Mad Cat Garden | June 2020

Our garden changed so much from the beginning of June to the end but it still seems, judging from other years, that many plants are a little behind in their development. We were able to eat lots of lettuces, peas, radishes, and kale at the beginning of the month, but by then end only some lettuces and kale and blueberries are ready to eat. There are many tomatoes and peppers growing but barely any were ripe by the end of June. We have been catching rain water to water plants with but for the long days of summer coming up the next few months, we might have to switch over to the hose.

The two new beds we put in a few months ago never really took off. The above picture is from the beginning of June, but little has changed. The tomatoes are bigger in the front bed and the zucchini in the back bed has blossoms now. The arugula in that bed went from shirmpy to bolting in a matter of a few hot days.

From the beginning of June to the end, our tomatoes and peppers have filled out and are producing fruit, but it’s not ripe, yet. Our spinach (below) had gone completely to seed and we are hoping to let those seeds develop and replant then in the fall. Same goes for our pea plants.

We harvested a few little cauliflowers from the bed shown above but the heat got to them as well. We will try these again for our fall crop. The radishes went to seed quickly in June and we are letting the seeds dry for replanting in the fall. This year will be a lot about seed saving and storage and experimentation.

Radish seed pod.

In the front yard, we planted soy beans which have grown and started flowering by the end of June. We planted potatoes next to them, which never grew (but I think they were too far gone by the time we planted them). Tomatoes and herbs are doing well in these beds.

Overall, all our tomato plants are smaller then they were last year, but it looks like sometime in July we will harvest a lot of those. Almost all our pepper plants, most of which were from seeds from last year, are small but doing well. In June we bought a few more herbs to fill out our herb bed. And as always, our pride of garden is our orange thyme plant, which has over wintered and grown steadily for three years now. I secretly hope it just takes over the whole front bed one day.

What did your garden look like in June? What changes from last year’s garden have you noticed?

Victory Gardens

Last month I posted about how many new gardens had cropped up around town. I’m not sure how many of these victory gardens were created from the desire to be more self sufficient, the fear of food shortage, from having more time to experiment, or from boredom of being at home most of the time. No matter the reason, it’s been a great pleasure to walk around our neighborhood and spot new gardens or check on the progress or others.

In the beginning of June, this garden, which has parts spread out all over a large yard was fairly small as seen here. I’ll have to try and capture a after pic for next month as this garden is now huge!

This property has a lot of raised beds inside a deer proof perimeter.

All lettuce.

This community style configuration of raised beds was spotted in a large apartment complex.

I’ve been watching this garden for a few years, as it’s just down the street from me. They got a late start this year, but now it’s really rolling.

Did you create a victory garden this year? It’s not too late if you are still considering it. Hopefully all the viriety of beds shown here can inspire you! Have you spotted any gardens on your walks?

Asbury Park Day Gift Guide | Father's Day

One of the many reasons we moved to Asbury Park NJ was bc of all the wonderful independent shops, restaurants, bars, and community projects. Our first xmas, I only gifted things I bought in town. Last month we talked about Mother’s Day in Lockdown. Cities and towns are now emerging from lockdown, but that doesn’t mean you have to rush to the mall or big box store for cool gifts.

When wanting or needing to purchase a gift, remember this offers the perfect opportunity to give loved ones the gift of your town. You support local community and are able to show your pride for where you live.

One of my go to gifts is always coffee.
Whether a gift certificate to someones favorite local coffee spot, whole beans, or ground, I love to give the gift of coffee. I buy my coffee form Asbury Park Roastery. The have two locations (it doesn't hurt that one is right by my house and the other one is beachfront) and a wide variety of blends and single origin roasts.  

Get Dad some cocktails to enjoy at home
NJ has allowed restaurants who sell alcohol to make and sell cocktails to take home. There are a lot of great places for that around Asbury Park. I love Grand Tavern, Talula’s and Barrio. All these have to go cocktails which can be kept in the fridge until gifting.

Go for a social distance walk
Like me, many people have not seen their families in a long time. Gifts are nice, but just being around loved ones is a gift at the moment. While we are still social distancing a simple walk could be a really good way to spend time together and feel like something special. We mostly want around our neighborhood, but the boardwalk is very crowded now, and might not be a comfortable place. A bigger local park might be better. Try checking out the Monmouth County Parks System. We also like to just go to a little park close to our house, David A Dahrouge Park

Buy from these shops, or go to these places, for a taste of Asbury Park and surrounding areas or use this guide as inspiration for your own city or town.

If you have some favorite spots for gift giving in AP or your home town, leave a comment below!

