Category Archives: 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons

I love to garden. I love to eat. I love to enjoy the seasons. And home is where my heart is!

If I could only plant one thing

April 23, 20091 Christ is All, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Thinkgarden, gardening, God, peas, tomatoes, zucchiniJeanie

Garden Philosophy:

If you try to plant too many things, you will be defeated. But if you start with one or maybe three things that you simply must grow for they cannot be purchased to perfection like you could grow them, then you will not only survive, you will thrive. And since you are only really counting on those one-to-three things, since they are getting all your love, you’ll end up realizing, Well, I could probably tuck a basil plant here since I am here frequently, and maybe a few radishes under the shade of the zucchini leaves. And soon you’ll be companion planting and actually doing more than you thought.

But if you go to the store and buy 37 packages of seeds, you are doomed. Doomed.

My favorites.

I started out gardening with ZERO experience in 1997. I am a city girl with a farmer’s heart – except that they have to pretty much work the farm 24/7 365 days a year and I am not quite that committed. I decided on tomatoes.

My Aunt Rosie always served us home grown tomatoes fresh from her garden and regardless of whatever else was served, they were like having the best Texas steak you have ever seen on your plate.

So when I decided to do it, I actually went to the library and checked out about 17 veggie garden books and one wholly devoted to tomatoes and read and read and read. The author of the tomato book basically said, “If you’re going to grow tomatoes, you should grow the best ones on the block. Do not go into it half-heartedly. Do everything possible to have the sweetest, biggest, most amazing tomatoes anyone has ever seen.” So, as a tribute to all the books I’d read about them, I actually planted about 17 tomatoes plants and they were the BEST tomatoes I had ever seen in my life! Now-the neighbors and everyone I knew dreaded seeing me coming, but I kept everyone I knew fully tomato’ed!

Other stuff I like to grow

Zucchini and yellow squash are great to grow for grilling. But they take a lot of room. I grow them mainly because I can feel haughty when I am in the store and they are selling for $1.00 each and I have just picked 7 or 8 of them for dinner. ALWAYS pick them young, slice in thick on the diagonal, toss them in extra-virgin olive oil, season and grill. You get great grill marks and they are delectable!

Peas are the gardener’s candy. Sugar snap peas are wonderful because you can eat the whole pod or not, as you wish. Great stir-fry. Very sweet. The grandbabies and I snack while we work!

Radishes. Don’t try these in the heat of summer. They get too hot. But they grow quickly and are very fresh and crisp early. Plant them outside now if you want.

Beans are easy. Every kindergartener starts out this way.

Peppers are great. They are pretty plants, too, so they make a great potted plant and there are just so many varieties you can’t get in the store.

I also like lettuces, and sometimes okra and the eggplant is so pretty (but I always forget how to fix them). So many directions a person could go. And don’t forget to tuck in some marigolds and nasturtiums while you’re at it. They’re edible, add some beautiful color and keep the icky bugs away to boot!

My real bottom line.

But there I go again – telling you too many things at once.

So, if I could only plant one thing, it would be tomatoes. Those transparent-barely-pink things on your fast food burgers are NOT tomatoes. Late summer, you can find some great tomatoes at the farmer’s market, but there is nothing, I mean nothing, like growing your own.

They are worth the effort, the babying, the prep, the watching, the watering and weeding! And if you can grow the tomato, which is THE most wondrous thing, you can now grow anything! Good times!

I Corinthians 15.35b The Message: We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a “dead” seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don’t look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.

Tomatoes, of course! And maybe…

About three years ago I was in a meltdown during planting season. It was the middle of June and I hadn’t done anything. There sat my 3 4-foot-by-4-foot boxes: empty. I knew I had no strength to accomplish anything, to plant, but I needed something. I planted a purchased tomato plant in one. One had 3 green bean “volunteers” coming up, so I just put a trellis in it (seeds from the previous year had gone into the soil and were growing with no effort on my part) and I found a zucchini seed or two in my produce drawer in a little baggie and popped those in to the final garden square.

They filled my three boxes. They actually looked beautiful and tended to. They grew though I was barely functioning and every single day they gave me the hope I needed that normalcy would return and I would grow past the place I was in. Every day a new leaf or flowering would appear, I knew I was another day past the sorrow – that life would happen again.

