the puffy coat.

I have a long, black, down-filled, hooded coat from Lands' End that I've worn everysingleday since the beginning of January. I have other winter coats, ones that I quite like, including a brown wool car coat cut in a swingy style. I usually rotate coats depending on my attire on a particular day ... but the long puffy coat has been essential all winter, as we've had record cold and snowfall all through February.

I am hoping that this week is that last we'll see of the puffy coat this season.

Today, we sprung forward (an annual occurrence that makes me grouchy in the mornings for a good week). After a week of sunshine and temperatures in the low 60s, this weekend is cruelly rainy and cold. The cool damp has my bad shoulder aching.

I dodged raindrops today to plant pansies in the pots on the front porch ... after a long absence, the nurserymen are making a return appearance at Findlay Market on Saturday mornings. Rob is now out planting grass seed. The lettuce seeds I tucked into the window box last weekend are sprouting gaily; the four half-rows I put down in the cold frame aren't faring as well (they're a different variety, so they may take a bit longer to come in). I planted the other half-rows today and closed the lid to create a warmer microclimate in there. Last fall's garlic is a good 3 inches high, as are the chives in the herb bed.

Today is Selection Sunday; we're in for a good 3 weeks of March Madness, and then comes The Masters. Spring is at our doorstep.

so ready for spring.

Today is February 21. The Vernal Equinox is 29 days from now. I'm not sure I'm going to make it.

Over the past 10 days, we've had 12+ inches of snow in recurring wintry blasts. Only one day of sunshine. The snow is still chest-deep to Wrigley in the front yard, sidewalks in our neighborhood are still buried and the streets are pocked with potholes and littered with salt and debris. I'm tired of the cold, the gray, the general winter crud.

But spring will be here, I know. I have a box full of seeds from The Cook's Garden on my garden bench: five kinds of lettuce, two kinds of bean, carrot, and, to come, pepper and basil plants. We have materials for a new garden fence on order and I have a vine wreath to hang on the new garden gate. I found some colorful outdoor cushions yesterday that will be perfect on the green bench on the patio.

All three of us are ready for warmer weather so we can break this cycle of cabin fever and our joints will feel better. C'mon, Spring!

the garden.

the garden
does not understand
that I am busy

the beans grow
too big and tough
if they’re left unpicked
for just a day

the lettuce bolts
if it’s not harvested
tomatoes split,
red peppers rot
if I don’t pay attention

the flowers droop
if I neglect to water
spent blooms straggle
if don’t take care

the garden
does not understand
that I am busy

the dog needs a walk
dinner needs to be made
the gym beckons
work demands

the garden
does not mind
that I am busy

it is there
when I have time
to harvest
to water
to prune

to breathe

too delicious.

There are two food-related (obsessed?) blogs that I wish I wrote: 100cookbooks.com and smittenkitchen.com. Neither fails me whenever I bookmark a recipe.

So when I spotted this recipe for Tomato and Corn Pie on smittenkitchen.com earlier this week, I made a note to make it this weekend.

Holy Mother of All That Is Delicious!

There is simply no better thing do to with late-summer corn and tomatoes. If you're a food person who reads this (that would be: Mom!), please do yourself a favor and make it while the fixin's are good.

Allow me to back up just a bit for a seasonal musing. Around the Fourth of July, I sink into a midsummer melancholy, sad that my favorite days are passing while I'm chained to a desk 9 to 5, mournful that I can't manage (even with summer's blissfully long days) to accomplish all I want to do.

Then, sometime in early to mid-August, when the days start to shorten perceptibly and the sounds from the swim club across the street stop a bit earlier in the evening, I recognize that summer isn't waning ... it's beginning. There remain weeks and weeks of 70- and 80-degree temps, summer produce and bouquets of zinnias that last until, around here, the end of October.

So I feel better.

Now, as the farmer's market kicks into high gear, really, and tomatoes and corn are still in full bounty, recipes like the Tomato and Corn Pie really resonate. There's something fall-ish about making any kind of pie, and the fact that it's packed with summer's best vegetables is just, well, a double crust.

Heaven.

Seriously, make this recipe. It doesn't note how many servings it yields, but Rob and I polished off nearly half the thing.

company in the garden.

Just found this bad girl on the lantana in the garden: she's a black and yellow Argiope, She's probably 2.5 inches toe to toe, and her coloring is very impressive. The website says we should also see her mate (he's responsible for the zigzag patterned web). It also notes that she's not harmful to humans -- in fact, she keeps all manner of pests away -- but frankly, she scares the pants off me.

picking our dinner.

