Condo Garden 2009

Summer is in full swing, and our condo garden seems to be blooming nicely. As I mentioned previously, we are growing two types of basil, lettuce, and tomatoes in the garden this year, along with quite a few flower pots. Here's some photos of where we started, taken March 29th of this year:



Progress and added veggies in May 2009:




June 4, 2009:



June 15, 2009:
Time for some salad, I think! :-)



Anyone need some fresh home-grown basil? We seem to hava a lot here... :-)

Happy summer!

Swept Into Spring

Wow, where has the time gone? We've been having an unusual stretch of sunny weather here in Seattle, which has meant that we've all been in go-go-go mode. With weather in the upper 80s, we take full advantage of the sunshine and warmth while we can, I think. Nonetheless, we've been swept into Spring with the Summer-like weather and blogging has not happened like I really want it to.

Lennie and I got to take in our first Seattle Sounders FC game last night, which was quite the experience. We were five rows from the field, and definitely swept up in the action. The crowd was full of energy, and it was fun to simply sit back and take it all in... even if we didn't always know/understand what was going on on the pitch. I enjoyed it, but don't know that I'll be the first in line for tickets and writing chants... maybe once I understand the game a little bit more!

Work has kept both Lennie and I busy, which has been nice. When we're not at work, we've been tending to the condo garden, which is blooming nicely, but requires a lot of water in the warm weather. Last I heard, we've gone 27 days without rain, so there's been a lot of watering going on! On the upside, our hard work is paying off in that we have enough lettuce now for a modest salad, and we're up to our ears in basil. I'm loving it!

Last weekend, we got to go to the annual :20 Funny Festival that is organized by 103.7 The Mountain. We had great seats on the balcony, dead center. It was fabulous! I laughed and giggled my way through the whole event, and am glad that Lennie and I have made this event an annual tradition.

A few other observations from the last few weeks:

• Family is important. Don't forget to tell your family how much you love them, and appreciate the time that you get to spend with them.


• Friends make life a whole lot better. Spend time with them: laughing, connecting, and make each other's lives better as much as you can.


• The driving range can make you feel like a golf pro, and will help bring your golfing mojo back. It's worth the trip to swing through a bucket of balls, I promise!


• If you're in a car alone, that does not mean that other people can't see you. Seriously, I can see you in the car behind me...


• Air conditioning can be somewhat rare in Seattle, but when you need it, you need it!


• We live in one of the most beautiful places possible. Sunshine, mountains, water, we have it all in Seattle. I'm so grateful for that!


• I have one of the greatest husbands ever. Seriously, he kicks butt.

I hope that the end of Spring and beginning of Summer finds you all doing well. Bring on more summer sunshine! :-)

Yawn.

For over two weeks now, I've had photos on my camera of the 2009 condo garden. They're still on the camera. I keep thinking "I'll get those posted in a little bit..." and a little bit has turned into quite some time. If the photos weren't trapped on my camera, you'd see the beautiful lavender, pansies, mini-roses, tomatoes, two kinds of basil, lettuce, and fuchsias. I'm quite proud of my handiwork, I must confess. Alas, the photos will be coming soon... I promise!

Lately, I've been pretty tired. Not sure why but I'll be humming along just fine and then out of nowhere I'm exhausted. Completely exhausted. Hopefully I can get to the bottom of the exhaustion problem, but until then please excuse me if I decline plans or simply don't respond to calls or e-mails after 8 p.m. -- I'm probably tired again. :-(

We're experiencing a downpour with thunder and lightning right now, not a regular Spring sight in these parts. I'm hopeful though, that the rains will feed my plants and help my garden grow. I'll keep you posted!

Wanted: Recipe for Fried Green Tomatoes

Two weeks ago, we finally got a "bumper crop" of tomoatoes, filling one medium sized bowl to the brim. Yum!

Today, Lennie and I decided to harvest all of our tomatoes and put the condo garden to rest for the year. Two large black garbage bags later, we cleared out all of the tomato plants and took all of the tomatoes off of the vine... a lot of tomatoes, that is. We now have two grocery bags full of red and green tomatoes to enjoy. I'm hopeful that the green ones will ripen on our counter. In the meantime, we may need a recipe for fried green tomatoes -- anyone have a good one out there?! :-)

Labor Day Weekend & Disappointed Dawg Fans

For Labor Day Weekend, we had the opportunity to hang out with some great friends at their cabin on Lake Kachess in Eastern Washington. We had a fabulous time relaxing and trading laughs. We also had the opportunity to go out quading -- what a rush! As we rode amongst the trees and traveled up the mountain, we got to take in great views while the wind whipped past our helmets. After a while, we stopped near a clearing where our friend demonstrated some of his firearm skills. I'm not one for guns, so this wasn't an activity that I participated in, but everyone seemed to enjoy some attempts at target practice.

