Abloomin'!

Our long-awaited blooms have arrived!

The bay window in the dining room looks the way I'd dreamed it would when we bought the house: filled with plants and flowers.

All of the bulbs still in forcing vases (with only water to nourish them) are settling happily in their soil. There is a mystery unfolding in the low vase with the flower-whose-name-I-can-never-remember (it has a firm stalk and a big puffy purple ball on top): one bulb has sprouted; the other has not.


And there's also a tiny sprout of an unintentional and unidentified plant.

Our bird sightings are increasing: the recent snow (and, later, crusting of ice) have made our back porch more popular. We see a cardinal pair in the bushes next to the house, but rarely do they venture closer. We have a debate about whether we saw a house finch or a purple finch. David snapped a photo of the bird, but it's blurry and we can't see the breast, which would make the i.d. definitive. Thanks to Judith's confirmation, we can now identify the ubiquitous ground feeding birds as juncos, a common swallow that winters here.



Our little bluebird appeared briefly, but didn't feed. According to the Cornell Ornithology Lab, they like to eat fruit, not seeds, so I put some oranges (and bread crumbs) on the bir-goda (bird+pagoda), a piece of furniture David found on the side of the road last summer.

Itch

It's been six months since my hands were in the dirt, and it's juuuuust beginning to get to me. The indoor flowers are nice--I genuinely enjoy them--but all they're really good for is admiration. I want to take a shower and still find dirt under my fingernails. I want to reek of sweat and bug spray. I want to yell at Camille for tracking her muddy shoes inside the house. It's all a long way off, I know, but I'm ready.

--David

Close Ups

The only thoughts I have right now (pre-coffee, 5 a.m.) are "ooooo, pretty" for these pictures David took the other day.

The Shivers

We're going on day eight now of significantly cold weather in the Northeast. As much as we ("we"=everyone ever) complain about the cold, as much as we ("we"=Camille) have already specifically complained about a day that we were woefully unprepared for (no hat, no gloves, lots of whining), we're all glad that it's finally here.

The first inch and a half of snow of the year drove the birds to our feeder. In two days, they've gone through nearly a third of the birdseed. I spotted another cardinal yesterday morning, which gave me a little boost as I headed on out to work. That's just the second time we've had a cardinal at the feeder in over two months.

Our amaryllis has begun to unfurl, which makes us both happy. I'm not sure I've ever seen a plant of such girth and height grow at such a dramatic pace. It's been less than a month since the plant was just a bulb, and now it's ready to burst.


We've got some other goodies that Camille planted that have begun to make their way in the world as well. They're bulbs of some sort, though I'm not entirely certain what variety. I don't think Camille is either, so this should be a pleasant surprise.

Death and Beauty

This photo of Sawyer makes me laugh, because he is totally frontin. It seems as if he caught a bird and wants to get inside to show it to David (the quick-acting, if grossed-out, photographer). Thing is, he's glomming off of Finley's hunting skills. She had caught the bird while it ate seeds on our deck, and after she had eaten some of the bird (a bloody mess), Sawyer took it up with excitement and marched around the porch.

I do appreciate his joy. He's a little clumsy and slow sometimes, but the boy's sure got spirit.

Finley has better timing and stealth: she knows, for instance, that crouching needs to happen behind the barrel -- not out in the open, as Sawyer tries; but she doesn't celebrate her victories or parade them around. Moments later, she's looking for another kill. She has been determined: two days ago, she crouched for 30 minutes in a cold rain, just waiting, waiting.

David's macro shot of the dead little creature is lovely. I am fascinated by the feather patterns and their delicacy. We have identified all of the other birds that show up on our deck, save for these little grey ones. I assume they are females of some species.

Her death didn't deter the other birds long. They are back to feeding -- a bluejay among them today.

To-Do's, Too Soon

Okay, that's a lie. It's not too soon to garden. And it's not too far off!

I am thrilled that we did seeds last year. I worried it would be a lot of hassle (and it is) and that it would require a lot of maintenance (and it does), but it extended our growing season and made the winter blahs less bleh. Maybe I bought too many (especially since I know nothing about flowers!), but we will have fun getting something started.

We will be doing seeds again this February break, so I thought a list of things on the blog would make sense. At least then I won't lose the little scrap of paper I usually use for notes.
For seed germination:
- set up front porch -- measure, put in screws, buy more lamps, find tables
- buy trays (we have seed starting materials
- plan for schedule - beets and peas first, etc
- organize labels and draw map for plan of porch
- add insulation to windows?
- plant seeds!

