Early July Blackberry Pie

I'm ashamed to admit that this blackberry pie is my first pie of the summer, back in early July.

June Garden Update

Once spring hits full stride and starts the stretch into summer I find it hard to spend too much time inside. And now that school has ended for the year, I've jumped right in to my summer gardening gig, so of course I end up taking care of mine in the evenings and weekends.

I'll have some crafty updates soon, but for now, another tour of the gardens - it's been a busy month for all of the green things. The nice thing about the gardens is that most of the plants have come to me for free. Even today I was planting more hand-me-down's from Mom and moving around some Narcissus bulbs (SO many!).

Grape Jelly!

Yesterday we were at mom's for most of the day, helping get several cords of wood put up. One of the big old maples on the west side of the property had been taken down last January and we finally got around to moving and stacking it all. Long morning, but we got it all done! Mom is psyched and will have wood for a few winters yet.

Along with some leftover chocolate cake from lunch, Mom also sent me home with a half-gallon jar of grape juice from the grapes that they have growing on an arbor near the barn. I used about three cups of it today to make some grape jelly, ending up with seven small jars.

Seven jars of jelly and a whole bunch more juice to use up

Strawberry Bed: Revisited & Revised

Remember back in May, when I made this for the strawberry plants that my students had planted (then abandoned when school ended) in the spring of 2013?

little strawberry plants, all tucked in - they're practically lonely with all that space

The Veggie Garden Update & Flower Beds Tour

Nearly two weeks later, and the veggie garden is coming along. Almost everything is starting to come up, although I replanted some cuke seeds, added some pea and bean seeds, and the spinach. The cukes, peas, and beans are new seeds this year whereas the spinach are a few years old. One hill of beans are coming up and about half the peas are, so it's not a big deal if the other respective halves don't make it. I can always find greens at the Farmer's Market, so I'm not so worried about that seed stock, either. The carrot seeds seem to have migrated between the rows, so I might add more of that in the next few days, too. I've added some onions, leeks, a pot of mint (absconded from an out-of-control patch at a gardening job), and as of this weekend, sweet basil and nasturtium. I also put down burlap bags over the garden cloth, they were free, which beats buying wood chips! All-in-all, everything is pretty happy so far!

Fashionably Late to the (Veggie Garden) Party

I've been meaning to get a couple of veggie beds in for a while now. I even staked one of the plots out when I set up my strawberry bed. Now that we're past Memorial Day, when it's generally safe to plant, I have been feeling more motivated. And then I went and bought these the other day, which obviously need a home:

seeds!

So after several weeks of staring at the front lawn, and twice mowing the area I'd selected, I decided it was time to commit. My neighbor had offered to come over with his tractor and tiller attachment, but we never seemed to have the same 10 minutes available. Another friend offered the use of their small garden tiller, so on Wednesday I finally went to pick it up. On Thursday evening I did a quick go-round to scratch up the grass on the surface (and make sure that I could get the tiller to work).

Strawberry Bed!

the fruits of the students
labor last summer. . .
get it. . . fruit. . .

Last school year my Bio students begged to grow things in the spring. They had lofty aspirations of growing watermelon and other somewhat-exotic fruits and veggies, but settled for marigolds and a couple packs of strawberries that I randomly found at the hardware & garden store. They all dutifully tended to the seedlings from our return from April break until the last few days of school when they promptly forgot about them. Not one of them wanted them. Not even for their moms, even with Mother's day in the mix! And they wonder why I say no to class pets. . .

Everything did surprisingly well, and I couldn't bear to toss anything. The marigolds ended up in some of the barrels around campus, as well as over to my mom, and the strawberries went to a friend and into a few random pots that I had laying around. I didn't have high expectations, although they managed to survive the hot summer, and even bore some fruit after we made the big move to the new house in September!

obligatory artsy fruit-in-the-hand photo
(last fall's crop!)