Front Yard Design

Gardening Gone Wild has a post up now for their Garden Blogger’s Design Workshop examining front yard gardens. Nancy J. Ondra writes “… the front yard can be the perfect space to let our garden-freak flag fly”. Well, that’s just screaming for us to write a bit about how we skipped the “garden-freak flag” and went right to “freak flag” with our front yard. We were not gardeners when we bought our house. In fact, “little to no yard” was very high on our list for what we were looking for in our next home — until we walked into the backyard of an open house and fell in love. Not long after moving in we decided getting fresh veggies from our local CSA was so great, growing our own veggies could only be that much greater, right? So we built a few raised beds and got all set to put them in the backyard. The only problem was we had only lived in the house for one Autumn and one Winter; the more we watched Spring come in the more we realized our backyard, with its giant shade maple was… well, shady. Not good. The front yard, on the other hand, was positively drenched in sun. Every day. All the time.

The house was the first one we’d lived in as adults that didn’t have an HOA. A friend of ours once described the beauty of not having an HOA thusly: “I can plant a tree in my front yard — upside down if I want to!” Looking at our pile of raised bed frames and our gorgeously sunny front yard we decided we’d proverbially plant that upside down tree and do something shockingly daring. We were going to put a vegetable garden in our front yard. Living in semi-rural New Jersey we’d seen plenty of vegetable gardens and micro-farms in people’s side yards. Plus our little house is tucked at the end of a dead-end, so it’s not like too many people would see it. And aren’t vegetables as pretty as flowers? What, exactly, we asked ourselves, would the problem be if we have tomatoes and garlic instead of roses and morning glories? So up came the sod, down went the beds, and in went the veggie seeds.

The more we worked on the garden in the front the more we discovered something amazing — all our fears of our neighbors hating us for sullying the street with an unconventional yard were for naught, as more and more of them dropped by while we were working to comment on how nice it was to see the sunny yard being put to good use. Since our street leads to a large wooded preserve with nature trails, we get a lot of foot traffic past the house; as the garden started growing we’d see people stop to look, some even walking into the yard to examine it more closely. How many traditional front yards draw passers-by in like that? Also, while everyone else’s yard was petering out in late summer in the dreaded NJ August, our yard looked like this:

Of course, living in Central NJ means deer and deer mean deer fencing. And deer fencing is ugly no matter what’s growing inside it. Particularly if you line the front of the yard with 12 heirloom apple and peach trees, each with its own cage of deer-repelling plastic mesh, and then enclose a 26 foot by 20 foot raised-bed garden with the same eye-sore fencing. Something had to be done. Borrowing a design from an historic house we had both adored for years, we had an intricate white fence installed around the garden proper, and had gray pea gravel laid on the paths. Suddenly our homey front yard veggie garden and dopey split-level suburban house took on the look and feel of a grand estate!

At first the fence seems impossibly tall, but the minute we stepped inside the gate and into the garden space we discovered the fence had almost magic properties. The entire rest of the world fell away. The sounds of the neighborhood grew distant, and the calls from the birds in the woods softened. And the garden itself seemed to expand hugely, until it became the largest and nicest “room” of the house. It was just impossibly peaceful, almost studious in its serenity. In short, it was the perfect space for gardening.

This is our first Spring with the new fence and paths, so we haven’t seen it surrounding a riot of pepper bushes, lush potato and tomato plants, and jaunty basils. Right now the beds are still looking pretty dormant.

Not many people opt to put vegetable gardens in their front yards, but sometimes you’ve got to let Mother Nature dictate your gardening actions. If she wants the sun in the front yard, then that’s where the veggies have got to go. There is no reason why we should let a silly thing like “what the neighbors will think” keep us from enjoying a summer harvest grown twenty feet from our front door.

We’d love to see more and more people taking this approach and growing vegetable gardens in the front, where everyone can see how beautiful a vegetable garden can be, and where everyone can share the joy of marveling over how a little seed can grow a towering cornstalk or a giant pumpkin.

