First Harvest!

And I forgot to take a picture of it!

Close your eyes.  Imagine a bunch of baby arugula.  Said arugula weighs 11 oz.

Voila!  You have a very good imagination as that's *exactly* what I harvested as I was thinning out my arugula planting.  There is still more thinning to do, but I didn't need so much arugula.

Postcard: Royal Botanic Gardens Kew

To be honest, one of the primary reasons I wanted to go back to London was to visit the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.  In my last visit to England, we saw a documentary on the BBC about how Kew Gardens were instrumental in creating the British Empire.  That cemented my desire to see the place for myself.


 I'm sure it's even more amazing in the warmer months, but there was more than enough to occupy us for 5 hours as it was!  And we didn't even get to see everything.  My husband said: "It's so easy to find things here.  And the walks are really pleasant."  I'm guessing that those 2 things were not, in fact, accidents and are indeed just good design.  Kew is certainly worth a trip, in our opinion!


The greenhouses are really beautiful buildings.  Overall, the plants inside didn't personally knock my socks off, but then again I'm living in the 21st century where air travel makes it easy for me to visit exotic locales and I grew up in a tropical climate.  I can imagine, though, how amazed Victorians would be at their contents.  All the exotic palms from all over the empire!  Chocolate trees!  Coffee trees!


 
In addition, the Order Beds (at least the ones with stuff above ground) were fascinating.  Each bed contains plants from the same family & then those beds are grouped by order.  The similarities and differences between plant "cousins" was really interesting.  I hope to go back to explore this a bit more at some point.

My favorite bit might have been the Davies Alpine House and the rock garden near it.  Perhaps because they both contained so many unusual flowering plants (who isn't a sucker for flowers?).  I love how they were all grouped too!

This is definitely a place we'll go back and visit in the future.  We didn't see everything and we'd like to come back in a different season to see how the gardens change.  Next time I'll remember my sketch book and we'll take their little trolley to save a bit of walking.

Postcard: St. James's Park

As alluded to in my previous post, I'm recently back from a London "mini-break."  While someday I'd love to visit England during the summer, late March isn't a terrible time to go.  Sure the deciduous trees are still mostly bare (although a few--like magnolias--are blooming) and most perennials are still asleep, the daffodils where in full splendor as were other bulbs.

On last visit, we strolled around Regent's Park quite a bit.  On this visit, we found ourselves particularly exhausted after a long walk from our hotel near the Marble Arch Tube Station to the area near Buckingham Palace.  We followed a random road which lead us to St. James's Park.

Obviously popular with locals, the park was quite the haven and a perfect place to spend a half an hour resting our feet.

There are, I'm sure, many extraordinary things about St. James's Park.  It's bordered by 3 palaces, after all!  However, what I found most extraordinary was the daffodil plantings.  They were, of course, in drifts as is the usual practice.  What was striking was that little pockets and harbors were created that could fit 1, 2 or 3 people...no more.  Nothing is quite as lovely as being surrounded by cheery daffodils on an overcast day!  In the photo, you can see 2 heads just above the sea of yellow enjoying it.

The brilliance is in the scale. Pockets too small for one person to lay down would look ridiculous in such an expansive drift as would really large gaps.  But a little harbor where 3 friends can be almost surrounded by sunshine and share a picnic or a little pocket where one person can read a book?  Cozy.

Seed Organization Perfection

I recently celebrated a milestone birthday.  My adoring & amazing husband surprised me with a kid-free vacation to London during my spring break.  Obviously, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew was definitely on the agenda...and more on that later.

However, what I want to talk about now was the Kew gift shop.