My intention of keeping a record of my garden's early progress in photos and text basically blew up over the past couple of weeks, and I haven't posted about what's going on. Spring sprung early (and rainily, if that's a word), so here we are at April 27 and EVERYTHING is in full bloom. The 80-degree weather over the past four days has certainly helped.

I picked the first leaves of arugula and lettuce from the coldframe just over a week ago and dressed them simply with lemon juice, olive oil and cracked pepper. That's the new standard for salad Chez Mooth; we've enjoyed that a couple of times over the past week.

Funny: The mache seeds I planted when I first set out the coldframe, the ones that never did anything, the ones I thought were duds ... well, they've just now germinated. Just goes to show you: patience is a virtue in the garden. (As an aside: I'm not entirely sure what mache is; it's also called lamb's lettuce or corn salad, and it's supposedly kind of sweet and a nice addition to the salad bowl. It looked pretty in the seed catalog.)

The coldframe will probably retire from the garden this weekend. Three weeks ago, I planted four rows of arugula and lettuce in the other half of the vegetable bed, and those rows are all coming in nicely. I'll need to thin them well (I was rather heavy-handed with the seed, and I spilled a bunch).

Yesterday, I transplanted the small nasturtium plants from the coldframe into a terra cotta pot for the herb garden (later, when it gets really hot, I'll move them to the porch). I told Rob, "I think this is the first time I've ever started flowers from seed and transplanted them." Wouldn't you know: when we came back from golf that afternoon, the plants had literally wilted in the sun. I hope they make it!

coldframe: week 1.

I'm impressed: The coldframe has created the perfect environment for our early spring seeding. This is after just one week; the arugula is going gangbusters and several other varieties are also sprouting nicely.

the coldframe.

Rob is the Best Guy Ever ... among many reasons, for the fact that he built me a coldframe. I am very excited at the prospect of getting a super early start on my vegetable gardening. He built it last weekend, and we painted it over several evenings this past week. Yesterday, we took advantage of the near 80 degree day to bring it outside so I could plant it. It seemed sort of silly to be planting a coldframe on such a warm day, but Rob was quick to remind me that this same weekend last year saw a blizzard with about a foot of snow, which scuttled our plans to go to Louisville for a concert. We will have plenty of cold days to come.

The coldframe is basically a wood-framed, portable greenhouse that takes up about a quarter of the vegetable bed. I planted three rows of lettuce, one each of arugula and mache, and a row of nasturtiums that I'll transplant to a pot later. The coldframe has two plexiglas lids that can be propped open or fully closed depending on the weather. This week, I'll keep the lid partway open, as it's supposed to be warmish for a few days. On cold days or nights, it gets shut up tight. If it gets well below freezing, I can place votive candles inside the frame and let them burn all night to prevent a hard frost.

If all goes according to plan, we'll have a crop of spring greens about 2-3 weeks early. As it warms up through March, I'll also plant greens on the other half of the garden so we'll have a succession of crops. I plan to take pictures and post them every week to chart our progress.

too many beans.

I was thrilled to discover that my seed order from Cook's Garden arrived yesterday: four kinds of lettuces (Butterworth, Oliver, Summer Mix and Lollo Rosa), something yummy-looking called Corn Salad and two kinds of filet-type green beans (well, actually, one is green and the other yellow).

Funny, though ... I don't think I intended to order a HALF POUND of bean seeds. Rob thinks I need to traipse through the countryside scattering them as I go ... Bryn Beanseed!

botanical nomenclature.

My tendency to label and list things extends to the garden; if you walk through the yard, you'll see little plastic (in the vegetable bed) or metal garden labels marking everything from the 3 varieties of lavender in the herb bed to the potted Chardonnay to the particular kind of lettuce growing in the veggie patch. Yes, it's anal-retentive, and I embrace it.

The summer after we moved in, Grandma gave me a half dozen daylily bulbs for my birthday or Christmas, I can't remember. We planted them along the border in the backyard, and I carefully recorded the variety name on a little metal tag which I stuck in the ground next to each one. For four or five seasons we watched as they grew, sent up buds—and were thoroughly munched by the deer that roam our neighborhood. Seriously, the deer seemed oblivious to the plants themselves, or even to the flowers, but boy ... those flower buds must be tasty.

Fast forward to the two-year period when we were in Jersey. The landscaping company we hired to keep things while we were away completely obliterated my careful little plant labels.