So… What’s In Bloom?

We have recently taken to perusing other people’s garden blogs, and discovered a delightful blogosphere-wide activity called Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day. The gist of it seems to be that you venture forth into your garden on the 15th of every month, catalog everything that’s blooming, and post about it. Despite the fact that we’re not flower gardeners, this seems like a really fun venture. And despite the fact that we missed the 15th, so we’re not going to go posting this anywhere else, it seemed like it would be fun to take a look around the grounds of Maple Hoo today to see what’s looking bloom-y.

The most obvious place to start is the daffodil bed under our black locust tree.

Two years ago, Boomer decided to buy two 100-count bags of “The Works” from one of those specialty daffodil bulb nurseries. We spent a giggling Autumn afternoon randomly planting the bulbs in the comma-shaped swirls that I’d read occur in nature, and then promptly forgot all about them. The following Spring, we were delighted to be reminded of them; this Spring, then, has brought double the joy, because these daffodils are dividing like mofos. I have no idea what specific types of bulbs were included with “The Works”, and a lot of them have already passed their peaks, but here’s a closer look at some of the brightest lights in bloom today:

Elsewhere in the front yard, the orchard is starting to look gorgeously pink. The most resplendent of the apple trees today is the Enterprise:

I suppose as a so-called gardener, I should be repulsed by all things “weed”, but you know what? I love dandelions. Look at how cheerful and bright they are!

Probably the biggest surprise of the day, though, came when we trooped around back and happened upon the grapevines we planted during our first Spring at Maple Hoo. These are pretty low-priority plants for us, but they persevere in their little bed behind our garage. And today, they offered a nice little picture:

It’s not quite a bloom, but it’ll do.

Look Who’s All Groweds Up Now!

Our little peppers are too big for their seedling trays now!

And the garlic? Towering.

The garlic bed is starting to look lush! (Okay, it’s not quite lush, but it certainly looks more green than any of the beds around it.)

Meanwhile, one bed over, the banana fingerlings are starting to reach for the sky:

A Crisp Foray Into Pitcher Drinks

Today we inadvertently ended up doing a hell of a lot more yardwork than we meant to, and when we finally finished up with the building the compost bin, the staking and deer-fencing five apple trees, the transplanting the pepper seedlings, the cataloging the blooms around the grounds, and the watering the garden, we were in dire need of a crisp, refreshing drink. Thank goodness, then, that I’d already planned for some Limoncello Collins. This is a drink from one of the Food + Wine cocktail books I got for my last birthday, and it is constructed as follows:

Combine 8 oz. Limoncello, 6 oz. gin, and 4 oz. fresh lemon juice in a pitcher. Refrigerate for at least two hours to let the flavors combine. Line four (or, um, in our case today… three) collins glasses with paper-thin slices of lemons pressed to the sides, then fill the glasses with ice. Divide the limoncello mixture between the glasses, and top with club soda.

This is super tasty. It’s fizzy and sharp and crisp and tart and a little bit sweet. And it was a delightful capper to a day of hard work out in the fields.

The Gloriousness Begins

Pookie and I each have our own bathroom, and each has a window that overlooks the backyard. Directly outside those windows stands a scraggly old dogwood tree. It doesn’t look like much at all from the ground, but both of us cherish that tree above almost all the others in the yard because of the view through its branches that we have while brushing our teeth. And today, after a few weeks of taunting us with ever-swelling buds, it started blooming.

I love this tree so much!

Pork + Bacon + Fire = Happy

Today was the day I have long been waiting for — the hockey schedule and weather conspired to make it the perfect day to dust off the old Weber to make some dinner. The inaugural grilled meal of the season? Pork and Bacon Kebabs, a recipe from Food + Wine last summer. The only change I make to the recipe is to omit the caraway seeds in the marinade; I included them the first time I made this last May, and I just found them distracting. Of course, I don’t really like caraway seeds in anything, so that might have been the problem.