Mad Cat Garden | May 2020

Up until May, it felt like the landscape of our garden changed daily. In May , it feels like we have settled down a bit. While we are still adding features, plants, and debating even more, May was more a month for planting and growing. And best of all, for our first harvests!

Right at the beginning of the month we got a dirt delivery and in our style put it on the front lawn. I highly recommend anyone with the space, who is building a garden of any kind, to have dirt delivered. The delivery fee often seems high, but the lack of plastic, not having to go to any big box stores, and that you can know where the dirt comes from is totally worth it. We really struggled with getting bags of dirt for many reason, so this is a great alternative. And you are supporting local businesses not corporations!!

I’ve never put the garden in a before and after picture here, side by side. I thought that would be great for this post, since so much has changed from the beginning of May to the end.

In the first picture above, our first backyard bed was just planted with tomatoes and peas at the start of May. Towards the end we have moved some things around, added flowers for pollinators, our peas are blossoming, and everything has grown. You can see in the second pic above that we have a new bed that we made at the end of April and filled with our dirt delivery. We made this bed form a cabinet that was in our basement when we bought the house.

In the two pictures above, we have our “lettuce bed” when we first planted it with baby plants from a local market, our over wintered spinach and red onion. Next we have it really filling out, with more lettuce to replace those the squirrels ate.

We continually seed our “radish bed” so that we have radishes growing in all stages. We put some potatoes in that bed and purple cauliflower as well. Our raspberries live right next door and they have grown tons over the month. I’m unconvinced if we will get berries. I’m pretty sure the birds and squirrels will eat them before we do, if berries arrive.

Another addition we made in late April was to add a little bed for just flowers. We repurposed an old drawer (which we had previously urban foraged as a shelf), and put any and all wild flower seeds we had in it. This year we are concentrating on using up old seeds which may or may not be viable. By the end of May, quite a few of the seeds had come up.

No before pics of the front beds this time. In the original front bed, the orange thyme is going bananas, we’ve put tomatoes bc they do so well there, flowers for pollinators, and a flower that we planted last year is coming back up. The herb bed, below, has new basil from the local market and we planted a bunch of herb seeds. We are waiting to see if they come up.

We added another bed in the front as well, but haven’t planted anything in it by the end of May. Now we have 3 beds plus a few pots in the front yard. We have 9 beds in the back (two of which are blueberries and one for wildflowers). We have many many pots in the back yards as well as a place for raspberries. In June we hope to plant and tend but I don’t think we will add more beds. We have other projects planned, tho!

In May we ate herbs, radishes, lettuce, kale, snap peas, and spinach, from the garden. The bluebs are bluing and there are many so we are hoping to eat some soon. There are blossoms on the tomatoes and almost blooms on the peppers. We are sooo excited to eat more in June.

Are you keeping a garden this year? What style do you have (raised bed, in the ground, container, windowsill)?

May Plant Update

May was another great month for plant observations in and around our neighborhood. Mostly I only want to look at flowers! We have seen so many iris variations this spring so far! We’ve also seen some fantastic evening vistas. We observed some critters (goslings!, baby starlings! bunnies!), some beaches, and some fields but we stayed home mostly and enjoyed our near surroundings in this month.

Someone’s amazing lavender plant.

All yellow.

All purple (from our yard).

Golden light!

Gorgeous pine bow.

The light and color of this plantain is amazing. Even the chip bag.

I love finding beautiful ground cover…

…but I don’t know what any of them are.

This is our orange thyme which has been growing for years and makes these little purple blossoms.

The color on this unknown bush is stunning!

Like a firework.

Crane on Sunset Lake.

This poor catbird dashed itself on our front window. My husband went to help it, but it was already breathing it’s last breath. We mourned for it and buried it in the back yard. No catbirds came to our house for a week. Now they are retuning.

Are you still isolating at home? Maybe your sequestered some where not your home? What have your plant observations been for May?

May in Review

Phew, is every month is 2020 just gonna be a whole new rollercoaster, or what?

I went back to work this month and my husband continues to work from home. So it May we had to make adjustments to our schedule about how things get done around the house and when we take our evening walks, etc.. We were still able to tend the garden and eat well at home.

We have been trying to support local restaurants by eating out occasionally, but mostly we eat at home. In May we were able to start eating from the garden! Radishes and lettuces were our first harvests, but we were able to try snap peas and kale and a few other things as well.

Adjusting to a new work life has been interesting, but I feel that my work is doing a really good job at trying to keep the public and it’s employees safe where possible. We wear masks and gloves and work in teams. It’s hard to get used to taking these precautions, especially when you see so many people walking around as if nothing is happening. But to me it feels good to know I am thinking of others as well as myself. And it makes me feel as if I’m living in a not too distant sci fi future. Which I guess I am.

