Everybody Likes Cake, Part 2 Yesterday I moved a dumptruck load of compost into my new raised beds. I do not recommend moving a dumptruck load of compost by oneself, especially if one is, as I am, a small-ish woman who is no longer the strong thing she was in her twenties. It was hard. It was really hard and I had to get it all done yesterday because had been dumped in such a way that it blocked open the big gate to the alley. The dogs were pretty good about it, but every once in a while, something…
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Forsythia and chickens It was sort of a crappy day here in Montana … weather looming, dogs digging up the weed-barrier-cloth I laid around the soon-to-be-raised-beds and shredding it all over the yard, and I was just off all day. So I did what all good Americans do when feeling out of sorts, I got in the car, drove to Bozeman, and went shopping. But what I love about living here is that shopping includes stops like the Big R Ranch & Home Supply where you can buy everything from clothes to dog food to garden supplies to Bantam Chickens.…
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Garden Update I have sprouts! Two of the five tomatoes have sprouted, and the thyme seems to be coming up as well. The grow lights are on and as always, I’m weirdly surprised that seeds actually sprout. While avoiding war coverage last night, I stumbled across a rerun of my new favorite show, Ground Force, on BBC America.The conceit of Ground Force is that loved ones write in requesting a surprise garden makeover for someone, the show gets the recipient out of town for a weekend, and makes over their garden. So imagine my surprise when flipping channels to discover…
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Gardening update It was a fruitful weekend here in the garden. I’m building a somewhat elaborate traditional kitchen garden with raised beds, and this weekend I got it all marked out with stakes and chalk line, and then today I dug six of the eight beds. The other two, which I suspect will be heavy with crabgrass roots, as well as with roots from the large virginia creeper I cut down, will have to wait until I can fit them in this week, because my back made it abundantly clear that it had had enough for the day (I hate…
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The dirt of my dreams. Of my dreams! We’re having a thaw — today was gorgeous, sixty-five degrees, sun shining, a little windy but then again, this is Livingston and we’re used to wind. So outside I went, spading fork in hand, to turn over some dirt. Now my last garden, in California, was a wonderland of clay. Turning over soil was a marathon activity which often involved me standing on my spade, bouncing up and down, trying to wiggle it into the dirt. And my first garden was in Telluride, at nearly 9000 feet with a 45 day growing…
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Seeds for Hope I sent off my seed orders the other day. Winter came late to Montana this year, but it’s here now, and with a vengence. It’s been snowing all week, and cold. The kind of grey winter weather where there is no horizon, just blowing white snow broken by the occasional grey-brown windbreak of dormant cottonwood trees. It is most certainly the dead of winter, and for the first time ever, now that I have a yard where I can really sink a garden in, I got to sit down and fill out the seed orders. I’ve been…
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I spent New Years Day gardening. This would be unremarkable except that I live in Montana. Livingston, Montana. Where it is supposed to be winter, real winter, not like the fake winters when I lived in the Bay Area. Don’t even get me started on my season’s pass to Bridger Bowl … that pass has yet to make it off my bulletin board and onto my jacket. So, I’m a little superstitious about New Year’s day, and I think you should start the year out right. Since, in the brave new world of global warming, it was 40 degrees and…