in the dirt

I've been pushing myself to do more and learn more with the garden this year.

I started with seeds in the containers on the patio in early April - beets, radishes, and lettuce. Last year I put in a full salad garden in those containers, and then the squirrels took over and ruined everything. This time, I'm making good use of chicken wire and have built domed fortresses to keep the pests out.

Things do not live long if I have to keep them indoors, so when I came home from the winter market with tomato plants in early April, I knew they would have to go outside as soon as possible or I'd kill them fast inside than frost would outside.

I lucked out in salvaging some old windows to use as a cold frame on the four tomato plants (two red grape and two yellow pear) I'd placed in my last patio container but I ran out of container space and needed to come up with some way to keep tomatoes alive directly in my garden bed 6 weeks before our last frost date. After much googling of diy coldframes - which all seem to involve buying things - I found a blogger using large plastic storage containers to keep her plants alive.

So I dumped the box storing my sheets in the basement, planted my last three tomato starts (one cherokee purple and two yellol pear), and held the plastic box in place with a large rock from the patio. It was super classy looking:

But our last frost date *finally* passed this week and the tomatoes are a month ahead of schedule!

I was also searching for a diy plant marker solution that would use up something I already had at the house. Not a big fan of diy projects that have "go to the store and buy $$$ of stuff" as the first step. If I wanted to buy stuff, I'd go buy plant markers.

Finally I just ended up snapping some random dowel rods into 1/4 sections and attaching appropriately labeled clothespins.

This weekend, if the rain and crazy tornado storms stop, I'll get the last of the seeds in the ground.  My tomato plants that I'd pre-ordered from Burpee in March finally arrived and went in last weekend, so all I have left are the string and lima beans, summer squash, and cucumbers. And the community garden bed will get another set of carrots and beets, and a row of (experimental) baby bush watermelons. The vines supposedly only grow 3 feet and can be trained up a trellis to save space.

~RLM

change

I lost my job last week.

My (former) boss could no longer afford to pay for childcare, so I was let go. Via email. With a week's notice that I was going to be unemployed. And then asked to wait two weeks beyond my pay schedule for my last check.

Needless to say, it feels like my whole world has been turned upside down. I started frantically searching for new jobs. Bestie came over to share her wealth of knowledge on filing for unemployment, updating my resume, and signing with temp agencies.

We spent the whole week doing fun things, ignoring the rules and letting the bossman and his new GF handle the homework for a change, and just enjoyed the last bit of time we'd have together. Caitlin and madre both got in as much quality time as possible too.

But then I found an awesome, and urgent, posting for a summer camp teaching assistant sponsored by AmeriCorps and located in Indy. I filled out the online application, got an email the next day to fill out the AmeriCorps application, and by lunchtime on Saturday had an acceptance email and huge stack of paperwork to fill out.

Considering how horrible the job market is right now for recent graduates (the worst thing to be in Indy apparently) I was thrilled to find something that will get me through the summer and give me the opportunity to do some good in this community.  I feel like the last 18 months were swallowed up by being a nanny. Working 50+ hours a week at a job that completely sapped all of my strength, both physical and emotional, left me with no life outside of those kids.

And I'll miss them terribly.  It is already odd not to have a kid with me as I've been running errands this week.  It's weird not to frantically stop everything at 3:20 every afternoon and rush to the elementary school for pickup.  But I'm so relieved not to have to deal with all of the insanity that came along with the kids. The custody drama and frequently empty refrigerator and ridiculously long hours and lack of respect.  I will not miss any of that.

But them:

I will miss.

~RLM

ready

Beyond the fact that I am just plain tired of my feet being cold all the time, I am ready for warm weather to get here so I can get outside and into the garden.

This zone 5b business is no fun when all over the internets, people down south are already harvesting broccoli and having strawberry festivals.

My strawberry plants are still wrapped in wet paper towels in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator because we haven't had a day free of rain or warm enough temperatures to get out and plant them.

But, I do have these little guys:

Last summer I bought 5 large laundry tubs from Target - they were nearly identical to large plastic planters that Lowe's was selling for $45 a piece - but these had handles and were only $5 each. I drilled small holes around the base and filled the bottom w/2 inches of river rocks to improve drainage before filling them 2/3 of the way full of potting soil.

I'm determined to make better use of them this year and figure out a way to keep the squirrels out of whatever is growing (will be rigging up some sort of chicken wire covers for sure). So a few weeks ago when the weather was actually nice and spring like, we put in radish, beet, and lettuce seeds - and transplanted two grape tomato starts that have been thriving under cut-in-half two liter soda bottles.

Then it started raining and hasn't stopped in so long that I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Noah building an ark in our overgrown dandelion jungle of a backyard.