Now, I never used to be a very ardent grillmaster, but there’s something so incredible about Maple Hoo’s backyard that makes me just want to be out there poking at some charcoals with a beer in one hand every night of the week. We have a magnificent maple in the center of the yard, with a grand, leafy canopy that coolly rustles overhead on even the hottest summer night. Tonight it was more a grand, fluffy canopy of buds, but there’s a lot of promise of what’s to come:

We happen to live in a very quiet neighborhood, and our property abuts a large wooded nature reserve, so when you’re out in the back in the afternoon and evening, it’s almost impossibly peaceful and serene. When our deck furniture was all living on the lawn rather than the deck during the kitchen construction last summer, we discovered that having a couple of benches around the grill makes for a lovely gathering place for all of us as we nurse our beverages and wait while the fire goes through its paces.

Tonight’s beverage was a Viennese Lager from Triumph Brewery, and the weather was absolutely perfect for sitting, sipping, and shooting the shit. And when the fire was all ready, we had these to look forward to:

I doubled the recipe, because this makes exquisite leftovers, so I was facing a couple of waves of grilling.

Now, a couple of years ago, Boomer and I went to the Culinary Institute of America for their Barbeque Boot Camp. The chef instructors were incredibly blase about grilling, and on the day that we were preparing direct- and fast-cooked foods, they just built the biggest, hottest fire you can imagine, and we grilled on that. Ever since, I’ve taken the approach that that was intentional, and a giant, super-hot fire is the key to good grilling. Moderation is for wimps. And when you grill with the kind of fire I do, these kebabs are done in a hurry. Of course, they’re also frequently enveloped in belching flames, because when you’re grilling bacon, you’re going to get some flare-ups.

After a few intense minutes of concentration, trying to keep ahead of the raging hotspots while making sure the bacon got cooked through, my first foray into grilling for the year was all over. Because there are no nice vegetables to be had anywhere around here these days, and because I was pretty mentally fried on Monday when I planned my menu for this week, I went with some bobo side dishes tonight. We had baked potatoes and some sweet corn I’d frozen last summer. Let me just say — I’ve been so antsy to grill for the last few weeks, and in the end, it was deliciously worth the wait.

The Greening Of Maple Hoo 2: The Greeninging

Today Springtime just busted out, and I decided to grill something for dinner because there wasn’t an early hockey game we were married to. While waiting on the fire to get going, we did a sweep of the yard to check up on the progress of our plantings. Out front, in the garden and orchard, there was a lot of excitement. The early-blossoming apple trees are awash in little pink buds, and in the garden beds we’ve got our first direct-sown lettuce coming up, as well as something that may very well be a potato. Of course, it might be a weed instead, so we’re holding off a bit on the formal baby portraits until we can tell for sure that it’s what we want it to be.

Meanwhile, in the backyard, things are looking positively lush in the cold frame:

Look at the tomatoes! They used to be just wee baby seeds! And now they’re towering giants:

Meanwhile, tucked in the cold frame with them, are the slightly less towering, yet still brawny nardello peppers:

The cold frame itself is nestled at the base of the house, just in front of the raspberry bramble we planted last summer. We didn’t have hugely high hopes for the sort-of impulse-bought raspberry plants we bought from the nursery co-op one random day, especially after one of them got knocked over in the car on the way home and was basically completely snapped in half. As it turns out, it’s hard not to get reams of raspberries, no matter how you beat up or neglect your raspberry bushes. We were harvesting them by the handful well into November. And now this Spring they’re definitely on their way to full “bramble” status:

The most pleasant surprise of our “How Green Is Our Hoo” walking tour tonight was when we stopped at the trellis on the side of the garage, where one of Boomer’s clematises lives:

There are going to be flowers all over the place in no time!

