backpacking

We went on a 15 mile backpacking trip this past weekend to Rattlesnake Arches in western Colorado. The desert canyon views were stellar. I felt like I was in another world.

homebrew video

Our friend Ted Burnham made this short video about home beer brewing. It stars none other than... us! I love the editing, especially the sound editing. But don't follow our steps exactly - we mistakenly put the malt extract in before steeping the grain. Oops!

first farmers' market of the year

Saturday marked the beginning of the farmers' market here in Boulder! As you can see, we brought Francois along for the adventure. This was his first ever bike trailer ride (at the precautiously slow speed of 4-8 mph). We didn't know what to expect but he did remarkably well. Still, I am going to keep my eye out for an enclosed kid trailer so that on future trips I can have a little more peace of mind that he won't bail on us.

Although the produce is still fairly limited, the weather was perfect for meandering the market aisles. We managed to pick up spinach, amaranth grain, blue corn flour, eggs, and cheese.

seedlings!

the ultimate gift of possibility

For our wedding back in September, our friends Pat and Fawn gave us an incredible gift - a well organized box of gardening seeds! We literally shrieked with glea when we opened it. Just think of all the possibility! Not to mention that the seeds came in a beautifully refinished box... The bittersweet part is that the seeds were from Pat and Fawn's gardening adventures in Illinois. They had to leave them behind because they expatriated to the Netherlands. Ah well, at least those glorious seeds filled with hope and potential are being put to use in our garden whilst eternally emitting warm fuzzy feelings...

planting

This past weekend we got our garden plot started. We started by loosening the soil using the double-dig method. We then amended the soil with the three bags (~9 cu. ft.) of compost that we picked up the previous weekend. Finally, we planted seeds for peas, radishes, arugula, lettuce, spinach, rainbow chard, broccoli, and mesclun (lettuce mix). In addition to all of those fresh plantings, we inherited a strawberry patch and a few onions in our plot! Thank you previous gardeners!

To get ready for summer planting, we started seeds indoors for tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, tomatillos, broccoli, basil, and other herbs.

Since we are new to gardening in the ground, we've needed to find good information from websites and books. The Boulder Culinary Gardeners' website has an excellent Boulder/Denver planting guide. We have read a few different gardening books as well, including How to Grow More Vegetables and Square Foot Gardening. I like the detail and explanations in How to Grow More Vegetables. What's your favorite gardening book or resource?

tool school!!

As part of Boulder's ReSource Tool Library, a Tool School has started up! They are offering interesting classes that cover things like how to build a cold frame, a top bar bee hive, an andirondack chair, a backyard pizza oven, and the list goes on. So if you've needed some structure and guidance to get those DIY projects of your dreams started, sign up for a class with this wonderful community organization!

bulk compost

Time to start prepping our community garden plot! Growing Gardens, the organization that manages Boulder's community gardening system, had a truck load of compost delivered to one of the the bigger community gardens in Boulder. They sold the compost by the wheel barrow. We ended up with 3 wheel barrows of compost which we bagged and hauled across town with an eGo carshare car. Did I mention how beautiful the weather was?

spaghetti and nutballs

Eric recently made really tasty nutballs for a vegetarian meatball sandwich. I had a craving for more except this time on top of spaghetti.

I went to work in the kitchen and I wrote down a recipe for what I did and everything but I have to say that Eric's nutballs were a lot tastier than mine. He made his nutballs with TVP (texturized vegetable protein), walnuts, bread crumbs, etc. I made mine with navy beans, peanuts, walnuts, bread crumbs, etc. My nutballs were crumbly and dry. His held together and and had a nice texture. Alas. I will not bother you with my recipe, just a nice picture. Oh, but I do want to say that fennel is key no matter what you do.

chocolate blueberry birthday cake

Mr. Eric is another quarter year older! He hit the big 6.75! (leap year baby) He's having a shared birthday party with a friend tonight so I made this chocolate blueberry cake. I used Susan's vegan chocolate cake recipe and added a layer of blueberry compote between the two layers of cake. Yum! Tonight is going to be so good!