Blooming Lilacs and a Runny Nose I have fifteen-foot-tall lilac bushes running down one side of my property line, and they’re gloriously in bloom this morning. It’s not eight yet, and the temperature is a balmy, sitting-on-the-porch-in-shirtsleeves sixty degrees. The sun is shining. The grackles are searching for bugs in the grass by the street. The puppy is lounging on the wicker sofa next to me. I love my life. Yesterday, I put the garden in. Such an old-fashioned phrase. I planted five varieties of tomatoes, and put their protective green wall-o-water hats on them. Since I started them indoors…
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Snow on the Lilacs Good thing I didn’t plant the tomatoes on Friday, when the sun was shining, when it was 70 degrees and my apple trees were blooming and the lilacs were this close to opening. Good thing because today it’s snowing. Snowing like winter, big fat wet flakes falling outside my window, two inches on the lawn, and the poor lilacs are all bent over from the load. Everything will be fine, this is expected, it’s Montana after all, and although the official last frost date was yesterday, the 17th, everyone knows that if you put your tomatoes…
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Another Day, Another Garden Bed Woke up this morning to sunshine, which was welcome. Although come to think of it, yesterday was sunny, it was just intermittently snowing and hailing through the sunshine. But this morning, blue skies and happy dogs. A good way to start a Sunday. Planted one more raised bed today. The plastic sheeting over the raised beds seems to be working quite well. This morning when I went to shake the puddles off the two existing beds, I discovered they’d frozen overnight. But underneath, carrots and arugula are sprouting, and the shaky-looking transplants I put in…
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A Perfect Rain We’ve had two days of perfect spring rain. No downpours, just soft, soaking perfect rain. For those of you who don’t live in the West, it’s important to remember that we only get 14.5 inches per year, on average, and the past couple of years we haven’t even gotten that, so the general mood is one of deep relief and nascent hope for a good season this year. Here on my little backyard farm, the pathetic-looking chard and parsley plants I transplanted on Monday are looking good. They like real dirt. They like soft rain. They’re looking…
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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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Weird but good. But mostly weird. I had a lot of leftover chicken from The Week of Roasted Chickens, and it was all breast meat, which can be tricky to work with as leftovers because it gets dry and stringy and horrible. So last night, while gazing aimlessly into the fridge trying to decide what to do with said chicken, I noticed that little tub of Thai Green Curry Paste that I don’t think I’ve ever cooked with. I’ve used the red curry paste several times, but not the green. It was cold and rainy here and Thai curry sounded…
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Everybody likes cake. Another dinner party last night — our friends Bob and Robin came over to see the new garden. Since my chi is still a little low, I made the same dinner that I cooked for Patrick and the Nice Girlfriend the other night — but I made a cake. People think making a cake is a really big deal, but it’s not. I made the Buttermilk Cocoa Cake out of Laurie Colwin’s fabulous book More Home Cooking. It could hardly be easier — in a bowl you mix together flour, cocoa, sugar, a little salt and baking…
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Roast Chicken to Cure the Blues My darling brother has a new girlfriend, and of course, when you are no longer young, new relationships tend to come with some baggage. The Nice Girlfriend had a tough day yesterday, her baggage was all noisy with her about the fact that she’s moving on in life, and she was a little blue. She’s also renovating her house, and domestic disarray never helps when feeling blue. Plus, the brother has a cold, and was a little low himself. So late in the afternoon they came over and we sat on the new, comfy…
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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…