Tag: spring

Garden update: end of May

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, gardening, local fun

Everything plantedThe veggies are in! Found some interesting tomato varieties and practiced supreme self control by not buying all of them. New tomatoes (so far) for me this year are Taxi, Chiquita, Mr Stripey. Old standbys that are returning: Sweet 100’s, Lemon Boy, Brandywine, Black Cherry, a couple of Romas. I am told by the Master Gardner in residence (my husband) that I have room for only one more tomato plant.

Things could get ugly…

Eggplant: Japanese, Italian, and new for me this year is Rosa Bianca.

Peppers: Sweet Italian. Giant Marconi, Corno di Toro Red.

Zucchini: Spineless, Raven. Yellow Squash: Sunray…the usual suspects.

I’m giving onions a try for the first time (both red–thanks, Susan!–and yellow), as well as beets (both red and gold). These and the string beans and the sugar snap peas are being grown (hopefully) from seed. We’re going to try cukes again, even though we never have any luck with them. We’re also giving watermelon another try: some from seeds and 1 or 2 are starting out as seedlings that we purchased.

Here’s hopin’.

The blueberries and the strawberries are running rampant and aren’t pictured in this slide show but will certainly show up in future ones. The raspberries are kicking butt.

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What are you planting in your gardens this year?

How to plant asparagus and potatoes (spring garden part 2)

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, gardening
The asparagus

After the rototilling (thanks, Bill!) and the fertilizing and the leveling the soil in the raised beds with a rake was finished, we started planting. About a quarter of one of the gardens was planted with asparagus about 3 years ago, and we both love it so much we decided to expand that garden. We planted Jersey Giant, Martha Washington, and Purple Giant varieties, which were all the ones that we could find locally.

At first glance, the asparagus crown (as it’s called) is not attractive; it looked sort of like an octopus, actually. I’m not sure I would have known what to do with it, but fortunately  my husband did. After removing the rubber band that bound them, it became evident that the one big octopus was actually 8 individual octopi. We teased them apart and buried them in the raised beds about 8 inches deep then covered with 2-3 inches of soil per the package instructions. The crowns are spaced 8-12 inches apart. Water ’em in. Call it a day.

The potatoes are planted in a similar manner. These at least look like what they purport themselves to be. We planted Baby Yukon Golds. My husband said the package planting instructions usually say to quarter the potatoes before burying them but since this package did not, we didn’t.

Now we have 3/4 of one 8 x 12 raised bed planted with asparagus, and 1/4  with baby Yukon golds.  The books say not to harvest asparagus until it’s been growing for something like six years. This is supposed to help the plant get better established by sending the plant’s energy back into the roots (or something like that).  It’s been 3 years now for our first crop, and we’re going to be brave and cut a few spears in a day or so. We’ve decided that we’re willing to risk it, especially now that we have so many more crowns in the ground! 🙂

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Clearing Clutter for Clarity, continued

by Karen, posted in fitness, Midlife Crisis

I have unsubscribed from many of the automatic emails that I’ve been getting. You know, the ones from stores that promise to send you exclusive coupons if you sign up? Well, what I’ve found that (for me)  what that leads to is the clutter of the (nearly daily) emails from them in my inbox, which I have to read and then make decisions about. Usually, there will actually be a coupon that looks pretty good to me, sparking that well-worn refrain in my mind of “Hey, I might need that!” which leads me to print it out.

Seems harmless enough, right?  But now that coupon will be added to the glut of other coupons that I already have stuffed in my pocket-book: more physical clutter. Then, I will carry it around for a long time, usually for so long that I forget that I have it. If I should happen to recall it when I am at the store (which rarely happens; I’m much more likely to recall after I’ve left the store), the there are so many other coupons in there that I am unable to locate it in a timely manner.

Is it in my wallet? Is it in the special coupon holder that I keep to file these things in an organized way so that I can find them quickly (like, when there is a long line of unsympathetic shoppers waiting behind me)? Is it stuck in the front zipper compartment of my bag? Could I have left it in the car? At that point, I”ll usually give up, shrug, and just pay full price. And then when I get home, there it is (of course): right there on the kitchen island where I left it, where I’d be sure to see it before I left the house.

