My Victory Garden

Frog Prince on his kale throne

I hesitated for two years on building my Victory Garden because I was concerned that it would stick out like a sore thumb in my neighborhood of lawns and foundation plantings.  And it does. But I watched a growing outbreak of vegetable gardens the following year in my neighborhood.  Several neighbors have even mimicked the three raised beds in their front yards with varying results and follow through.  Everyone has an opinion to share on it.  Last year, the neighborhood association (surprisingly) gave me a thank you card for my nice yard, so it appears that the neighborhood has adjusted to my Victory Garden.

The parking strip is cleared and ready.

In the spring of 2009, I tore out my hell strip plantings and put in raised beds for a vegetable garden.  I stained green fir boards and we assembled the beds with deck screws.  When we laid them out front, I thought that they looked like coffins.  Ack!  

But, the raised beds looked better once we filled them with old compost from my two year old compost heap and I added the trellises. Each bed is 3 1/2 feet wide by fifteen feet long with brick pathways placed in-between. 

To answer the most common question that I receive--I found the trellises at 

Bi-Mart six years ago and I paid a total of $75 for them.

I filled the raised beds with herbs, vegetables, and flowers.

The Miscreants threw the trellis tops into the road, so we reattached the tops with gorilla glue

 and screws.  

I momentarily panicked when the gas company cut up the road to put in a new line.  But the guys placed sheets of plywood up against the garden to protect it from the dust.  I almost blew kisses at them.  

The garden filled in and we feasted.

We feasted on zucchini,

 6 kinds of eggplant,

scarlet runner beans,

 and 20 kinds of tomatoes.  Anyone who stopped to ask about the garden was handed tomatoes and cucumbers.  We just couldn't keep up with them.

Then, in the fall we cleared the beds.  

Only to start back up the next spring!

Victory Garden in spring of 2012 I'm so grateful that we built our Victory Garden.

cardoon

A Day Early

St. Pat's Meltdown

Every year, I make corned beef and cabbage to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.  And every year, I forget how long it takes to cook and we eat dinner after 8 o’clock at night.  My Pirate overlooks my silly tradition because I always make plenty for leftovers.  The day after St. Patrick’s Day is when our true feasting begins. 

We celebrated St. Patrick’s Day yesterday, unknowingly a whole day early, and it turned out great, because we started the real holiday with fantastic leftovers. I made a last minute creation that I call the St. Pat’s Meltdown.  We sipped our strong coffee while I fried eggs and toasted the leftover buttermilk biscuits topped with corned beef and cheese.  I slid it together in less than five minutes and we enjoyed our corned beef early (for the first time ever) on St. Patrick’s Day.  Cheers to you!

May your thoughts be as glad as the shamrocks. May your heart be as light as a song. May each day bring you bright, happy hours. That stay with you all the year long.  

St. Pat's Meltdown 

2 buttermilk biscuits—or substitute your favorite bread

1 pat of butter

left over corned beef, approximately 1 handful, rough chop

cheese, grated—I used extra sharp cheddar and gruyere

2 fried eggs seasoned with salt, pepper, and red cayenne

Turn your broiler on high.  Cut biscuits in half and spread butter on them.  Then, place the biscuits on a cookie sheet.  Heat the cut up corned beef briefly in the microwave. Mine took 30 seconds.  Then mound the corned beef on the bottom half of the biscuits.  Sprinkle the grated cheese on top.  Place under the red-hot broiler and watch the cheese melt.  Mine took about 2 minutes to melt.  Slide a fried egg on top of the melted goodness.  Serve.

Looking

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.  

                                             -Albert Einstein

Garden Blogger Bloom Day: March 2013

This is my 100th post...let's celebrate with flowers.  Happy Garden Blogger Bloom Day to you! 

The variegated daphne is perfuming our front entry.  

Mother Nature surprised me with some volunteer daffodils in my front yard.  I like to imagine that a

gorilla

guerrilla gardener slipped them into my front bed as a treat. 

The Indian Plum,

Osmaronia cerasiformis,

 is in full bloom right now.  The Anna's Hummingbirds love it and have stopped dive bombing me in the garden.  A win-win.

The hellebores are strutting their stuff.

And the Spike Winter Hazel,

Corylopsis spicata

, is in full bloom. 

The flowers remind me of yellow taffeta ball gowns.  Simply gorgeous.

An alien bloom emerged, much to my surprise.

It's a 

Petasites japonicus

bloom. Isn't it cool?

After admiring all of the flowers, I picked a bouquet.   

Please take a moment to visit

Carol at May Dreams Gardens

who hosts this monthly event.                     

Body Armor and Band-aids

The rugosa roses have grown to a towering 10 feet tall in the past 5 years and they look like they might just start stealing school children off the sidewalk as a secondary source of nitrogen.  So, I knew it was time to do something…so I went and asked Rob a few questions at Shorty’s Nursery.  Rob’s information has never let me down.  He told me that I could prune the rugosa roses back as hard as I wanted, which filled me with glee.  Until I realized that I would have to get near those spiky mean buggers again.  They make me bleed. Nothing short of full body armor can protect you from those massive  and plentiful thorns.

So, I gathered up my leather gloves, pruning gear and courage today and attacked.  I bled, but in the end, sweet victory was mine.  I sculpted them back to their main form and I’m happy with them.  I’m curious to see how they do this summer after the hard pruning.  I love their fragrant blossoms and rose hips.  Definitely worth a few band-aids!