All posts tagged: Gardens

a week of spring: tulip

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Monday I walked in the door tonight and dinner was made!  I have to confess something and you can’t tell my parents:  I love brussel sprouts.  Add a little olive oil and some creative spices (Chris used a spice mixture from Oleana, the most amazing restaurant ever), and these little nutritious bundles taste so delicious (and load you up with Vitamin C, A, B6 and other great stuff). Today (ahem–meatless Monday might I remind you), I would like to share with you a photo of one of my revered tulips.  It is oh so close to blooming, yet beautiful even without the color.  Tulips are like graceful sculptures with their long, sweeping leaves.  Their colors are dramatic and, sadly, short-lived.  I think this is what makes them special and what makes us enjoy them so very much.  They are little reminders to enjoy the important moments in life, even if they don’t last long.

Carrots Love Tomatoes

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Every vegetarian gal or guy that has any space at all should try to grow some of her/his own vegetables either in containers on a porch or in the yard.  How have I gone so long without such a must-have, classic book?  This rare treasure among a sea of gardening guides?  Written originally in 1975 and updated in 1998, Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening , published by the well-respected Storey Publishing, should be the bible which we all refer to when deciding where to thoughtfully place each plant in our garden.  Who knew that beans and onions would hinder the growth of one another?  And how did Louise Riotte know that planting celery near cauliflower would deter the white cabbage butterfly?  There are no flashy photographs in this book nor dreamy prose.  Yet there is such a wealth of information here dispersed among simple and informative drawings.  If only I had known last year that dill may affect carrot growth in a negative way, I may have ended up with carrots that weren’t the size …