If you asked me what a perfect day would look like, yesterday was certainly it.
My day started off with a 3 mile run followed by some core work, push-ups, and at-home yoga. I didn’t have much time, but I cranked out this well-rounded workout in 40 minutes.
After showering and breakfast, Eric and I headed to the always fun Aberfoyle Antique market. It was supposed to rain all day, but it held off all morning. I love pleasant surprises with the forecast.
This antique market is huge and it has some great finds. Tons of gorgeous hand-crafted furniture, that is out of our budget right now!
I was on the hunt for photography props and I came home with a bag full. :)
I got a bag of things for just $20!
We ran some errands after that- Home Depot & Home Hardware for a couple tools for Eric and Whole Foods for groceries, lunch, and organic gardening seeds.
I had basically every vegan protein salad from Whole Foods that I could cram into my box. It was wonderful!
Non-tripod, shaky-hand, fuzzy pictures ensued. ;)
Eric had a tomato & cheese pizza pie. It looked a bit weak to me!
Mentionable purchases from Whole Foods:
- Dried Mango (yessssss)
- Live granola (will be making this on the blog soon)
- Organic kale
- Frozen pitted sour cherries (they don’t have frozen sweet cherries…why?)
- Epsom salts
- purple garlic
- 360 Woven wheat crackers
- Full of Fruit Coconut Popsicles
- Mason D’Orphee organic delicate EVOO
After that we hit up another nursery to finish getting the plants & pots I needed. The kale and such are not ‘certified organic’, but I was told the local grower doesn’t use pesticides.
On the way home, the sun came out to reveal a beautiful, warm day! What a great long weekend this has turned out to be.
And then it was time to plant the veggie garden…it was G-day or bust.
I got my trusty garden plan that I drew out after consulting Wiki’s info on Companion Planting. I tried to plant everything near other companion plants so they would have the best chance of surviving my black thumb!!
My plan is all mucked up right now, but I hope to re-draw it and post it on the blog soon.
Thanks to Karly, I had these wonderful stakes to use!
The first thing I did was set the plants and bags of seeds directly onto the soil so I could visualize where everything was going to be on the two beds.
I previously looked up the spacing requirements for each plant, so after I did this I got a ruler and roughly measured the spacing for each. It took me so much longer than I anticipated to lay everything out.
At this point, our lovely neighbours came over and gave us a big barrel of local Mushroom compost! I moved the plants off, added some in, and then tilled the soil to mix it in.
They also gave us that curly pole that we will use for our tomato plant. Apparently you can buy these at Dollarstore for much cheaper than Home Depot.
We had lots of triple mix leftover which was a great thing because we needed it for the potted plants.
Initially, we were going to put the 3 tomato plants in the beds, but we ran out of room (thanks to my little kale obsession). We moved the pots to a sunny area by the other side of the house.
I checked and double checked my plan and tried to squeeze everything in! We had to place a few things closer together than we wanted to, but I’m sure it will work out just fine…or not.
Do not be fooled by my smile, I have no idea what I’m doing!!
Here’s what I planted in the 2 beds:
- Carrots (seed)
- beets (seed)
- peas (seed)
- Scallion (seed)
- 3 bell pepper plants
- 1 banana pepper plant
- 2 Spanish onion plants
- 1 red onion plant
- 20 kale plants
- 10 romaine plants
- 12 spinach plants
- 4 sugar snap pea plants
- a few garlic cloves
Do you think I will kill everything? I sure hope not!
Last night we had a brief thunderstorm and pouring rain and I sat up in bed and said, ‘MY POOR PLANTS!’
I checked on them first thing this morning, and they survived. ;)
Herbs!
In pots:
- 2 Beefsteak tomato plants
- 1 roma tomato plant
- Curley parsley
- flat parsley
- Mint
- Rosemary
- Dill
- Basil (need to get another pot first!)
I’m actually worried that these pots won’t be big enough for the herbs! What do you think?
The gardening took a solid 3 hours with a couple what-have-i-gotten-myself-into moments. ;)
I also planted these Lilies in the front garden that were birthday gifts from Eric.
Eric and the guys also finished the entire base of the deck on Saturday.
I’m so impressed! There are 3 sets of stairs and all the railings left. Still lots of work yet, but it is coming along wonderfully.
Around 8pm, we finally came in famished for dinner. I had no idea what to make, so I decided to just throw a bunch of things in a skillet and see where it took me. :) The best kind of meal, I say.
Appetizer was roasted red pepper hummus and Baked Woven thins (just whole wheat and salt as the ingredients).
The first thing I did was cook a grain because that takes the longest. I cooked up about 3/4 cup of speltberries on the stovetop.
Based on what I had in my kitchen, I decided to make a Speltberry chickpea veggie stirfry, infused with lemon, Thyme, and Rosemary.
Check out the fun shot we got using the GOLD reflector disc. Eric held the gold disc to reflect the sun and it made for a cool picture in an otherwise dark kitchen.
I didn’t measure anything, so the recipe below is a rough estimate of what I made.
[print_this]
Easy Speltberry Chickpea Veggie Stir-fry
Yield: 2-3 servings
Ingredients: (only rough measurements!)
- 3/4 cup raw speltberries
- 1 small can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 1 sweet onion
- 2 large garlic cloves
- extra virgin olive oil, for sautéing
- 1 red pepper
- 1 orange pepper
- 1 chopped carrot
- 3 handfuls spinach
- Juice of half a lemon
- 1 tsp dried Thyme
- 1 tbsp fresh finely chopped rosemary
- Herbamare, kosher salt, black pepper, all to taste
Directions:
1. Cook speltberries in a pot of water for about 25-30 minutes until tender, but still chewy.
2. Meanwhile, sauté the chopped onion and garlic in a a large skillet with some oil for several minutes on low-medium.
3. Now add in the chopped peppers and carrot and saute for another 5-7 minutes on low. Add in the lemon juice, Thyme, and rosemary and stir well.
