Gettin' Twiggy Wit It

Two summers ago we randomly planted a super pretty honeysuckle vine in a random spot in our backyard. That first year it floundered and hardly flowered. In fact, the trellis that we repurposed from another area of the yard for this exact vine didn't weather well at all and fell apart before the vine really ever began to have a life of its own. This year, however, the vine is back with a renewed vigor, and it had begun to upwardly wander over our retaining wall and weave its tendrils up our neighbor's chain link fence. Before the vine really had solid opportunity to establish itself on the fence (and before we ticked off our neighbor), we wanted to give it some kind of garden support--something the honeysuckle could legitimately take over and additionally give this little garden some extra dimension.

I've always loved a tuteur, which essentially is a 3-dimensional trellis. Some are rather exquisite--topped with striking artichoke or pineapple forms, for example, and composed of fun shapes. We found one at Lowe's that we really liked, but liked its price tag muuuuch less: $60. For something that the vine would eventually entirely cover? That seemed way too much. You shouldn't have to spend an exorbitant amount for a garden. And besides, our focus this summer is about enjoying the simplicity of things. Standing in the outdoor garden department at Lowe's we quickly brainstormed for a more wallet-friendly alternative. We discovered a stack of 6-foot cured bamboo stalks and decided that we could use these to cobble together our own DIY tuteur. At $2.48 each (we bought 3), this was a much kinder cost on our wallet. Once home we shaped it into a tuteur form and secured the shape at the top with twine. We used a rubber mallet to pound each of the stalks into the ground for stability, and then we wove and strategically knotted the twine about the structure to create rungs for the vine to scale. About $8 and 20 minutes later, voila:

A bit closer:

And, naturally, a quick pic of Monk enjoying this same little garden area.

If you would like to build your own rustic tuteur, here's a great tutorial. Its construction is a bit more involved and probably considerably stronger and more secure than ours, which we basically winged sans instruction.

-R&N

The Mysterious Case of the Back Porch Party Animal

It had been going on for weeks:

5:30am wake up call--courtesy of Edison, our surly and graying Chihuahua. Sleepishly pad to the kitchen with both dogs in tow for the first backyard bathroom break of the day. Open the backdoor, saying a quick and quiet prayer that all of my neighbors are still asleep and will not have a front row view to me standing at the backdoor in my underwear. And that's how I'd find it--the lid off of our giant plastic trash can (sometimes actually down in the yard) and the back porch littered with the trashy remnants of what clearly was a wild dumpster-diving party at our expense. I could delay traipsing out into the yard to retrieve the trash can lid until later in the morning when donning appropriate attire, but when the dogs happily light on to some other strewn piece of trash--like, say, a chicken bone--out in the yard, I'd have to scale the steps with ninja-like swiftness to grab the crap right out of their determined jaws. And sometimes it was literally crap--freshly scooped by my lovely hubster the night before from the cats' litter boxes. Mmmm. Evidently the back porch party animal and my dogs seriously lack discriminating palates. And mind you, all this while I'm standing in the middle of the dewy and dawning back yard in less than functional underpants. Something needed to be done, at the very least for the innocent eyes of my neighbors, right?

So, Nick bought us a new trash can, the kind with that "fancy" turn-and-lock technology. The following mornings found me delighted with triumph (and the dogs longingly sniffing around for leftover garbage goodies) that, yes, we had foiled this freaking animal, whatever in heck it was. Back Porch Party Animal: 1, Humans: 1. We had evened the score.

And then a couple of days later we found this:

Clearly we had celebrated a bit to early. You can't tell from this picture, but these toothy puncture marks adorn the ENTIRE lid of the trash can. It was back with a determined vengeance. This morning there are actually split marks in the plastic. It's only a matter of time before this party animal gets its furry little fingers on its midnight party booty again.

We've not yet discovered who is the mastermind behind these hijinks, but we have a few theories:

A sly and jerky raccoon.

OR a maniacal and ill-tempered possum.

OR...COULD IT BE...EL CHUPACABRA?

We'll keep you posted.

R&N

Happy Memorial Day!

A mid-afternoon rain shower forced us inside today. We're grateful for the rain for our veggies and fruits, but I felt a little bummed heading indoors. I've noticed that I'm wanting to spend more and more time outside. Maybe this has something to do with the 8+ hours I log each day in the hospital's refrigerated, recycled air. But probably it has more to do with investing so much time and energy in nurturing our little gardens--edible and flowering alike. As I type this we're in our sunroom, which is a great place to be during a rain shower: the metronomic sounds of raindrops on the skylights, 7 windows with front row seats to blooming roses, asiatic lillies, the green herb garden, etc. It's as close to being outside as possible in our house. It's obvious why our fat housecats love this room.

This morning we had uh-mazing breakfast pastries at Eilene's again, which could easily become a weekend habit. Love that place. We went back to Roxbury Mills to grab some tomato cages (our tomato plants are growing so fast!) and diatomaceous earth (more on that to come!) and then we hit Borders afterwards in pursuit of a few helpful home and garden magazines. While there we donated a bag of coffee to send to the troops overseas.

One of our favorite additions to the garden this year, and so appropriate for Memorial Day:

We also planted a Northern Highbush Blueberry Duke bush, a Royalty Purple Thornless Blackberry bramble (not-so-thornless though--ouch), and a Navaho Raspberry bramble. Exciting! We scored these at Roxbury over the weekend . And here is Nick commemorating our fruitful loot with a celebratory chest bump with a an unsuspecting Native American gentleman:

Other weekend highlights:

First tomato blooms! This is on our our Black Plum Paste tomato plant.
Seedlings breaking through in the songbird garden:
The sneaky adventures of Thelonious Monk, the newly minted garden cat:

And T. Monk, Garden Cat Extrordinaire, tipped us off to this little guy basking on the warm brick of our house:

Do we really have to go back to work tomorrow???

