October 29, 2014 by Born To Organize

Gardener in Repose

Ms. Doppelganger

October isn’t over yet, but my skeletal doppelgänger is putting her feet up for a spell. That gnarly pumpkin is the perfect foot rest for her bone-weary feet. Check out that gorgeous gardening apron, beautifully hand-made and gifted via Gjeometry’s Pay it Forward last year. Her seamstress skills are legendary along with her famous cat.

The original skeleton’s head is long gone, so I improvised with a plush pumpkin. A guest brought it to our boys Halloween party one year. Isn’t it a dream?

Ms. Doppelganger is holding a carrot that is just a few weeks shy of its one year anniversary. Somehow it escaped harvest, continued to grow, bloomed and just now went to seed. I’m amazed by nature’s gifts every day.

Carrot Anniversary

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ve been reading about my (mostly) green thumb. Here is a never-before-seen picture of the green thumb at rest. Are you suitably impressed?

My Green Thumb

We’ve left the rocking chair available for drop-in guests. If you’re feeling weary, please stop by, pull up a pumpkin and sit a spell. I’ll press a cup of steaming hot tea in your hand and we can shoot the breeze.

Please put your feet up and sit a spell

No-Candy Countdown:

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

Candy is sweet

But my resolve is too.

October 29th, still candy-free.

Pumpkins on Parade:

I’ve never seen the iconic movie Napoleon Dynamite, but it was one of the suggestions for this month’s pumpkin dress up. I’ve done a frightful job creating this one. The darn wig refused to stay put. It was fun crafting a pair of glasses from a scrap of wire found in the garage. That said, I better stick to my day job.

Julia of Defeat Despair, thank you for the fun suggestion. I hope this makes you smile.

Napoleon Dynamite

January 8, 2014 by Born To Organize

Roasted Vegetables: Savory and Sweet

Beta-Carotene.

It’s what’s for dinner.

The last of the carrots

More specifically, carrots, the last of them from the winter garden.

Next year I’ll plant quite a bit more, remembering to divide them, of course. It’s been so much fun.

Mike whipped up a vegetable roast, using the carrots along with new potatoes, parsnips, onions, green peppers and tofu from the market. It’s a nice, vegan/vegetarian dish for cold days. It’s warm and filling and easy to make.

Vegetable Roast

I’m spoiled rotten living with a man who likes to cook. Mom was a great cook, too, but this apple fell far from the tree, rolled down the sidewalk and into the woods. I can produce a meal under duress (and I cook for my boys when he travels) but most of the time I would rather be doing something else.

That said, I love to eat! Do you like to cook?

[Your caption here]

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 14, 2013 by Born To Organize

It Takes a Village: Wee Little Carrots Under Wraps

Baby Carrot

If you’ve been reading along, you’ll know of my recent garden misstep: failing to thin carrots. I’ve always thinned the plants I grow from seed, but incorrectly assumed that the starter plants were pre-thinned. (They weren’t).

I’ve been getting wonderful advice (from The Contented Crafter)…

Oh dear Alys! Carrots need thinning, Boomdee was right. If you are concerned about the size of them [and you can always check with another dead of night forage] I wonder if you might suggest to the tiny gardeners that the garden fairy has whispered in your ear that the carrots need a little longer to grow a bit bigger …. … Whatever the outcome I’m confident that provided the tiny gardeners get to eat a carrot, no matter what size, it will have been a successful introduction. Can’t wait to hear how it goes 🙂

moral support (from LB)…

I look forward to hearing about the tiny gardeners and their excitement over the harvest! (good thing it was Boomdee there and not me; I had no idea that carrots needed to be thinned)

and a fit of giggles from Boomdeeadda:

As for the carrots…..I only know that ONE thing about vegetable gardens because I grew a whole row of mutants and misfits myself, LOL.

Attention Gardening Nirvana readers: Boomdee knows basically nada about vegetable gardens!!! LOL.

I planted abundantly to ensure wee gardener success, so it was safe to unearth one of the plants when the coast was clear. Sure enough I uncovered half a dozen tiny carrots, clustered snugly together. They looked cozy, like a litter of tiny kittens intertwined. Carrots and kittens eventually grow up, though, and need their own space.

I quickly divided the plants, replanting within minutes hoping they wouldn’t mind the brief interruption. I patted the earth and walked away. Nothing to see folks, nothing to see.

By day two, carrot greens rested on the soil. I refused to give up hope. Day three, still on the droopy side. It’s now been a week and no real sign of recovery. So…

Today I decided to leave the rest of the carrots undisturbed. I’ll let them grow for one more week (it’s a 50 – 70 day crop). Then the wee gardeners can harvest and take home tiny carrots to share with their family.

One of the best parts of documenting your garden in a blog: lessons learned for next year. Thanks for supporting me on the journey.

Halloween Countdown:

Purple monkey on a pumpkin (This sweet little monkey was a birthday gift from my talented friend, Laura. She dyed him this color, then added all the beautiful details. Isn’t he cute). Dharma Trading Co.

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.