who knew…?

I was this week old when I learned that potato plants flower… These are blue fingerling potato plants. Last year was the first time I grew potatoes, but I planted them mid-summer for fall harvest. They struggled in the heat and never got big enough to flower. The deadly nightshade is gorgeous!

first harvest

The first pick from the garden: Pink Beauty radishes! They were delicious in a slaw with cabbage, cilantro, and green onions. Pink Beauty radishes are fast spring radishes. They are mature at different rates, so hopefully we can stretch out the batch. A definite keeper!

tiny joy

Written a month ago, I found this incomplete post in my drafts folder. These are likely my favorite flower in our garden for history and brevity of bloom alike: Our dwarf iris love their home here in our garden. They more than double every year, from three modest clumps to rows and rows and rows. […]

spring done sprung

Spring has arrived, and early spring colors are filling our wabi-sabi garden. Enjoy the colors below:

hurray!

the final invasion

The temperature climbed just enough. The snow is packable again! The frozen cephalopod broke through the surface of the crisp peaceful snow, laying siege to the ship on the surface, but the snow-crew was not caught unprepared. They learned from their mates’ demises in the previous attack those two years back. The harpoons were kept […]

fall beds, fall cooking

Today is a chili kind of day, but dinner got started late, because darkness at two-thirty is messed up and tomatoes need to cook down. While the remainder of our green tomato harvest roasted with onion and garlic, I headed outside to tend the fall beds. We’ve already had snow and numerous frosts, so I […]

end of harvest soup

I harvested delicate things prior to the snow: tomatoes and herbs, planning for a batch of end of harvest soup. As the green tomato base roasted in the oven, I headed into the snow to harvest some hardier veggies: bok choy, carrots, and kale. (We opted to save the kale for something else.) Ground beef […]

so, there’s this…

It’s nice, these three-day weekends built into my cutback work schedule. I’m happy to watch this through window, with the warmth of the furnace. I enjoy the clash of seasons: the falling snow surrounding the fire of the turning maple. Growing up in Northeast Ohio, we almost always had snow before Halloween, followed by milder […]

the last fair day

Tonight is expected to hit freezing. So today, I pulled the rest of the non-hardy crops: tomatoes, hot peppers. And basil. I made my first pesto. We had no pine nuts in our pantry. Fortunately, pesto has become more of a framework formula than specific recipe: herb + oil + garlic + nut + sharp […]