in the garden

i spent some time in the veggie garden today.
pulling weeds.
staking tomatoes.
catching hornworms. (very satisfying)
hand pollinating cucumbers.
cutting down my amazing lettuce that just bolted. (i would insert a sad face emoticon here, but i don't believe in emoticons)
harvesting radish seeds.
and just feeling generally satisfied at my accomplishment. i am finally a green thumb.

too busy to clean

do you see a theme starting? gosh, i hope not. i was meaning to become less busy, but somehow that hasn't happened. we had a shoot here on tuesday, and the kitchen still pretty much looks the same. my very talented friend and stylist, emily, suggested i get an intern. not a bad idea. any takers?

too busy to blog

apparently, not only was i too busy to breathe, but also too busy to blog. oops. sorry. here is a beautiful zucchini leaf as a peace offering. yes, a zucchini leaf! from my garden! it's growing!!!! i am loving every minute of it. it has become part of my daily routine. wake up, check mail, check perez hilton (to get my "news"), put on sun dress and flip flops, grab garden clippers and head out back. yesterday i even hand pollinated my cucumbers (sounds so dirty and for some reason i end up singing "reproduction" from grease 2 - yikes). so far we have had one zucchini, one strawberry (yum), one persian cucumber and a bunch of different lettuces (been making salads almost every night). i have also already turned a garden misfortune into a garden fortune. early on i was very impressed at how my radishes were growing. i had never seen radish leaves that big. i must be an amazing gardener. then i thought to myself, "self, this is too good to be true." so i took myself to the computer and googled large radish leaves. not good - - bad. it was too hot for radishes (i kinda knew that, but i wanted radishes gosh darnit), so they never "took." the plant is now huge as i am letting it go to seed and will attempt to harvest the seeds and plant them later in the year. the good part is that i read you can make pesto from the leaves. you can. it's delicious. so all was not lost. ok. i have to run (i will literally get up from the computer and run) and start my busy day of not breathing. bye.

ps. if anyone knows a good veggie garden blog, please oh please let me know.

too busy to breathe

have you ever felt like that? sometimes i think if i just took time to breathe, i would do a lot better. it's important, ya know. to breathe. i just wanted to say hi. now i'm off to run around, take pictures and hopefully... breathe.

finally!

corsages and collars are here.
whew.
hooray.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
i'm tired.
the zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz was me sleeping.

a succulent and a turtle

that's a title i never thought i'd use.

a rosy weekend

although most of the weekend kind of drifted by without me noticing, sunday was quite productive. we (and when i say "we" i am mainly referring to andrew and his folks) finally finished the vegetable garden. andrew was nice enough to build a shade cover for the lettuces that actually aren't supposed to be planted in summer (but i want my lettuces, daddy, and i want them NOW!). of course he suggested wire and some green plastic something. i don't think so. you see, i am very difficult. i am aware of this, so somehow i think that makes it ok. i don't want green plastic in my veggie garden, just as i didn't want wire cones for the tomatoes. i mean come on. i was able to find some great bamboo arches for the tomatoes and beans and some cute burlap (yes, burlap can be cute if i say so) for the shade cover. it all looks great. fingers crossed. i am known for killing plants, lots and lots of plants. we also planted my two david austin rose bushes. i did not know about david austin roses, my my mother in law told me they were quite famous. i liked them because they looked like peonies, and since i can't really grow peonies here, i thought this was a great second option. oh, and they smell really, really good. old fashioned rose smell. mine are a lighter version of these. right before we planted them (and again, i am not a part of "we" - - just imagine me in the background shouting out orders and belittling people when they give me a suggestion i don't like) my mother in law gave me the bad news. they would have to be cut back. all flowers off. i trust her, though. she's a real green thumb. so she trimmed and i quickly put them in a vase and took the above photo. hopefully there will be lots more rose photos to come. i checked this morning and they haven't grown at all. how long is this supposed to take?

ps. it is not all glamour. mum and i pulled weeds out of our new back yard that we (you know the drill on "we") grew from seed. wow. what a difference. it looks like a real lawn and strangely enough, i found weeding very therapudic.