BE SPRING!

It's springtime in Medford. I posted about it in our house blog a few weeks ago. It is NOT spring in Bend. Spring has dementia: it was late, then showed up for a few days, but not realizing it was in the right place, left. And now it's November again.

Anyway, not to be deterred, I constructed a self-watering vegetable container based on this plan and planted tomatoes, basil and oregano. I also built a nifty little cart to wheel it in and out at night, because tomatoes are temperature sensitive and won't produce if they get too chilly.

That's the plant collection, taken from 20 feet above looking over our ledge. The pot on the right is 18 inches at the top. It's big. (It also probably needs a reservoir fill-up, too, eek...)

Other crafty news: I found a blog post somewhere about a lemon wreath. I love wreaths that don't look like trash, and I love lemons, and I especially love being crafty and creative. So...I copied the idea. But mine's better.

Or, you know, it will be, once I finish hot-gluing the lemons in place and can hang it up. Still maybe a bit sparse in the 6 to 9 o'clock areas. Hmm.

ALSO! I am propagating rosemary and basil, and my little seedlings (Gloriosa daisies, which look like black-eyed susans, my favorite!) are coming right along.

Oh, I love gardening so much.

Scrambled updates

Been a busy few weeks! I've been working on two websites, and I've been meaning to post a link to my own company, Paraphrase Media, for about a month now. I finally finished it (mostly...there's always room for improvement) and am excited to be official!

It's been such a busy few weeks that I haven't done any projects, other than baking. Also, I've taken up being a full-blown nerd, playing COD Black Ops (mainly to kill the zombies). If video games weren't bad enough, Todd got me a headset to wear while we're playing, so I can be told by the friends we play with not to shoot the crawler...right before I do. Oops. (Sorry, nerdy digression.)

I have been doing some really awesome things with eggs lately, that I'm going to share. That is a rosemary-onion-spinach scramble, seasoned with cracked black pepper, kosher salt, green onions and plenty of Tillamook Colby Jack. (Secret: the "onion" part is actually powdered onion soup from a packet. Surprisingly versatile stuff.) The rosemary was grown in my windowsill herb garden (in which I am unfortunately, and so far unsuccessfully, battling aphids. I'm buying ladybugs today.)

There have also been some very successful stir-fry experiments, but I don't have pictures, so I won't mention them yet.

Plans are also in the works for my summer garden, which is going to include:

• tomatoes
• basil
• oregano
• possibly zucchini
• lettuce (more for springtime)
• petunias
• geraniums
• dahlias

and I am excited for it.

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme (minus the parsley)

My little windowsill garden has been plodding along, and yesterday, I started finishing it. This already-started trio of herbs (sage, rosemary and thyme) came from Trader Joe's (LOVE!).

All three plants were growing in one pot, so I split them into separate pots so a) they'd fit better on my windowsills and b) I could use the pots I recently found. The herbs were fairly densely rooted, so I used an old butter knife to work the roots apart.

The smell was intoxicating while I was working on separating them, and I am quite pleased with the results.