The English have certainly merged their practical nature with their love of gardening with this seed organizing box.  First of all, the slots for seeds are taller than they are wide because...HELLO...seed packets are taller than they are wide.  I dunno why the seed organizers I see 'round these parts are basically converted recipe boxes.  This is of course fine if you don't mind your seed packets being on their side, but that's a spilling hazard for me.  Second of all, the dividers in this box aren't "tomatoes," "peppers," etc. or even A, B, C, etc.  They are January, February, March, etc.  Brilliant!  It makes so much more sense to organize your seeds by when you sow them, doesn't it?  I've been having a gazillion zip-top bags trying to keep my seeds organized by planting time which is just ugly and wouldn't allow me to keep them in groupings of vegetable type unless I added even more baggies.  I already had to open 3 bags before getting to my desired seeds as it was!


Because I only really do like 3 groups of planting per year, I'm going to use each slot as a planting time and then use the dividers to separate vegetable families. The larger slot along the side will hold my planting plan, seed label sticks and markers.

I am more excited about this purchase than the tins of biscuits and tea I got at Fortnum & Mason.  This is saying a lot, y'all!

 

There was lots of other awesomeness from Burgon & Ball at the gift shop.  It made me wish I had brought a bigger suitcase (and that the exchange rate wasn't more favorable!).

2011 Seed Starting, Part Deux

After doing a braggy mcbragerton post about being on the ball & doing a spring garden this year, it's time to start those summer vegetables and herbs.  Already!  Spring is full of such insanity.  I mean, one day it's 40*F with snowdrops and the next it's 80*F with daffodils just like one moment you're dutifully sowing arugula and the next you're onto tomatoes.

Today I've got tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers, eggplant, thai basil, purple basil, sweet basil, nasturtiums, marigolds, ground cherries and a few more swiss chard to get underway.  I'm hoping the sweet peppers do better than last year imparticular.

This means it's time to pull out the second grow light from the closet and to break out the seed starting mat.

Put to Bed

After 2 years of swearing that I would have a spring season to my garden, it looks like I'm finally making good. 

 
Yesterday I put the kale, onions and kohlrabi I started in early February. In addition, I stopped by the garden center and got a few scoops of onion sets (one red, one super sweet yellow) to augment my cipollini onion seedlings.  It was just $1.50/large scoop so I figured why not?  Especially since I hadn't started enough onions from seed to fill that portion of the garden.  Of course, 2 scoops was too much and onions are now overflowing into the flower beds, but whatever.  We eat an alarming amount of onions.

In addition, my arugula and mustard have sprouted in abundance and the lettuce is coming along too (I think I sowed some of that a bit too deep).  I've not had good luck with direct sowing thanks to digging critters, so I'm really excited that thus far this is working out!

Speaking of critters.....

As I was planting, I heard a rustling sound of a animal.  You should know I'm terrified of most small-medium garden animals (mice, moles, voles, rats, chipmunks, etc.).  I remained calm & quickly finished up only to spy the source of the sound...a very fat bunny.  I'm happy to report that either the bunny is too full feasting on my heurcheras, crocus and toad lily sprouts or is adequately deterred by my taller raised beds.  The kale and kohlrabi are nibble-free...for now at least!

Garden Update

The nice weather has certainly been a lovely change, hasn't it?  Between enjoying the great outdoors, homework and general life I haven't been able to sit inside & blog (in fact, this post has been sitting on my computer waiting for me to hit "Publish" for days), but the garden is getting busy. 

I sowed some lettuce, arugula & mustard seed last Sunday in the raised beds.  No sprouting yet (to be expected) but I do need to set up my watering game on the non-rainy days.  I've noticed some digging by squirrels in the planted area, so I'm thinking some row covers will be put on soon for protection.

Here are the latest photos of the onions, kohlrabi & Red Russian kale I planted indoors. The onions, for some reason, are having really spotty germination. In some cells, multiple seeds will germinate but in others none will.  I'm trying to carefully separate the seedlings that are in one cell and put one in another cell.  I've also started some Swiss Chard.

The Red Russian kale will definitely be ready to put out next weekend. Just in time to make room for the summer veggies that will be started shortly thereafter!