Those were all I could handle. Yet, we had zucchini and beans and tomatoes that summer as if I had worked for them. It was like God tended my garden when I couldn’t. It was God and it was good…

So go easy on yourself and garden!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF: I am not behind, either.

pictured: scouting out last year’s tomatoes one evening…I spy!

Growth Chart

April 22, 20094 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Thinkgarden, gardening, plantingJeanie

In my part of the Rocky Mountain Region, the “final frost date” is approximately May 10, give or take a few days. That is an important date to know because it is sort of a gardening ground zero – the date around which all your garden grows!

0551

Find your Final Frost Date!

Here is one link to help you find it. Knowing your area’s final frost date pretty much works for anyone anywhere as far as when to plant what. So, I am going to use the abbreviation FFD to indicate that is what I am talking about when I tell you my own personal plan of spring garden-action below.

Now everyone from my sister Tami in Corbin, KY to my sister-in-law in Aberdeen, SD, my mom in Springfield, Mo and even my fam in Butte, MT or Hobart, IN can use these numbers!

Seeds to sow indoors NOW! which can be planted outdoors after the FFD:

cucumbers, squash, zucchini, parsely*, cilantro, peppers*, tomatoes*, annual flowers (petunia, marigold, zinnia, etc), onion seeds (or wait and buy the seedlings)

Seeds it is OK to plant outside now because you can plant them a month or more before the FFD

carrots, radishes, peas (snow peas, old-fashioned garden peas or my FAV-sugar snap peas), swiss chard, spinach, lettuce, mesclun mix, onion sets

FFD – Don’t rush it

After Mother’s Day, weather-permitting, you can start plopping established plants in everywhere. I do have some sweet banana peppers growing on the windowsill, but most of my peppers and all of my tomatoes will come from pre-established seedlings I pick up at the nursery and they will not be planted until mid-May or after if I fear the night temps will drop below 55-degrees or so. I can find a great variety out here in “farmland country” at locally owned farm stands. So, planting seeds for these is not my deal. I will have squash and zuch ready to go at that time.

I only have 3 4 ft. x 4 ft. garden boxes for my veggie garden, although I also tuck stuff in here and there around the rest of the yard and use containers, too. So buying a parsely plant or two makes way more sense than buying a whole package of seeds and feeling compelled to plant every single one and then not having anywhere to place the plants in the garden, anyway.

Make yourself a List!

After the FFD, I will plant both seeds and seedlings.

Pre-established seedlings: started by me or purchased

Tomatoes (I’ll buy)

Peppers (I am already growing some, others I will buy)

Cucumbers (I may seed indoors-or just directly outdoors…don’t know yet)

Zucchini (I have some started, will sow more outdoors)

Squash (same as zucchini)

Cool stuff I find at the nursery like herbs or lemon cukes, etc

PLUS-fill those pots with flowers! (annuals will provide the most continous color-punch for the immediate buck, but perennials are an investment that will serve you year after year)

Seeds: Straight into the soil

Beans (grown them vertically for space-saving)

More lettuce, More spinach, More radish (these are all cool-weather, so it would be the last planting of them, though currently, you could plant a few more weekly for varied-date harvesting)

More zucchini and squash for subsequent harvests

Giant sunflowers for the grandkids, pumpkins and gourds (I plant the stuff that thrills the grandkids – big things, colorful things – for fun!)

It is important to note that where my radishes and lettuce and other cool-weather plants are right now, by July will have been replaced by warm-weather plants like tomatoes and peppers and zucchini. The same garden will be totally different – filled with flowers and herbs and other heat-lovers. I don’t have much space, so I use succession planting and timing to get the most out of it!

Bonus tip:

If you want to garden, but are afraid, start with a “salsa garden.” Go ahead and plant your oinion sets now (they are sold in bags or bunches in the garden section and look like mini dried onions. Then, plant your peppers and tomatoes after the FFD. Add some cilantro seedlings then, too and you’ll be off to the races for some late August salsa you’ll actually dream about!

OK-so this post was all over the map. There are many other things you could be planting, but these are my must-haves. I am also going to try to do potatoes this year for the first time. They should already be out there! Yikes! The thing is-I can look at that list and know, OK-this week I can do this. Next week I can do that. And it isn’t all one, big, heavy to-do list. Here a little, there a little…

Go sit in the Garden…

Mission: (Are you sitting in the garden? No? Then go there before you even attempt this!) So, today – make a list of veggies you want and decide which you’ll do from seed and which you’ll do from seedlings. If you just go stand in front of the seed display, I promise you, you will buy tooooooooo many seeds and either waste them or never plant them. Go eeeeeeeeasy on yourself! Then [1] go ahead and plant seedlings and seeds that can go out now [2] plant some seeds in cups indoors if you are going to – a thrill for the kiddos and [3] let the rest slip from your mind until it is time.

