Digging Suburbia

mumbling and fumbling my way through backyard restoration

The Dutch are famous for hydrangeas

by

Got to be a fact. And if not, well, let’s make it one.

I’m perpetually amused by the flags feature on the blog. You can look and see where visitors are coming from. Hate to brag, buuuuut, I’m very big in United Arab Emirates and Ukraine.

 

Hello hacking community.

Welcome.

There is nothing for you here. Just a small-audience garden blog about a mildly-boring suburban family.

But since I have your attention, I have a favor. If you are into any state secrets, could you please encourage our president to stop acting crazy?

с благодарностью,

Holly

 

Take a look at this international beauty my mom brought me from her adventures in Holland:

The hydrangeas have just popped around here and I knew just what to do.

Pray the bitties would actually be gentle and not just promise to be gentle.

This vaguely cohesive post is brought to you by Welch’s fruit snacks. The fruit snack for the under-7 crowd.

I am quite pleased with the result. {Spoiler: the result is outside –> inside, as is the goal with all of my gardening endeavors, be they flowers or food. “HOW DO I GET THIS GOODNESS IN ME.” -Brian Regan}

Not too shabby. Whaddya think, Alexei?

You say potato

by

What exactly is happening here.

I’m trying to focus, stay in my lane, if you will…but it’s just so tricky.

It’s just too. much. cute.

Potato success. {Or potatoe success, for the over thirty crowd. Idahoe would be so proud.}

Haul.

This is a far better outcome than my initial attempt last year, in which the {likely} chipmunks ate my seed potatoes right out the dirt. Like they didn’t even care about the wellbeing of my family. Savages.

I dug three plants and that was a great amount for us to polish off in one evening. I made my friend Missy’s yumminess recipe for roasted rosemary lemon potatoes. I may have also baked some double chocolate cookies after the potatoes came out…hate to waste a hot oven.

If you want the potato recipe you’ll have to write to Missy who lives at…

{HA. Like that, Mis? That part where I almost gave out your personal deets to the internets… Ok, whatever. Not like the Russians don’t already know where she lives…she’s a Red Sox fan…}

A little olive oil, a little lemon juice, a little rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper in a 300 degree oven for a couple hours, and violà, you’ve got yourself a crispy delish.

Thank you, Missey.

Send your thank you notes to…

Step right up, step right up

by

Know what happened to those seeds in one week?

They grew.

They grew most mightily.

Just about everything has popped. And as long as we keep the news from Watership Down, we should be all good…no signs of any rabbits so far.

Someone was a little zealous with the cucumbers. I’m not going to name any names buuuuut her name starts with b and ends with itty G.

At least we’re all in. Committed to the cucumbers. We’re buying in bulk.

{Do you ever look in other people’s buggies at Costco? C’mon…admit it. I totally do. Cause, you know, if you’re buying it there…}

 

Some other things are also looking quite promising:

Some others we are still working on:

 

 

Weekend shenanigans

by

From where I sit I’m watching a robin get after something in one of my raised beds and I want to throw open the window and yell QUIT IT DON’T YOU TAKE MY WORMS. I’m just now getting that soil all healthy and look at wild kingdom trying to do its nature thing.

{If you’re reading this and wondering at the disdain in my heart for small woodland creatures just keep it to yourself mmmkay?}

Dare I add the docile robin to my ever growing list?

Mary Poppins would be scandalized.

I’m just saying…you should probably get onboard with suspicion of woodland creatures. Don’t you remember Gremlins?

Just about everything is in and planted now. Last weekend we had a regular barn-raising and drew help from four counties.

She’s exceptional at Latin. Very advanced.

Dad brought his country boy A-game.

And at no point did my sister run squealing from my request to plant something harmless. I consider this a profound personal failure and view the day as almost an entire loss. I’m not ready to talk about it.

In fact, the day was just sort of…well….pleasant. Is this what happens as children grow and begin to care for themselves?

What am I going to write about?? Oh wait, I know:

 

STOP, THIEF.

I can write reward ads for bandits.

WANTED!

Inconspicuous grandmother, multiple aliases include “Mimi,” “Meemster,” or sometimes “Mimi-pants”

Definitely armed. Be on the lookout–she’ll kill you with kindness.

Pronounces yellow “yella,” and pillow “pilla” and may sleep on a yella pilla

Reward: 10,000 gold doubloons or maybe she’ll just reward me with free babysitting

Hide your potatoes–she’s coming for ’em.

Somebody call the sheriff.

Kissy kissy

by

Yesterday was my husband’s birthday. {Happy birthday, schnuffie.}

{I don’t really call him that.}

{But you *totally* should the next time you see him. He’ll LOVE it, I promise.}

Anyway, my husband…he likes banana Laffy Taffy.

{Pause for gag reflex.}

Every year on his birthday our friend, let’s call her Aunt Diana {why? Because that’s her name}, buys him some of the super long ropey kind.

And every year I tell Aunt Diana we are no longer friends. You see, I detest the smell of artificial banana, and I’m sure you’ll have a hard time imagining this, but it would appear that Laffy Taffy is not made of the actual fruit it impersonates. So my husband consumes this bottom-of-the-convenience-store-barrel-desperation-candy and proceeds to smell like it and demonstrate that, apparently, he does not wish to be smooched on the mouth. This greatly pleases our daughters, who find mouth kissing repulsive, and who have to be reminded that {as babies} they used to allow our dog to kiss them on their very open-mouthed little baby faces.

{Ew, I have achieved a new level of gross out with that paragraph.}

So every year, on David’s birthday, I try to distract him from his newly acquired banana barf rope with his favorite meal! And some yummy dessert! And all our new gorgeous patio plants!

Weeeeeeeeeell, maybe that was more of a distraction for me…but yes, to celebrate David’s birthday, bitty G and I went to the nursery to pick us out some new babies.

{Tactless joke, right? Yeah, I thought so too.}

Hello my pretties.

Some kids grow up loitering, lollygagging, and idling the aisles of every Hancock fabric store within 50 miles, but not my kids…

Mine will grow up in the wild, untamed outdoors of the local nursery.

Oh, how quaint. I bet it’s infinitely less poisonous than banana Laffy Taffy.

 

Putting on her “glubs.” NOBODY CORRECT THIS.

I didn’t mean to plant almost everything after we got home yesterday…it just sort of happened.

Side note…last night I thought my purse felt a little heavy. Well, it was. Because bitty G had been sneaking rocks into it the whole time we were in the nursery. Those kind employees probably think I’m some sort of ground cover klepto. I so wish I had a picture of this, but I did not have the wherewithal to procure one once I figured out why my purse felt like a BAG OF ROCKS.

Last pic, my new favorite view {well, that’s not schnuffie or the bitties…}:

It’s pretty and all, but it’s no ground cover.

Hide yo wife, hide yo kids, hide yo ground cover…

 

Dig in!

Sign up to receive the monthly digest

Featured

Categories

Archives

This error message is only visible to WordPress admins

Error: No feed found.

Please go to the Instagram Feed settings page to create a feed.