Category: <span>Gardening</span>

Naturally, nature does not stop its work while we take a break from ours. While away in California, our little garden had quite a growth spurt. It may have had something to do with the insane heatwave that hogged onto this region for most of last week. Hubby and I did our best to reign in the unruly tomato plants and pick the first few tomato fruits along with the remainder of the peas and a few leaves of basil. Not huge, but the harvest was plenty for us and satisfying because it was ours.

The tomato plants are taller than I am and may even tower over hubby. They must be reaching for sunlight.

There are more to come. I just hope that they don’t encounter the same fate as this one:

It is important that everyone helps. Regardless of the results.

The summer is officially here. My little garden is doing as well as can be expected when its master is not much into weeding. It is very verdant and green. The tomato plans are growing too tall and rather out of control despite my best attempts to tame them. They have tomatoes on them too which I pray aren’t eaten by little predators from the woods that surround us.

I’ve had the pleasure of harvesting our own snow peas. We’re still harvesting radishes, mesclun greens and arugula. Sliced thin, the peas make a wonderful addition to an all-green salad with homegrown lettuces and cucumbers.

As lovely as it is to harvest and enjoy fresh produce, it is infinitely more enjoyable to do so with a little one. Sophia has her favorite spot in the garden (the mint bush). She likes to pick the peas, too. I think we may try to keep gardening next year when she will hopefully be even more excited about all the vegetables.

Well… like I told you before, spring came and went. Poof… all gone now. The summer is decidedly here whether we like it or not. It is hot. More importantly, and somewhat disappointedly  — it is humid. Poor little Sophia comes home from her walks all balmy and flushed.

While being outside is loosing its appeal due to the sheer stick-factor, gardening is quickly becoming one of my very favorite things to do. I really do enjoy puttering in the dirt especially since everything is coming in. Well, almost everything. Our shiso seems to have decided not to come up at all. Sigh. Our radishes, arugula, peas, basil and mesclun greens are coming in nicely. I am ashamed to admit that I have yet to plant tomatoes and at this rate, we’ll likely be enjoying them (if the deer don’t get to them) in November :-). Here’s what is going on in our neck of the woods.

I would hardly call the suburbs of D.C. a farming sort of a place. However, since we’re really city people, anything outside the busy hustle and bustle of the city may as well be a farm. We embraced creating a vegetable garden last year but it wasn’t the grandest of successes. That’s said, you can’t succeed if you don’t try again and again, and … well, again.

Besides, gardening is quite the family tradition in our families and traditions are best passed down.

We’ve decided to give gardening another try and have expanded the space [hopefully] letting our veggies get more sunshine this time around. We also built it out with 2 x 4s and painted them so as to not have the garden stick out like a sore thumb in our front yard.

The weather hasn’t been consistent enough to plant the likes of tomatoes, so we’re focusing on herbs for now.

We also had a welcome surprise while tilling the garden: our carrots from last year which we planted far too close actually survived the winter and here’s the loot we were treated to:

… after I harvested the carrots and planted the herbs and while hubby continued to paint the garden fence poles, I watched little Sophia who had ideas of her own.