Clay and Sprouts

It’s officially summer vacation – wahoo!

Summer means sunshine and free time which equates to me getting to spend more time in the garden. Could I be any happier? 🙂

We have a strip of roses by a white picket fence near the front of my house. Even though we’ve got an alternation between rose and sage, the spaces between just seem so bare. First I wanted to plant sunflowers, until it also occurred to me.. why not plant some of my seed starts? I figured I’d be killing two flies with one slap because I could also try making a chicken wire cage to see if it really does work in keeping the gophers out while also putting my starts in a better home than their tiny containers.

Well, when I made my first attempt at this project it was an instant reality check. Sure, the top layer of the soil was nice and loose for easy digging, but about 4 inches down I hit solid clay. If you don’t know what I’m talking about.. this clay was almost like hitting pure rock!

As much as I rammed my shovel into the ground it wasn’t budging. So I soaked half of the rose bed with water in hopes that it would get nice and soaked so I could actually do some real digging.

This morning after breakfast I headed outside early to see if my plan worked. It did! I got to work right away so that I wouldn’t get caught in the mid-day sun and loose all the moisture left in the ground from the evening.

I started by digging up a 1′ X 2′ X 1.5′ hole in between one rose plant and sage bush.

Next I pushed a piece of chicken wire down as best I could.

I filled the hole with alternating layers of organic potting soil, horse manure (from my neighbor next door, she has so many horses!), and mixed dirt from the garden. I alternated about twice.

After the new soil was in place, I planted some of the beets that I started from seed. Remember when I planted them a few months ago? I thought they would be bigger by now, but they definitely will have plenty of room to grow in their new home!

I followed the same steps and dug two more holes. I planted one more with beets and the other with some radishes, both of which I started from seed.

It didn’t take as long as I thought it would! I listened to Jack Johnson and Ben Harper while digging, and hung out with Max and Chow Mein (my cat).

I definitely have my work cut out for me though. I had to dig up a ton of clay. Look at the second half of the bed.. sooo many weeds!

For lunch, I ate a de-e-licious salad.

It had pretty much everything except the kitchen sink. It consisted of: spinach and spring mix from JR Organics, buckwheat groats and red lentils that I sprouted, a variety of sprouts from Suzie’s, chia seeds, red walnuts from Terra Bella Ranch, diced apple from R&L Farms, dried cranberries…

…all topped with a tahini-ginger dressing I made. Mmmm!

With a naner.

Yes what you see in that photo are indeed chopsticks! I love eating with chopsticks as often as I can because it helps me enjoy every bite, slow down my eating, and really savor each item in the dish one by one.

Time to go for a workout run! Tomorrow I’m going to go running with my friend Karon and her running group. She’s running the Rock ‘N Roll too – in the half!

There are only 8 days left until the marathon, if you don’t count today. Oy! 😯

Have a good rest of your day!

Chelsea King

Today’s 7-mile run was o-k.

There has been a recent disappearance of a young teen, Chelsea King. From what I have read she is an excellent student, athlete and all around great person; she went missing last Thursday when she went out on a run. I thought about her disappearance and her family and loved ones the entire time I was on my run today.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Chelsea King.

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Coming home from my run I had left-over soup (from last night’s dinner) some crackers and an orange.

After lunch was gardening time!

This is so bubblegum of me, but I LOVE wearing my rubber gardening boots 🙂

Today I planted the newest addition to my garden, my purple basil plant.

I also checked on the beet seeds that my mom planted last week….

No sprouting…yet!

But our strawberries are slowly beginning to grow… 😀

Growing food takes time, love, and care. It brings you closer to your food and closer to the earth that provides for it. It’s such an  organic relationship for humans to embrace, something a lot of us have forgotten.

I was afraid of starting my garden because of the little knowledge I have. It didn’t take long for me to realize how silly it is to be afraid to just dig in. Months ago, I was also afraid of the thought of running a marathon, and I never could have imagined myself training for one the way I have been.

In life, we have to forget our fears and not be afraid of trying new things!

Well! I’m off to see what the rest of the day brings..

~*~ Please keep the family and friends of Chelsea in your thoughts today.~*~

Don’t Panic! It’s Organic!

It’s amazing what a sunny day can do for your mind! Let alone, spending a sunny day gardening. 🙂

After breakfast this morning, I headed to City Farmers Nursery, here in San Diego. I’m sure there are closer nurseries, but I really like the atmosphere there. I picked up some new plants for the growing garden my parents and I have. I picked up:

• Celery
• Brussels sprouts
• Broccoli
• Butter crunch lettuce
• Spinach
• Fennel
• Dill
• LOTS of strawberry plants!!

I was so happy driving the baby plants in my car, I got busy as soon as I returned home!

Before getting dirty…

Max worked hard too…

On his suntan, that is! 😀

Unfortunately I forgot to put sunscreen on. I’m usually the queen of preaching about sunscreen, too. Shame on me! My back is bright red now.. oops!

We have been composting all of our organic scraps, so by using that in our soil, it is thriving with life. I found lots of worms wiggling around!

Here is the finished product of the day:

Strawberries close up..

Spinach close up…

There is nothing like getting nice and dirty! Working in the garden makes me feel like one with the earth. I wish I could just lay there all day and soak up the sun like the plants do.

Max likes gardening too…because he gets to nap in the sun all day 🙂

I did take a quick break between gardening. I made this recipe from Vegan Yum Yum yesterday and had the left-overs for lunch. It was just as delicious as the day before!

After a day of working in the soil, I headed for my 3-mile workout and weight training at the gym. Then I came home and made a collard leaf taco with a side of quinoa..

My taco was made with 2 collard green leaves (they were small) with hummus, shredded carrot, zucchini, avocado, basil, black pepper, and basil-poppy seed dressing. Yummmmm!

I’m so grateful that today brought loads of sunshine. I’d like to sign off for the night leaving you with this awesome quote I read yesterday:

“”We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.””

— Abraham Lincoln