I'm back!

So after almost 2 years, and a lot of changes, I think it's time to rev this blog up again and document my garden (and probably a bit of my life too). So guess who's back?!

Why hello there!

So first up, the changes. My wonderful husband, B, applied for and received a promotion to a new management position within his company. Great news, right? Of course, but why the fuss? Well this new position was in another region, which means . . . we moved! Not too far away, though. As you might recall (or maybe you don't, it's been like 18 months - sorry!), we lived in Seattle, Washington. Well the new position is in Portland, Oregon!

Source

So we drove the 3 hours South, got ourselves a nice little house, and settled in about 7 months ago. So far we are missing Seattle like crazy but are starting to really like our new city. Especially the excellent public transportation system and amazing bike lanes. We even got a trail-a-bike and W (who is almost 5!!) loves to ride around the town. Every once in a while, he'll even peddle.

So the new house. It's brand new, like "we are the first people to ever live in it" brand new. We weren't looking for a new build, but after living in a 95 year old house in Seattle and dealing with the 95-year old clay pipes, the lack of electrical outlets, and the windows that wouldn't open, we decided that new was fine with us. And it was a good decision. I have 13 electrical outlets in the living room/dining room alone! It's incredible! The only thing this awesome house didn't come with was a huge back yard. In fact, the backyard is pretty small. But again, after the yard in the Seattle house which quickly became overgrown with weeds, bamboo, and other unknown species of plants, it's nice to have something that's easy to maintain. And the light!! I didn't realize how little sun we got in Seattle until we moved here. So far this Spring, I've clocked the back patio as getting 8-10 hours of direct sunlight a day. Which will only go up as the days get longer. Woo-hoo! Finally, I can buy those plants that say "full sun."

So even though we have a very small yard, I decided to try some container gardening for our very first summer here. And we are off to such a great start that I decided to revive the blog! I guess you never know what's around the corner :-)

So a quick tour of what I've got growing:

This may look like a jumble of green, but it's actually 2 tomato plants (a cherry tomato and a golden), a zucchini, and a bell pepper. All growing strong and the cherry tomato (in the lower right) already has a small green tomato in its midst. Also, the zucchini leaves are giant. How's that for starting things off on the right foot!

This little tomato is kind of shy.

W calls the zucchini leaves "elephant ears"

I actually think I should have planted the tomato, zucchini, and pepper in their own containers, but live and learn - and make a note for next year.

I've got some salad bowl lettuce (to the left) that I've already picked off of twice and it just keeps coming back! Love having fresh lettuce in the garden! In the middle are french radishes that we planted from seed and have already picked a few of as well. Very peppery and tasty. I think I'll plant some more to keep these things coming all season! On the far right is flat leaf parsley. I don't want it to seem like I don't respect the flat leaf parsley, but this plant was purchased as part of a buy one, get one free deal and while parsley in the garden seems like a great idea (and we certainly use it in cooking), we never seem to actually pick it and it ends up going to seed or being pulled up at the end of the season unused. My goal this year is to actually. use. the. parsley. We'll see. Any tips on what to use large amounts of parsley for would be greatly appreciated. Maybe I'll be inspired.

From left, beans, peas, and strawberries, oh my!

These are my favorites simply because they will not be stopped. They are growing like crazy and the pea plant already has pods on it!

The pods are empty though. I assume they fill in with peas? I wish there were some way to look up this information, quickly and easily. Oh hello Google! ;-)

Can't wait till this thing goes red!

I gave in and bought one of those prefab strawberry planter thingies filled with plants and it's doing great! The only problem is getting W to wait until the berries turn red before he picks them - unfortunately, several green strawberries will never make it to maturity due to the overzealous nature of a 4 year old! A moment of silence, please.

Arise ye pumpkins!

W is also getting into the act and this very day brought home a pumpkin plant he grew from seed in school. It came home in a biodegradable mini pot so we just dug a hole, popped it in, covered it with soil, and watered gently. He has high hopes of growing several large pumpkins that will be ready to carve for Halloween. That kid is always thinking ahead!

So that's the backyard for now. As I said, it's small, but full of sun (and love and joy and all that other schmoopy stuff) and hopefully we'll be getting some good eats very soon.

I have plans to post garden updates and maybe some other stuff at least twice a week, so stay tuned and welcome back!

Cheers!

- c