Wicket Good Garden Party

We've been giving our yard lots of love this summer, and in such a short time (not quite 2 months) it's given it back and generously. From flora and fauna to food, we've seen an abundance of changes and they've made us feel considerably more connected to our little patch of land. What better way to share the love than have some of our favorite loved ones over for a little nosh, a cocktail, and competitive sports amongst our little gardens?
My sister and brother-in-law, Megan and Dustin, and their tireless tyke, London, our friends Deborah and Sarah, and their cherubic son, Jackson, and our friend Jacque joined us in our backyard patch on Saturday night. Our invitation was for a cookout, cocktails and croquet. I haven't played croquet since I was in grade school, but it seemed like a fun excuse to make it a slightly frilly backyard affair complete with foofy hats. (Check out the pennant garland--handmade by yours truly using old fabric scraps. I was happy to finally put my old store of awkwardly-sized remnants to decorative use!

A better view of the table setting! Yep, we sadly resorted to paper and plastic for this...not especially earth-friendly and not our usual MO. The plastic cups are from Solo's Bare line, which are a touted for their composition of %20 post-consumer recycled plastic, so despite using disposable items, we aimed to use those that were as kind to the environment as possible.

We managed to find those amazing organic flowers at the farmer's market the morning of the party--squeaking in towards the end of the market morning when the vendor (who also happens to make soaps and hand carved wooden furniture--cool) was discounting her flowery wares, probably so she wouldn't have to lug them back home. This large bouquet for $5 was broken up into lots of smaller vases, and made a big decorative impact without leaving one on our pockets.

Nick enjoyed a quiet cocktail with Jordan before our guests arrived. Our garden cocktail: the Palmer. We had one of these at downtown's Bistro Bethem a couple of weeks ago, and were instantly enamored. Best. Summer. Mixed. Drink. And it's sooo simple! We muddled mint leaves (fresh from our garden, natch) and drowned them with lemonade (we used Simply Lemonade) spiked with Firefly's Sweet Tea Vodka. You read that correctly: sweet tea vodka. It's one of those things that leaves you wondering what took them so long to come up with it! Seriously deelish.

Our menu was pretty simple as well, and we aimed to make it as farm-to-table as reasonably possible. Nick grilled burgers (both turkey and beef), and we served these with three different kinds of rolls (onion, poppy seed, french knot) and an assortment of toppings from either the farmer's market (mesclun greens, sliced red onions, tomatoes) or our backyard (basil mayo, sliced peppers). We served a Cesar potato salad made with purple fingerling potatoes, green beans, yellow wax beans, and radishes from the farmer's market. We also served a cherry tomato (yellow and red from the farmer's market), feta and orzo side dish with marjoram vinaigrette (marjoram from our backyard). Dessert was organic vanilla ice cream topped with fresh blueberries and blackberries from, where else, the farmer's market. Not too shabby!

Our endlessly adorable godson, Jackson, with a backdrop of our "songbird garden," which essentially is filled with a bunch of yet-to-bloom flowers for the birds to eventually eat. Also of note, this garden was pronounced by one of Jackson's moms as looking "weedy." Whatever! :)

After dinner, the croquet festivities began! The beginning wickets were between our two square foot gardens, and I felt like a paranoid mama making sure that no one stepped on anything. If you know anything about croquet, you will clearly understand that I have completely missed the first wicket, but in my defense this exuberant overshot was originally taken by my five-year old croquet partner.
Croquet partners 4-evah! Taken right before my partner refused to give me back our mallet, deciding that I could play when SHE decided that I should play. Interesting.
Notice the different croquet mallet/ball color at this juncture in the game? My partner left me to join Uncle Nick's team instead. Maybe not 4-evah afterall. ;)

It was a fun, intimate laid-back night with good food and good friends. Nothing better than spending time with people you love in a place you love.

Totally buggin'

Something's eating the eggplant's leaves. Munching them into leafy lace. And I'm mad. Infuriated, actually. I had visions of homemade baba ganoush dancing in my head when I planted these nifty "ghostbuster" eggplants, whose fruit is strikingly white.

I consulted Gayla Trail's You Grow Girl gardening book (which I love, by the way) for some help in identifying these little buggers. No luck. She does advise, however, that I should plant things like Yarrow around my garden, as yarrow attracts the good bugs like ladybugs and lacewings that prey on the not-so-good bugs. Duly noted.

A good bit of reading later on the good ol' interweb I discovered the name of my newest nemesis: the flea beetle. Oh, jerky and resilient flea beetle, what am I going to do about you???

Back to You Grow Girl for further guidance. I found a recipe for an organic DIY insecticide/repellent. Gayla calls it an "herbal buzz spray." And this is how it goes: Take two tablespoons of used coffee grounds (never ending supply of that 'round here!) and a cup of fresh thyme or mint (we have both in our garden) and a cup of water and let them perc together for 24hrs. After 24 hours, strain out the grounds and herbs, funnel this oddly delicious smelling concoction into a spray bottle and get to work spraying both the tops and bottoms of the leaves. Apparently caffeine is an insecticide--didn't know that!

