Plum Stitches

the great gardening experiment

 It's that time of year again.  Things start to bloom in our back garden.  Before you know it I'm once again obsessed with trying to get various grounds covers to grow between the flagstones in our backyard.  This year, I'm determined to master this task!

I made a trip to The Farm at Green Village and bought Corsican Mint, Mazus, Wooly Thyme and a few others to try out.  I love the Corsican Mint - it spells fabulous and stepping on it just enhances the smell.  The Mazus, I picked based on here and this Web site was really helpful. 

In addition to the stones, I'm also attempting a more aggressive approach this summer to planting in the crevices of the walls of our raised beds.  I've been plucking and placing Hens and Chicks as well as several mini-Sedum plants for days now.

Hopefully (sigh) all of this fretting about what will grow pays off.

This little guy arrived in Chloe's Easter basket, all the way from Target.  She's been moving him around the garden, chatting away to him about who knows what...

 

This Columbine seeded itself right into the rock wall.  I wasn't sure last year if it would actually thrive, but it's blooming!  And several other plants have sprung up around the beds.

I call all of this 'the great gardening experiment.'  I really have no idea what I'm doing.  When I moved into my first place in New York, what drew me to it most was a back deck almost the size of the studio.  I preceeded to go nuts buying plants for it.  Some survivied, some didn't.  I suppose once I figure all of this out we'll be ready to sell and move to another house.  By that point I'll at least have a bit of experience under my belt.

holy smokes it feels like summer!

This weather is a little crazy, personally I prefer the ease into summer with a nice spring of temperatures in the 60's and 70's.  Not sure we'll get that this year.  We spent the weekend helping to open the beach house.  Yesterday the beach looked like it does mid-week during the summer.  Although there were only a few braves soles that actually went in the frigid water (Sadie was not one of them).  The good news this time of year is that Sadie can join us at the beach.  After May 15th she's stuck at the house until mid- September.

I had big plans to finish knitting this little garter stitch sweater that has become the thorn in my side.  It feels like I'll never finish it!  But, the good news is the house is open, we're planning to build a raised bed garden in the back yard and, well that's about it at the moment.

We did managed to squeeze in a trip to Costco over the weekend.  If you're not  familiar with a trip to Costco, it goes something like this;  you head in there thinking you don't need much and the next thing you know you've blown your budget.  On what  exactly, you're not too sure.  The big find this weekend though was Lucky Jeans for $29.  Not bad.

easter bunny laid an egg

I'm late with this post - last week just got away from me.  We had a small egg hunt in our back garden on Easter morning.  Chloe woke up early - 5am (ouch), in anticipation of the Easter bunny hiding eggs and gifts in the garden.  It's amazing to watch how she's evolved and actually understands the concept, even if it is fantasy!

I made the cakes for Easter dinner.  One with marzipan carrots, which were so easy to make.  Check out here for directions.  Then, I made up the bird's nest for the other cake based on these cupcakes.  I ran out of time and wasn't able to pipe the blue birds.

 

Alameda Flea Market

Another fun day while I was in San Francisco was a trip to the Alameda Flea Market.  (Thanks for thinking of me Heather!)  In all the years I lived out there, I always wanted to go, but never made it. 

The market falls on the first Sunday of every month - it's huge!  I guess I'm not that experienced as far as these things go.  We wandered around, without any real agenda, which can make the whole experience a little overwhelming. 

The food vendors were great - we settled on crepes.  Delicious, unfortunately we only got one sweet crepe (lemon, sugar butter) to split between the three of us for dessert, which we quickly gobbled down.  The line was too long to wait in again for another one, major bummer.  I feel like Homer Simpson, I'm still dreaming of it. 

My favorite vendor, by far was Euro Linens.  A couple, who import European linens and then re-purpose them for pillows and other home decor items.  They had lots of gorgeous old nightgowns, bed linens, etc.  All of their products looked fabulous - unfortunately, their Web site and eBay store, just don't do them justice. 


They had two bins of linens - one was full of tablecloths, pillowcases, etc. for $5 a piece.  The other was loaded with scarves for $1 a piece.  After seeing this on the Purl Bee, I was on the hunt for vintage pillowcases to make a dress for Chloe. 


And then there were those vendors that you wonder how they end up collecting certain things.  Maybe they're just accidental collectors?

All in all a fun day - only wish I was closer so I could go again in May!

travels

It was so nice to get away.  The weather was unusually warm - more like fall in San Francisco than April.  No fog, which was what I anticipated.  The kind of weather that you feel guilty not getting out of bed to enjoy.

I managed to do everything I wanted, with the exception of making a trip to Tartine Bakery.  I love the cookbook and have never been to their shop.  I do wish I had more time to visit with friends, but that's how it goes.

We spent a few hours one day in Hayes Valley.  Although this neighborhood was hip when I lived out there, since they took down the freeway ramp, it's really opened up.  A few favorite shops were Fiddlesticks and Lavish, which I just noticed on their sites are sister shops, so no wonder I liked both.  We stumbled upon  Lotus Bleu, a very cool home decor store.  I'm not sure if all of their furniture is reupolstered and refinished  vintage, with great fabrics.   They had these adorable felted birds in the window that weren't for sale, but the person working there told me they came from Wisteria and were about $15 for three.  Check them out, I can't seem to figure out how to buy them, but maybe I'm just being dense.

Saturday morning was spent at the Farmer's Market at the Ferry building.  They've done such an amazing job with this.  I can remember having a temp job years ago when I first moved to SF and the office was in the ferry building.  I think it was considered low rent at the time.  My guess is that is no longer the case, but you never know.  All the flowers were gorgeous.  If only I could have brought them home.  I'll save more from the trip for later this week, so I don't bore anyone!

flowers, flowers, flowers

I'm back on the East Coast.  Had a fabulous time catching up with lots of old friends (and meeting some new ones), eating, drinking and site seeing (sort of).  I couldn't have asked for better weather - gorgeous the entire time with no rain or fog.  Seriously. I have much more to share, but I just loved this picture and couldn't wait to post.