So today, I’m exercising my will power by not cutting out any coupons from the Sunday paper. Hey, at least I’m doing some sort of exercising today!

At least it’s not too strenuous.

🙂

The 6 W’s diet

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, health

I was talking with someone the other day about her desire to lose weight.

She and her friend were working on their weight and following a diet. “Which one?” I asked her. “The 6 W’s diet,” she replied. “What’s that?” I asked. Since I work in the healthcare field, I thought I’d heard of them all, but this one was new to me. “We invented it,” she said. Okay, well, that explained why I was unfamiliar with it, at least.

She said it was the culmination of years of ‘trying everything’ that led to her decision to make up a diet for herself. “It can’t be any worse than any of the ones I tried already,” she reasoned. Also, her spouse had gastric bypass surgery, lost a lot of weight, but had already gained back 25 lbs. “See? Even getting the operation doesn’t work!”

The 6 W’s diet:

  1. Watch the fat
  2. Write down everything you eat
  3. Walk more
  4. Water: drink more
  5. Win!!!!

“That sounds great,” I said, “but that’s only 5. What’s the 6th W?” “Oh,” she said, ” I added ‘wine’ to the list,” she said. “‘Wine’ … or ‘Whine’?!” I asked. “Both!” she replied, laughing, “depending on what kind of day I’m having!”

Makes sense to me.

🙂

The math of less and more

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food

Okay, as you all probably know, I don’t love to exercise. In the spirit of being sprung by Spring, though, I am trying to develop some exercise-program-momentum and keep moving.  Because I don’t have to be at work until noon today instead of 9am (that’s a whole ‘nother story that I won’t get started on here. You’re welcome.) I put my daughter on the school bus and then put my sneakers on and headed out. I used to walk fifteen minutes in one direction then turn around and come back when I was losing weight on the Weight Watchers Program a few years back so that I could earn “Activity Points” so that I could (you guessed it) eat more. I did it 6 or even 7 days a week, sometimes twice a day when I was actively losing, and I continued to do it 4 or 5 times a week when I entered the maintenance phase.

Then November came. Now, November certainly came the past several years as well, but for some reason, this November was different. I stopped walking every day. First of all, it was hunting season. There were plenty of pick up trucks pulled over at the side of the road along my walking route, and you just know that (probably liquored-up) half asleep hunters were out there…armed. That, the freezing temperatures, and the piles of snow were enough to keep me on the bench (read: couch) for most of (okay, just about all of) the winter. The less I exercised, the less I wanted to exercise.

Also, I was (over)confident that after maintaining my weight loss for more than 3 years, I could afford to slack off some. Guess what? That wasn’t true. It was just a lie that I told myself so that I could eat a few more of those cupcakes, those Raisinets, those Peanut M+M’s (that I think we can all agree are the devil!). The more I ate from my favorite food group, the more I wanted to eat from it.

Hello, spring. Uh-oh.  I made a “5 lbs by May” challenge my friend Sheila. I meant to say, “5 lbs off by May”…the Universe has a funny way of delivering to us what we ask (as I’ve written about before)…so I should have been more, um, precise with my description of my goal.

Okay, so let’s try that again: 5 lbs off by May.

Hang on tight; it’s going to be a bumpy ride. 🙂

Pause and reflect

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, fitness, friends, health, local fun, Midlife Crisis, Someone's gotta say it

Spring has sprung me–and as they say, better late than never. My cocoon of too much food and too little exercise has cracked open. What I’ve learned this winter is this: the more I eat, the more I want to eat, and the less I exercise, the less I want to exercise.

My wake up call? Well, that’s just it; it hasn’t been just one thing.  I had 4 this week:

  1. My husband said that the way I can always be go-go-going and doing so much and having so much energy have so many projects going was something he loved about me when he first met me. Now? Not so much.
  2. My yoga teacher said: “Are your pants on backwards? That little white triangle thing is usually in the front, isn’t it? Well, it’s on your butt right now!”
  3. Those shorts that were loose last spring have not one iota of extra room in them now. Not. One. Iota.
  4. When I unexpectedly had some unstructured time, there were so many things I wanted to do that I wasted some of the time because I couldn’t decide what to do!

