fill the house with flowers

 last year at this time i was moving, cleaning, packing away--i started moving in to this house just over a year ago. it didn't leave much free time for my usual obsessive spring routines: seed starting, prepping the soil, trying to control the weather with my mind-powers. this year i'm settled and ready to experience ALL THE SPRINGS.

 the ladies are one year old at the end of this month!

 the other day i ran into an old friend of mine who i hadn't seen in six years. turns out we live just a few blocks away, work across the street from each other, and we both have chickens! (and we're both named emily...but that's always been the case.) similarities end there, though, we're pretty different people. she came over one night to catch up. talking to her was such a trip. familiar/unfamiliar.

 i added another pet...actually, a few hundred of them. a couple weeks ago i SUDDENLY, DESPERATELY *NEEDED* sea monkeys. like no one has ever needed sea monkeys before. i can't explain it, it just happened. so i called every store that might possibly sell sea monkeys and no one had them. instead i went to an aquarium store and bought a packet of brine shrimp. they've been living happily on wheat flour and nutritional yeast.

 my mouth is already watering for spring salads. i have a pot of mixed lettuces going, and four of the five dwarf tomato plants i started mid-january are growing baby tomatoes already.

 yummy herb pot, basil and parsley mix.

 doing lots of cooking lately...this is one of the best things i've ever made:

 egg pizza! homemade down to the crust. topped with vegan pesto (fresh basil, cashews, pistachios, nutritional yeast, garlic, olive oil, salt), basil-tofu ricotta (tofu, fresh basil, nutritional yeast, salt, pepper, olive oil), sauteed mushrooms and zucchini, kalamata olives, eggs, and some seasonings.

 i'm making another one tonight, but this time with regular marinara sauce, just because i'm lazy. my mom's coming over--my parents are getting major renovation work done on their house so it's all torn up, and my dad is in maryland for a few days, so my mom's joining me for dinner and dropping off scout. i'll be pugglesitting until tuesday. three pups! madness!

 this is gyeran jjim (korean steamed eggs). i used olive brine in place of salt, topped with scallions, toasted sesame seeds, garlic and chili powder. the texture is a lot like silken tofu.

 basil-tofu ricotta stuffed manicotti, with sauteed asparagus and spaghetti squash, and spinach.

 spaghetti with vegan pesto, tomatoes, garlic bread, and a poached egg on top.

 hard boiled eggs marbled with beet juice. i didn't use enough beet juice so the coloring is pretty faint. i'll try again. the eggs peeled nicely though--i left them in the fridge for a couple weeks, because fresh eggs do not peel well at all.

 i made a fritatta-ish dish with tons of delicious veggies for crafting day with cam last week--she got a glass cutter, so we were cutting glass bottles and making drinking cups and self-watering planters, like this one:

 we made dozens, it was lots of fun. we had another fun time this weekend, involving much creative cooking and seed starting, and she informed me that "the internet needs to know about this"...and it will, but that'll have to wait for another post.

 this is happening! i am so excited! neutral milk hotel has been my favorite band for the better part of a decade. i never thought i'd get to see jeff mangum live. he's playing at the egyptian theatre:

 i was there wednesday night shooting photos at a reading (firoozeh dumas, author of "funny in farsi"). it's a fabulous venue.

happy spring!

91 degrees out today!! a new record. and it was 82 yesterday. what an amazing weekend. i got so much done: planted raspberries, potatoes, asparagus, some herbs and vining flower seeds; started a bunch more seeds; helped a friend move into her wonderful new house (and she gave me the loveseat pictured above); went thrifting and antiquing and found way too much cool stuff; made a lot of progress with unpacking and got my sewing machine set up. everything is green and in full bloom all of a sudden; my peas and onions are up, lilacs are beginning to pop and the apple tree is full of flowers. the chickens are ready to go out in their coop, at least during the daytime, once i finish cleaning it. such an exciting time of year!

toMAYto

yesterday i picked my first two homegrown tomatoes of the year! so very sweet and tangy. a few more are blushing:

after that it’s going to be weeks before more ripen.

in the meantime, salad:

on 5/21 i picked a quarter pound of greens (spinach, parsley and six types of lettuce) and two radishes.

three more radishes on monday. these are french breakfast. i thought they would be longer and skinnier--in photos i’ve seen online they remind me of used tampons. (sorry.) i still think they’re cool looking either way.

look at all the beautiful colors! from left to right it’s yugoslavian red, flame, buttercrunch bibb, red oak leaf, bloomsdale long-standing spinach, and a mix of sorrel and mȃche. i grazed on these for breakfast this morning.

sorrel and mȃche are growing very slowly, especially the latter. if it doesn’t taste amazing i probably won’t grow it again.

ripe strawberry #8. gradually making up for last year.

one of my eggplants and three or four peppers started blooming this week. i don’t think this happened until late july last year.

i got an extremely satisfying amount of planting accomplished last saturday: six peppers, two eggplants, two tomatillos, two ground cherries, one cape gooseberry, and i direct-seeded about 60 beans, black cumin, regular cumin, calendula and nasturtiums.

yesterday and today i worked on containers: potted another tomato, some basil, a purple bell pepper surrounded by purple petunias, a hanging basket with fuchsias and petunias, a mix of herbs, and direct-seeded two squash and a large container of dwarf corn.

i’ve been having trouble hardening off my plants because of all the strong winds the last few weeks. it was stressing me out, i couldn’t put anything outside because it would all blow over and get damaged. so my plants were suffering, until i thought of this:

it’s an old bottle crate i found at an antique store. the openings are just the right size for my planting cups to fit snugly and not tip over while still giving the plants enough space to stretch their limbs. it came in handy today while i was at work and there were 40mph wind gusts. i got home and everything was fine.

there’s only one good thing about the super chilly (highs in the 50s) forecast for the next four days:

my favas just started blooming. i read that fava plants will only legumify if the temperature is below 80 degrees. that shouldn’t be a problem.