Allergies bring out the artist in me

Saturday was a family day at the garden. Since I'm under doctor's orders to steer clear of the weeds (oh, darn), poor Chris had to tackle the whole mess pretty much on his own. But the girls and I went along for moral support. Oh, and the adjoining playground may have had an influence on some people's decisions.

It looks much better now. Chris took out all his work-related stress on the three-foot-high weeds, and I think he feels much better now, too. The girls "helped" for a little bit, but the call of the playground is just too strong, so their tools were abandoned early on.

Thanks to my new wonder-meds (which really did work wonders for the itching and hives but unfortunately leave me feeling like I've been drinking coffee all day long) I'm in much better shape, and no one else seems to have developed any garden-related allergies, although Chris did have a run-in with a nest of angry ants.

As a result of our weed-friendly neglect, we didn't get to enjoy much (any, really) of the lettuce or spinach that we planted, we only picked a few bags full of peas rather than the gallons we envisioned, and the broccoli and cauliflower all went to seed, but the tomatoes are thriving (all 20 plants, whew!) and the zucchini and other squash don't seem to be too traumatized by the near-smothering they suffered. We also got a bumper crop of turnips, which all rotted in the fridge while we were in Alaska and during the 100+ degree weather right after, when it was too hot to do anything with them (what do you do with a bumper crop of turnips, anyway?) Our 20'x20' plot wasn't a complete waste this year, but we do hope to be able to pay more attention to it next year.

I love this time of year at the garden, though. Our plot is one of about 20 at the local community garden, and it's fun to wander through and be inspired by the more accomplished gardeners around us. So while Chris tackled the weeds, I walked around with the camera, and here's what I brought home with me:

This bee is on the garlic we didn't plant, which grew in our plot anyway.

I don't know what these vines are, but I like how they look.

This is called a walking onion. They're slightly scary and completely awesome at the same time.

Can't wait for this year's salsa and tomato soup!

Blackberries grow wild on the back fence of the garden, so we've enjoyed a plentiful bounty for free. They go great with Tillamook Vanilla Bean ice cream, just FYI.

These cool-looking flowers belong to the vines above. Some kind of bean, maybe?

In fact, apart from produce, people have planted a lot of awesome looking flowers.



I have no idea what this thing is, but it looks really Dr. Seuss-ish. I kind of want to give it a hug.

We bought sunflower seeds this year, but to my knowledge never planted any. However, about 8 sunflowers, ranging in size from ginormous to only as tall as me, have grown in our plot, undeterred by that fact.



Ah, yes, this allergy has been a blessing in disguise. Just think of the beauties I could share with you if I were allergic to housework, too.

Orange

This post is a week or two behind the times, but we can now add 10 pints of pumpkin (with another pumpkin to go) to the 12 quarts + 6 pints of applesauce and 12 pints of salsa. Just call us canning wizards! And in case anyone is wondering (because I know you all are), making a pumpkin pie from fresh pumpkin is not as hard as people make it out to be. Time consuming, yes - at least the first time, when you have to actually cook the pumpkin; next time I'll just have to pull a jar out of the freezer - but hard, not at all. And all the pumpkins and tomatoes for the salsa were grown in our garden.

How does your garden grow?

With peas...
Beautiful basil (and various other herbs)...
Really cool-looking cauliflower...
...in purple, too...
And little purple potatoes...
Can you tell we like purple?

Pumpkins that will hopefully store until Halloween...
And enough tomatoes...
To make salsa...
And the yummiest homemade, from scratch, tomato soup in the world!
We love our garden!

Sometimes the sun shines in Oregon

And we make the most of it!

Saturday was a gorgeous day, the nicest day of the year so far. So we took full advantage. We’ve rented a garden plot at our local Community Garden, so we spent the morning pulling weeds and planting a few more things. So far we have planted peas, radishes, lettuce, potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, parsley, turnips (because Lexi wanted them), onions, and probably something else I’m forgetting. Here’s a shot of the garden, not from the best angle, but you can see how big it is (the plan is that the fence in the frontish will eventually be covered in peas). We were expecting something no bigger than 4’ x 6’, sort of like the garden plots at the University Village, and wound up with a 20 square foot garden!

Vicki spent the morning planting the little plot we’ve given her. She planted carrots, broccoli (good girl!) and sunflowers.
Lexi and Ellie mostly played in the rocks, but they had a good time and think it’s really fun going to the garden, so that’s all that matters.
Surprisingly, despite the beautiful weather, we were the only people there all morning long. In a way that’s nice, but we’re kind of hoping to meet a few of our fellow gardeners, especially the ones with the plot that looks like they’ve been cultivating it for years! We need some tips!

In the afternoon we decided to run over to the high school and shoot off the rockets the girls gave Chris for Christmas. We invited our friends the Humphreys to come with us, and the kids had a great time. We managed to only lose one of the four rockets we shot off, the smallest one, whose fluorescent green color stood out great in the snow at Christmastime, but didn’t work so well in the green grass of the football field. We found the motor, but the rocket is apparently gone forever. Vicki shot off her rocket that Uncle Blaine gave her…

…and Chris shot off the two that he painted himself (the colors in the kits are pretty cheesy, especially for a design-minded person). We call this one The Black Widow.
Everyone had a great time, and we’re really glad we spent most of the day outside, since by Sunday night it was raining and cold again. However, the good news is that after living here for nearly three years, we know that the sun will come out again!

Here are some more random pictures from the day:

Lexi posing for the camera (this is what comes naturally for her whenever there’s a camera around. What am I going to do with her?)
Ellie peeking through the fence. I know she looks like a jailbird, but it’s a cute picture!
Ellie and her very best friend Anna. I finally got a shot of them hugging!
By the way, if the pictures all look a little blue, it's because the light setting on the camera was somehow set for incandescent light, which, not surprisingly, doesn't work so well outside in full sunshine. So I fixed them on Photoshop the best I could, but I know they still don't look quite right.