Le Jardin Companion Planting

Like a good little gardener, I started thinking about my veggie garden in January.  I spent hours going over seed catalogues and picking things out.  Come February, I knew that I had to get reasonable and only order things that I would actually eat.  I spent a good long time staring at this cucumber trying to convince myself that I NEEDED a cucumber that was gigantic, scaly and RED inside.  In the end, I rationalized that I don't even like cucumber and thus should not grow it.  Oh, I am getting so reasonable in my old age, no?  Feast your eyes on the Sikkim Cucumber...tempting, isn't it?!

not my image

My goal was to spend around $30 on seeds and ended up spending $70.  Oops.  I guess there's a lot of veggies that I'd eat. However, after asking around a bit, I found a friend that wanted to split the seeds with me. She took half of nearly everything, which worked out fantastic.  After planting most of my garden this spring, I still have enough seeds left over to plant another season of tomatoes, squash, etc.  My friend did not, however, want to split the Red Chinese Long Beans with me.  Ok, ok.  I HAD to sneak at least one novelty item into my practical gardening plan.   These puppies are over 2 feet long!

not my image

Anywho, back to the chain of gardening events.  The seeds arrived in March and i diligently started seeds in proper succession with seedling heat mats and grow lights that I procured from a big box store for $30 each.   I employed Mr. B to build me a stand for the lights with the promise that "It'll be soooo simple, I swear.  It'll take you 10 minutes, tops."  Of which, of course, it did not.

Next, I studied companion planting on this site and came up with a garden plan.  Feast your eyes on this beautiful illustration!  It was even decorated a bit by the Little Bird.  Very technical, isn't it?! 

Now that it has come time to plant, I am realizing why no one plants veggie gardens this big.  It's a lot of freakin work.  I'm not going to lie...I have been lamenting (when Mr. B is out of earshot, of course.  He doesn't NOT need to hear that I think that I *may* have been a tad overzealous with my plans this year) that it *may* be so much easier to just go to the farmers market and buy produce. 

Sigh. 

Adventures in Portland: Falling for Portland

This last weekend was warm and beautiful - who could stay indoors. Mr M and I decided to take a drive in the convertible down the scenic hwy thru the gorge to a bunch of waterfalls only 30-45 minutes from our apartment.

Soon after we past the airport we started to see the Columbia river on our right, we drove farther and to a turn off from the hwy. There was a parking lot to the right and tons of cars parked and hikers starting up a trail - apparently more waterfalls to see that way, but today Mr M. is wanting to see a specific waterfall ... with a bridge - of course.

We drove a little further east on the side road and had to stop - a beautiful waterfall could be seen from the road; this was Wahkeena Falls. We parked and walked up the embankment to a trail. No need to hike here waterfall viewing right from the road! But you could climb the path to the right for 5min and cross a bridge at the top to get a closer view. This photo was take of me on the bridge at the top. you can't tell but water was flying everywhere.

But this was not the bridge Mr M. wanted to go to, so we walked back down the trail ready to get back in our car and drive onward down the road. Back down at the bottom of the trail we saw a sign pointing to Multnoma Falls - THIS is the attraction we came to see! 


We walked along the trail for 10min and came to a bigger parking lot, Chateau with a restaurant inside and a big plaza, which all leads you to a humongous waterfall! Mr M. (as he is a bridge engineer; passionate about bridges; stops, or sometimes drives out of our way on our vacations to see them) was so excited to see a beautiful bridge and an amazing waterfall together. When I saw it I was excited too (which is usually not the case)

The bridge is from the turn of the last century - about 1910 and perfectly frames the waterfall - it was like a fairy tail. The coolest view is from the bottom, but we had to cross the bridge anyway and take a look from there.


We also hiked up another 30 min on a busy trail. There is usually a viewing platform where you can see the falls from the very top, but part of the trail leading to it had been washed out, so it was closed. We did see some smaller pretty falls at the top and it was a nice hike anyway.

I will definitely come back here to see some of the other falls and hike further into the Gorge; so pretty, so close.

-L

This Crafternoon: Taggie- Style Baby Blanket

I've been busy creating homemade birthday and baby shower gifts this week. For some reason, I thought it was a good idea to leave making these said gifts until the last minute.  I was so good about buying the fabric and finding the turorials early, but I'm just finding that life has kicked into hyper-speed now that I am living with a wild animal a toddler and I just finished them yesterday.  I made another dinosaur tail and a Taggie-Style Baby Blanket.   I used this totrial with a few modifications including cutting some of the ribbon so that they were not all loops, adding an extra zig zag seam on the edge to make the whole thing lay flat and increasing the size to an 18 inch square. 

