Green Thumb Sunday, Flower Box

Sunday, September 30, 2007

The previous owners of the house, Mr. and Mrs. T., left their flower boxes on the deck for us. I have two of these filled with pink and red impatiens, and one with petunias. How nice it was to move in to the graces of an instant flower garden!

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Squirrel vs. Arugula Seedlings

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

I love the way the sun gleams across our backyard in the morning. Ah, our own backyard, I say to myself with a grin on my face as I listen to the various birds serenading me with their trills and chirps. There are catbirds, mockingbirds, cardinals, and more. I hear the hushed repetitive beeps of a nuthatch I am eager to spot soon.

This morning's scan of the back-of-the-house vista was abruptly interrupted, however, when my eyes fell upon a clump of soil heaped up and spilling over the edges of the pot that contains the arugula seeds I planted a week ago. What the ?!

I rushed out back to find a hole dug deep down into my container garden, the only bit of vegetable garden I have here at the moment. It looks like the work of a squirrel. I have a squirrel conspiring against me already!?

The Suspect

Moments later, I saw a plumper-than-usual squirrel sitting on the fence, rather brazenly munching on a nut of some sort. These suburban squirrels are much fatter than the city squirrels, I see, presumably because they have lots of easily accessible ground where they can store up their foodstuffs! Now with all this available yard, the squirrel had to pick the one place where I planted a bit of food for myself: right there in the nice clean, fluffy, purchased soil. Smart squirrel. Disappointed arugula grower.

He looks guilty, doesn't he?

Yes, you!

A New Garden in the Making

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

We've been in our new home for a little more than a week now. I'm getting acquainted with everything: new sights, new sounds (crickets instead of sirens, peacefully), and a collection of plants and shrubs that are still strangers to me. The previous owners of the house left us with good landscaping, wonderful trees, and a couple of lovely container plants on the deck. There are so many possibilities for our new garden and yard; it is at once exciting and overwhelming. Where do we begin?

Over the past few days, we've been making observations to help us orient our new vegetable garden. How does the yard look as the sun passes through the sky? Where is there shade during the day? Which trees and shrubs cast the longest shadows? Which area gets at least five to six hours of full sun? Realizing that we're at the end of the main gardening season, we're thinking carefully about the placement of our new garden beds so that we can maximize use of the available sunlight throughout the year.


Michael measured and marked off one possible plan, laying out the beds in a north to south direction. That will place our garden diagonally in the backyard. At first I was uncomfortable with that. (A diagonal garden? Shouldn't it been neatly and squarely tucked into a corner?) But it all comes down to where we have the most sunlight, so diagonal it is. And, actually, it's looking like the best place for the beds would be... smack dab in the middle of the yard. We're taking time to figure it all out. I wouldn't be surprised if Michael pulls out a protractor at some point. This design stuff is all his territory.


While the planning is underway, today I planted arugula seeds in a small terracotta planter. The seeds are the ones I saved from the arugula I grew this year in our community garden plot. The old garden gives way to the new. How exciting it is to start growing food on the deck of our own home. I can't wait to do more. Much more.

Sweet Pepper Crostini

Thursday, September 06, 2007

The garden is gifting me these brilliant jewels: sweet peppers in a showy display of shapes and colors.


My inspiration for a way to cook them came at a place and time when I least expected it. I was waiting with goosebumps in an overly air-conditioned doctor's office one day, with thoughts of the sweltering summer garden farthest from my mind. Thumbing through a well-worn edition of Gourmet magazine, I came across a recipe that combined diced chicken and bell peppers with cumin and thyme, the final mixture stacked on a pool of chickpea hummus. The marriage of sweet peppers with smoky cumin piqued my curiosity, and then and there I etched a note in my mind: If peppers from the garden start piling up in abundance, try cooking them with cumin.

And so it was with this invention of mine. I sliced the peppers and combined them with a few generous dashes of ground cumin, a little olive oil, and one minced clove of fresh garlic. No more than ten minutes under the broiler and there I had a rainbow of wonderfully fragrant pepper ribbons, still slightly crisp to the bite.

On toasted slices of a baguette, I added a dollop of room-temperature hummus and my Crayola-colored combination of cooled-down peppers. A few dashes of paprika and olive oil gave my crostini appetizers their final flourish.

They were crisp, creamy, and sweet all at once. A small feast for the eyes and stomach of a gardener who worked hard to grow the star ingredient.