my colorful life

tomatoes, cuke, and pepper
yellow shoesies
blazing


i don't know what to say...i've been crazy absent. i've sort of lost my blogging mojo. BIG TIME. but also, i just have put other stuff ahead of blogging (see below)...limited free time for me equals less time for bouncing around the webs. which, as i have said before, stinks, because i wish i had time for everything. but this way i have more time for creative pursuits instead. and right now that seems to be the best thing for me.
anyway.
my kiddo will be TWO (!!!) in about a month and just this past month, she has started talking like never before. and has pretty much given up napping again...or maybe for good? back to <30 minute naps. maybe that's normal for kiddos her age, maybe it's normal for her. they were nice and long for several months (more than an hour?)
overall, though, she's growing up so fast and it feels like we're entering a new stage with this new age. she's transitioning from being a little girl to a big girl and clearly, it's not a linear journey.

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a small update on what i've been doing (rather than blogging):
-enjoying the fruits of my gardening labors (see above). so happy to see things grow. and know that i somehow helped them on their way, with my diligent watering, fertilizing, pruning, and the like. how cool is it to grow your own food?? VERY.
-cooking like a maniac, using as much of my garden yield as possible. tonight, for instance, i threw a bunch of the rosemary i've got growing on top of a beef tenderloin roast, which i then cubed up and made into a salad, using tomatoes from the garden. added a red pepper and an avocado from the store (plus a few other ingredients), and threw it all on top of some greens, covering it with an avocado dressing. totally not my idea; something i saw in mark bittman's how to cook anything. it's a recent cookbook purchase; it is AWESOME. and so was the salad!
-keeping my kiddo from completely destroying the house! she gets into EVERYTHING, her middle name should have been "chaos"! totally normal behavior though, i know. either way i feel like i'm constantly tidying/cleaning! oy! so tired.
-walking around a lot when it's not crazy hot (aka 103 degrees. what the heck was THAT? thought i was going to melt!). looking forward to somewhat cooler temps.
-sewing like a maniac. some quilt stuff (as previously mentioned), and lots of garments (including, omg, a pair of black linen harem style pants (!!??) and a yellow denim skirt, to name but a few).
-going down to NYC fairly frequently, as a little fam. sometimes just to eat, walk around, and enjoy the weather; other times to see friends or get fanciful novelties or provisions that aren't available up here in the boonies (aka, connecticut). i love our new apartment (WOO, 3 stories! in a fairly walkable town! lots of nature around!) but i miss NYC, big time. thankfully it's a quick drive away and i can visit whenever i like...

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as always, some questions!:
how's your summer going? :)
ever have a blogging slump? did you ever recover? if so, how?
how do you make time to blog? or do anything else? (especially if you're a parent with small children?)

interior obsessions: the squint oswald sofa

squintsofa.png
(image via the conran shop)


i have been lusting after the squint oswald sofa on the conran (usa) shop for weeks, if not a few months. to be more precise, i've been rabidly e-stalking it, checking in on it and drooling over it several times a week. i even went to the new conran shop in abc carpet and home in manhatta to pet it in person about a month ago...and noted that it was even more beautiful in person than it appears on screen.
if i was a.) flush with cash and b.) didn't have an adorable toddler (who very well might (lovingly though inadvertently!) cover it in a myriad of crayon and marker marks and copious amounts of cheerio dust, amongst other kinds of detritus and effluvia), i'd snag that beauty up in a new-york-(area!) minute.
p.s. more of london-based squint ltd.'s stuff can be ogled here.

works in progress: my container garden

this spring, i've been working hard on a creative (?) hobby that i never thought i could even do, or would even like: vegetable gardening!!
but!!: a.) it seems to be going better than i ever dreamed it could (i thought i was a black thumb, i usually kill most of my houseplants!!)...and i'm finding it incredibly rewarding, fulfilling, creative, and fun! i think i'm actually addicted to it now! crazy! :)

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here's my set-up:
our townhouse here in connecticut has a fairly large patio/garden space, as seen in the two photos below, which show the left and right sides of the patio, respectively.
the patio came good to go with some wood-framed, weathered containers that support three trellises. the foliage in these containers and on the trellises basically separate our space from that of our neighbors. all three trellises used to have clematis vines covering them, but at the end of winter, when we first moved in, some of them were looking kinda nasty and overgrown, so we hacked two of the vines down, leaving only the vines in the center. a previous tenant had planted lemon balm, rosemary, and sage in those containers as well. we left the sage in place, but took out the lemon balm and rosemary, so we could make room for more and/or different plants instead.
plants: all my plants are transplants; alas, nothing in the garden from seed this year. i started kind of late with the garden, and have been adding plants to it organically, so to speak, since roughly the end of march. i put in the strawberries and herbs first, then a lettuce, green beans, peppers and tomatoes, then several heads of different kinds of lettuce, a few peas, chard and cukes, and finally, a few random herbs and that rainbow chard, added in yesterday. i would really love to start some of my plants from seed indoors next year, when i'll have more time to prepare and experiment.
to accommodate all the plants, and supplement the previously mentioned existent containers, i also i got 7 half-barrel wooden containers that are about 2-2.5 feet across, about 2 feet deep, several random terracotta and glazed terracotta pots, and a bunch of good organic potting soil and organic fertilizer. i obtained these containers and small pots organically, buying them as i needed them/acquired more plants and had to figure out where i was going to put them. *grin*
to help me figure everything out, i got a great book called bountiful container, by mc gee and stuckey, which has basic info on most garden veggies, herbs, fruits, and edible flowers, and how to grow them effectively/successfully in containers. it's not the be-all, end-all gardening resource but it's been good enough for me, thus far.