Going to the garden…Jeanie

pictured: one evening last summer ~ the last of the lettuce and spinach and radishes (which were mostly gone) and where the large pepper plants were about to get sunk.

“The LORD God planted a garden…”

April 21, 20091 Christ is All, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Thinkgarden, planting, seedsJeanie

Genesis 2.8 NKJV “The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden and there He put the man whom He had formed.”

And if we are smart – we will make every effort to get back to the garden with Him!

Gardening can seem overwhelming, but it isn’t if you take it step-by-step, here a little, there a little, line upon line, precept upon precept…

First things first.

If you believe you are sorely behind to be able to garden this year – you’re NOT! Spend 5-15 minutes each day this week cleaning up debris from the fall and winter. Clear out dead leaves, sweep patios and empty all of last year’s potting soil into a large trash can. It can be re-used, of course, but we’ll add some good stuff to it and re-freshen it for this year. Hose down the pots and line them up.

Does that seem overwhelming? Then just tell yourself: I’ll clean up a 3-foot x 3-foot area. that’s all. I am betting you’ll like it so much you’ll want to keep on, but if not, stop there. Little by little, it can be done.

Do you know what you’ll see? Green everywhere. Perennials will have been emerging that will suddenly “show up!” You will have a fresh clean palette in which to work.

Start indoors.

It is safe to go ahead and start some things indoors now (because our final frost date of May 10 is approaching quickly). Any annual flower or vegetable seeds, really – have at it! If you have a super-sunny windowsill or a grow light, you’ll have nicely established seedlings in mid-May, right when you want them for outdoor planting.

Sow outdoors.

There are actually things you can be planting directly outdoors already. My broccoli has been in the ground (from seedlings) for a couple of weeks and last week’s weather didn’t phase them a bit. I put out onion sets yesterday and they could have been in earlier. Right now it is safe to plant radishes and carrots, sugar snap peas and spinach and chard and lettuces.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you my current garden “plan of attack.” I am like everybody else: busy. So, it has to get tucked in here and there, but it will be so worth it when you see that you have buried a seed and caused new life to explode – first in the garden, later (if you do veggies) into your body!

C’mon – give it a try!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF: Give up on the fingernails…for now.

pictured: Hunter in the garden 2007 and 2008

Chalk Talk

April 20, 20094 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Thinkchalkboard, chalkboard paintJeanie

I can’t help it – I am finding more and more chalk stuff. This post, as opposed to the one here (mostly about kitchen and dining areas) and the one here (dealing with lots of different spaces in a house) is about some smaller-type-project ideas. These are do-able little things that people are apparently…doing. It just seems fun, so here are a few bits of inspiration for you…

It is all about gardening and seedlings right now (what? you don’t have seedlings on the windowsill yet?!?…tsk!):

Recycling old jars for the pantry and 101 uses for small terra cotta planters:

Maybe a game tray for family night? PVC pipe napkin rings?

Give me the world!

LOVE this! There are those world globes which are outdated, but not old enough to be antique. Those would be great candidates for this treatment. I like the traveling “wish list.” Someday~Tuscany, the Provence, Spain, Greece, Fiji…

A cabinet and an orb from nature…

A recycling box and some chalkboard-on-burlap tags:

See those same chalkboard tags on some baskets?

And, on the right, a better look at the tags on the baskets in the cabinets. These kitchen cabinets, btw, were originally builders-basic honey oak cabinetry which the homeowner painted black. Good thinking!

And now, a bonus~

This is a really cool dining room I just found and L-O-V-E!!! I love the candle-chandelier, the numbers on the back of the chairs, the toile and of course, the blackboard. And some beautiful flowering bulbs which remind us to “bloom!”

I still haven’t opened my can of blackboard paint, though. What if I find something better??

Until next time…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF: Courage. Have courage.

