Summer Bounty

A while ago I planted a "garden". This garden consists of 6 plastic pots on the side of my house--an old Victorian house broken up into 4 apartments, with no yard, and no sun. The sunny spot beneath my neighbor's window is about the only place I could find for a few plants, and there they live.

Petite bell peppers, green tomatoes, and cucumber blossoms. A sea of green.

Imagine my excitement yesterday when I got home from walking the dogs, and noticed a flash of red amongst the small green tomatoes, curling cucumber vines, and yellow blossoms. Summer has arrived.


Today, with the small gem swollen to a deeper red, I couldn't resist. I plucked it off the vine, popped it into my mouth, and enjoyed the first taste of fresh tomatoes. My first tomato. The first garden I've ever had. It's a wonderful feeling.

I am fairly obsessed with the promise of having a garden all my own in the near future. I belong to a community garden, and am a farmer's market devotee, but something about creating food from the land immediately around me is both rewarding and vital. I want to give back to the community around me in the form of beautiful gardens, and to enrich my own life with fresh food that I grew. It's a dream, but with this first small tomato I'm one step closer to that dream!

the cutest herb garden

I love the idea of container gardens for city-dwellers. Since last summer (our first summer in this apartment, and my first summer not living in a dorm or with my parents), I have desperately wanted a garden. Last summer we had a window box filled with herbs but they never really yielded enough herbs to do anything with, and since I sprouted them from Meijer seeds they were really nothing special.

This year however, I decided to maximize my space and commit a little more energy to a garden, starting with revamping my herb garden. I recently found I was accepted to a VISTA summer program in Kalamazoo called "Parent Involvement Makes a Difference" working with the Kalamazoo Promise, which means two things for my living situation: I will be living in Kalamazoo at least until August 14th; and I will only have to work 32 hours a week, meaning I'll have more energy than last summer when I was working 40 hours a week, and then on my thesis. With that in mind I bought several herbs from the People's Food Co-op yesterday, and came up with this adorable garden.

How to make your own city-dweller herb garden:
1. Look around at the multitude of possibilities to plant things in. To date I have planted lavender in a broken stein, and an African violet in a cracked French Press. I also have a rusty colander awaiting some herbs. I was frustrated by the amount of dog food cans I had, so I decided they would be my garden.

2. make sure your containers have ample drainage. I poked at least 5 holes in the bottom of each can, simply using a nail and hammer.
3. Spraypaint/decorate if you'd like. I had a can of old spraypaint left over from another project, and gave each can one of each.
4. Decide if you'd like to hang your cans/jars/containers. I used about 9" of wire, and wrapped it around each can at the top, then twisted it into a loop. Really simple, and fairly foolproof.
5. fill bottom with gravel/rocks or other drainage. Half of these are filled with broken glass, since I'm thrifty to a T.
6. Fill bottom with potting soil.
7. Plant your herbs!


8. Configure them the way you'd like. For me this meant getting Eric to nail 6 nails into our porch while I eyeballed the distance and hung herbs from them.
9. Water and enjoy!

I can't wait to see how this works out. I also planted some other vegetables in containers, but I'll blog about that soon. For now, I'm going to get the dirt out from under my nails, and say goodnight to my new garden before having a beer!

And now for something a bit different...

May I present you with a rose?












Because as they say, a rose is a rose is a rose

and that which we call a rose
by any other name would smell as sweet...

But when does it not? When is a rose not a rose? And I assure you, no sweet smelling roses here. Nope, just the earthy, damp smell of maple leaves.


You see, it all started with an innocuous project I spied over on Craftster. The goal was to make a bowl using only newspaper and glue.

I succeeded. See? A bowl.












Glamour shot of aforementioned bowl.











Aerial view.












And then I had a bowl. It sat on my desk for a few weeks, looking sad and lonely. I moved it around occasionally, but it remained empty. This bowl needed a purpose. Obviously I could not eat from it. I could not use it in the kitchen in any way. I could store things in it, but had nothing that needed storing. I couldn't put my basil plant in it, or I wouldn't be able to water the plant ever and it would die.

What is a girl with a bowl to do?

Pshaw. Go outside, and when she thinks no one is looking run around like a maniac picking up maple leaves. Rinse, repeat. (I got a few stares... no harm though. This isn't my real school. In six months I'll be gone and we'll all just be fond memories.)

And then, make flowers. There are 10 in the bowl, and maybe more on the way. There are a LOT of maple leaves here.

Now, the bowl has a purpose. The bowl has flowers. Lovely, antique looking flowers. Sort of vintage, literary roses that live a double life. Perfect for the desk of an English major with an affinity for Gothic literature. They are Gothic flowers. Gothic heroines in their own right.

But what really matters, is that they are flowers.