view of left side of garden


view of right side of garden


to make the garden useful for hanging out/funtimes/eating/etc., we also added an awesome white metal patio set, from CB2, some colorful beach chairs from target, a small white metal table from ikea, and a turtle sandbox for baby-girl. it's a work in progress. i think i eventually want to get an umbrella for over the table, maybe this orange one (also) from CB2, so we don't sizzle in the thick of summer.
speaking of baby-girl, poppy LOVES hanging out in the garden! she loves to help dig in the dirt, touch/explore all the plants, and most especially, she LOVES watering the plants (and getting wet!)! she begs me to turn on the hose, asking if we can "WAH-DEEE!!!" every time we go out there.

the garden is growing like gangbusters


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and here's how it's all been going so far (my random notes, not in order of planting, my mind is too scattered these days to think linearly about pretty much anything anymore!):

sweet peppers


the sweet peppers seem to be doing fairly well; there are no actual peppers yet, just some blossoms starting. they'll be green and yellow varieties when they do bust out. when i bought them, they already had adorable baby peppers on them, but i read (in the mc gee and stuckey book) that that is bad and keeps them from being as prolific as they could be, so following their suggestion, i pinched off the original peppers and blossoms and now all the pepper plants are growing like mad and it looks like i am gonna have a huge harvest, if everything goes well. it will be interesting to see how many actually grow!
but there's potentially bad pepper-related news: a neighborhood chipmunk has taken a liking to them. i procured an organic (castor oil-based) repellant from my local garden center, will be employing it as soon as i get a chance in an attempt to make him shoo so the peppers can hopefully literally come to fruition. *crosses fingers*

thyme, dill, and chard


the dill is a late addition to the garden, planted yesterday, i'm hoping it does ok! i planed the thyme earlier in the spring, it seems fairly happy. it was sharing space with some sage that for whatever reason, hasn't been doing so well. still trying to figure that out, perhaps they don't make good bedfellows? the blue ceramic pot originally had some green beans but they weren't fairing well either, so i ripped them out. they were sharing space with a leftover chard, which i left in the pot. we'll see how it goes; i'm hoping that the chard doesn't kick the bucket. i'm kind of scared that this zone in the garden is somehow haunted...because unlike most of the other plants, ones in this section haven't done as well. maybe they don't get enough light? that doesn't seem right, but i haven't sussed out any other good explanation yet...

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i added the romaine and deer tongue lettuces about halfway through the spring. they are doing very well, i think. there's a ring of chard around the outside of the romaine, i'm looking forward to eventually harvesting the chard....mmmm!

lettuces and chard


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in the existing container boxes, i planted green beans (right side), and sugar snap peas and lettuce (on the left). i harvested the lettuce yesterday (planning on eating it tonight!), and replaced it with a bit of rainbow chard this morning. the peas were an experiment; i gather they are more of a spring veggie, and i wasn't sure if they would even work now that summer's coming on. but lo and behold, they blossomed this past week and when i peeked at them today, i saw a pod!! i am wondering if this is because we've had fairly mild temps lately, in the 60s and 70s? perhaps the pea is being tricked into doing it's thing by the weather?

peas, sage, rainbow chard


rainbow chard


green beans


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as i mentioned, one of the first things we planted was strawberries...we've already seen one harvest come and go. they were tiny and sweet. the second one is coming on right now...just in the earliest stages of flowering and developing fruit.

strawberries


a leftover lettuce and leftover chard that wouldn't fit in the lettuce/chard container; we popped them in the empty end of the box on the right and if they work out, great! if not, no biggie.

some extra chard and lettuce


these cukes are also an experiment. they are the bush pickle variety, so they are not supposed to go nuts and vine like some other types, but we'll see. hopefully i don't have too many in one container! at any rate, they are looking pretty happy, i noticed some pretty yellow blossoms blooming on them today, so i'm guessing fruit isn't too far behind.

bush pickles (cukes)


again, like i said, in addition to the strawberries, a bunch of different kinds of herbs were the first things i planted...basil, rosemary, parsley (curly, flatleaf), oregano, mint, thyme. good for so many things...i've been adding cuttings to everything. i've been drying some for storing in the cupboard, and i'm also planning on making some herb-infused oils and vinegars in the very near future.

mint, basil, and thyme


rosemary and oregano


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and last but not least...the tomatoes! i got some small, bush-type tomatoes, called "totem". they don't really need much pruning if at all and i am fairly certain they don't need stakes, but i had a few laying around so i thought i'd give 'em some support anyway just in case. they have been doing fairly well...i noticed today that one of them, one of the oldest ones, is turning red!! so exciting!

totem patio tomatoes


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do you garden? are you growing anything this year? if so, what?? tell me about it!