Spring Has Sprung (In Stitches)

When the Spring Fever gets too strong too ignore, down comes the Winter Stitching and up comes the Spring pieces. Snowflakes give way to pink tulips, deer make way for rabbits, and crisp blue linens are tossed aside for soft Edinboro cream (my go-to Spring linen). These are the items that get hung with care on or about March 15th (yes, well before Spring proper, but what can I say? We love Spring around here!).

Flower Basket
Designer: Blackbird Designs

This one (and the “March Hare”, seen further down this page) came from “A Fine Collection“, which I think is, pound for pound, the best collection of seasonal pieces ever. I intended this one to be displayed just for Spring but I love how it turned out so much that it’s up all year round. For Spring, though, I move it to a more prominent location. This year it’s hanging in the front hall where I can see it every day. This was done using over-dyed floss and I think the variegation in the colors is used to great effect in the flowers and leaves.

The design is a more playful and informal take on the more traditional flower-and-urn motif that shows up in many of the historic samplers I like so much. Also, the flowers at the bottom of the urn remind me of fuscias; my dad used to put hanging baskets of fuscias along the porch when I was a kid and this reminds me of those exuberant arrangements. (That makes it more appropriate for Summer, but when it’s the end of March and you can’t wait for Spring this is the go-to piece!)

The March Hare
Designer: Blackbird Designs

I stitched this because I loved the archway of delicate spring-green tendrils, the bright orange carrots, and the adorable peapods. The colors used in the carrot and pink flowers were considerably brighter and flashier than the usual palate so I couldn’t resist! I also really liked how the alphabet was tucked in among the flowers, tendrils, and veggies. Now that I’m a gentlewoman farmer, I’ll admit I find the prospect of a rabbit frolicking that close to tasty veggies a little troublesome…

Spring Fling
Designer: Blackbird Designs

Blackbird Designs is obviously the place to turn to find great Spring designs! This one was stitched by Schnookie, who every year, in fit of Spring Fever, decides she must stitch a Spring piece. This one has a delightful nest of robin’s eggs and huge, cheerful tulips. I also love that it says, “Spring Fling” which was the name of the Semi-Homemade party we threw with our friends a few years ago. We all made “dishes” from Sandra Lee’s arsenal and each contributed an item to a Spring-themed “tablescape”. The end result was a ridonkulously ugly table setting, unbelievably and unimaginably disgusting food, and wonderful company!

Trellis With Birds
Designer: [I cannot for the life of me remember]

This is… not the most inspiring work of needlework ever. I also didn’t do a great job of stitching it. (I really should have torn out and redone the bunny at the bottom right but I was too lazy.) But this was the first project I stitched after moving back to NJ from AZ in April of 2003, so it has tons of sentimental value. Also, when you’re antsy for Spring what’s better than a trellis full of birds? I saw a tufted titmouse in the dogwood outside my bathroom window earlier this week, and even though it’s a Winter bird, I was still so excited to a see songbird traipsing around my favorite tree. We had to stop putting bird feeders out because of the deer, so we don’t get many birds at Maple Hoo save for the obnoxious flocks of starlings. This trellis is starling free, now and forever!

Spring Arbor
Designer: The Drawn Thread

This is part of a full four-season set; I didn’t take a picture of the Winter Arbor for some reason. The four companion pieces were a delight to stitch as they’re filled with special stitches and beads (beads!). Each tree is made up of a different stitch:

The top border (it was designed to go in a custom-cut mat but that’s not how I roll) shows the beautiful color palate and intricate curlicues:

I particularly liked the tiny hints of cheery daffodil yellow. The framing job is a little less delightful. We always request the framer use a dark wood frame to make it so there’s some continuity it our collection of wall art. This time she skipped the dark wood and used a weird silver-gold metallic monstrosity. Our house previous to Stately IPB Manor was a townhouse in a development so stodgy it was easily mistaken for a 55+ community; we liked to joke that this frame fit right it, it was so old-lady’s-powder-room.

