12 posts tagged “what i'm growing now”
The last few weeks have been crazy busy-- lots of stuff going on, including my hitting the road for work once again. Just got back last night from my first multi-day out-- the first of many to come. In the midst of all of that we had to say au revoir to our dear friend Carrie.
I've been busy making stuff, too....
And we took in what is prolly the last harvest of the year. (I had planted peas for fall, but the bunny ate all the sprouts, so no peas for us :( )
Tomatillos and sweet red peppers...
And hot peppers. I put them all together for dinner the other night....
Tomatillo and Corn soup with sweet red peppers (and a few hot ones, too). Delicious!
In the meantime, Mr. P has been busy building a person out of wood. :)
My asters have finally bloomed! And they are purdy...
Which is appropriate, since I've been reading about the Astors for work... especially the one that was a local. (Yes, I just made a bad pun). The book is a total soap opera, but entertaining....
Anyhoodle, I was delighted when the asters that I've been watering and loving since planting the seeds in April finally bloomed, and in a wide array of colors-- pinks, peaches, purples, whites. The are well worth the wait.
There are a few other things making their way through the season-- August is tough, too hot, usually dry (though this year not half as dry as last year). The cucumbers are spent and unhappy, but the tomatoes keep coming...
Including the green zebras, which I looooove.
The return of the weapons grade peppers-- they're starting to show their firey nature...
And some sunflowers keep coming :)
Although I do need to say that the "drought resisting" abilities of the phlox I planted in the spring-- as advertised on the pot-- were a disappointment. (read: epic fail).
But the sesame looks great! Can't wait til they mature!
Of course, I didn't get everything done I was hoping to (not even close), but we did have a fun weekend, so who cares? P and I went to an abandoned mall in Richmond and shot some photographs (large format for me, so may be a while before I get them back). Found a wild blackberry patch and ate tons of blackberries (yum!). Went up to Charlottesville to retrieve my fixed cameras (yeay!). Had lunch at the Blue Moon Diner (yum!). Went to a crazy antique place where P got something that he's using in his new work (come see it at Irvine Contemporary this fall!). Had ice cream, and then came home and watched a movie. :)
Never got around to the garden tasks I was hoping to do this weekend.
But things grow with or without you....
Today I shot some pictures for our friend Carrie, who is being featured as applicator of the month for American Clay. She does super beautiful work, so if you are looking to redecorate or just beautify your house, you should give her a call. It was great to see her, and super fun to go out and shoot some pictures of her work and some puuuurdy houses.
Worked my last shifts at Zee Artomatica (as someone was wont to call it when meanlouise and I were steering) for 2009. Deinstallation! The very last weekend! It is amazing how many people wander the streets of a major city without a form of identification on them. (One needs this in order to remove their art from the site). This was my reaction, but also the reaction of many of the other participants doing shifts. At a certain point it occurred to me that all of us who were just baffled that one would leave the house in DC without ID on them (the mantra that all of us said was, jeeeez, it's DC! What if something happened to you?) were of a certain age. (That age being old enough to have lived through the crack epidemic. According to Freakonomics, which I just read for my reading group, I moved to NYC the year that was, literally, the pinnacle of the crack epidemic. Even today I can barely force myself to go to the mailbox without ID, just in case something happens). (That said, I wasn't all that impressed with the book, but I am saving that for our book group discussion).
ANYHOODLE. The realizations of the weekends were 1) Traffic on the I-95 is teh suck no matter when/what day you go. AGAIN it took four fours to get to Alexandria, three and a half to get home. One hundred miles, almost exactly, each way, most of it a 65mph zone. 2) If you spend four + hours getting to Zee Artomatica, this is not good prep for being at Zee Artomatica without food for the next ten hours.
As grouchy as that made me feel, how grouchy could I really be? meanlouise was there for most of the very long day with me, though she was not signed up to do a shift-- how good of a friend does that make her? A very very good friend. Not only that, but when we got back to her house (because she *also* put me up for the night-- see what I mean?), Mr. fishinnards had made the most superfabulous mean of vegaterian enchiladas, rice, and refried beans. Holy frijoles, was it good. AND he made reeeeeally good magaritas to go along with it.
But wait! There's more! If you didn't see the Rebecca and Eric Gordon sound installation at Artomatic this year, then you are sad. However, I am happy because as a result of their wonderful installation, we now have a beehive!
I'm really psyched about this! It may be too late this year to establish a hive, but I'm checking into things. In any case, we will have the hive up and buzzing for next summer. Wheeeeeee!!! Super extra huge thank you to both of y'all !
I've had a couple more things come in in the garden. The yellow pear tomatoes have been coming and coming, and Mr. Dr. Birdcage has been eating and eating them. I also had my first Roma tomato come in today, which I'm pretty psyched about. I should note that all of my veggies are grown from seed rather than from plants, so I'm always really excited when one actually gets to the point of fruiting.