In yard:
- make plan for garden - what goes where
- make schedule - what goes when
- till soil underneath, add fertilizer (buy organic fertilizer)
- design and buy materials for rasied beds
- prepare deck for herbs
- make beds
- set up hoses/watering system
- plant seeds/plants!

We decided not to take a vacation this summer (we'd planned on Nova Scotia), because we love our house too much, and we don't want to miss any part of the garden this year. We might take a three-four day trip to the Fingerlakes Region in NY State for our anniversary, but even that isn't a requirement.

--Camille

Mine, Hers, Ours -- Whose?

While listening to Camille read her latest Lincoln Street blog, while feeling guilty for not writing more, I fell into a little reflection on the language of ownership. I will expand.

I admit to this: Camille is the brains behind the large number of the activities we do together (trips, weekend projects, going on hikes). The gardening is no different. I'm certain that we both extract the same closer-to-earth, further-from-the-grocery-store goodness from gardening, but the fact remains that Camille is the reason that we end up in the dirt.

Now, Camille is quick to point out that we are equal partners in hard labor--and we are. We both do early morning waterings, we both pick the suckers off the tomatoes, and we both suffer through early evening mosquito bites. We are a united gardening front. It's Team Bernstein or bust.

We are also a united front with housewarming gifts we buy people, and with birthday greetings, and with thank you notes sent. It's an us thing. But...

But every once and a while, she slips. She'll say, as she did last night, my garlic, or some similar and pointed variation of ownership. It's her homemade jam or fudge brownies.

Now, Camille will most often catch herself and correct herself in the same breath, circling back to the subject and using a crowd-pleaser of a collective pronoun, but that my is always lurking.

The thing is, I'm okay with that. It isn't because I have to be, or because I want to be. That big old bottom line is that without Camille, there wouldn't be any our garlic.

Lasts and Firsts

It seems crazy that I was able to plant (in the ground) over 25 bulbs (daffodils, tulips, and something whose name I can't remember) on January 13th. The snow is supposed to arrive tomorrow, but for weeks the weather has been record-setting high in temperature. I was happy for it, because my long-delayed plan to cover the garlic and flower beds with straw is finally complete. (And none too soon, as the other bulbs (planted in October/November) are now one inch high!)

My friend Thomas from Switzerland (shown here walking with me in the gorgeous forest of his country) sent us a photo today of their first rose this year, which makes us all wonder if this unwintery weather is part of larger trend in climate change. Are we doomsdayers? We probably all need a good old-fashioned Farmer's Almanac Weather Cycle History to calm us down.

I am not a scientist, so I don't know whether to read into this mild winter something portentous for the summer. Some people fear a wickedly hot summer, based on current trends, and I wouldn't look forward to the humidity; but the wet and cold summers we've had in the past two years are harder to deal with from a gardening perspective. I can, after all, offer more water to my plants, but I can't use the shop-vac on them when it rains. And my grow lamps couldn't manage adult plants (nor do we have enough of them for all the flowers and vegetables we're planning).

So bring on the sun -- when it's time. Right now, though, some snow would be welcome.

--Camille

Bickering Old Couple

David has done the majority of the raking, I will admit. And on Dec 27th, I forced him to go for a trail run, even after he had done 1.5 hours of raking. I claimed that chores can't count for exercise. (We both decided, individually, that we need exercise again. It's shameful how slothful we have become. (We are never lazy about eating, however. That must be said.))

Anyway, here's a snippet of the conversation:
Camille: Come on, it's our second day of new life. Let's go for a run.
David: I just spent an hour and a half raking. I am sore and exhausted.
Camille: Are you kidding? That doesn't count. Otherwise, let me count the hours I spent standing and bending and stirring in the kitchen. And how about the calories I burned tossing and turning in bed when I can't sleep? Come on. Let's go for a run.

With no recourse but whining, David (a champ!) went for a run in the woods. It was muddy and tiring (and cold), but fun.

Well...two days later, I lost a bet (about how long it would take David to run into the video store and rent a movie), so I had to finish the raking. I had my new iPod (thank you, David, for the xmas gift!), so I loved, loved, loved hanging out on Dec 28th and raking for two hours while dancing. I also did battle with a hedge clipper against some vicious vines that are choking our trees in the woods.

