Our garden is growing quite well this summer. Though we think we overdid a bit by doubling the size of last year’s garden. Next year, we’ll plan out the gardens a bit differently. The tomatoes, squash, peppers and weeds are all growing quite nicely. Unfortunately, over a period of two weeks the weeds grew so much in our garden that you could barely see the pepper plants.

Garden sitters to the rescue who came out and weeded one of our gardens and gave us our garden back. Now we’re harvesting cherry tomatoes, Mariana tomatoes, Jimmy Nardello peppers (I love how curly they are) and Carmen peppers with Brandywine tomatoes perfect for picking tomorrow.

This has been a summer of new eating for us. Health issues have forced me completely revamp my diet. I can’t eat any processed foods of any kind – no processed flour, no sugar. It’s all whole foods for me along with some new finds such as sprouted beans and grains. It’s been a trial and sometimes I really miss chocolate, and it’s difficult when we go out to miss out on the bread or chips. I remind myself why I have to do this and know it could be worse because overall, things are well and I’m enjoying cherry tomatoes and peppers from our garden every morning with my scrambled eggs.

The weather the last couple of weeks has been completely irritating. If it’s not torrential downpour and flooding, it’s hotter than should be legal with humidity through the roof and heat indexes at 100°F. With all of the rain we’ve had our garden is growing like gangbusters. We have pea plants that are at least four feet tall, blossoms on the cucumbers, the corn is about three feet tall and tomato plants that were two feet tall last weekend are suddenly nearly three feet tall. We couldn’t ask for better growing weather, but with all of the great growing weather comes weeds. It’s been so hot and we’ve had so much rain, we haven’t had time to get out and weed the garden.

Last weekend as I was trying to get a little weeding done, I noticed that we had some very ripe radishes, a couple of onions and several pea pods.

The flower gardens have also been doing well. Some of my favorites that have been blooming over the last couple weeks are the:
Coreopsis,

Lily,

Phlox,

and in our front yard garden, the Portulaca.

It was a lot of hard work but I know we’ll be rewarded greatly later in the summer. We were also able to harvest some lettuce that self-seeded last fall and came up this spring.

The plants in the “old” vegetable garden that was our only garden last year are coming along quite nicely and I’m hoping for some great crops from it. Earlier this spring, we planted corn, cucumbers, carrots, onions, beets, radishes and peas.

Also this weekend, Bryan installed his collage artwork at one of the local libraries for their Art in the Stacks program. The artwork looks so great and it was great to see the larger pieces in a space that fits them.

Last year I missed the azalea bushes blooming but they paid me back this year with several weeks of amazing color.

The allium was beautiful this year. The first year to have it in my garden.

And the iris have been a wonderful surprise. We planted them last fall and I wasn’t sure if they would survive the winter since we planted them in mid-November.

I had no idea what color they were since I’d received them free from someone and the color markings had long worn off. We still have quite a few that haven’t bloomed so I know we’re in for more beautiful surprises. A yellow one with a white inside opened up a couple of days ago.

In the back flower garden, last weekend I put in white daisies, cosmos, canna lilies and dahlias. The daisies are beautiful and were the perfect Mother’s Day gift for my mother and Granny.

Last week I took an applique class and was amazed how much easier it was than I thought. I probably won’t make all of the wall hangings my grandmother made but it’s a great skill to have. My little bee wall hanging will definitely be finished and put near my sewing table.

March 27 was such a wonderful day. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the DNA Children’s Literature Festival hosted by our wonderful local children’s bookstore, the Reading Reptile. Seeing and meeting authors is always an amazing experience.

What struck me at the end of the day was how inspiring, different and similar each author and illustrator is. They each have their own style and their own way of putting books together, all with amazingly wonderful results. I was so touched by Patricia Polacco’s family and personal stories that have become her books The Keeping Quilt and Thank You, Mr. Falker.

After meeting Adam Rex, who illustrated one of my recent faves Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem, I’m definitely going to have to sink my teeth into the ARC of Fat Vampire that I have in our book basket. I just loved his odd and strange sense of humor.

March 29 – Sorry, I just realized I forgot to mention the other authors – Kate Klise, who I realized after I got home that I own her book Shall I Knit You a Hat?; Brian Selznick, author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret; Judy Sierra, author of Wild About Books and The Sleepy Little Alphabet; and Uri Shulevitz, author of How I Learned Geography. Being fairly new to the children’s lit world, I came home with some new favorite authors and more to check out!

The garden has been feeding us quiet well. Just over a month ago the cherry tomatoes started to ripen. I had no idea how many cherry tomatoes we would receive from five plants. In all I think we’ve picked over 9.5 pounds (4.3 kg) of cherry tomatoes. A pound of cherry tomatoes is a lot since they are so small. At one point we made pasta sauce, kept a container for ourselves, gave a container to my parents and donated over a pound of tomatoes to the local food bank through their Plant an Extra Row program.

With so many tomatoes we had to use them. We set out to find a good pasta sauce recipe for cherry tomatoes, which we found. Through combining and borrowing different ingredients from several different recipes, we had our own pasta sauce. It was extra gourmet. It was better than any pasta sauce I’ve had in a fancy restaurant. It was bursting with flavor and we made a special meal out of it.

