April 3, 2014 by Born To Organize

Living Scrapbook: My Little Side Yard Garden

This seems to be a banner year for my little side garden. Virtually everything is in bloom or promises to in short order. The tiny plot is small and shady, but full of wonderful memories.

Side yard garden darlings: petal pink azalea, budding Jasmin, blue fescue, white and purple alyssum, pink azaleas camouflage the meter

When we bought the house 18 years ago, the narrow space between our house and the neighbors was in sad neglect. A ragged shrub divided the property line, creating a dark, narrow opening between the garage and the gate to the back yard. In short, it was a pass through

The side yard was low on the list of household projects since we didn’t spend any time there. Of course, if you garden, every bit of available soil eventually meets the wandering eye. What if we…

So when the neighbor asked if the shrub could go, the answer was a resounding yes! Between households, there were five children, all under the age of ten so I suggested a ‘children’s garden.’ It would be a place for them to play, plant and experiment. A small wooden bridge, once in the backyard, spanned the tiny space and unified the area. I relocated my dinosaur topiary and Mike transplanted a pair of azaleas from the back yard. The kids loved it. At one point my six-year-old decided to dig a ‘hot tub’ in the middle of the garden. Shavings of sidewalk chalk turned into magic dust, as long as you believed. I miss those days of wild imaginings.

Planting the children’s garden

Digging in the dirt

Within a few years, the neighbors moved away. Our boys got older, the bridge began to rot, and the garden morphed again.

As it turned out, the little bridge proved to be an excellent hiding place for snails. I’ve never seen so many of them congregated in one place. Out it went.

We planted sunflowers in front of the lemon tree, but it eventually took over.

I planted Alyssum from starters and a bag of wildflowers. Just enough came up to fill the garden that summer, but just as quickly, they died off in late fall. I added a few begonias, transplanted overgrown fescue from the fairy garden, and eventually the baby tears meandered over the exposed dirt and made themselves at home. Our dwarf lemon tree moved in at the edge of the garden and agreed to stay.

Sunflowers take off

Measuring the sunflowers

Our little patch of garden makes me smile. It feels like a living scrapbook of our years in this home. It mirrors the ebb and flow of life. It’s also a reminder of the joy to be found in a tiny patch of dirt.

View from the gate

View from the neighbors side

Fescue, Alyssum, Vinca, and the trunk of the lemon tree

November 4, 2013 by Born To Organize

How to Braid A Carrot

Note: I’ll have to put some thought into tagging this post. I’m not sure anyone ever did a Google search using the term “braid carrot.” Here goes:

Step one:

Purchase nursery six-packs of small, leafy carrot starters. Make the following assumption: each cell contains one carrot plant.

Step two:

Plant accordingly. Be sure to gather the neighbor’s day-care kids. Turn tiny people into future gardeners.

Step three:

Wait 50 – 70 days. Publicize your countdown in your blog sidebar. This is an important step for those of us with “menopause brain.”

Step four:

Take the sage advice of a couple of bloggers who inquire “did you thin the plants?” (Note: In my gardening defense, I know about thinning seeds. I just ASSumed they were pre-thinned before I bought them.)

Step five:

Dig up a few ‘spare carrots’, in this case, the carrots planted on the other side of the curb garden as back ups in case the tiny gardener’s crop fails. (One or two did and I was able to fill in accordingly) Realize, oh-oh…I didn’t thin the plants. Thin one or two and watch them droop. They didn’t like waking up early.

Step six:

Reset the countdown in the side-bar from 50 to 70 days and wait some more.

Step seven:

The most important step of all: Watch the tiny gardeners cute, wondrous faces as they dig up a carrot and realize what they’ve grown. Picture me smiling from ear to ear.

Tiny gardener harvesting carrots

Carrot unearthed

And if you’ve read this far, here is the tutorial I promised.

How to braid a carrot:

Refer to steps one through seven.

Braided Carrots

October 8, 2013 by Born To Organize

Carrot Countdown

If you look to the right (in the sidebar) you’ll see that we only have seven more days till the carrot harvest. I bought cell pack starter plants at the nursery in late August and planted them with the wee ones next door (aka Jassy’s day-care kids).

Cell packs of carrots (bottom, right)

Newly planted carrots (Jassy made each of them a place-holder)

I’ve kept a sharp eye on them in case they faltered. I didn’t want someone’s first gardening experience to be a dud. So…when one of the small plants drooped and then dropped, I sprung into action. In the dead of night (well…late afternoon anyway), I swapped out one of the healthier carrots on the other side of the curb garden. I want each of the tiny gardeners to harvest a carrot of their own.

Healthy carrot tops, seven days till harvest

When Boomdee was here last week, she wondered aloud if we should have thinned them. Hmmmm…I have no idea. I’ve always thinned plants that I planted from seed, but for some reason assumed these were one-carrot-per-cell pack. This morning I scraped away a small amount of soil at the root line, and sure enough, several tiny carrots are growing together.

It’s too late to do much about it now. Chalk it up to another lesson learned at gardening nirvana.

Meanwhile, stay tuned for harvest day. I’m pretty excited.

Halloween Countdown:

Final count (probably) not counting the still-green pumpkin growing near the curb garden.

September 3, 2013 by Born To Organize

Growing Peas and Carrots

Not only did I grow up eating peas and carrots, but I liked them, too. It will be nice growing our own crop this year, assuming the crafty squirrels let them grow.

grey squirrel

Peas:

Last week I mentioned hedging my bets by starting a few seeds indoors. Once I consulted the seed packet I decided to direct-sow. I soaked half the seeds in water for 48 hours, then planted them directly outdoors. I saved the rest of the seed packet to replenish the inevitable casualties.

Looking left and right for squirrels, I surreptitiously pushed several seeds into the soil around the arbor. I planted the rest amongst the still-flowering annuals. With luck, they’ll all come up and produce lovely green vines along both sides of the sidewalk.

Carrots:

I have a lot of faith in the success of the carrots, since we planted starts instead of seeds. I say ‘we’ because this year I had help from several of Jazzy’s day care children next door. The older kids planted two each; I filled in later with the rest. Planting was fun, but the real hit: watering cans. I never met a youngster that didn’t like water.

Watering

I think they’ll get a kick out of watching the carrots grow. I’ve added a carrot countdown in the sidebar to the right so we have a general idea of harvest day. Hopefully each young gardener grows at least one or two carrots to take home.

Stay tuned!