Our first harvest of 2010 – a tiny little strawberry out of our vegetable garden. I love how Jason put it in our big empty fruit bowl for me to find when I came home from work.
Phone Photo Friday
04/16/2010
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Art, Art: Cooking, Art: gardening, Art: mid-century design, Art: Phone Photo Friday | Tagged: cellphone photography, garden, harvest, Phone Photo Friday, strawberry | 
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Posted by mahlbrandt
An Unsightly Addition to Our Yard
04/12/2010
… but functional for sure. Vegetable planting time of year is a good reminder to get back on track with our backyard composting. We had been using a plastic trash can with holes drilled in it but this year we purchased this beautiful specimen. It works much better than the trash can because it has doors at the bottom so you can get the fresh rich soil out of the bottom without stirring everything up.
Backyard composting is simple. If you’re interested, download the basic instructions here.
Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: Cooking, Art: gardening | Tagged: compost bin, composting, food scraps, gardening | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Peaches and Plums
04/08/2010
Nashville has all kinds of flowering trees in the Spring and Summer. As a Pennsylvania transplant I was in awe our year. After 5 Springs, I’m still awed by the beauty of God’s creation and the wonder of new life springing up.
I’m so happy to have this tree in our yard. It’s a Japanese Flowering Plum and I love everything about it – the pink flower petals that “snow” off in the breeze, the sweet smell, the dark bark and the deep red leaves. It’s 3 or 4 years old and this is the first year it’s really been blooming in all its glory.
Two summers ago we planted a peach tree. It had fruit on it at the time and after a few months we enjoyed about 6 bites of delicious peach. (They were tiny.) Last year we had too much rain and all of our peaches got black spot. This year it’s flowering beautifully, spring has been mild and we’re hopefully for a good turnout this year.
Not as pretty as the flowering plum but that’s OK — because this one serves a different purpose. Each one of those pretty pink flowers has the potential to become a delicious juicy peach.
4 Comments | Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation | Tagged: flowering trees, flowers, our yard, peach, plum, spring | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Metal Planters {a MCM estate sale find}
04/07/2010
Jason and I found this pair of metal planters at a particularly bizarre estate sale. Bizarre because it seemed like the homeowner was a gym teacher, music teacher AND an art teacher based on the huge amounts of parts, equipment, pieces and art prints.
These plants are copper-looking but probably brass. They’re a bit dented and rusted but overall pretty nice shape. Especially for $10 for the pair. We’re so cheap. We talked them down from $20.
Jason planted some of our quickly spreading blue fescue and in a few months they’ll be domes of silvery blue-green grass. Simple but I think they make a nice entrance to our patio.
4 Comments | Art, Art: gardening, Art: mcm thrift store find | Tagged: blue fescue, estate sale, metal planter, patio | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Forsythia in a Boylan Bottle
04/05/2010Our forsythia bush is too small to spare a few sprigs for a vase. While walking Lucy around the block the other night my heroic husband snapped a few off branches of a huge bush in front of an abandoned house. Back home, I stuck them in an empty glass Boylan soda bottle. I love how the yellow matches our throw pillows.
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Posted by mahlbrandt
Vegetable Garden – Building a Raised Bed
03/31/2010As I mentioned yesterday, we loosely followed Pioneer Woman’s plans to build a raised vegetable bed. We started out with six 2″x6″ untreated pine boards, 8′ each. (Cedar lasts longer than pine but since we’re not sure if we’ll keep the garden here for the next 10 year, pine will be fine.) We also bought a box of deckmate outdoor screws and a package of 18″ pine stakes.
After sawing two of the boards in half (to 2″x6″x4′), we predrilled holes in each end of the 8′ boards using a simple template. I held the boards together while Jason drilled the screws into place. First level of the frame is built.
We decided where we wanted the bed and then Jason mowed the grass down low in that spot. Next step, pound the stakes into place and screw the frame to the stakes.
The second tier of the walls can be assembles right on top of the first tier, which is now secured to the ground. First, Jason screwed the corners together, then fastened the top tier into each stake. This prevents the boards from warping and bowing. We hope.
PW doesn’t mention doing this but we like to create a barrier between the yard and the new garden soil so the grass (and WEEDS) don’t grow up through. A layer of black trash bags will do the trick.
Next step: DIRT. We bought up all the top soil that the Home Depot had sitting out – 11 cubic feet. I wanted to get at least 16 cu. ft. so we’d have 6″ of fresh soil. To fill in the other 5 cu. ft. we grabbed a few bags of Moo-Nure fertilizer and one bag of Nature’s Helper which “Saves Water / Retains Moisture” (I have no idea what it is.).
Clever bar code placement.
Jason mixing the cow poo in with the top soil and magic water saving stuff.
Here are our greenhouse frames (cold frames) made from old windows. We also have glass windows to set over the top to seal out the cool air. Hopefully the peeling paint is not toxic…
And here are our finished raised vegetable bed.
3 Comments | Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation | Tagged: homegrown, raised vegetable bed, vegetable garden | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Vegetable Garden – Planning
03/30/2010
It’s our fourth summer at this home and we’re putting the vegetable garden in it’s third location to date. This year we decided to building a raised bed for the first time, 4′ x 8′, roughly following Pioneer Woman’s instructions.
Originally I was thinking of doing a square foot garden – giving us space for 32 plants.
But Jason, my green-thumbed husband, said a square foot is not big enough for some of the things we wanted to grow – especially tomatoes. And we didn’t really need 32 different plants. Plus, we have 2 cold frames made from repurposed windows that we decided to use as greenhouses in the vegetable beds during the early spring months. There’s around 3’x3′.
Here’s the plan we came up with:
We’re starting watermelons, brussel and basil seedlings in the greenhouses for now. The cold frame on the left will be home to: strawberries, red bell peppers and green bell peppers. (We decided not to do chili peppers again this year.) The frame on the right with house: better boy tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, grape roma tomatoes and cherry tomatoes. Between the frames we’re going to try out brussel sprouts for the first time. Along the front of the left frame we’re planting romaine lettuce and along the front of the right frame, arugula.
I’m very excited! We’ve never done strawberries or brussel sprouts or romaine lettuce before. We’re trying sugar baby watermelons this year. Besides this 4’x8′ planter we also have a young peach tree and raspberry bush that we have high hopes for this year.
In case anyone is wondering …
Planted from seed:
sweet basil
sugar baby watermelon
brussel sprouts
romaine lettuce
arugula/rocket
Purchased plants:
strawberries (pictured above)
red bell peppers
green bell peppers
grape roma tomatoes
cherry tomatoes
beefsteak tomatoes
better boy tomatoes
4 Comments | Art, Art: Cooking, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation | Tagged: garden plan, homegrown, raised vegetable bed, vegetable garden | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
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