Tuesday, February 18, 2014

remembering summer and getting ready for another one!

February's almost over and very soon, there'll be less time in my days for desk and paper work.  In a little more than a week it'll be March!
In 2013, I only made 2 posts on this blog, whoa!!....and I learned that when I suddenly stop posting on my blog, some of the folks who follow regularly will worry and think that perhaps I've quit gardening or even that I'm not well.  oops! not so good.  Last year, I had to devote my time to the real nitty gritty of what needs to be done in the garden to make it what I want it to be...
......and what it seems to want to be too!  There was a lot of figuring out to do.

  Looks like I didn't have time to take many photos either since when I went back to look in my albums, I found a very small and incomplete collection. 

Anyway, in case you'd like to see, here are a few things that went on at the garden last year:

Shoots, of course!  Lots and lots of shoots!
sunflower shoots on their shelves, ready for harvesting
pails of pea seed soaking before planting
Emily planting up a sea of pea shoot grow trays in the greenhouse
endless harvesting and packaging!  We really produced a whole lot of these last year.

...and I worked on beautiful flowers for summer-time weddings on Mayne Island too
bouquets, boutonnieres and corsages for 
Amanda and Nathan's wedding at Ag Hall, Mayne Island.
photos: Jean Cueta 

wedding table arrangements in process at the garden
and specially ordered flower arrangements.....
made with flowers from my garden and delivered
to welcome some Mayne Islanders back home
a beautiful peony, pea vine and lady's mantle  'thank you'  bouquet from someone in Victoria to someone on Mayne Island.
That's Sara holding it, she's one of the wwoofers who came to experience life in the garden last summer.
She's from Tokyo. 
Clementine also 'wwoofed' in the garden last summer.  She's from Brittany, France and here she's making mayonnaise in the garden kitchen.
....and lots of other growing things.....
a big potato crop growing in big pots 
yummy food for us too:  new potatoes with dill and garlic chives
flavourful and juicy cherry tomatoes in many different colours, one of my favourite summer-time things to grow...and to eat!
Our new pup's first summer in the garden: what an adventure. Here I'm teaching her how to lie beside the parsley patch, instead of on top of it (which she prefers).
coming home on the ferry after a trip to town to make deliveries and get supplies....a beautiful commute
So in January, I created a new Facebook page, just for Christina's Garden....you can follow along there, if you don't find much here.  It's way easier to do quick posts there when I'm busy...but I do hope to be here more often this year too.  
We're designing a new website and blog with a shop too!!  Exciting! It might take forever tho!  When looking around my blog stats a while ago, I saw that this post on my golden hops vine, (from almost exactly three years ago) is the most visited post on my blog, thousands of visits (amazing).  This post  and  this post  both on the tumbler cherry tomatoes that I sell as plants to other home gardeners were a close second place  and this post on how I grow pea shoots in the winter-time is third.  This post on mouse melons was fourth.....I'm not sure what all this means but I suppose it's sort of interesting.

So the ornamental cherry tree outside our house is blooming right now and I sure do know what that means:  seed starting time for the coming summer season is NOW!

Thursday, January 9, 2014

purple daikon radish microgreens

I have some extra purple daikon radish shoots ready for harvest right now so I thought I'd package them up and offer them to everyone here on Mayne Island...I'd like to start up the idea of a once-in-a-while special that I offer when I try growing new varieties or try new ideas for mixes.....so why not start now with these purply beauties?!  

These are the purple-coloured microgreens that are in the shoot salad mix and I love 'em!  I wonder if I should pack them up on their own more regularly for folks?....well, we'll see....they were very popular a couple years ago when I sold them on their own at the farmer's market.  If you're on Mayne Island, you can find them at Farm Gate Store and Happy Tides this weekend.

Here's an inspirational recipe I found on-line for a beautiful, yummy, good for ya winter-time salad using purple daikon radish shoots  Doesn't it look good?!  I might just have to make this with braised black tuscan kale instead, even tho' it's no problem finding dandelion leaves in my garden right now, and some perennial arugula....a mix could be delicious, I think.  This idea and the photo are from http://kitchentonirvana.com which you might enjoy visiting for some vegan and gluten free ideas.


Sunday, May 26, 2013

roses

I took a little time to stop and smell the roses a couple days ago and made this quicky rose bouquet just for me.  A mini rose vine in a vase, bringing the garden into the house for a little indoor beauty and aromatherapy.  such a joy!

Cécile Brunner has just started getting her bloom on in the garden and I'm loving it.  Summer's almost here!

I really like her care-free wildness, it blends in beautifully with the wild forest all around my garden.  This climber produces piles of nice stems with a few blooms and buds in different stages of growth on them, it's one of my faves for arrangements and every year, I make a few special order bouquets with this beauty.  Even after cutting and cutting, there are still many blooms left on the vine to enjoy in the garden.

So now everyday while she's blooming, I'll remember to sniff the air every time I walk by.