toms + tomato

Walking outside, I noticed that my prudence purple tomato that has been green since the beginning of summer has finally decided that now is the time to mature. It was waiting for fall, just like me.

I can't imagine how, I swear it's almost been freezing at nights. What can I say, I have pretty stubborn tomatoes. My sun golds are also deciding to rebel and ripen. No matter how much I neglect them, not water them, or weed them. (sorry mom!)

I caved and bought the first new pair of many new shoes I have to get this winter. Those 3 pairs of sneaks are pretty much all I have, and I got embarrassed to show up to work with shoes with huge holes in them. Toms are pretty much sneaker's fat lazy cousin. In the best of ways. They are pretty much like slippers, and I couldn't resist the peach color. Next up, a pair of black boots, rain boots, and oxfords. Do you have any favorites to recommend? I need serious help.

Speaking of toms, this is probably the cutest use of them, which is from the blog of my newest interwebs friend whitney. So adorable.

friday round up

Being the first week of school (for Tyler not me!) I feel like I've just been trying to get everything together and catch up. It's been a great week though.

I got my first tomato today! Pretty exciting. My garden turned really sad and pathetic, and the tomato plants and pepper plants are the last ones surviving. Tyler just wanted to know why it has a nipple.

Gingie is doing great, she's been so much better itch-wise, and is back to her content sun-loving self. A bit frantic this week because of all the sounds outside, I think she's used to the summer ghost town.

I made a big batch of chocolate granola yesterday, which went along great with the cool fall breeze in the air this week. It is seriously awesome. I've posted about it a while back, but it is the best! I base it on Molly's recipe and of course let my whims take over. This batch I doubled, and added big handful of raw pumpkin seeds, and 1/4 cup dark cocoa powder. I also used brown sugar syrup and a little maple syrup instead of honey.

berry picking

One thing I wanted to do for sure when I came here to Portland was to pick berries. Not just any berries, but marionberries. They are an unique blackberry hybrid that were created and only grown in Oregon. They are so delicious. Mal sent me some jam that she made last summer, and I was totally obsessed. I was bound and determined to pick lots and lots so I could make jam that would hopefully last me most of the year.

We set out yesterday morning, little theo in tow. The weather was cool and refreshing. The farm we went to was so beautiful. Since moving to farm country I have a deep love affair with farms that I think will last my whole life. They had so many flowers and different fruits and vegetables. I took so many pictures of cabbage. Aren't those colors just amazing? I loved it.

We picked 17 (!) pounds of marionberries. Tyler probably picked most of that. He was a machine! The bushes were really thorny, I got sunburned and hit with a sprinkler while taking a close up of a dahlia, but it was so worth it. Have you picked anything this season? 

go to my flickr, (or click on any of my pictures) to see the rest of my pics of our day, I was definitely shutter happy.

my first harvest

I picked my first crop of beans this weekend. I didn't get too many, but just enough to share with friends. Because of our heat waves, they curled and didn't get too long, but maybe the next batch won't be so traumatized. They've come so far! They were delicious steamed with fresh lemon juice. I think by the time we get back my tomatoes might be ready.

baby greens

My garden is slowly growing, after the heat wave we had last week my beans really took off! I have one lone tomato, super cute and small. The pepper plant finally has a little blossom on it. I probably will be able to have my first "harvest" of beans at the end of this week! So that's pretty exciting. I haven't mastered the garden yet, but it's going pretty well for my first time. The groundhogs have eaten most of my other plants without a fence around it, which is pretty sad, but I'll just have to be happy with what I've got. People always have too much zucchini anyways, I'm bound to get some.

While I'm in the backyard, Gigi always sneaks a nibble of grass. crazy pup.

*it may be hard to tell the actual sizes of my baby plants, because I happen to have giant man hands. Seriously. Did you see my thumb? Anything with my hands in the picture should come with a warning—objects in picture may be larger than they appear.

*UPDATE coming home this afternoon, we found part of our fence knocked over and my poor little tomato and pepper blossom have been eaten. I think my heart is broken. GROUNDHOGS! I hate you. Tyler is going to fortify the defenses, I don't know what to say, I'm sad. 

garden update

Well my garden has mostly survived. My beans look good, but my onions and leeks have never really stood up straight or even look like they've grown very much. Oh well. My rosemary died but my wilted tomato plant came back to life. My cucumbers have sprouted, and my cilantro is super tiny. Check out the garden before here.