Spring
Designer: Elizabeth Bradley

Here’s another of Schnookie’s works, and another one of a set of four. I simply adore this work, especially now that I’m a veggie gardener. The potager, laid out in ordered little plots, makes me so giddy for early lettuce and radishes. Also, the flower border is so Spring it hurts. Schnookie was not entirely thrilled when she completed this, as the dark blue background swallows up some of the design elements, in particular, the green trellis-fence:

The dark blue was supposed to tie the four companion pieces together, but since they never hang on the wall together, I think Schnookie would have preferred to use a light blue. Still, I love it and think it looks fantastic together with the “March Hare”.

An Adventurous Stew

Not too long ago, Meg made an offhand remark on her awesome blog about a carrot, potato and quinoa stew that had my mouth watering. I like spicy! I like carrots! I like potatoes! And I love quinoa and want more ways to prepare it! So she sent me the link to the recipe, which turns out to be for “Quinoa with Moroccan Winter Squash and Carrot Stew”. Thank goodness Meg made this first, because if I’d found the recipe on my own I would have thought, “Oh, that sounds good but Pookie doesn’t eat butternut squash, so I’ll never make it.” I would never have thought to use potatoes instead.

This was a super fun recipe for me because it’s way outside my boring comfort zone. For starters, look at all these spices!

I was totally excited when, after sauteing the onion and garlic, I stirred in the spices and the whole thing immediately looked (and smelled) like an exotic sort of sauce or something. I’ve never made anything like this! I’m such a cooking weenie, in that I’ve always shied away from things that didn’t just naturally build on other flavor matches or techniques I’ve made before.

Because I needed leftovers for lunches, I doubled the recipe and crossed my fingers, hoping it would be edible. Meg’s assessment that it’s really, really spicy was spot-on, but it got rave reviews regardless. And the leftover lunches? Out of this world. When the flavors have a chance to meld overnight, this goes from being merely yummy to being scrumptious.

Now, the first time I made this, I decided to go wild, inspired by Meg’s potato-for-butternut substitution, and included some sweet potato. I didn’t consider how the potato/squash element would get really mushy and sort of integrated into the sauce, a development that made it pretty difficult to de-sweet potato Pookie’s dish. So the second time I made it, I went all potato. I liked it better with the sweet potatoes, but I think Pookie liked it better without.

And going with the potato stew? Delicious, delicious quinoa. I don’t do much with turmeric, so when Pookie first took a whiff of this, she was extremely doubtful, since most of her experiences with turmeric have involved peas in samosas. Her initial response was, “This smells like peas.” Heh. Well, it doesn’t taste like peas. It’s awesome.

So what I’m trying to say here is, a million thanks to Meg for inspiring me to try something new and exciting. This is a magnificent addition to my standard repertoire!

Bulging The Old Onion Bag

Having learned absolutely nothing from the peach tree plant-a-thon on Monday, we decided this Thursday after work, when there wasn’t an early game on that we cared about, to transplant the onion seedlings. The first planting we started was looking robust and hale, and the second planting was all well-sprouted and on its way. They can be direct-seeded well before the last frost, so it made some sense to get them into the ground now, and open up some space in the cold frame for the tomatoes when the weather warms up. Also, after doing so much yardwork this week, we wanted to be able to loll around all weekend drinking cocktails. We weren’t going to want to do the onions on Saturday or Sunday.

It turns out that we started a hell of a lot more onions than we thought.

We’d thought we’d have room for a successive planting in the coming weeks, but the whole bed was filled with just about 75% of our seedlings. It was sad to have to pick which ones we loved best, but that’s part of the job when you’re a gentlewoman farmer. And now we’ve got a happy bed filled with perky Newberg and Riverside onions, with a little spot left over for bunching onions (where we did save room for direct-seeding successive plantings). Look how perky they are!

And yes, this job ended up taking about an hour longer than we expected. Really, gardening after work? Not a great idea for lazy schlubs like us. I’m confident we won’t be demonstrating such get-up-and-go again any time in the near future.