4. Stir in the spinach and sauté until wilted. Now season to taste using salt, pepper, and optional Herbamare.
5. Stir in drained and rinsed chickpeas and cooked speltberries. Heat through and serve immediately. Season to taste. Makes 2-3 servings.
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In under 30 minutes, I had whipped up a great meal. I wasn’t expecting much from this, but we both loved it. The lemon, Thyme, and rosemary combo was lovely.
On today’s agenda, we have more yard work to accomplish (I still need to weed the front and back flower beds) and we’re going to put some chicken wire around the garden beds so all our cute little bunnies around here don’t eat all my KALE!! Luckily, it looks like the weather will hold up again today. Tonight, we have a BBQ with a few friends to end the long weekend. It should be a good one.
If you are enjoying the holiday Monday, Happy Victoria Day to you!
Your garden looks pretty spectacular so far! We’re planning on starting a garden soon and I was wondering what kind of soil / fertilizer you use. I wanted something animal-friendly and my Mom was wondering whether or not it would be ok to use manure in it. I wasn’t sure so I thought maybe you would know a bit more about soils and that sort of thing.
We used an orgaic triple mix from Van Beek’s in Oakville
The best fertilizer comes from animals: rabbits poop, chicken poop, cow/horse poop. I have a rabbit and put it straight into the soil!
Seaweed fertilizer is also good.
I don’t think you will kill a thing! I’d be more concerned about the critters that may come out from your lush forest in the background ;)
Looks like a fabulous weekend!…and this post has me craving a trip to the Whole Foods hot bar!
These pictures are gorgeous! It looks like you had an amazing day! I love going to markets just to look even if I know I wont be buying much. I just started a tiny garden on the edge of one of our beds in our backyard. I’m so excited! I really hope it turns out well.
Any tips for a gardening beginner? :)
My darling you did so well on your first planting trip!! I only wish I had a backyard (versus a balcony) so that I could plant my own. I guess this just means I need to be very discerning when choosing my plants haha.
Btw – where did you purchase the Kale plant? I have fallen in love with kale but had no idea I could grow it myself. Again – small space means I need to be picky about what I grow.
I figured I’d do two balcony boxes of flowers, some herbs (mint, oregano and basil methinks), two low boxes of ferns (like a hosta for greenery) and another few large containers with lettuce (they have a 3 lettuce blend at Loblaw’s but now I may need to go Kale!) and some strawberries.
For any gardeners reading this, please let me know if I’m going about this the wrong way. And for you, darling, your garden will be fine! Just be sure to water and fertilize appropriately. :) I can’t wait to see how awesome your garden will look in but a few week’s time!
Hey there… I saw GINORMOUS bags of dried mango at Costco. Just thought I’d let you know!
What amazing progress you’re making with the garden! I love how much kale you planted…tons of new recipes this summer, I hope? I honestly wished I lived closer to Oakville to have access to Whole Foods. I absolutely love it and need an excuse to be over that way more (grandparents live there…maybe I should visit more frequently lol). I’ve never cooked with spelt berries, but they look mighty enticing. I love the randomness of just throwing together some items that you have – you’re right, they honestly make the best meals!
I loved the weekend! The weather was beautiful! I wish I had a garden to plan (even if I also have no idea what I’m doing)! Great finds at the antique stoer!
wow this garden sure was thought out well!! :) can’t wait to see is flourish!
This sure does sound like the perfect day! Your garden looks great. I had herbs in pots, and they all died. I was told that the pots were too small, so you’d better keep an eye on yours! Then again, I don’t have a green thumb, and I manage to kill all plants. Probably even fake plants.
This looks like such a fabulous day, I love antiques and Whole Foods and great weather! And you look great in your photos, you definitely could pass as a gardening pro!
That does sound like a perfect day!! I love when your expecting rain and it doesn’t come! I bett when your garden is in full bloom you’ll be loving it!
O my, that salad looks amazing!
I know that this might not be proper, but I am very desperate and I just am needing to reach out to the blogging community. Please read this blog-the second issue addressed-to understand. http://divinelyvegan.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/very-important-post-help-needed/
what a great day! i absolutely love the old school antique mixer :) and i’m seriously very addicted to dried mango!
WOW! Your garden looks great! Can’t wait to see the results of your hard work!
Ooooh I wish I had a garden after seeing your lovely pics, the antique market also looks very interesting.. looks like you had a great weekend :))
I love your obsession with kale. I also am overly fond of kale. I can’t wait to get barrels of it from my farm share! :D
You’re killing me with the gardening posts! I can’t plant anything until I move into my new house in about 3 weeks and I all I want to do is garden!! I always plant things much closer together than they say to, and it has always worked out just fine for me! And I have found that tomatoes do much better in pots, because you can move them to the sunniest spots and they are easier to cover when the nighttime temps dip below their preferred heat.
The deck looks awesome too!
What stunning photos! Looks like a weekend full of healthy doings, inside and out!
Wow – you two have been very busy!! I can’t wait to see how your garden comes along in the weeks ahead! I only have room for some potted herbs, which I also did yesterday! I got a bunch of cute pots from the dollar store, but I’m afraid they might be too small as well! I guess that’s a good thing if our green thumbs let our plants flourish :-)
Have a great holiday Monday!!