I decided first to pause and reflect…this lasted about 30 seconds. Through my indecision I was conscious enough to note that it was 61 degrees out and sunny, and the huge snow banks had (finally! finally!) melted so that it was safe to walk my neighborhood streets again (read: drivers could see me). Before I did what I do best–that is, talk myself out of exercising, I grabbed my jacket, shoes and keys and headed out.

When I got back, I realized that it was time to eat something…not because it was suppertime (although it was: 5:10PM), but because I was really hungry. Usually I have others to cook for and feed, but tonight it was all up to me; I had only myself to please~”Party for one!” as my friend Denise would say.  I had a greek yogurt doctored up with frozen blueberries, flax meal, and cinnamon and a big cup of ice water. After I finished, I checked in: yep, still hungry. I slathered a slice of my homemade bread with almond butter and honey. Yum!

Then I wrote this blog post. I wrote a book review. I made and froze some lentil soup for work lunches this week. I edited several pages of  my book.

Sometimes by pausing, you get more done than if you just pushed full steam ahead.

P.S. This is my 200th post!!!! Yay!!!!

gardening

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, gardening

are you gardeners out there getting excited thinking about your vegetable gardens for this year? the rain last year left my tomatoes (and me) in misery; there was so much mold that when i finally did get a tomato or two that were edible, i had no appetite for it…and i love tomatoes. fortunately, this  is still vivid in my memory so i will not be going tomato crazy when it comes to plant buying time this year (the last two years i had in excess of 18 plants…).

so, this year i will try to do get more bounty from fewer plants. that is my plan. i hope i can stick to it when i am looking at all the different varieties of tomatoes seedlings for sale at Agway…

here are some helpful links:

http://www.agway.com/

http://www.gardeners.com/KitchenGardenPlanner/kgp_home,default,pg.html

http://www.5dollardinners.com/2010/03/free-gardening-planners.html

“The most noteworthy thing about gardeners is that they are always optimistic, always enterprising, and never satisfied. They always look forward to doing something better than they have ever done before.”~Vita Sackville-West

spring ritual

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, gardening, italian

my italian grandmother always said her birthday was on the first day of spring. actually, every so often she was right; her birthday was march 21st, and spring is usually on march 20th, but not always:(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equinox).  one sure sign that spring had come when i was little was The Making of the Dandelion Salad. my grandmother would send me out into the yard to gather dandelion leaves. this wasn’t as straightforward as it sounds. there were rules that must be followed:

1. leaves must be chosen from plants that had not yet flowered, otherwise they would be too bitter. 2. you had to look for plants that were far from the road, otherwise the exhaust from passing cars would poison them 3. leaves must be washed at least 3 times, because they were pretty dirty, what with actual dirt,  plus who knew what manner of animal had befouled the leaves in some manner? 4. the salad must always have olive oil and red wine vinegar, salt and pepper for dressing. that’s it. 

as i’m writing this, i realize one of the implicit gifts from this practice: nana always told me why i was being asked to do something a certain way. that was as important to me when i was 10 as it is to me now.

do you have any rituals from childhood that you remember? do you still practice any of them? who was an unsung hero in your childhood?

a spring miracle

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, gardening

i was amazed to see that my garden from LAST year has spinach and lettuce growing in it THIS year…how could this happen? first of all, both are supposedly annuals (http://www.learn2grow.com/plant-guides/vegetables/leafy-vegetables-lettuce-spinach/)…did they survive the winter?  hallelujah! then i thought, sure, it’s growing, but is it edible? this not being medieval times, i had no assayer (food taster) to step up and take the fall for me. i glance over my shoulder at my chickens, nearly beside themselves with excitement, salivating at the sight of fresh greens…should i feed some to my least preferred chicken and watch for untoward effects? (would that be wrong??) in the end, i realized that i really only had 2 options: to throw it away or to risk it myself. guess which door i chose? all who said “door #2”, you are correct! and since i’m here to tell you about it, you may have already deduced the outcome…have any of you ever had your annual vegetables stick around through the winter and keep growing in the spring?