After a week of this, the flea beetles continued to plunder the eggplant, so I began to feel a bit more desperate. I checked in with one of the nursery workers at Roxbury, who explained that diatomaceous earth is an earth-friendly way to address this little sitch. From what he explained, diatomaceous earth is ground-up fossils of diatoms, sort of like ground up shells. These tiny, powdery particles, when examined under a microscope, look like razor sharp snowflakes. The bugs crawl over the stuff, it nicks them here, there, and everywhere, and they die a dehydrated death. Of course I bought some.

We have been using it, but with all of the rain we've gotten (totally not complaining), it seems like it just washes away, much to the beetles delight. Oh well. After several batches of the homebrewed buzz spray, I gave up on it. Same for the diatomaceous earth. Feeling frustrated.This afternoon I was peeking around the garden after work, hunting for subtle, but always exciting growth and changes. And lo, one of the eggplants has bloomed! An adorable purple bloom with a yolky yellow center! So maybe there is hope afterall, and maybe the bugs aren't so bad after all? I'm still undecided, but hopeful for some baba ganoush.

-R.

Oh, Asheville. We miss you already.

To celebrate the hubster's 31st birthday (whoa, he's getting OLD), we decided to get the heck out of town and visit one of our fave towns, Asheville, NC. It's about a 6.5 hour drive from Fredericksburg. We were stocked with plenty of coffee and This American Life podcasts, so the ride was rather enjoyable, even though we hit the road at 6am sharp!

We stopped in quickly at the Sisters McMullen bakery in downtown Asheville to grab two cupcakes to properly celebrate Nick's birthday! We try to find a cupcake shop everywhere we visit, and the Sisters McMullen even had a confettied "birthday cake" cupcake happily consumed by the birthday boy. Mine was coconut. Asheville is this perfect amalgam of southern hospitality and liberal mindset. There are a few restaurants that are known for their farm-to-table emphasis, patronizing local farms as much as possible for fresh produce, meats and eggs. We made a point to eat our meals at these particular places, and we were in foodie heaven.

We had lunch on Saturday at the Laughing Seed, dinner at the Marketplace. We had lunch on Sunday at the beloved and super delicioso Tupelo Honey (seriously seriously love this place) and dinner at Early Girl. And then we had breakfast on the following morning again at Early Girl, where we scored THE cutest sugar dish. Really, sugar dish = kismet. I had been looking for a lovely handmade sugar dish for probably a year, and finding this little cutie completely justified NOT settling for something I wasn't gaga over in all that time. Maybe one day I'll introduce you to my handsome little sugar dish.

Who are those two dorks in the reflection of the Tupelo Honey window, waiting patiently for their sweet potato pancakes with spiced pecans and crab cake eggs benedict with fresh asparagus?

Monday, before jetting out of town (oh-so-sadly), we visited Chimney Rock Park and spent a couple of hours hiking there. The drive up to the park was on a very steep and winding sun-dappled mountain road, and with the new Iron & Wine album playing quietly in the car, I was kind of overcome by the sense of being exactly where I needed to be at that point in time. Just a good, warm feeling about life.

Anyway, the waterfall at Chimney Rock is 404 feet tall, and, according to the signage, is where that waterfall scene in Last of the Mohicans was filmed. (So, remember that next time you're playing a movie trivia game.) The hike was awesome, the waterfall pretty spectacular, and the company...just plain adorable.

Garden reading...

Eeeps! I'm falling a little behind in the updating department. We've been busy (happily, though), even though we promised ourselves we'd take it easy this summer.

What's quite clear to me is that even though I've slowed down on posts within the last week, the garden seems to be laying the hammer down and growing speedily! I realized this morning that I have at least 4 or 5 posts' worth of news, blooms, and random garden-related biz to share. Really, the square foot gardens--and more specifically the tomato plants--are NUTS. In a good way. (More on that to come!)

I thought I'd share one of the books I just finished reading,

The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden. I grabbed this book in hardback from Carytown's coolest used bookstore, Chop Suey Books, for $8.50 on a whim. I've been hunting for really good garden narratives, especially since I so-so-so loved Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

I took this book with me on our recent long weekend to Asheville, NC (more on that to come!) and it was a fast, funny, and happy read. I definitely recommend it! It was a good reality check for me, though, especially since I'm prone lately to idyllic daydreams about a bigger, bolder garden. Anyway, check it out!

I just reserved Amy Stewart's From the Ground Up: The Story of a First Garden at our local library. So, whoever's got this book checked out, hurry up and return it already!! ;)

Heads up!

Just wanted to give a quick and spectacularly heartfelt thanks to Vanessa for her graphic skills. She's the gal responsible for ABNG's collage-tastic and vintagey new blog header. Isn't that sweet potato fellow a cutie pie?
-R.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Lotsa changes afoot in the brave new garden!

Our raspberries are a-ripenin'! We've managed to get one sun-ripened berry each day this week, which isn't big fruity booty, but we feel like little kids on Christmas morning when we get home from work and find one of these waiting for us.

Same goes for the blueberries! They're really sweet.