More cucumbers came in, though the plants really aren't fruting like they did last year. Not sure why, but those that have come in are nice looking, and we've been eating a looooottttt of fridge pickles.
The other thing that is coming is is beans, though the bunny ate most of the purple queens. The string beans are high enough up that, other than the plants that he gnawed right through and killed, he hasn't done too much damange to them....
With apologies to JJBT....
I would like to announce the engagement of Cucumber and String Bean. Neighbors their entire lives, they finally felt the need to bridge the gap.
Mr. Dr. Birdcage and I had a super fabulous weekend, which included going to the movies (like in a cinema) twice. Which is more than we did in all of 2008. (Not counting the Byrd, which is an entirely different experience. We haven't seen a first run movie in a movie theater since December of 2007, so you can see why two movies is truly noteworthy). Not only that, but neither of them sucked. Even better!
Friday, glorious day off, we went to Charlottesville. I have only ever been there for work, and P's never been there at all, so this was pretty exciting. It was a lovely drive, I dropped some cameras off that needed to be fixed (sticky shutters! Ba!), we had lunch at a diner, and then went to see Star Trek at the theater down on that pedestrian mall thing. It was really enjoyable (like, ten million times more enjoyable than I remember any of the earlier ones being. (I'm still pretty scarred from the whole earwig in Kirk's ear thing in The Wrath of Khan, and I remember the search for Spock one being weak. I did not see the whale one, but, you know, that might be because Star Trek + Intergalactic Whale = Ridiculous). ANYHOO. This one was totally entertaining-- I give it two thumbs up.
Okay, being that most of our weekends have been a whirl of packing/working/homework, etc., this is already the most exciting weekend we had had in like several years. SO. You can imagine my excitement at having more excitement.
Saturday we went to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. It was, for Independence Day, free, which meant that everyone and their dog was there, but still, it was pretty awesome. There is a butterfly exhibit going on at the moment, which was delightful (if long of the line-- nine million people in the hot sun, everyone but us there with small children who were by then too hot and tired to give a toss about a bunch of butterflies).
The butterflies were neeeeeeeeeat. There were also lots and lots of coooool plants.
Cool, yes? This is neat. Also, there were carnivorous plants:
There is a little swampy area with lots of pitcher plants, like these. They are pretty! And they eat bugs! We watched them digest. Also, we sat in the shade and watched the turtles bob around in the pond. We watched the bass and the brim. We tried to ignore the people, though it was at times difficult, as when a woman behind us was trying to remember the name of a flower and remembered it, suddenly and aggressively, yelling, "MARIGOLDS!" The zydeco band did not help.
When we got home, I harvested my first zucchini! It is sizable, and I'm pretty durn chuffed, thankee.
Sooooo, last week was a bit of a whirlwind-- a very very full workweek, including several days out and about in the state, followed up by seeing the parents in DC and doing one of my shifts at Artomatic. Which would have all been quite a bit to start with, but when my usual two hour drive to DC turned into a five hour odyssey on the way up and a four hour one on the way back, it really put a capper on a very long week. Which is why I'm trying to think about my garden and stuff instead....
I've also been working on some hats as well-- these are meant for wee heads.....
Lastly, I finished up something that I've been making for a friend... the theme is very much up her alley....
Hope she likes it!
We were at Artomatic on Saturday night for meet the artist night:
Rebecca and I enjoyed Dale Hunt's funhouse like paintings. Of course we both like his work in any case, since we both have pieces by him from Artomatics past.
It was lots of fun. Artomatic is pretty superfantastic this year-- great space with lots of interesting stuff. Go visit while it's still going on-- through July 5th!
I spent a bit of the weekend out in the garden, though not as much as I would have liked. Sadly, I spent most of it doing my least favorite gardening task-- weeding. I got about half done, but now it's raining, so I'm sure that all my work will be for naught, as it's meant to rain for the rest of the week.....
We are still having serious earwig problems. They seemed to abate a little when I swabbed the deck (literally!) with homemade insecticidal soap, but with the rain washing away the effects, I'm thinking they'll be back in force. They've started chomping on the zucchinis and beans and peas, which I'm rather unhappy about. And boy howdy do they looooooove the flowers I have on the deck.
time, right? Weekends I often try to get some cooking done.... but lately I've been too busy and out of town too much for grocery shopping. So there's been a lot of fridge clearing cooking going on....
I love the farmer's market. I have no idea how it is possible for me to go home with all that produce in May. I mean, it's mid-May. I started seedlings in March. And I have.... sprouts. They look pretty good and all that, but uhm. We are weeks and weeks away from eating anything other than two strawberries and some lettuce from last year (it self seeded. And looks awesome).
And now it's Sunday evening and I still have a huge list of things I was supposed to do this weekend. Sigh.
A place I hardly ever see. I was gone all week, and when I came back things were sprouting and growing and all sorts of things in my absence.