Last year, Rob engineered a deer-proof system involving netting and stakes—for the first season, we had a fully blooming crop of daylilies. But we had no idea what their names were. So as they bloomed, we made up new names for them, and I made little metal labels. Like Ninety-Nine, which has a gold/orange/red scheme that looks like the sun on a very hot day. Or Jackson, which has a crimson and gold palette that reminded us of the colors of USC, whose football games Keith Jackson broadcasts every fall. Or Butters (the color reference is obvious), named after a South Park character. Or Pickelson Slammer, which gets its name from the house cocktail (you'll have to ask us about that one).

So our daylilies aren't exactly up to whatever formal botanical standard exists out there. But we know what they are.

pick your dinner.

First salad picked from the garden, last weekend when Mom was here.

food for thought.

Allison Arieff's By Design blog on NYTimes.com points out a program called Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn -- it encourages people to turn their grass into garden (vegetable garden, that is). Whatcha think, Rob? ;-)

eat your greens.

On Mark Bittman's new blog on the NYTimes website, which I'm liking (sorry, Bill -- I know you think he's a dunce), he posted a recipe for a simple vinaigrette. It's OK, but I'm not fond of raw shallot in dressing, especially because I tend to make it in a decent quantity and keep it in the fridge for a week or so (at which point the shallot gets too sharp and overpowering). I like this instead, my own variation on a Martha Stewart recipe that I make almost exclusively:

3 T dijon
1 T honey
1/4 cup champagne vinegar
1/4 to 1/3 cup of good olive oil
S+P

I dump it all into an old jam jar with a lid, then shake it all up (really shake it). The oil emulsifies just as if I'd taken the time to whisk it carefully. Come spring when the herb bed wakes up, I'll add some chives, parsley and tarragon -- or, even better, just snip the herbs right into the salad bowl along with the greens.

At Findlay Market last weekend, we came across a local grower who's doing hydroponic lettuce this winter -- she had a huge table of small bushel baskets filled with butterhead and red oakleaf lettuce. Delish.

It really made me (even more!) itchy to plant my vegetable garden. I took graph paper, pencil and my garden-plotting template and, with my Cook's Garden catalog for reference, sketched out how the veggie bed will come together. Here's what's to come:

Tomatoes -- one plant in each of the 4 corners
Zucchini and cucumbers -- on the short sides of the bed, trailing up on the same support system that will manage the tomatoes. I hadn't considered growing them vertically, and was pleased to come across that handy solution.
Lettuce -- four varieties, to be planted in succession during spring, early summer and fall
Beans -- the haricot vert style Triumphe de Farcy that I love, plus a new yellow filet bean that'll be fun to try
Bell peppers -- two red ones
Carrots -- a lovely mix called "Kaleidoscope" that has red, yellow, orange and red ones

Currently, my kitchen windowsill holds a pot of 5 or 6 fragile basil plants, which I'm carefully nursing along in hopes that I can transplant them back into the herb garden in May. I plucked the tiny seedlings out of the ground after last summer's basil had withered from cold; it had gone to seed, and as I was digging up the dead plants I spied these little guys and decided to tuck them into a pot with a bit of mulch on top, to see if they'd grow inside. Basil is just about as grumpy as I am to be locked up indoors during these cold, short days of winter. I keep talking to it, telling it that the days are getting a bit longer and that soon I might even be able to leave it outdoors on the driveway on a sunny afternoon. I think we've come to some kind of understanding that we'll both hold on fast, in hopes of warmer days to come.

notes for next season.

I keep meaning to make notes of what's working—and what's not—in the garden, so that next summer I'll repeat—or not—my planting plans. So here's my online garden notation (I'll need to remember this post come next April).

What worked:
• Lantana—it takes full sun and intense heat with vigor; this will be my workhorse for summer color in the front and back pots, in the window box and hanging baskets
• Midnight blue salvia—sturdy, with gorgeous dark-blue flowers; frou-frou likes!
• Yellow Million Bells—super hardy and heat-resistant; they love fertilizer
• On the side porch—another mix of interesting foliage; ferns have done well
• In the veggie garden—Heatwave Blend lettuce from Shepherds Seeds has been incredibly productive, even in this summer's nasty dry heat. Plant two crops of beans more than two weeks apart. Expect that sweet and jalapeno peppers won't bear until late, late summer. Forget mystery varieties of tomato; stick with the knowns. Try a zucchini again, and maybe baby cuke; let them wander through the veggie patch.
• Try another lavender.
• Plumbago—at the street end of the flower bed and around the red "tuteur" with the clematis. Holy smokes, that stuff's hardy!