Can you believe this little cutie? This is our Heirloom Pineapple Tomato plant. I did a little reading up on this tomato this evening and learned that it will be yellow with red stripes when ripe. Even cooler, it's an indeterminate plant, which means it will successively fruit throughout the season. (Determinate plants make all of their fruit at once, and then they're done.)

This is our Black Plum Paste Tomato. They're already showing their oblong figures, which is exciting! I read one review of this plant that mentioned that the tomatoes only grow about 3", but the plant produces rather prolifically. They will be deep red or mahogany with black or dark purple spots when ripe. We will have a colorful batch of tomatoes, no?

Hopefully we'll have some more pictures in the coming week of our other two tomato plants. Our pepper plants are blooming (and are being feasted on by leafcutters...grrr), the squashes are also flashing their large bright yellow flowers, the melons are taking over their boxes, the basil seems to never run out, and our poor eggplants are looking AWFUL, thanks to a swarm of jerky bugs. (More on that to come...)

Budget Blooms

While we try to nab most of our garden goodies from our local downtown nursery, we do find that we spend a bit of time at Lowe's as well. I am slightly embarrassed to admit that, during the long Memorial Day weekend, we hit Lowe's at least once every day. (I attribute this equally to enthusiastic planting and, well, poor planning.)

One of our favorite things to do is to check out the rack of sale plants in the outdoor garden department. The plants usually look pretty haggard, way past their seasonal bloom, and near death--basically like something on which you probably wouldn't want to waste your hard-earned cash. We've found this rack of burnt-out plants to be a veritable treasure trove of bargain perennial goodness.

Last year we snagged three Asiatic Lily plants (in quart-sized pots) and two rose bushes (in gallon size pots) from the dead and dying pile. They were so pathetic looking (and negligently labeled) that we weren't even sure what color the blooms might be. Nonetheless, we saw some promise in them and bought them for super cheap: $2 - $3. We planted them with a little bit of love and a whole lotta compost and put them to bed for the fall.

And yowsa! Did they give us back some lovin' this year or what?

Early this spring:

Last week!

So, even though a plant might look like it's seen brighter days on that yucky ol' sale rack, it definitely doesn't mean it's a doomed bloom! What a few bucks, a little love, compost, and winter's rest can do...

To market, to market

We love the buzz of the farmers' market on Saturday mornings. A garland of vendors--selling everything from artisan-made cheese to freshly roasted coffee beans to organic free range eggs to the standard fruit-veggies-herbs fare--wrap around the perimeter of downtown's Hurkamp Park. We like supporting our local farms, keeping our money in our local economy, and to reaping the tasty and nourishing reward of fresh vegetables and fruit.
One particular vendor we usually buy from had a stack of hard, anemic looking tomatoes--sad looking really. A customer asked if these were the vendor's tomatoes (which, I suppose, is a fair question, since even though tomatoes are not yet in season, many farmers do use greenhouses). It was pretty clear to me that these tomatoes, though, hadn't seen a day of warm yellow sunshine. They looked like the crap tomatoes in the supermarket that only masquerade as tomatoes. The vendor replied, "No, we get these from Florida until our tomatoes come in." So much for supporting the local economy! (I had also noticed that another vendor had a crate full of avocados. Surely those aren't local, yeah??)
We did buy some peas, radishes, red leaf lettuce, a great pile of zucchini, and some beets. But now I'm really wondering just how local my goods are... Wherever the squash came from, it was pretty dee-lish. Last night we made pizzas at my sister's house using organic whole wheat pre-made crusts and yummy mozzarella. We sliced the zucchinis into thin coins--a cute veggie version of pepperoni--and, after grilling them with a handful of organic grape tomatoes, topped our pizzas with them. Once the pizzas met their melty and crispy fate in the oven, we topped them with fresh basil leaves from our home garden.

Ridiculously good. Ridiculously simple.

-R&N

Things That Grow Too Fast

1. The weeds in the flower gardens.

2. The Jubilee melon vine. (We need to put up a trellis for it to climb, but it won't stop raining long enough to build it, and the rain just makes it grow like crazy!)

3. The baby geese at the river.

4. AND THIS KID.

Our niece, London, graduated from junior kindergarten this week. We are filled with giddy disbelief that she will begin kindergarten in the fall!

Toppins, toppins, toppins a bag

Well, it cost a teeny bit more than a few toppins, but we just scored this charming handmade gem for feeding the birds:
My heart is filled with a whole lotta love for Etsy, which is an online marketplace for indie crafters and artists. I have what the hubs calls a weakness--more accurately, an addiction--to Etsy, and I have been known to self-impose groundings from the website. It's where I find the bulk of my jewelry and my lovely, lovely, lovely purses (I really love them, and I feel a bit of stalker-ish love for one particular purse maker, who shall remain nameless because I don't need your competition! Hehehe)

Where better, then, to find a unique handmade bird feeder? It was made by a husband and wife team of potters, Alan and Carole Snyder, who describe themselves as "architects of clay." Indeed. I love that this one has the petal-like embellishments around the opening. I can wait to dazzle our winged friends with this baby! I'm also currently on the hunt for a decadent little bird bath... If I find what I'm looking for, I'll be sure to brag, er, share! :)

-R.