then it came to my studio/office/crafting room. I have a lot of fabric that seems to be waiting for that special project. It was purchased with no actual projects in mind, just that I liked it. And some of it has been sitting in plastic containers in waiting for years. So sad. So I’ve decided to send it on its merry way, to someone that will make good use of it (if you’re interested in any of it, please click this link to my Etsy shop).

Heather Ross Gnomes Fabric Japanese Linen Fabric

I think the hardest fabric to part with is the gnome print – it’s so darn cute! But it would be perfect for a little girl’s dress or a little boy’s bow tie!

I am going to continue the Big Purge and hopefully soon I’ll be able to close the closets in my studio!

Amy Butler Home Decor Fabric

Thanks for hanging on for this post! I don’t normally like to use my blog as a sales mechanism, but all the proceeds from my de-stash sale will go towards making beautiful things to share with you on this blog!

Delicious, Beautiful Rhubarb

Posted in Harvest, What I'm Growing by

It’s the most wonderful time of the year – rhubarb harvesting! Maybe a close second to the garlic harvest or the the tomato harvest. And it just happens that my rhubarb is a gigantic monster this year, so this will be the first of a few harvests!

Fresh Rhubarb

One of my very first posts on this blog last year was about rhubarb where I talked about growing it and preserving it. This year I don’t have a ton of time, so a bit of rhubarb got cut up, bagged up, and stuck in the freezer. But some of it got made in to rhubarb sauce for ice cream.

This is one of those recipes that is reminiscent of my childhood living in the country. It makes me think of the end of the school year and the beginning of summer. It’s a good thing. To make it, just cut rhubarb in to about 1 inch bits, add to a pot with a little bit of water (enough to just cover the bottom of the pot), and as much sugar or sweetener as you like. Simmer it on the stove, stirring every now and then, until it is quite thick and the rhubarb has broken down. Let it cool and store in the fridge in a jar, and when you’re ready, dump as much as you like over top of vanilla ice cream. If you happen to have quite a bit of liquid in your rhubarb sauce, you can reserve a bit of it to add to lemonade, fizzy water, or ginger ale.

Freezer Rhubarb

I’ll be thankful for this rhubarb in the dead of winter. To freeze, just wash, dry, cut and bag the rhubarb.

I still have a tonne of rhubarb to harvest! I am eying a few recipes in this book I got for my birthday, so I’m hoping to try a few of them out. Do you have any favorite rhubarb recipes? I’d love to hear about them!

The Great Planting Extravaganza 2015

Posted in In The Garden by

I’ve been spending the last week or so mostly doing heavy lifting work around the garden. Not the stuff that gets me very excited about gardening. It was my own fault – totally self-inflicted. I was the one who foolishly decided to grow a million seedlings this winter, and I was the one who realized I was going to need a lot more pots if I wanted to keep all of those seedlings. So I bought a whole new collection of pots for my deck, and a whole lot of soil to fill those pots up.

Garden

Excuse the horrible photo – I took it through the screen window. Things are still pretty tame but in about a month this garden will be exploding!

Once all of those pots were moved around and filled, I could begin the fun part of gardening: planting all those seedlings! I must admit that I was feeling a lot of anxiety. First of all, I wasn’t sure if I had enough room, even after buying all those new pots. Second, a lot of the seedlings were getting too big for their small containers and needed to be planted in the ground right away.

Seedlings

I usually plant basil in with my tomato pots. Tomato + basil = true love. I’ve also been making a habit of planting tumbler tomatoes in with determinates in the larger pots – it’s a good way to maximize space in a small garden.

The first order of business was the tomatoes. Out of all the plants I grow, the tomatoes are probably the most important to me. Next was planting all of the peppers in the greenhouse. Then my corn got planted in the big galvanized steel livestock trough (I think the corn will like it in there, it gets nice and toasty!). Luckily after planting all of these, I still had quite a few empty pots.

Squash Seedlings

The next thing to plant will be all of these squash plants in the above photo. There are about 20 seedlings here (pumpkins, summer squash, winter squash, cucumbers, a watermelon) which will be planted in various pots and raised beds. Last night my husband and I sat out on the deck cutting up chicken wire and fashioning them in to some not-so-pretty-but-hopefully-functional squirrel-proof cages. The last thing I want is for the pesky little squirrels to murder my baby squash plants. After I finish planting them in their cages, I’ll need to figure out some sort of trellis for the pumpkins to climb in my back alley raised bed.

I also still have a few trays of marigolds and zinnias to plant around the garden, but I’m less worried about those as they are still fairly small-ish. I’m positive I’ll have everything planted this week. And I have my fingers crossed that I have enough empty pots for all of those squash seedlings.

And once everything is planted I’ll get to some much needed weeding, as well as setting up some of the soaker hoses to make watering a little easier. I’m really excited to be finished the planting – it will be nice to sit back and enjoy things a bit.