R&N

What Are We Doing Here?

We Brave New Gardeners decided that we'd lay low this Memorial Day, spending our long weekend piddling in the yard and around our little town. Yep, we've spent a considerable amount of these past couple of days outside with our pups, digging, deepening our farmer's tans, planting, sweating and enjoying a cold beer here and there. It's been one relaxing moment after the next. Life is good.

Yesterday morning we grabbed an early lunch at Eileen's, whose yummy bakery and cafe just recently relocated to our old church building. We walked to the caffeine-hammering heart of downtown, Hyperion Espresso, to quell our coffee quench before walking down to the farmer's market for a little look-see. Though we left the farmer's market empty handed (we heavily considered a pair of handsome rustically hand-carved wooden chairs but someone else hawkishly snagged them right before our still-admiring eyes) we left feeling pretty full from the sights and the small talk with local vendors.

As we walked back to our car, we fell into a conversation about this little town we call home. Nick transferred to Mary Washington College (now the University of Mary Washington) in 1998, and I joined him here in late 1999 to begin my senior field placement at the Rappahannock Council on Domestic Violence. Has it really been a decade since we started planting our metaphorical roots here? A couple of times a year we discuss possible future moves to Richmond or Charlottesville, but days like yesterday make us wonder why we'd ever want to leave Fredericksburg. We love the quirks of our little town and its quaint downtown shops, and we chuckle over how we take for granted that our home is within comfortable walking distance of the historic homes of George Washington's mother and sister. We were feeling a bit heady from the combination of gorgeous farmers' market goodies, iced coffee, warm sunshine, and our cozy downtown stroll. A perfect start to a Memorial Day weekend.

We headed back to Roxbury Mills for a few more additions to our grow-your-own-food adventure (more on that to come!) and snapped this picture of a mosaic on their nursery wall:

Exactly the kind of attitude we want our hometown to espouse.

It just-so-poetically happened that the service at church this morning was titled What am I doing here? Three speakers discussed their own personal journeys, and the conversations that followed made me happy to keep company with such an open-minded, diversity-revering, harmony-cultivating, welcoming collection of folks. Just something else quietly endearing us to Fredericksburg...

Forkin' It Over

Last weekend Nick and I hit up the annual Fork It Over Festival, which is a celebration and fundraising event for Fredericksburg's Downtown Greens community garden. We arrived shortly after the festival started and were treated to a youth group marimba performance, which was an adorable delight. Super fun! (You can actually see one of the larger marimbas in the middle of the picture. I can't remember the exact number there, but I would guess 5 or 6 of of varying sizes.) The festival's plant sale proceeds are reinvested in the garden, and we had hoped to score something new to add to our own garden, but left empty-handed. Though we were there relatively early, apparently we were too late because all of the snazzy stuff had already been snagged. Anyhow, sunny afternoon + good cause = totally enjoyable time.

Hip to be Square

(Left: our "before" picture. This is the far side of our backyard, which is enclosed in retaining wall. That little covered carport/garage is in our neighbor's yard. Our yard is about five feet higher than theirs.)

After Barbara Kingsolver ignited a bit of green thumb giddiness in me, I found myself drifting to the gardening section whenever I went to the bookstore. It didn't matter if it was our favorite used bookstore downtown or the behemoth box chain Borders; like a magnet I was pulled to into the gardening aisle, and there I would happily take up floor space flipping my way through the dreamy texts. I eventually stumbled onto Mel Bartholomew's book on "square foot gardening," and its constant reassurance of the simplicity of the project is precisely what hooked me. After buying the book and really digging into it, I started to find Mel a bit too self-acclaiming. BUT it really is a good book for a total newbie, and I think the square foot idea really is a gem. It's easy and adaptable.

The supplies for the square foot garden (SFG) frame are wonderfully basic:

• 2 untreated 2"x6"x8' pieces of wood, each cut in half handily at no cost by Lowe's staff for us (about $8)
• Box of 3" wood nails (about $3)
• Weed cloth (about $7)
• Staple gun and staples (our own)
• Twine (our own)

Yep, in that picture you see me with a power drill. Naturally, I relish any opportunity to employ power tools. Actually the SFG book told me to use wood screws, and I tried this at first and it didn't work out for us. The screws kept stripping and this method was defeating my "stress-free" goal for the project. Back to Lowe's we went for just plain ol' nails. We nailed three in each end for good measure.

While at Lowe's the sky broke open with one serious thunderstorm, which meant that we'd just have to finish assembling this lovely lady indoors! Nick is stapling on the weed cloth on the bottom of the SFG frame. This is in our sunroom, which has quick access to where we placed the SFG. In the back left corner of the picture you can spy a little peek at our new furniture for our mini-patio outside of our sunroom. More on that to come!

After assembling one SFG, we instantly knew we'd want another. So we built a second one, and this time it went surprisingly quickly and smoothly. Practice (and Westie supervision) makes perfect.
Here is the finished handiwork, all square-foot-sectioned and prettily planted! (And fiercely guarded?)

We hit the local farmer's market, as well as our fave downtown nursery, to score some really cool seedlings. We bought several organic and heirloom tomato plants, numerous pepper plants (purple, Oriole, hungarian yellow wax, sweet red cherry), ghostbuster eggplant (Nick's prized score--the eggplant is totally white), a couple of melons (jubilee watermelon and ambrosia musk melon), four different types of basil, marjoram, and an extra dill plant on top!
Now if we can just manage to keep these goodies alive!

XO,
R&N