Just Dandy

April 6, 20094 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually ThinkJeanie

I spent 38.4 minutes dallying about the backyard in late afternoon. I cleaned a little. I re-arranged some patio furniture. I dug up grass from the garden boxes where it is not welcomed. I placed landscaping rocks back where they belong and not where the grand-bebes have carried them. I discovered the Asian Lilies greening up with new growth, some self-placed Cosmos sprouting between the pathway rocks and a still-intact though flattened and quite-orange pumpkin hiding under some leaves.

And? I dug up 3 perfectly formed, healthy and delightfully brilliant-yellow dandelions. Because they are not allowed in the neighborhood. But I secretly think they deserve to be.

Fire in the Garden

March 26, 20091 Christ is All, 2 Mi Familia, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Thinkdevotion, garden, writingJeanie

I am writing a devotional to be included in a book being compiled for distribution for my sister-in-law, Robin’s, Women in the Word ministry seminar in April. Tara will write one, too and she was way worried about trying to come up with 300 words (it is to be between 3-400 total), while I, on the other hand, have been agonizing about getting rid of words.

Because I am in the garden mood, currently, I decided to use a blog post from last June as a jumping off point and have managed to take it from 569 words to about 429 and I just cannot seem to go lower. Each time I would ruthlessly rip one sentence and delete, I would think of something else to add. Here is where I have landed and I think I will go ahead and submit it to the editor. She may now do with it what she will. Be careful, please – these are my words, and I love them (t-hee)…

Fire in the Garden

Read: Galatians 6.7-8

Excitedly leaving winter behind, the seeds are planted according to package directions at the right depth after the final frost date, assuring us they will sprout in 7-10 days. You watch, you wait…two weeks – still nothing. You begin to believe something has gone wrong, that the cooler-than-usual nighttime weather has destroyed the promise. You consider running to the store for another package of seeds, concerned about the time you have lost for the growing season. Will there even be time for a harvest now, you wonder? Another week goes by and the barren soil just lies before you. You resign yourself to running to the nursery to pay too much for established seedlings. You don’t see any other choice.

But before you can get there on that blazing-hot and sunny day, one glance at the patch of garden where disappointment has been and you spot the tiniest of green specks. And look! All over: the most fragile and minute seedlings are emerging – just as you had planted them. They have arrived! They are here in their glory! Hope has not been lost.

What the good soil and tiny seed could not do alone, what watering and watching did not produce immediately, the intense, piercing heat of the sun (unlocking the moisture beneath the soil’s visible crust) rises, softening that seed. And just like Jesus, from the tomb on the third day, risen! Indeed!

Sowing the seed of God’s Word into our lives and homes and standing on His promises does not always bring the instant results we are looking for. We hide His Word in our hearts, we meditate on it. We allow ourselves to be washed by it. Yet we are devastated at the barrenness in our lives in certain areas. An unbelieving husband or prodigal child creates unbearable pain. Health issues and financial stress deplete our hope.

There are variables in sowing and reaping. Some seeds seem to remain latent, yet the promise of reaping what we sow is not diminished in the waiting.

Sometimes it will take a very hot day in the furnace of affliction to become the defining moment, the proof we need that He remains faithful and His Word is true. In the fiery brilliance of distress and the cry for relief, under the white-hot flames of suffering, we break-through. In seed-shattering brokenness – new life! His Word confirmed!

He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. If you sow to please the Spirit, you will reap the green, life-giving things of the eternal, variables notwithstanding.

Scatter seed. Sow. Believe it – you will reap!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF: Final frost date is May 10 (this blog post has 610 words…Now more)

It Had to Happen

March 26, 20094 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Thinkblizzard, snow, springJeanie

9 News/KUSA – A large snow storm will cause blizzard conditions to develop around Denver and over much of northeastern Colorado on Thursday.

A BLIZZARD WARNING is in effect through 6am on Friday for Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, and all of northeastern Colorado.

Following a nearly snowless winter season, we will finally get some moisture. Can’t wait to see my grass in a few days! So far, though, it is not living up to last night’s newcast hype. Not quite the raging devil we’d been told. But, they say we could get 12″…we’ll see?

Life.

March 24, 20091 Christ is All, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Thinklife, springJeanie

Life…

Doesn’t always go like you wish it would.

Can be extremely complicated, messy, broken.

It can hurt. Old crap can follow you around for years.

Sometimes life can take so much cold, dark effort.

Then winter fades into the fresh, green hope of a bud.

