Visit from Jaja

Jaja came to visit this weekend and we had a blast!  We went to an incredible workshop at the Center for Art in Wood, in Old City where we created a "cabinet of curiosities" out of a cigar box and with great instruction and inspiration from the staff at the center.  We created a portrait for the front, and of course I chose to draw my cats.  Yes, I'm a cat lady.  I really like how it turned out:

 

They had great supplies for us to use, and the boxes already had elaborately patterned paper around the edges that we could use as a jump off for inspiration.  Apparently cigar stores just smash these boxes and throw them in the trash, so it's easy to get them if you're there at the right time.  Which I will obviously be doing now that I know how beautiful these boxes are without any decoration at all.

 

We also went to a work day at Farm 51, which is run by my friends Andrew and Neal.  We destroyed some raised beds and harvested broccoli, then had a bonfire and ate delicious home made coffee cake and cookies.  Their house next door is gorgeous and another constant source of inspiration:

 

 

 

An amazing and inspirational weekend and a great way to start the new year!

Making a Home

This month M and I are moving to a new place that we are renting by ourselves! We figure it's about time to see if we can live without roommates (we've been married for a year already, holy cow!)

We gave ourselves an entire month to move and I would say we're about 90% done as of last week. The new place is a total chaotic mess, don't get me wrong, but at least at this point most of our stuff is here and not there.

One of the most exciting things about this place is that there is a backyard! It's cemented over and surrounded by a chain link fence covered in weedy vines, but not for long! I have lots of ideas for it, including cement removal, a hammock, a fire pit, a colorful trellis, strings of lights, herbs, lavender, fruit trees, a rain barrel, lots of flowers and more.

Here are a few "before" pics, let me know if you have any ideas!

Beginning Again

I got three seed catalogs in the mail already! Just in time for our end of the year potluck for The Woodlands Community Garden . . .

Shoots

The beginning! These chives are in a container on my porch, and there are also some coming up in my plot at The Woodlands Community Garden.

And so it begins again . . .

I got my first seed catalogue already!! I'm not quite ready to look at it yet, but pretty soon I will be scheming about potatoes and peas . . .

Extending the Season

A few weeks ago my friend Sally and I held a cold frame workshop at The Woodlands Community Garden. Sally is a community gardening guru, the person who runs the Garden Tenders program at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society that I love so much.



A cold frame is like a mini greenhouse that you can use to cover a small part of your garden or place in the grass to start seedlings in. It warms the air and soil underneath it so you can grow crops even in the snow! Of course, you are limited by the height of the cold frame.



I'm using mine to cover the carrot seedlings I have in my plot with the hopes that I can warm the soil enough to get them to a decent harvest-able size before too long. We used aluminum and glass windows that we picked up for free in the trash, and some recycled plastic wood for the sides. The window simply sits on the top of the frame in our design, but you can attach it with a hinge for a fancier version.



Happy gardening!

Fall Sprouts

The summer crops are out of the community garden plots (and the green tomatoes have been dealt with). I sowed some lettuce mix, carrots, arugula and spinach and the sprouts are sprouting. Onto the next season!

August Harvest

What a doozy!

I harvested the following from both the St. Bernard Community Garden and the Woodlands Community Garden this morning:

• 'Katahdin' and 'Yukon Gold' potatoes
• one tiny (and slightly tasteless) watermelon
• habanero peppers
  
• 'Sungold' and 'Tomaccio' cherry tomatoes
• 'Long Slim' cayenne peppers
• a 'Cherokee Purple' and two other tomatoes
• red onions
• an eggplant
• leeks
• deformed, end-of-season cucumbers

Then I made home fries for lunch.



I am loving this weekend. The weather is gorgeous (back in the mid-eighties) and my lovely friend and former CA room-mate Crystal is coming for a visit! Enjoy your own weekends and this fleeting end-of-summer feeling.

Wind and Chill

Yes, that's right. It's been windy and rainy and chilly here in Philadelphia the last few days and I am loving it. Fall is my favorite season and I love sleeping with the window open and being able to keep the comforter on the bed the whole night (instead of kicking it off in a sweaty tantrum in the middle of the night as I've been doing so far this summer).