My big raised beds are ready to go - they've been weeded and covered with weed block until our last frost date passes at the end of May. One small section has been filled with cabbages, in an experiment just to see if I can keep anything alive this month. I've also got a tiny rhubarb start in the corner there and a few herb plants that managed to survive the winter.

I'm doing things a little differently this year. For one, I'm going to have a lot more space at my disposal. A community garden was started in our neighborhood and is being sponsored by the Methodist church at the end of our street - so for $10, I get a 4x16 foot bed from May to October! They're opening things up this Saturday and I'm hoping to get some more beets and maybe some carrots in the ground. I'm dreaming of pickled beets - and overplanting b/c last year I ended up with a grand total of 10 edible ones.

I've ordered my main tomato plants from Burpee, so they will come in the mail when it's time to plant. I've got three heirloom organic Amish Paste starts and a mixed pack of an Early Girl, a Brandywine Pink, and a Sun Gold Hybrid. I'm hoping to find a few more varieties locally; even though I don't eat them, I've always loved growing the tiny yellow pear tomatoes. 

I'll have beans running up a trellis on the back of the garage again, but this year they'll be Christmas Lima Beans instead of string beans. Slow Food Indy was selling Seed Savers Exchange seeds at the Winter Market, so I got to buy my bush beans, limas, cucumber, and beet seeds locally. And I'll round out the backyard beds with some yellow summer squash and a few more herb plants.

I have a sinking feeling that we'll jump straight from gloomy non-spring to crazy hot Indiana summer, but at least I'd be able to get out in the dirt that way.

~RLM

baking with ratios

I've recently started cooking and baking by weight, rather than by volume and am now completely obsessed with my kitchen scale.

The Ratio App is my new favorite reason to love my iPod touch, I'd checked the book out from the library last year, but never got around to buying a copy for home.  But the app is only $5 and features a calculator for the ratios that can scale a recipe up or down depending on how much of something you want to make.

I'd all but given up on baking bread at home because every batch of dough turned into a squat dense brick of a loaf. Ratio app + kitchen scale + new yeast = perfect loaves of bread.

Today I experimented with the quick bread ratio to make a banana oat muffin, based on the Joy the Baker recipe I've been using to make banana bread for the past few months.  I love the combo of banana and oats and wanted to see if using the ratios would turn out a different product.

And I ended up with perfect muffins!

Banana Oat Muffins

12 ounces flour (I used 4 ounces scottish oats and 8 ounces white whole wheat flour)

12 ounces mashed banana - this was 3 bananas for me, could be more or less depending on size

6 ounces eggs

6 ounces butter (that's 1.5 sticks and kinda crazy, so I used 2 ounces butter and 4 ounces fat free greek yogurt)

3.5 ounces brown sugar

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Directions: Mix all the wet ingredients well, stir together dry ingredients and then combine. Optional crumb topping: mix 1/4 cup scottish oats + 1/4 cup brown sugar and sprinkle on top

Bake at 350 for 35-45 minutes, until done.

~RLM

a few links and a recipe

• I found the most adorable vegan food blog this morning. I can't eat soy/legumes, but the recipes look awesome! The Vegan Stoner
  
• the Maker's Project is full of inspiring photos - the Morris Kitchen is my favorite

• I have some very cute tiny floral print fabric set aside for a Flirting the Issue Skirt. I'm going to do the lining in natural muslin, it will be the perfect thing for spring.
• My Garden board on Pinterest is filling up with awesome ideas for the backyard. I'm hoping to sign up for a plot in our new neighborhood community garden so that I can have a bit more space for things this year. I'm also excited to attempt strawberries for the first time.
• I found this recipe for creamy lemon crumb bars on pinterest a few weeks ago. The first batch was delicious, if a bit too sweet. I made another batch yesterday and changed things up a little.

• I used a blend of whole wheat pastry and multi-grain all-purpose flours, with about 1/4 cup of ground flax meal thrown in, and I used a little less than a whole cup of brown sugar to cut down on the sweetness.  I also used salted butter, because the sweet/salty/tart combination is amazing.

• I pulled this old project out of hibernation this weekend. I started working on this quilt right before I left North Carolina and it's been sitting in a box under the sewing table for over a year.  I randomly felt like sewing on Friday night and finished one block while watching a really cute movie on netflix instant. I'd forgotten how long it takes to make a 16 inch square log cabin block since I spend too much time obsessing over which strip to add next. 

• Stone of Destiny is an adorable movie - it's available on netflix instant and totally worth watching.
• The summer concert lineup for Indy is going to awesome - I can't afford to see everything I'd like, but I would love to make it to either Florence & the Machine or Ray LaMontagne.

~RLM