Kathy's Deck

I absolutely love how it feels to be on Kathy's deck. It's peaceful, relaxing and soothing. She's decorated it with pretty flowers and plants, then scattered in colorful samplings from her collections.
There are little chimes gently blowing in the breeze, containers filled with interesting things, fragrant herbs and lots of different shapes, colors and textures, all blending harmoniously on Kathy's deck.

Her sweet kitty watched with keen cat eyes as she adjusted the umbrella so we had a better view of that magnificant red sun as it began to set somewhere behind Bellingham Bay.

With Fairhaven and Bellingham Bay as our backdrop, the view is pretty nice from Kathy's deck.

Too bad she's been displaced by the property management company after 8-1/2 years of responsibly living there. She has conveniently worked for just as long in that very same neighborhood too. Now what else can she do but search for a new place to make her home. Do not fear, my dear friend, the troops, they will rally.

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And we pray that your dear daughter and precious unborn grandchild in far away Montana will soon be out of the hospital, heathy and strong. Do not fear, my dear friend, the troops, they are rallying.

I'm a Winner

Turns out, I am a winner! During the Cordata Community Gardens grand opening street party, my ticket was drawn out of the box of raffle entries, winning me an assortment of hand-crafted note cards. Meanwhile, back at our garden, the borage is growing well and showing their fuzzy buds. Soon we will be freezing their lovely blue, star-shaped flowers into ice cubes and adding them to glasses of lemon aide. Won't that feel absolutely refreshing on a sunny afternoon?

Today marked the first day for harvest of some of those tender salad greens from our garden, and more radishes. With several square-foot sections of the garden planted in a variety of leaf and head lettuces, we should have a steady supply of salad greens from our very own gardens very soon now.

View how the B2 and B3 gardens have grown.

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After watering my garden spot and then my neighbor's, I took some time to wonder through the entire Cordata Community Gardens to see how things are growing. I noticed that many of the garden beds have lettuce and other vegetables that are ready to be harvested. With some of the gardeners here new to gardening, I do hope they know that they can actually eat the vegetables they are growing.

Check out the other gardens at Cordata.

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Five Hours

Five hours, that's how long I weeded the Happy Valley Community Gardens garden spot that I recently leased from the City of Bellingham. Turns out, this is how many weeds I can pull in five hours.

Here's how that newly assigned garden spot looked when I began.

I removed all the cardboard that had been covering the raised beds and walkway, then started working on those weeds.
One bed at a time, I pulled the weeds and dug out their roots. Then I did my best to level out the soil once again.

Here's what it looked like after I'd been at it for five hours.

View my progress.
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Next steps for my new garden spot, adding fencing to keep the neighborhood deer out. One of my new Happy Valley Community Gardens neighboring gardeners (one who recognized me from this very blog, thank you very much) shared with me that sometimes old fishing nets are available as salvage by the dumpster on our waterfront near the Bellingham fishing fleet storage area. Thank you very much for the tip! I think I know that area and will be checking that out tomorrow, and happy gardening to you and your family. Then, as the soil there is a very heavy clay, adding a layer of soil that is more suitable for gardening on the top of each the beds is a must. As far as the dirt, we will be dealing with that next week. Soon, maybe I'll actually get to do some planting in my new garden spot!

Mine Now

She called this morning to say that a garden space is officially mine. Not just one, but two actually. It's a double space, said to be 10' by 40'. I'm pretty happy.Kind of strange, but the space I get just so happens to be the space I featured a photo of in my last blog entry about the Happy Valley Community Gardens. Now you'd have to have a little of that local Robertson in your blood to totally understand, but I find myself wondering, Aunt Sis, are you there? The garden is only a few blocks from where her house was, so maybe it's Uncle Olen? Or Grandma? Hello? Yes, half my garden space is the one with the raised beds, cardboard boxes and all those weeds. With plenty of potential, we're already discussing ideas to get some decent soil brought in and talking about what to do for the fence. Meanwhile, I can remove boxes, pull weeds and do some general clean up. I can inventory my remaining seeds, measure the raised beds and make up a planting plan.

Not all of my garden space is covered in weeds and not all is in raised beds. Maybe this bare spot would be a good place to put those raspberries. And look, my space comes with its own old wooden box for garden storage. Once my fencing material is in place, I should move it inside my space. Maybe I could paint it - or not.

My garden comes with a big clump of lupins and a bunch of iris. Already in bloom, I made today the day of my first harvest!

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My new garden.

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French Breakfast

Tender, crisp and sweet, pulled fresh from the garden this evening, radishes, French breakfast radishes.Related to the turnip and horseradish family, radishes are rich in ascorbic acid, folic acid, and potassium. Also a good source of vitamin B6, riboflavin, magnesium, copper, and calcium, and at about 20 calories (mostly carbohydrates) per cup when sliced, wasted calories they are not!