I picked up my monthly allotment of plants from the Camden City Garden Club yesterday morning and it turns out that they just got a delivery of cool weather crops and I got first dibs! So now I've got my fill of cilantro, broccoli, two kinds of lettuce, mustard greens, swiss chard, peas, and bush beans. The beans are actually a summer crop, but I'm still going to try because beans seem to do well on my porch and I need something to replace the spent tomatoes, marigolds, and snap dragons.

Beans and red leaf lettuce:



Swiss chard:



Cilantro:



Now bring on the chilly weather!

Navigating the Urban Jungle

For the past few months I've been sending out feelers to see what kind of opportunities there are available to me to try to make a little extra cash. In May, I stumbled across this brand new garden store in South Philly called Urban Jungle, and with M's help I pitched a workshop series to the owner and he was enthusiastic about it! So now I am the Horticulturalist and Educator at Urban Jungle, where we have workshops every Thursday on a variety of topics. Below is a picture of my little set-up in the store last week, before I started teaching my class on Gardening for Butterflies and Hummingbirds. You'll notice a batch of freshly baked cookies in the tupperware with the green lid.



It's not a full time job by any means, but it's an exciting opportunity. Attendance has been patchy, but I'm learning a lot about promotion (some of it from my in-house DJ who has lots of experience). So check us out on Facebook, and if you're in the area come on out to a class! (The next class is for families; it's called Salsa-in-a-Pot and you can register here.)

Porch Status

I haven't posted many pics of my porch plants because they are often in a very sad state. But it's spring! And that means that everything is looking much nicer than normal, and I'm paying a lot more attention to my plants. So I thought I'd show off.



Romaine and "red fire" lettuce, garlic, yellow and red onions, pansies, wildflower mix (still sprouts), sage, spinach, cilantro, and swiss chard.



Penstemon and pansies.



Peas, pansies, lettuce, and redbud branches.



Chives, strawberries, and daffodils.



Amaryllis! Okay, this one is not on the porch, it's in the sun room. But still.

Right now

Right now I am thankful for . . .



. . . a weekend spent immersed in new traditions, culture, and history (Good Yomtov!) . . .



. . . a love that grows stronger with each new experience . . .



. . . poetry . . .



. . . thrifting with M and enjoying our finds (a satin LA Lakers jacket for $10!) . . .



. . . exploring a new community garden (more to come!) . . .



. . . our cherry tree blossoms . . .



. . . hard work paying off at the Walnut Hill Mini-Farm (more to come!) . . .



. . . and sunlight.

Terrain Terrariums

There's a store about 45 minutes away from me called Terrain, and it's run by the same people who do Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters. If you like that stuff (and I DO), and you are a gardener (and I AM), you, like me, would just faint dead away when you saw the things they have for sale at this place. It's like home-and-garden porn.









And they specialize in terrarium supplies, which I happen to be slightly obsessed with. See my post about Z's terrariums at her family home. She scoffed when she heard that I had PAID to attend an entire workshop on the topic, but that I did.



It was taught by Tovah Martin, who has written a coffee table book called "The New Terrarium." While she was talking I had the distinct feeling that both she and I were of a different world than the people who were about to spend over $100 on their terrariums, and how in the world did we get here? But it was fun, and I managed to spend relatively little on my two terrariums.



Her basic recipe includes stones (for drainage), charcoal (to purify the water), container mix soil, and plants. Pretty simple. And to be honest, I think the only things that are necessary are the soil and the plants. It's a widely spread myth that putting stones at the bottom of a container helps with drainage, it doesn't.





The stones, charcoal, and soil came with the registration fee, and they had some fun little pieces of nature to add to the container, which I did, liberally. But the plants and the "glass vessels" were extra, and it was easy to get carried away (my friend spent about $75 on her terrarium). I made one terrarium while I was there, and then prepared another one for home . . .



. . . because I had this special guy to put in it! It's a pitcher plant (Sarracenia sp.), native to our region, that I got from the EPA's flower show exhibit for free! They are kind of difficult to grow indoors, but I'm going to try.



So the verdict is that Terrain is amazing for inspiration, but not so amazing on the wallet. Not that I won't go back.