Monday

We went out for a run yesterday, and misjudged when the rain was coming. We ran along the harbor, and luckily there are lots of places to duck into. We spent an hour or so at Barnes and Nobel, and Lydia was SO excited to see other kids and play at the train table. On our way back at the car we stopped at the fountains. The rain had kept all the crowds away, and Lydia loved having the fountains to herself.

I accidentally planted a WHOLE LOT of basil. My garden tactic this year was just plant all the seeds left over from last year. 

And all the seeds grew. 

So now we have TONS of basil. We have a few recipes that call for basil, but just a leaf or two. So yesterday I made some pesto. It took 4 cups of basil leaves, and that didn't make a dent in the backyard basil supply. I think I'll make tons of pesto and freeze it? And hope we still like it come December?

Eating her grilled pesto-mozzarella sandwich.  YUM!

Garden Update

We love our little square foot garden boxes. They allow us to have a little bit of a garden in our little backyard. 

But it's kind of been left untended the past few weeks, and plants have taken on a life of their own. It's rained a lot. And the temps have been perfect for growing. 

Everyday of the ten-day forecast has rain in it. So I think it's only going to get more exciting.

The sage (the purpley-green plant on the left) totally overtook the lettuce, so it had to go. I planted it last year--I don't know what I was thinking! Tell me one recipe that uses sage, besides turkey stuffing. It didn't get very cold over the winter, so the sage was ready to TAKE OVER.

Lettuce, on the other hand, I eat everyday. Sometimes twice.

I haven't gotten very good (read: I don't do it at all) at staggering my planting. So, when I was planting things I thought, "It'd be nice to try growing cauliflower. I do like cauliflower." In my mind I envisioned going out to the backyard and picking a cauliflower to eat once or twice a week for a month or so.

Nope. That's not how plants produce. We get to eat as much cauliflower as we possibly can this week. And probably never again this growing season. Someday I will remember: stagger the planting.

Apple Tree = Planted

We planted the apple tree yesterday.

It took a while for Andrew to be around to dig the hole.

There really wasn't anywhere in our yard for it though. You might remember our yard is something like 17x20 feet. So we planted it outside our yard. We hope Baltimore City is accommodating.

There was a tree JUST outside our fence that was knocked down in the hurricane. So we just planted our new tree there. Maybe no one will notice the difference?

Pansies for a Pansy

I planted all 36 of those pansys.

It took almost two full afternoons.

Before our house was built in 1999, there were four towers in the projects that stood here. They are the four white rectangles on the right side of the picture.

This makes digging in our backyard a little bit of an excavation since I'm pretty sure ninety percent of the bricks from those buildings are in my backyard.

But I did it. I planted all the Pansies. I didn't however, have the strength to dig a hole big enough for the apple tree. That will have to wait for Andrew.

I Love CGRN.

I love CGRN (said see-green). 

Established in response to the growing, city-wide need for long-term gardening support, the Community Greening Resource Network (CGRN) is an annual membership program assisting over 150 community gardens, school gardens and indivudals in Baltimore.

You can join for a super nominal fee of something like $15 a year. And they have free give-aways all year. And you can use all their tools! Like, in case you need 50 shovels for a project you're doing at girls camp. Yep. That's included. Or maybe you just need to edge once a year, but don't want to buy an edger. Or you need to trim your hedge. Oh, yea, they maintain all the tools. You just get to use them. :)

Yesterday they had their last give away of the year. It's all FREE. I picked up:

 36 Pansies

A Golden Delicious Apple Tree

Two buckets of organic compost. It was all you can take...but I already had to fit an apple tree in my corolla.....

And 48 tulip and daffodil bulbs not pictured. 

Seriously. I. Love. CGRN.

Yard Update

Just a refresher. Remember when our yard looked like this:

And then it looked like this:

Well, no more. Andrew's family was flying out Saturday afternoon to head home from Andrew's graduation, and they dedicated the day to our yard. His mom is a landscape designer, and it was so much fun to pick out plants with her. 

Andrew wanted to expand our deck. I vetoed the expansion, it just seemed like too big of a project. So he and his dad took off part of the railing, and added steps all around the side. His dad is basically  a construction genius! It makes our deck feel twice as big (compare it to the first picture on the blog). 

The planted trees to create more privacy, planted delphinium and moss, spread bark, and bought some tomato cages to support our vegis that are HUGE! The garden is so much fun, and the neighbor kids still love watching everything grow. 

Thanks family, for all your help! It was so fun to come home from Chicago so such a transformed backyard. You're welcome back anytime. :)

Neighborhood Garden

One of the really great things about working in our backyard, is that we are getting to know so many of our neighbors.

Most people go into their backyard for privacy, and then don't see their neighbors, we have the opposite. Our house butts up against a whole nother row of houses, and that means we see LOTS of neighbors.

The kids are SO excited to help with our garden. They carried a lot of sand for our patio, with lots of expressions like, "I want to help!" and "You are so nice!" Yes. I am so nice. Great job carrying a TON (literally) of sand. That was nice of me.

None of the kids have experience in gardens, and they LOVED digging and watering and planting. We have LOTS of talks about how I HAVE to be in the backyard for them to come in the backyard, and that we love helpers, but only when we are there with them.

I'm a little nervous about having a garden. Not because I'm worried that the kids will destroy them. Or the rats will eat them. Mostly that I KNOW these plants survived just fine before they got to me. So now if they die, it's REALLY my fault. Eeek!

I'm slightly worried that our neighbors are going to love the garden a little TOO much. But these kinds of interactions are one of the reasons we bought our house where we did. And so far, we're off to a good start.