My dear husband came out to help the last half hour, which brought my total chore-time to 2.5 hours. I was EXHAUSTED and did not want to go to the gym. David reminded me that chores don't count.

I recanted my earlier declaration.

You win, David. You win.

In other news, the cats are obsessed with watching the birds. We love identifying the species, of course, but I am glad that now the cats have a hobby to occupy their time during the dark days of winter. Because Finley certainly isn't doing much bulb forcing.

Or any chores.

Cats=sloths.

--Camille

Green Amidst the Grey

We planted a number of tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulbs, but there were many left, so I asked David's mom to pick up some bulb vases. The choke-necked vases allow bulbs to sit a few centimeters above water and grow roots and stem/flowers in the middle of the winter. I don't understand how they will exist only on water and sunlight, but they seem to be flourishing -- even the daffodils.





I had only five forcing vases, so I used other vases and glasses and jars to set up some more. I've gotten addicted!

David's mom wanted an amaryllis for Hannukah, and since they were on sale, I got for us too (and one for a friend). Meema, my dad's mom, used to get me an amaryllis every Christmas (and sometimes paperwhites, which smell like urine -- blech), so it was a nice reminder of her. Inexplicably, the amaryllis that is planted in the plastic container from Home Depot, and sitting in the semi-dark kitchen, is doing better than the one I replanted in a nice little pot. What gives?

Seeing the growth up close is a nice change from what happens in the spring outside: one day there is a riot of color. Now I can notice small changes, and I appreciate the green growth before the flowers even appear.

The tulip stems are blueish green, as opposed to the daffodils' (light washed-out green) and the amaryllis' (bright light green), something I would never have noticed when they nudge up through the soil outside. I put more bulbs in shallow glass dishes with soil on top, but I have no idea if that set up with prove fruitful. Um...we are now up to 21 bulbs inside! Desperate for some green amidst the grey of this winter, I think I've found my December hobby.


We bought Stephanie an orchid last year, a cheap pedestrian one from Home Depot, and (we all) loved it so much she returned the gift this year. The color is spectacular. I just repotted it today, not in the recommended orchid mix (which was $11 for a small bag), but with the cheap, pedestrian mix that cheap, pedestrian plants get. Stephanie's plant flourished on the stuff, so ours will be fine too.

-- Camille

An End to Work

Does raking fall under the big umbrella of gardening? If it doesn't, then it should, if for no other reason than I am justified in complaining about it. In spite of the late date, Camille and I finished our raking for the year on Thursday afternoon. It was a brutal slog, spanning two months and approximately twenty man-hours, during which time we officially became old. Our backs ached, we demanded compliments from each other for "doing my share," and finally, conclusively, we decided to pay someone else to do it for us next year. There is a small amount of shame that goes along with having someone do work that you are entirely capable of.
That is unfortunate.

One potential boon to our spring and summer gardening endeavors is the bright green, squirrel-deterring bird feeder that is hanging from the edge of our porch. Our (read: Camille's) thinking is that the birds will stick around until spring, when the vegetable-eating bugs begin to swarm. As we ween the birds from our feeder, they will naturally begin to eat the bugs. Of course, some of us aren't so sure. Some of us think that all the birds might just go ahead and eat the vegetables themselves. We shall see.

In the meantime, it's been wonderful to have the birds in our lives. We're keeping a birding journal, and even in just a few weeks we've seen an increase in the number of birds on the porch. This morning, for the first time, we saw cardinals and a bluebird (which our neighbor Billy claims is rare this time of year--I attribute this to our impeccable selection of bird food). Very exciting.

--David

Tinsel Town

David has decided we should film a video and get some help from a HGTV program to make over our garden -- build raised beds and do landscaping. Great idea, but what angle should we take for the movie? Goofy couple? cute and sweet? nerdy? chatty or reserved? newlyweds (awwww)? new gardeners or oldish hands? Who knows what they want? I think we fall right into their demographic.

I'd also like some show to redo our walk-in closet for a future kid, but that's because I am a cheapskate. Better get on making the kid, too.

We still have leaves to rake in our yard. Supposedly, they will ruin the law. Ugh. It's miserable work, something that we both agreed we'd be fine paying someone else to do. I don't think I'd mind the mowing, once we get a mower. But the raking is boring and hurts my hands.

Harumph.

