Starting the Garden

Happy belated Earth day everyone (Aren't I just about a day late for everything lately?). I thought a great thing to talk about this time of year would be starting a garden (and May is National Salad Month in the US, so I'm actually getting a little jump start on something!). I'm not an expert gardener by any means, in fact, I grow my entire garden in containers on my front patio or on my windowsills. As such, I am pretty limited in the scale of my garden, and what things I can successfully grow. No matter how large or small of a space you have, anyone can grow a small garden of their very own!

Above you will see a photo of my radish starts. I'm not huge on radishes, but the husband likes them. They are also a great crop to try if you don't have much gardening experience (or if you don't want to spend lots of long term attention on things). Radishes have a pretty short grow time (about a month) and you will get almost instant gratification because they sprout after only a couple of days. It's a great thing to plant if you have kiddos around because they will get to see something happening very quickly and could measure the progress daily.




I am also being rather brave and trying to grow some watermelons this year. I have one large pot with a vine growing right now and the plant is supposed to have personal sized watermelons, not the big guys. So I am hopeful that despite my small area maybe I will get a watermelon or two this year, and if not it's a nice experiment.

I also have visions of a "someday" garden dancing in my head, as someday the hus and I will have a house and yard. If you'd like to check out some of our ideas and lots of helpful info, you can check out my new Gardening board on Pinterest and follow along!

I also have some herbs, flowers, etc that I'm growing this year. Are any of you extra excited about your garden this year? If you need some cute ideas for labeling your garden try these Dinosaur Garden Markers or Glass Garden Markers.

Friday Food Craft: Watermelon Snack Shapes

This is, admittedly, my laziest food craft ever. In my defense, it is REALLY hot and I am REALLY not a fan of it. For those of you unaware, Portland is one of those places that despite reaching 100+ degrees for at least a week every Summer (though this Summer it has so far stayed in the mid 90's) refuses to buy into the whole Air Conditioning thing. As in very few places have it, even restaurants and apartments.

I'm trying to make the best of it though with my trips to the Farmer's Market to pick up yummy treats that require no cooking by me in my tiny sweat box apartment.

So today, you get to see my cute little watermelon cut outs! I like to refrigerate my watermelon because, well, it's hotter than hot out there and I wanted a cold snack. I just sliced a piece off my super yummy orange watermelon (I really do like it better than standard red, this one was super sweet and really juicy) and then used a cookie cutter to cut out some fun heart shapes. You could use any shape you wanted to, of course. These are a great snack on their own, or you could add your favorite fun shapes to a fruit salad.

I also picked up some blueberries, tomatoes and a to die for salami. Portland really does have some fabulous vendors at it's markets, if you ever visit I would recommend going to one or many of the local markets, they span a good portion of the year, not just Summer like a lot of places I have lived before.

Hope you are staying cool and enjoying the last of your Summer days!