A surge of energy, breakthrough.

Life. It can surprise you.

It begins again as if winter had never happened.

Spring.

“You heavens above, rain down righteousness; let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up; let righteousness grow with it; I, the LORD, have created it.” Psalm 47.8 NIV

March in Denver came in like a 70-degree lamb, but appears to be roaring out like a hungry, crazed lion. The promised rains are delayed, but howling winds whip up dirt clouds in these dry parts like nobody’s business.

image from freephoto.com

Home Economics

March 10, 20094 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Thinkbudget, homedecor, paintJeanie

How to stretch your decorating dollar?

Paint. Mis-mixed on clearance, even better. But even full-priced paint is worth it. Paint can change everything!

Grand-ize the room by hanging the drapes higher and wider at windows! You’re up there anyway.

Cleanliness.

Windex and water make life sparkle.

Even a worn carpet will look inviting to walk on if recently vacuumed.

Mirrors, candles, things that sparkle.

A bowl of fragrant lemons, even limes, is as intoxicating as flowers! And you can cook with them, too.

Paint or refinish the furniture that you don’t really like anymore and use it in a different room.

www.craigslist.com Seriously? There is free stuff out there. And lots of other deals for pennies. Get something new to you for less!

Re-purpose what you already own. I have some 1950’s French Provincial headboards that will one day be a bench. Some heavy vintage fabric is going to be upholstery somewhere some day. Oh, I have stuff. I think I feel like going to the garage right now!

One Day in Denver

March 8, 20092 Mi Familia, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasonscolfax ave, daughters, denver, eating, girls, shopping, south broadwayJeanie

Me and my girls Saturday. Me, Jovan, Tredessa, Stefane (back row), Tara (in front), Stormie, Stephanie, Elise-the-Niece, and Katie from the Springs

Cherry Creek for Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters, Sur La Table, and Restoration Hardware. Stormie got her vintage-inspired bowls – lots. Alright, already with the bowls! :) The girl is a bowl nut!

South Broadway for Decade (inspiring, old/vintage and new-I got the best alphabet flash cards I have ever seen there!), and True Love Shoes (great accessories) where the 9 of us just sort of filled every square inch of space. Delicious spinach pizza-by-the-slice at the world-famous Famous Pizza. Elise was heard to exclaim, based on the fact that her teeth remained leafy-green free, “We are so good at eating spinach!” She is gleeful by nature!

We braced ourselves and went into a house in Denver where the “Thriftonista” was liquidating her vintage clothing. We arrived there with the Channel 4 newswoman who taped a segment for the 5 o’clock news about ways people are saving money. That place was packed, due to a notice via e-blast to the Denver fashion-scene types, which includes 2nd daughter, Stephanie. Wall-to-wall people were madly digging through clothes whose year’s I could name between 1964-1989. Some of it was questionable as far as fashion the first time around. Nonetheless, it was a fun run around the memory block for me and Tara’s arms can be seen earnestly flipping through the rack of tightly packed, hung clothing on the news segment. During the interview with the Thriftonista herself, I am visible with my back to the camera as I just mainly try to avoid being stampeded by all the 20-somethings intent on buying my mother’s 1970s wardrobe. We were on TV!

On East Colfax we soaked up Fabric Lab ambience (I really was NOT cool enough to be in there) and then splurged for a couple of coffees, a couple of waters and 12 cupcakes at The Shoppe which set us back more than lunch had. Yikes! Well, you only go around once and we can now say we have had very, very amazingly delicious cupcakes at the trendy hole-in-the-wall cupcake store for 40-some-bucks, nevermind that I could have achieved the same for about $4. That is not an insult to them, nor their not-entirely catchy slogan which is something like: Don’t be a hater, eat a cupcake (?) – it is just that I can make really good cake, when I want to. I am sure if the people at Westword and The Denver Post and all those other places that have given them “Best of” awards had one of mine, well, you know…

Tallulah Jones was defnitely a favorite. We like stores that are full of ideas as well as merch. Mod Living wasn’t the thrill wed hoped and Urban Living’s best part was the cool dog that met us at the door.

Two cars, nine women, all of Denver’s best in one day. Sore legs. Thinking ahead to our next outing…maybe a movie in our jammies? Whew! I am so older than the rest!

LOVE these girls! So blessed!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF: Oh, I know-next time I take the girls to MY favorite: Djuna!