In happier news, the birds are really eating seed from the back porch. We have identified four different birds and noticed another species besides. A pair of doves are in the yard, but don't seem to want seed. I hope we get some vividly colored birds, especially cardinals. Sawyer and Finley stand watch and chitter-chatter at the window. Today Sawyer got out and hid behind the barrel that used to harbor lettuce. He made one swipe at an unsuspecting tufted titmouse. That little guy had no idea how close he was. I dragged Sawyer in, and he fussed at me for 30 minutes. I am obviously interfering with his ferocity.

Who loves fires in the fireplace? I do!

--Camille

Compost

David loves, for some reason, pictures of rotten fruit (and vegetables). He likes to photograph them (evidence at right) and he wants to hang them in my kitchen. I am all for avant-garde art, but this rotten fruit doesn't lend the appropriate tone to the place where I try to make palatable food, so I've refused to let him hang those photos.

We do have up (as of yesterday) some terrific ones from last year's garden. Now we just need to get the spice racks up and the kitchen will be complete.

Making this house our own has been one of the most satisfying events (or string of them) in my life. I think I have always yearned for the time when I could build my permanent nest.

--Camille

Seeds

We went on a hike in the woods down the street from our house and encountered four colors of berries, including black, two shades of red, and these crazy purple ones! I picked some, surreptitiously, and plan to grow them somewhere.

Speaking of seeds, our order from Pinetree Seeds came in, and made me tremendously excited for the spring. We are really doing it up this time with raised beds and flowers and all kinds of new vegetables.

I chose the company at random (well, kind of -- they were listed on a hotlist of recommended organic seed companies), but they haven't disappointed -- the order was fast and the people friendly, and the seed packets are really sweet and old-fashioned, with pastel colors and a border that looked as though they were hand-stamped.

Getting happy about the pattern on the seed packets makes me sometimes feel like that old couple, Mr. and Mrs. Spencer, from The Catcher in the Rye, that Holden kind of likes and is kind of disgusted by, because they "got a bang out of things, though--in a half-assed way, of course."

--Camille

Beginning Again, Catching Up, and Seed Ordering

We've been talking about starting a blog as a garden journal and reference tool, but life intrudes. I also worry about style and doing a good job writing the blog, but that's just silly procrastination. I'm just going to plow ahead (ha!).

First, to recap the recent events that led to our having a garden at Lincoln Street:
We bought a house last summer. (We also got married last summer.) We tore out our old garden at Corbin Street a couple months ago. We still haven't buried a can (as we'd planned) in the spot where we got engaged, and our compost tumbler is still over at the old place.

The house at Lincoln Street is a dream, and neither of us have any buyers' remorse. I worry a tiny bit that the backyard doesn't get enough sun, but what can we do now?

We planted 80 or so daffodils and hyacinths and tulip bulbs in the side yard, which will surprise us no doubt next spring. I think it's too late to plant the rest, but maybe I can force blooms this winter.

We planted garlic (45 cloves) sometime late October, using our wonderful and surprisingly powerful rototiller that Adriana and her family bought us. We called it the bucking bronco because it had quite a bit of bounce when encountering rocks! I was surprised it didn't break, and only jammed once. This New England soil is difficult -- poor Puritans, is all I can think when I consider that they didn't have a gas-powered wonder to service them. I would no doubt be hanged as a witch if I traveled in time and showed them what the rototiller can do. (I would probably BE a witch if I could travel in time. So there.)

I seem to remember that the garlic grew some last year once we'd planted it, but that might be because we planted it earlier (?) or maybe we mulched it. We need to mulch it still. There is straw in the garage for that.

I ordered a ton of seeds -- vegetables, flowers, herbs. There's something thrilling and hopeful about poring through the catalog and imagining the wonders the seeds will bring.

David and I are planning on turning the whole front porch into a seed nursery, because we don't have a second bedroom to use anymore, and the walk-in closet is too small (and probably dangerous). The seed growing closet in the basement is too inconvenient to use until we bang out a staircase (someday).

Well, that's about it for now.

--Camille

Tough Love

We just had a couple little squabbles over the tomato plants on this cloudy and cold late Sunday morning. First, David asked if he could shut the windows in the spare bedroom (otherwise known as the nursery -- for plants, that is) because he "didn't want them to get cold." I argued that the whole point of leaving the windows open is to let them experience the cold as a way of preparing them for their outside home -- in two weeks (for some experimental "volunteers") or in three weeks (for the bulk of the plants) or in four weeks (for the ones who will be planted at the "proper" date). David must've forgotten that we have left the infant, nurturing stage of plant-guardianship; now we need to toughen them up to face the cold, cruel world.