What didn't:
• See above re: the weird heirloom tomatoes. Ick.
• Three different kinds of plants, max, in planters.
• Herbs don't do well in pots.
• The black-eyed Susan vine on the trellis (west side of the S.P.) is a little out of hand.

For next summer, Pipkin's Market is totally my source for all plants, including veggies. No sense ordering those from Burpee—I can get exactly what I want, and no more than I need, by buying locally; there are tons of choices these days beyond Beefsteak.

I really, really, really want a grapevine from Napa Style. (Rob?)

oh, beans.

We're looking at a bumper crop of green beans this year: I planted four rows (two rows at two weeks apart) and we've just now started picking. They're tender, tiny and incredibly flavorful. The first handful went into a saute of fresh corn, fresh sweet onion and summer squash. The next batch will get sauteed in lemon olive oil. Delish!

peas be with you.

In March (on St. Patrick's Day, per Grandma's instructions), I planted peas: the English, shelling kind, in a variety from Burpee called Peas 'n a Pot. (Yep, I planted them in big pots.) Peas are one of those vegetables that are incredibly hard to find in their fresh state -- even the farmer's market vendors at Findlay don't have them. If ya want 'em fresh, ya gotta grow your own (or visit a you-pick farm like Grandma and Hans do every spring). So I grew 'em.

I envisioned a two- or three-week period where we'd have all the fresh peas we could eat: freshly picked, shelled, blanched and doused with copious quantities of butter and salt.

Not so much. Our whole crop -- two and a half months of growing time -- yielded just one dinner's worth. A nice colanderful of pods turned out to be two big spoonsful of shelled peas on the plate.

They were good. Really good. But I don't think I'll plant them again. Not that it was costly, or a whole lot of work, to grow peas; it was the harvest that was a letdown.

it's not really my job.

I am married to the Lawn Master—with a capital M. Rob has managed to completely eradicate even the most stubborn weeds (violets look pretty, but they're real bastards), fill in the patchy spots and create a really masterful yardful of grass. Already this spring, it's lush and incredibly green.

Rob's lawn-growing talents are the subject of some admiration in the neighborhood; our next-door neighbor has consulted him for advice on seeding bare patches. And they're also the source of some grumbling and eye-rolling; our neighbor two doors down, who fancies himself quite the green-lawn guy, sniffs when he sees Rob getting a head-start on outdoor chores. "Well, I won't put down grass seed for another 2 weeks," he harrumphed at me disapprovingly when Rob was scattering finelawn fescue a week ago.

Rob is also an accomplished mower of said lawn. When he was in Bangkok last week, I made a feeble attempt at running the evil machine over the grass—leaving scalped patches and uncut strips in my wake. I'm going to leave that chore to him. He's better at it anyway.

now showing.

It'll be interesting at this time next year to read these posts cataloging spring blooms. Things seem to be early this year, which may be due to this warmer-than-normal stretch we've had for the past 10 days or so. Everyone I know has Spring Fever--I've been approving more than the normal volume of days off for the HOW staff.

So here's what's going now:

Magnolias
Redbuds (love those)
Bradford pears
Purple plums
The weeping cherry in the front yard (just now starting)
Forsythia
Some kind of shrub with hot-pink flowers (I think it may be quince)
Purple azaleas

Coming soon:
Crabapple
Dogwood (the flower buds have just started to unfurl a tiny bit)
Azaleas
Lilac

this is what we've been waiting for.

Yesterday, the temp passed 60 degrees. It's kind of rotten that the first 60-plus degree day of the year is a workday, but there you go. We still managed to get out for a major walk with Wrigley, and then had the very first cocktail hour on the new patio. Hallelujah!

Today was supposed to be rainy all day, but it was mostly gray, and then things cleared off after lunch. I spent several hours making a to-scale plan for the landscaping we need to do, using grid and tracing paper. It was immensely satisfying to think out what we want to do in the back, mostly surrounding the deck and patio. The new plan includes some hydrangea, some dwarf evergreens of some kind, some rudbeckia, that kind of thing. We'll divide and move several things already in the yard. I'm super excited.

Rob, bless his heart, tackled two of the three ornamental grasses we need to dig out -- bastards! I did some pruning and cleanup. There's plenty to do. Next weekend: Peas, per Grandma, on St. Patrick's Day.

Welcome, Spring!

it's probably too early ...

... but my order from Burpee came today: Peas 'n a Pot, Triumph de Farcy filet beans, arugula, three kinds of lettuce. The Farmer's Almanac says to plant the lettuce and peas when the lilacs show leaves. Grandma says to plant peas on St. Patrick's Day. That's about 6 weeks from now. Guess we'll have to wait.