My perennials were doing really well, until our lame resident groundhog ate two of them, and my cosmo seedlings. He also ate some leaves from my zucchini, but hopefully they will make it. Hopefully our kind of weak fence keeps him out of the garden. Or I might have to go all caddysack up in here. All in all it's doing pretty good, I'm keeping it weeded and hopefully it will survive! It seems like the slowest garden ever, but I think I just got it in later than everyone else.

garden progress report

My beans have come up great! It's so thrilling to see them come up all in a row. I planted my tomatoes two days ago and I am really afraid for that one withery guy. I don't think he liked the planting much. I've been watering them pretty well, so hopefully he perks up! My rosemary never did well after I planted it, it's pretty much gone to the other side. My peppers are in and they seem to be good. My leeks and onions are still all over the place, looking pretty sloppy and it's been a couple weeks. There are so many, so as long as half do alright then I'll be happy. It's been an adventure so far, my experiment in gardening, we'll see!

In other growing news, I can't stop thinking about my twin, who is about 2 weeks away from giving birth to a little boy. I still can't comprehend it, I wish I could be there! I can't wait to see the little guy who will have half my DNA. Which is pretty awesome. It's like getting the reward without having to do any of the work! I bet he'll look just like me. 

backyard exporation

This morning I went out to check out my garden. I saw a little groundhog friend, those guys are all over the place, with rabbits, and squirrels, which is why I put a fence around my garden. At least he was eating the weeds. My flower bed is doing pretty well (remember before?), I planted some flowers from seed this weekend, so hopefully they come up! I planted leeks, onions, beans, cilantro and rosemary in my garden also, the onions and leeks are all droopy though. Hopefully they perk up this week.

I spotted a peony plant in our neighbor's plants. The owner's son who lived there last year, put in a great garden and plants, and since now there are a handful of twenty-something undergrads living there, it has all gone wild and overgrown. The peony plant is all toppled over from not being managed, but I salvaged a couple blooms. I don't think the guys will miss them. They are my absolute favorite, I hope to have a few plants in my garden for next spring. I love having flowers inside.

That was really the most productive I was this weekend, we just relaxed (I might have taken a few naps), watched the first season of damages, and were waiting for the Lost finale. Did you watch it? I liked it, but I'm trying not to think to hard about all the details.

spot of green

Today we worked a little more on our backyard. It seems so weird to be doing these things, so grown-up. We went to a local plant sale the master gardeners were having, to get started on our planting. After browsing around, we decided to get some:


Rosemary Barbeque
Creeping thyme (didn't see until later that it is groundcover, maybe not for eating...whoops!)
Chives
Tomatoes; New Girl, Prudence Purple, and Sun Gold
Peppers; Carmen and Lady Bell
Leeks and Red onion
Hidcote Lavender
Stokes Aster Blue Danube
Yellow Coreopsis
Bee Balm 'Jacob Cline'

We mostly chose the flowers on a whim, and most are perennials. I also have some zinnias and green bean seeds to plant that my mom gave me. Need to round it out with green onions, and cilantro, and maybe some other things, but we're getting there! It's still too cold to plant any of it, might plant the flowers next week.

We cleared some more ground today, but it was soggy and cold. We built a little fence around the garden so the numerous ground hogs, rabbits, and other little creatures won't eat it. We are also deciding on a BBQ. Leaning towards a charcoal grill, not as convenient, but we kinda want a true grill experience, and they are small and much more attractive to look at.

Have you gotten any plants lately? Any good ones to recommend?

my own garden party

the before pictures

On Saturday we planned on working in the yard. I want to get my garden ready to plant, but I was dreading it a little. My mom is an amazing gardener, I grew up with fresh veggies, and beautiful things, but I never really appreciated them as I should have because all those things came with one thing. Weeding. I hated weeding! My mom would call together "garden parties" and my sister and I would slowly make our way outside. We helped some, but there were times we just buried weeds (which took way more work then pulling them), squealing from yucky bugs and I was deathly afraid of spiders hiding under every leaf (still am). It's been years, and so the thought of going out to weed kinda terrified me. But I ventured out, bought some great garden gloves, a trowel, and my old friend (and enemy) the weeding stick.

I started to rake the old leaves and twigs, and stuck my weeding stick in the ground, and all my skills came back (I did learn some things). I was shocked about how satisfying it is to pull weeds. I had no reservations about grabbing anything, and I didn't even check for spiders. I did kill one though. I remember seeing my mom like that and wondering how she could just walk through plants, and with her bare hands pull weeds and not be scared of bugs. Now that was me (bees may be another story)! At the end of the day, my garden plot was cleared, ready for its future seeds to be sown.

Next week: we are going to tackle those flower beds so I can plant flowers. Thanks mom. Deep down I had a little seed of a gardener waiting to grow.