Hope Greening

There's a lot going on outside Casa de Crazy - gardens being tended, new beds being tilled and cultivated. We've slowly begun to supplement our store-bought food with fresh things; spinach in our scrambled eggs, a handful of strawberries in the morning, a few green onions.

Last Sunday, while the Evil Genius was being loaded down with sugary-food-coloring treats at his father's, Someone, Sprout and I went over to a friend's house. Someone was going to do some yard work and I was there to give a Reiki treatment. Sprout was along for the ride, but once we got there she provided some amusement for the resident kitties (who, to my knowledge, have never met an infant before). We scored a bit of chicken wire while we were there (it was languishing under the porch) and Someone knew just what to do with it.

Pea fence!

So now the peas have something to climb and spread out along, and they're quite happy about it. Someone put up a bit right away, and on Wednesday evening we had house guests, one of whom helped Someone put up a bit more fencing. I'm looking forward to fresh peas, and will (if there are enough of 'em)(are there ever really enough fresh peas??) make some into baby food for Sprout - in a few months, she'll be able to start eating "solids" (because calling it "mush" isn't very appetizing, is it??), and as with the Evil Genius, I want to make as much of her baby food as I can.

We've had rough luck with the peppers this year, but I finally got one of the Thai Insanity Pepper seeds (aka Prik-e-gnu) that I won from Phelan to sprout. I am hoping it will flourish and provide us with eye-watering, tongue scorching, ear burning, peppery goodness.

Okra, beans, squash, cucumbers, potatoes and sunflowers are all showing promise. We'll get pumpkins in soon, with hopes to have some ripe by October. If we can get them to grow, what isn't carved (pumpkin seeds, woo-hoo!!!) will hopefully become puree for future cakes, bread, and muffins.

I am also hoping that anything we don't eat or sell (we're attempting a small CSA) I can either freeze, dry, or pickle. Last year, a lot was wasted. I wanted to learn to pickle, but did not. Hopefully I'll do better this year.

We may have a few blueberries from the bushes we planted last year...but I think I'll be raiding (with permission, of course) Mum's kind-hearted neighbor's lovely run again this year. We still have a wealth of berries in the freezer from last-year's forays!

Mum has a fig forest (it's one tree, but it looks like a forest). I do not care for figs...but I hate to let 'em go to waste...so whatever she and her friends do not eat, I will experiment with. If nothing else, I can always dry 'em...but I may get ambitious and try Cinner's recipe for fig newtons - which, despite my disdain for figs, I adore.

An upside to all this greening? Saving some green at the grocer's - good grief, have you seen how much fresh tomatoes cost? With fuel prices climbing, everything costs more...so anything we don't have to buy is a bonus.

There's another benefit to all this agriculture - we're outside more, which helps clear the cobwebs and get the blood circulatin', no bad thing in my book. Someone's working his butt off (not that he has a lot to work off, mind...)!

If you garden (even if it's just in your mind), what do you plant?