Driveway Gate/Fence

Now that the nice weather is here, we are spending alot more time outside. The only problem is that I am so nervous about our driveway which is open to the backyard. My daughter wants to explore the driveway and I don't want her to. Combination of cars, plus its a shared driveway and on a busy street.

So a few weeks ago we built a gate/fence thing. For most of the time it will act as a fence, but when we want a full driveway the fence part also opens as a larger gate and then you can use the full driveway as usual. (we haven't actually tried opening the larger 'gate' and are unsure if it will actually open since the driveway isn't flat.....but we will figure that out when we need to)

One side (the gate) is attached to our house, and the other fence (larger gate) side is anchored by a massive planter. The planter itself is pretty heavy, plus we filled the bottom with rocks and the top has a planter in it - it is very heavy. We didn't want to attach it to our neighbours garage so this was what I came up with as an alternative. So far its just filled with sticks and fake spring blooms. Soon I will buy some hanging baskets to put in my planters, I find thats the cheapest/easiest thing for all my planters.

The fence is designed to match our deck railing, hopefully tying the two wooden structures together. Although the new fence is cedar and the old deck is pressure treated, it didn't really matter what we built the fence out of since it would look newer/better than the deck. I also chose to build a low and open fence instead of a tall and solid one since I didn't want to create privacy as much as safety. We enter our house through the back door and I didn't want guests to feel uncertain about coming through the gate.

Now we can be outside worry free, and my daughter has much more freedom to explore.

Plus it feels like our backyard has almost doubled in size, I never realized how much the driveway ate up our property - and we rarely have 5 cars in the driveway.

- Lauren

Gardening in April

Before this year, I always thought of the May long weekend as the start of gardening season. This year after reading that you can start to plant some things as soon as the dirt is workable, I did alittle gardening in March.

It turns out that it was a little early for peas and spinach - or was it the fact that I didn't water them?
Luckily, I didn't use all the seeds - so here goes round two of planting peas and spinach.

But my onions are sprouting! 3 or 4 inches out of the ground. I can't wait to eat them!

- Lauren

Gardening in March?

Over the years, I have slowly been improving my vegetable gardening skills and knowledge.  Mostly I have learned from trial and error.  So far its worked out well for me.

Last year we built two raised gardens.  I like the concept of raised beds for a few reasons:

1.  Ascetically I think they are neater.  You don't have to worry about weeding around the edges, grass creeping in etc.
2.  It prevents you from walking on the soil which means that its not all packed down - this means that things can grow easier.  It makes pulling weeds easy too.
3.  Since you aren't walking in between rows of plants, you are leaning over and you can plant things closer together.  I have loosely followed the 'square foot gardening' ideas.

After some planning about what to plant this year, I learned that you can plant a few things as soon as the soil is workable.  They will survive with minimal frost.  This week I planted onions, spinach and peas.

Some of my perennials from last year include: chives, garlic, strawberries, sage, oregano and thyme.  It looks like parsley made it through the winter which is rare.  I don't think my rosemary made it.  I also planted some asparagus last year, so we will have to see if it came back - although it will be a few more years before we get anything to eat.  Other food in the yard includes: rhubarb, mint, raspberries and cherries.

Anyone else started playing in some dirt yet?

- Lauren

Forcing Spring

We have had a very mild winter, and it has felt like spring many times the past 6 weeks or so, I think we are almost there but I couldn't wait any longer. I cut some forsythia branches from my yard, put them in water and in a sunny window and waited for spring to bloom inside.

After some googling alittle, some people say to cut the branches under water, some say cut up the stem, or bash the stem (which is very woody). I just cut them outside and came in put water in a vase and placed them inside. Maybe you would get faster results with some tricks but I didn't use or need them.

I think it was my parents who mentioned doing this, it seems to be pretty common with forsythia which is one of the first bushes to bud in the spring. Its the one that flowers first with bright yellow leaves and then turns green for the remainder of the year.

Here are some pics after 4 days: finally starting to see some buds doing their thing.

After 6 days: green & yellow everywhere almost ready to open up.

Today, day 7. I woke up to open yellow blooms! 

I think tomorrow (and the next week or so) will be more and more yellow!

-Lauren

Spinach Pesto

I planted spinach in my garden for the first time this year, I have done various lettuce types before but I was ready for something different. But what to do with all the spinach? Pesto! 


I googled some recipes and made my own based on them all kinda mixed together.


I filled a bowl with fresh picked spinach leaves and about 6 sprigs of fresh parsley, and a handful of fresh garden garlic.



Added 1/3 cup of pine nuts and about the same of parmesan cheese.


Pureeing everything in my magic bullet, adding some olive oil (around 2/3 cup), it took a few batches and a larger food processor would be easier but not necessary.


and voila! vibrant green puree goodness.

Since this was way too much for one meal - and I don't like eating the same thing too many meals in a row, so i spooned it into an ice cube tray and put it in the freezer.

Now I have a container in the freezer with spinach pesto portions ready to go.  

I made this about a week ago and then a few nights ago didn't know what to eat, I boiled some gnocchi, when it was in the strainer, I melted the pesto cube with some olive oil and when

it was done, mixed it back in with the gnocchi. 

Topped with more cheese and nuts and delish!

I am planning on doing something similar with nasturtium leaves and basil, also whatever nuts I have in the cupboard (almonds, walnuts, I imagine anything will work) and if you don't have the cheese on hand you can just add it when you make the final meal.

Any other suggestions for varieties?

- Lauren