The cherry tomatoes are winding down and have fallen victim to what I think is the tomato worm along with with some other little flying bugs. We’ve managed to rescue about another half pound of cherry tomatoes from doom.

In August, there was talk around our area about the great Midwest Tomato “Famine” of 2009. Everyone had a gazillion green tomatoes for weeks and no red ones. As an experiment, we brought a few green ones inside to see if we could get them to ripen.

About three days later as the ones inside were starting to ripen the ones outside started to ripen too. So we’ve been inundated with brandywine and moonglow (orange tomato – back row, center) tomatoes. We can’t use them fast enough so we’ve been sharing those too.

Then to add to the harvest, the peppers became extremely generous about the same time the tomatoes did. At one time there were over 30 jalapeño peppers on one plant.

Needless to say, the first year garden has been a huge success and we’ve been spoiled. Over Labor Day weekend, I planted several fall crops – lettuce, peas, carrots and beets. We’re also planning the flower gardens for the front yard for the spring. Who says fall isn’t a gardening season? What with bulbs for next spring and planning for next summer! :)

2. Good soil, sun and water will make the garden grow bigger than I ever expected.

3. Don’t fret about the plants that don’t make it because there’s a reason they didn’t live. There wouldn’t be any room in the garden if they had survived.

4. Give butternut squash a bed all its own.

5. Always be amazed how much the garden changes over a few days, especially when new flowers and peppers appear.

6. Eleven basil plants is plenty but we’ll have pesto for the next year.

7. Cage all of the tomatoes not just some.

8. If making beds in the garden instead of rows, make the walkways larger than two feet wide as the tomato plants will grow so large that they will practically intertwine themselves over those two foot walkways.

9. Never underestimate the power of the flower to invite bees. They love our tomato plants this year.

10. When you move into a new house some of the plants you want to buy may suddenly appear in your yard because they were planted by the previous owner.

(phone camera not so great)
Kansas City is treating us well. We see my parents at least once a week. A couple of weeks ago we both had a weekend off and were able to get out and see a bit of the city. Being librarians we headed to the Kansas City (Missouri) Library’s Central Library. It was amazing and so much fun to explore.

One of the major advantages to living in a house that’s been in our family is the massive yard. The house has a yard that’s half an acre which is great for a garden. (All of the houses in our neighborhood have huge yards.)

Our 30 foot by 10 foot garden looked like a postage stamp in the backyard when we were preparing the garden for planting but now that it’s growing it looks a bit larger.
We’ve decided that we’re going to expand the garden next year and also put in more flower gardens in the front and the back. Bryan and I are all for more gardens because it’s less to mow.

Speaking of mowing, we bought ourselves a great new mower that we couldn’t be more pleased with. We had read about how polluting a gas mower is and that to run the mower for an hour is as polluting as driving your car a hundred miles. So we set out to find a good electric mower and my dad just happened to stumble on an ad for the Neuton. It’s so cool, electric and cordless. We just drop in the battery, plug in the key, flip the switch and off we go. It’s so light I’ve been able to mow the lawn and it’s not even self-propelled. Mowing our lawn has also become a form of exercise for me so I’m working it into my workout schedule.

A week and a half ago, I received my MSLIS (Master in Library and Information Science). Graduation was an exciting day but also a day of saying goodbye to some very good friends. I miss them all so much but I know we’ll see them again.

The day after graduation we moved the rest of our stuff from the apartment in Illinois to our house in Kansas. It was probably the least stressful move I’ve ever experienced. (I’ve only moved six times in the last 13 years.) We’ve begun to settle into the house with some boxes still remaining in the downstairs. The upstairs attic (future craft area and spare bedroom) is still full of boxes and needs some serious work. One of the challenges of moving into this house has been going through my aunt’s belongings and making room for our own.

Two days after our move, I started my new job as the Teen/Youth Coordinator at one of the local libraries. I love my new job and it still doesn’t seem real that I’m an honest to goodness librarian. I’ve been planning activities to go along with our summer reading program which has been a lot of fun. Today literally flew by.

Over Memorial Day weekend, I worked a lot in the garden. It’s now 95% planted with peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, peas, butternut squash, onions, herbs and we’ll soon be adding peanuts. We also put in two raspberry bushes in the backyard with one more to add later this week. The gardening has been so fulfilling and I can’t wait to find out how plentiful our harvest will be. I think we’ll probably have lettuce in the next couple of weeks.

(Dahlia seedlings three days after planting)
Spring feels like it’s trying to get here. There may be flowers outside but inside is where the exciting things are happening. Little seedlings are trying to grow big and strong in their little pots in my office. This morning as I was getting ready to water them I noticed three little plants have already pushed through the soil. When I came home from work there was another one starting to come up.

The semester is wrapping up quickly and it’s all making me quite nervous, excited and sad. Nervous and excited because something I’ve wanted for nearly five years is all coming to an end. There were months I hoped to get into library school and in about six weeks I’ll be graduating with my MLS. And also sad to be leaving so many great friends. Some are starting off on their own post-grad school adventures while others will give us a reason to return for visits.