With this Crafternoon project, I had the added challenge of picking some gender neutral fabric becuase the parents don't know the sex.  While I appreciate the romatic idea of being surprised when you meet your baby for the first time, I could never be that risky with my future.  I know that I will always have a preference for what gender I want the baby to be and I would rather be in the ultrasound and blurt out "A girl!?  Oh S*#t!" than in the delivery room face to face with my newborn child. 

I want to go camping - Shelter Style!

Doesn't camping always sound great: fresh air, sleeping under the stars, hiking and campfires; but the packing of the car, the setting up, sleeping on the air mattress and breaking camp always make you say this is the last time I'm doing this?

Well, I just saw a link to a camping company today thru another blog I read called Poppytalk. It immediately made me want to go luxury camping (can I afford this yet?)

The company itself is called Shelter Co. based out of California and they will bring the camping equipment to and set up at your site! Their luxury tents are gorgeous! I think I need to camp in a big white tent with a bed soon!  -L

Photographs from Shelter Co's webiste.

My New Community Garden

One bonus in living where we now do is that even though I live in an apartment in the sky, I look down on a lovely community garden, just steps away from my building. A few days after moving in I made it a goal to get a plot in the garden; it was so lovely, very neat and orderly, everyones beds overflowing with healthy plans or new plants just starting to sprout out and it's right on the river. I sent the organizer an email to say I was interested in joining the group; in reply I received word that it was very full, but that I would be placed on a wait list. Bummer. Now my view would be tainted by the fact that I might have to look at a veggie garden that I could not garden in.

But a week later I did receive another email that I would receive a half plot and to meet the organizer in the garden 5pm on Thursday to go look at it and show me around. The organizer is this very friendly girl about my age who it also enthusiastic about gardening. She said I could have my half plot for free if I helped out with a project in the corner of the garden (sweet!)

My half plot was in the older part of the garden near the entrance and very close to the hose. I got to work the next day. The previous bed owner had left a big bunch of heirloom celery growing. I snipped the celery down to take home and make a soup. Then I dug up all the roots (there were A LOT of roots) and shook out the dirt. Then I got the wheel barrow and got a barrow full of fresh compost that the garden has in a big pile to the side. I spread a nice layer on top and took a few minutes to admire my work and imagine my veggies in it. I would buy my plants on the weekend!

On Saturday morning I got a call from the organizer saying there had been a big mistake! The previous organizer had verbally gave the WHOLE bed to someone, but hadn't marked it down. Darn! I was no longer going to be in the bed I had just cleaned up! Plus, did I just rip up their celery? Oh well, that will be my bounty for all the work I did cleaning up all the dead roots in their bed.

I would get a new bed, but I had to transplant some strawberries and turn over the soil and spread the compost all over again (in the rain this time) Hopefully that was the last hiccup to my new garden plot by the river. I will buy my plants THIS weekend for sure!!

-L

Adventures in Portland: Comedy Festival

Two weekends ago my husband happened upon an annual event in a district just outside of downtown Portland: the Bridgetown Comedy Festival. Mr M had been craving stand-up comedy for some time so he was super excited this just perchance was happening in the first few weekends since we moved here.

The Bridgetown Comedy Festival is in an enclave in Portland called the Hawthorn District, which is a very cool, lively area centred around Hawthorn Street. Tons of great bars, restaurants and shops are found here surrounded by family friendly neighbourhoods; in fact there are many little neighbourhoods like this all close by downtown, especially on the east side of the river. Lots of people bike around the flat streets from their cute houses with veggie gardens to go to a great family owned restaurant, shop or go to one of the many yoga studios or co-op/organic markets. Love it!


We walked all around the Hawthorn neighbourhood and had a bite to eat at "Que Pasa" (a fun and popular mexican restaurant) as we waited for the evening events to start.

We saw 2 shows: one was a very small venue in the back of a bar called "The Bar of the Gods" which serves $1.50 PBR beer during happy hour ($0.75 on Tuesdays), the kinda bar my friend Will would love. The venue might have been small (inner patio) but the line up was long. About 10 young comedians took the stage for 10min each. The second show was in a larger venue with Canadian comedians only. We had even seen one of the performers before :)

We left the shows with cheeks hurting from smiling and laughing. Fun times and a great reason to check out a great new neighborhood. Hawthorn District - CHECK.

-L