Our second disagreement occurred when David showed me two plants, both the same species (we think), but one has no main suckers growing out of the middle. (I guess plants can be infertile, just like people.) David asked, "Should we throw it out?" and I shrieked (in my usual calm way), "NoooooOOO!"

Here's where I am a softie. I know we'll have to "weed out" the losers and plant only the ones we can be relatively assured will produce fruit (because that's the whole point of all this, isn't it?), but I'm just not ready to do that yet.

In other developments, we can see the garden from our living room couch, so we were able to spy a squirrel digging brazenly in the beets! David ran with the speed of Hermes and scared the bejeezus out of that creature.

Where are the cats? Why can't they guard their garden properly? (And why can't they learn to use the paths instead of rolling around in the peas or plopping down in the spinach?)

Ah, the cats! As I type this post on the computer, I can see Finley peeing in the garden, right smack in the spot where we will plant more herbs this week. Yuck.

I can't blame the cats really; the soil's been turned over and it has such a nice, rich texture. Not that I have any interest in making it my bathroom.

Overly Enthusiastic

Sometimes you make mistakes.

Like when you plant cucumber seedlings just because you have more seedling trays and those soiless mix pellets and the other plants have been so fun to raise. So you plant cucumbers just for the hell of it -- at least six weeks early -- and then, because they are bursting out of their little pots, you go ahead and plant them in the ground.

You know how it is: the weather's been perfect, and it feels like real, actual, genuine Spring, with temps in the 60s and even 70s and you actually get a little burned nose and you have to water twice a day...so you think, "What the hell? Let's give 'em a shot." So you plant cucumbers in the ground in mid-April.

Cucumbers are known as "very tender" vegetables, and they won't germinate in soil lower than 50-degrees. In our house, in their little hothouse shelters, they burst forth from the soil(less) mix. Now they are in the garden, next to some carrots and some pansies and a hollycock. And they are very unhappy.

Here's a photo of how they looked on the warm day we planted them.

[Sigh.] They are not long for this world.

Tiny Specks of Green

Richard didn't appear from nowhere, obviously. (Neither did his fellow 113 tomato seedlings. Incidentally, we were wrong about the seventy-nine normal seedlings mentioned in the previous post; we planted far more than that. [We counted them this afternoon.] And if you count spinach seedlings or cucumber seedlings or beet seedlings or pea seedlings..., well, then the number we planted is just plain ridiculous.)

Richard was the inspiration for this blog, but there are seven weeks of gardening history to cover as an introduction. We'd like to record Richard's valiant effort to turn into something productive (ah, so like parents, we), but this blog might be helpful next winter when we forget everything we did and in what steps and on what schedule.

We're winging it this year. We've read a lot about seedlings and gardening, but a lot of what we are doing is just guesswork and hope. According to our Picasa records, we planted seedlings on February 22 -- tomatoes and beets. It was a couple weeks early based on the Almanac, but we wanted to try anyway.

Four days later we were rewarded with tiny specks of green -- sooner than we'd expected. Beets bring near-instant joy!

--Camille

One is the Loneliest Number

A week or so ago, David asked me, "Camille, which tomato is the saddest?" and I guessed wrong. It wasn't the tomato with the yellowed leaves or smallest leaves, it was the tomato with only one leaf. Poor Richard. He seems to have been afflicted with some debilitating tomato illness that has removed all folliage aside from one stout leaf. Strangely, this one leaf is enormous, and appears to be in perfect health.

In an attempt to right all wrongs in the world, we have repotted Richard in a claypot-home of his very own, and set him dead, smack in the middle of our strongest flourescent growlight. He has been fortified, watered, and verbally encouraged. We have not revealed that there are seventy-nine tomato plants just like him (only far larger and in significantly better health), or that he's only a tomato plant, and really, what does it matter if he dies anyhow? or that "Richard" is a terrible name in the first place.

Our hopes are low.

Scientifically speaking, there really is no way he will a) develop any more leaves or b) develop fruit because he has no joints. There's no place for him to start growing another branch. With (ahem) normal tomato plants, the new branches the start growing between an original branch and the main stem are called "suckers." When we want to inhibit "sprawling" branches and force the plants to bear fruit, we snap off these sucker. Because poor Richard has only one leaf growing from one stem, there's nowhere for him to grow new branches. The only future we see for him is to grow taller and sturdier -- but he will remain impotent with one leaf.

--Camille