Durham Garden Center SALE

Locals to the Triangle: do you have space in your garden?

I just got an email that Durham Garden Center is literally giving away tomatoes. I can verify this. They have several varieties: large cherry, sweet 100, lemon boy (yellow), cherokee, german...I have about 12 new tomato plants now. Yes, 100% free. They also have watermelons and

They're also running a sale on most annuals, herbs and vegetables for buy one get one free, so I picked up some herbs (peppermint, mint chocolate, ginger mint, cilantro) and some new guinea impatiens. Hooray. Get over there while the getting's good!

40 46 Days of Raw: Day 44, or Urumbo

So, today marked the slump. Urumbo was described to me as Shona (a Zimbabwe and South/East African language) for "the troubles." I think they meant it more in the way the Irish say "the troubles," but I'm taking both, man, because I am seriously facing my worst time right now, on the last mile. Number one, my brain is all over the place.

Got up this morning (had the day off) after getting a wonderfully unfulfilling 5 hours of sleep only to find out that my hairdresser is sick and couldn't come. I then failed to accomplish the one thing I was supposed to do today besides get my hair cut. But y'all don't want to hear me gripe, so let's talk food, gardens and veg*n, shall we?

After my stop at the bank, I hit up whole foods and picked up some snacky-poo for myself. I lazied out and got some pre-made guacamole (made in store, the only kind I find bearable as far as premade guacs) and seedless cukes to dip in the guac. I cut the bad boy up and had a mighty filling lunch, then set about my major task for the day, gardening.

As you can see, I got my garden turned over and some of my crops held over from last year (lavender and rosemary) and my bulbs are coming up and making life a delight, particularly on the walkway up to the front door, which is lined with Daffodils and paperwhites, creating a beautiful stink of spring and a splash of color, too. The paperwhite smell, for those unfamiliar, is most similar probably to the Easter Lily (one of my students just gave me a plant for the holiday, it is living in my room), in that it's pervasive, somewhat treacly but overall pleasant.

I believe I mentioned that I'd put in two raspberry bushes last Thursday and over the weekend, they really took! The foliage increased, the plants seem to be in good shape. Granted, the bushes I planted this week were a little more robust straight from the store, but I think you can still see the difference (newbie plants are the two on the left, week-olds on the right). So, if you, like me, have soil that's full of clay and essentially destroys anything but the heartiest of plants (seriously, my lawn is half dead because my yard is totally overtaken by trees, ivy and crabgrass). I also put down a couple of fig tree-lets (that are literally 6" tall right now and absolutely darling).

The real challenge of the day was that my vegessentials order came in today and the temptation to eat something, anything out of that box of joy was great. There were the cookies. There was pasta. There was chocolate and there was fake cheese. There were 3 fake meats I am really excited to try. There are 2 more days. I'm trying, and everyone says they're proud right now but I am JONESING for some processed wheat with partially hydrogenated soy involved. It's taking a lot of will power to pour myself a bowl of Chia with fresh cut strawberries with local honey* or pour myself a glass of grapefruit juice and a handful of cashews (that was dinner and evening snack respectively) instead of just going downstairs and tearing through a frozen bagel. I've had NY bagels in my freezer since early march =/. /rant

Anyway, I'm getting my plans together for the rest of the garden. I just found out that planting basil and rosemary side by side is bad news, so I think the rosemary side of the garden will be for brassicas, since I recently learned that rosemary and basil hate each other and battle it out underground, as do their counterparts. For those unaware, rosemary is a good compliment to things like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and brussels sprouts. Rosemary and the brassicas should be kept away from tomatoes, peppers, basil, oregano and carrots, apparently. Oregano is also supposedly good for cukes. As far as eye-candy to help yr dirt candy, the 3 big reccs are geraniums, marigolds and borage (new to me this year, but I'll sniff some out).

Any gardening tips out there in the blog world? I've had a heck of a time keeping my brassicas alive, hopefully this year with the division they'll at least get a fighting chance to battle it out with the evil squirrels (seriously, I've had squirrels eating my cucumber stalks before they even reach a decent size through like, 3 attempts last year. I don't want to sprout my seeds only to see them become very expensive sprout feed for squirrels.

Gosh, there I go again. Just trying to resist Liz Lovely's cookies. Til tomorrow, kids.

*Yes, I know honey is not considered vegan. NC has one of the highest number of indigenous flora of any state in the US. People who never had allergies move here and are debilitated by sinus pressure, snotties, sneezies and so forth. I try to work about 1 tsp of local honey into my daily diet at the beginning of the season and have just had some slight itchy eyes. Plus, I'd totally eat a bee, or a wasp. It is one of my secret desires to get a fig that has eaten a wasp. You can fight me on this, but honey (and, for that matter, insect byproduct in general) is not something I get up in arms about. Obvs, when I find out if things are truly vegan for YOU all (like beer) I get that info to pass along, because we all draw our line in the sand in different places. :)

40 Days of Raw: Day 34/Day 35

So, not a lot of "news" going on. It's finally officially spring. My bulbs are coming up (see the paperwhite and hyacinth) and so I hit home depot to get myself some new garden stakes, a huge shovel and scoped the veggies for this year. I'm hoping to plant some berry bushes (Anyone have any advice?) as well as tomatoes, cukes, zuccs, and leafies (I've had shit luck with all roughage that aren't herbs) as well as the possibility of an apple or pear tree, and some impatiens.

Eating-wise, it was a pretty bland day. I spent the morning in the recording studio, so had a banana and some kombucha, then hit the grocery store, where I picked up some stuff and ended up punking out and just making broc and guac. Later that evening, I mixed up some chia goodness and tossed some raspberries in with it. I also cut up a mango and it was divine!

Day 35:
Today, I busted out my spiralizer and made some yellow squash pasta. For the haters, I took a picture of the amount of waste. Given the amount of pasta I got (about 3 cups) from one squash, I don't think the waste was excessive. I made a raw tomato sauce of:

2 roma tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
1/8 red onion
1 tbsp "italian spices" (basil, oregano, thyme, parsley)
salt to taste'

I realized after the fact that a lot of recipes call for sun dried tomatoes, but I am not a huge fan of them, so I skipped on them. I thought the sauce turned out pretty good (if a little watery and garlicky). Maybe next time I'll try tossing a sun dried tomato in as well.

Sadly, the mac cheese was kind of vile. I don't know what all those people were talking about. I had my roommate try it too and she said that it "tasted like a nut cheese would taste, I guess." It had the consistency of tofutti but none of the yumminess. So it's in the fridge but will probably transfer to the trash by the end of the week.

I've also snacked on an avocado and am fixing a snack of chia and strawberries for work. I also made a really sweet little bevvy (mashed strawberries, coconut water and some filtered water) while I sat in the sunroom with the pups and watched drag race. I can't wait for it to be smoking hot outside! :)