Saturday night brought some yummy chili (which was a welcome dinner choice after being out on the trails all day) and a very disappointing UW football game against University of Oregon. True to form, the Huskies had a great second quarter and a crappy rest of the game. I think that I may agree with Mr. Brewer of the Seattle Times, who says that Ty's days may be numbered at the U. That makes me really sad on the one hand, but on the other hand, we can't go through many more "rebuilding eras" like we have been for the last few years. Fasten your seatbelts, Dawg fans, it's going to be a long year. Despite the loss, I still enjoyed time watching the game with friends -- even though a few of them fell asleep due to lack of excitment during the game.

Sunday brought sunshine and a trip to Roslyn, WA for lunch. It's kind of refreshing to go to a town that is so quaint... and that has very few stoplights. :-) Too fun. We went on a night quading ride -- although I don't think that we intended to be out that late, it was fun to ride through all of the mud puddles in the darkness. At one point, I slowed down so that I could be sure to hit every mud puddle at optimum speed -- fast! It's not often that adults get to play in the mud, so I did my best to make the most of it. Good times!

On another note -- we just harvested our first tomatoes. (It's been a weird growing season this year, not sure what to do with it...) The tomatoes were between baseball and softball sized... amazing!

It's a Jungle Out There!

It's been a while since I have posted an update on the condo garden, and I'm pleased to report that our deck is starting to feel very jungle-like. We've got our first tomatoes on the vine (green and growing), and everything is filling in nicely. We're looking forward to a great bounty of tomatoes in a few weeks!

Garden Progress -- Memorial Day Weekend

The patio garden is making good progress. I can't say the same for our indoor garden starts, but that's another story. As you may recall, I planted a multitude of tomato pots that we started from seed. I'm pleased to report that almost all of them have done really well. Two pots, however, didn't make it. So, they've been replanted with tomato starts from our local mega store. Tomato cages have been added to most of the pots (I'm two cages short), so all we need now is some patience and good sunshine. Here are a few photos for you to enjoy.







We've been enjoying the blooming flowers, as has one of our local hummingbirds. Since we installed the tomato cages this weekend, the hummingbird has been using them as a perch to rest while assessing which flower it is going to enjoy next. Sometimes, it will even eat from the comforts of the tomato cage. It's been really cool to watch the hummingbird, to say the least. I managed to get a few photos of the hummingbird in action this evening:







Oh, and do you know how hard it is to take photos of a hummingbird with a point-and-shoot camera? Nearly impossible! :-) Either way, I'm happy that this hummingbird has been visiting our patio over the past few days.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Today was a beautiful day in the Seattle area, with reports that the temperatures got as high as the 80's. I don't know if I believe that it was that high, but I'll take it. Lennie and I got up this morning and promptly got to finisihing our master bedroom project. It took us an hour, but we measured and hammered until all of our framed pictures and artwork was masterfully placed around the room. It makes the place feel like a home now, which is very comforting.

Around 11:30 or so, we drove over to Issaquah to enjoy a Georgio's sub sandwich and then to "brave" the crowds at Lowe's so that we could pick up this year's bounty of plants and planters. Surprisingly, the crowd was light, and I was able to skip through the aisles picking out my new flowers and gardening supplies. I tend to get a little "plant fever" this time of year -- thinking that my porch is bigger than it really is, and spending just a little more than I really should on supplies. Lennie kept me in check, and we were off with less than a truck-full of plants. OH, and I should mention that none of the plants were tomatoes or basil, because I already had a farm load of starts from seed that I had planted and have been cultivating over the past few weeks. We'll get to that in a minute.

We then headed to the grocery store for the week's food stuffs, and went home to enjoy the afternoon outside planting in the sunshine... except for the fact that once again I have successfully lost my shovel/trowel for my planting. Scratch that, I have lost both of my shovels this time around. Every year, I place the shovel in the "perfect spot" where I won't lose it, and every year, I can't find it. I think that somewhere, all of my shovels are sitting next to my lost socks laughing at me.

Needless to say, Lennie made another run to the store, and I was back in business. Two large bags of potting soil (and then some) and a few sweaty hours later, I have nine pots of tomatoes (what was I thinking!?!), three railing baskets with flowers, three lavender plants (which wintered beautifully from last year), a hanging basket with fushias, and some new filler plants in the community planters out front.

Here are a few photos of our garden:

I'll keep you posted over the coming months on our progress, as I'm convinced that we're going to be sick of tomatoes before the summer is over... stay tuned on that one!

After dinner, we took one more trip out to brave Walmart to get a few of the last supplies that I needed for our garden -- like more plant stands so that the condo association won't fine us for having pots on the deck surface, and some gardening gloves for future potting sessions. (Side note: I noticed after working with my bare hands for three hours in the soil that the potting soil bag said "Waring: always use gloves when working with this product." Seems that the fertilizer built in to the soil isn't so hot for your hands and/or health. Ooopppsss....)

Anyone want to buy some tomatoes? They'll be fresh off the vine, I promise! Only fertilized with the highest quality fish water, really!