#watchercats were plentiful this month and it’s hard not to pet them when they let you! But to protect them I have to restrain.

Once again, this month I have to give thanks that my family and friends are safe and well. That no one I know has been in mortal danger bc of a virus of or the police. I have to give thanks that my community supports it’s members regardless of the color, race or creed and that I am part of that. I hope that your community provides the same for you and the world can realize that as well.

May was full of many things. June might be even more jam packed.

Something Nice

Two very different bird’s nests both using quite a bit of found plastic.

Mad Cat Garden | April 2020

Spring is here and the garden is booming. OK, well not booming yet, but it feels like it after so many months of dormancy. We are making plans for even more beds, and the layout of the garden changes almost weekly right now. Always giving up a bit more grassy space to more food making space. Adding some touches here and there to make the garden functional but also beautiful. We feel incredibly lucky that we have the space and now time to make more of an effort in the garden.

Tom has always like to go out in the back yard, but he likes it now that the weather is warmer. He even went after a squirrel or two in April. Quite the feat for an old man of 16 years. We watch him closely, and he never put the animal at risk.

For most of April just about all the blueberry bushes had not only leaves but many bell shaped flowers on them as well. The are still filling out, but bees and bugs have started visiting regularly.

We’ve seen a lot of early azaleas in the neighborhood, but ours have only shown the slightest movement all through the beginning of April.

Our raspberry bushes are taking off this year! We didn’t cut them back, but we have seen a lot of growth and new plants shooting up. We have cauliflower, radishes, carrots and one potato in this bed by the raspberries.

Our lettuce bed took a bit of a beating from squirrels who were having a grand salad, but by the end of April, everything was back on track. We planted peas in beds and in pots, and by the end of the month we had some tomatoes in these beds as well. A lot of what we plant is still trial and error. We gathered buckets and have been trying to start things from seeds in some.

This shelf came with the house and was downstairs unused for years, so my husband modified it this month to be a new bed. We will purchase a few yards of dirt from a local landscaper to fill it and all the others we have planned.

Our friend gifted us a rain barrel she wasn’t using at the end of last year and we finally got it up and working. It collects water from the gutters and we repurpose our Dr Bronners and vinegar jugs to carry water. When the barrel is full or when we know it will rain, we fill all the jugs to make room for more rain.

Not too much happened in the front beds. The mint and catnip are starting to really take off. Other than that, they are waiting to get tomatoes and more veg.

Seeds are still growing up in our guest room. My husband is diligently taking them outside to harden off on nice days.

So many things changed in April from the beginning and the end, perhaps the most of any garden report. Is it the same for you?

Asbury Park Gift Guide | Mother's Day in Lockdown

I’ve always wanted to do a gift guide for Asbury Park. My town has so many neat places to visit, cool shops, and great restaurants. I love to promote it. But something about promoting retail didn’t quite ring right with my blog. Once quarentine started I realized that this gift guide wasn’t promoting retail as much as it was promoting small business and community. That’s just right for this space!

This year is going to be a weird one for gift giving, but that’s all the more reason to put some mindfulness into it, instead of just picking something up from a big corporate shop. This gift guide is cutting it a little close but in a year like this, a belated gift is fine and welcome, I’m sure! Here are a few things that are great ideas if you live in or near Asbury Park.

Get flowers delivered (or to deliver) from local purveyors.
Meaberrie Market has amazing flowers, dinner, sweets, and specials every day they are open and for mother’s day.
BluebellNJ sells flowers, candles, dried bouquets and flower art.
AP Greenery’s site is still saying they have normal hours, but their instagram has more info. They have awesome floral arrangements and plants.

Since mom can’t go to her favorite Asbury Park spots, give her a keep sake from them.
Who knows when concerts will come back? In the meantime, get mom some Stone Pony merch. (Or is she’s more a foodie, try the Scone Pony. )
We love Silverball Pinball Museum and they are open for take away pizza, and have mugs, tshirts and more available to help support them through this time.
Rebel Supply is selling merch, mystery packs of vintage clothing, and selling masks. The store has got to stay closed but pick ups and delivery is available.

Now that many restaurants are back open for take out, get her a meal, or give her a gift card for pick up or delivery or to use after restaurants have reopened for guests.
Some of my favorites are Franks Deli (great for sub sandwhiches and the best local cheesecake!!), I hear The Galley Pizza has great cheesesteaks, we are super excited that Ada’s Gojjo reopened for takeaway (my attempt at injera was a bust, so I’ll be happy to eat some authentic Ethiopian food again!), and of course Talula’s has pizza, provisions, cocktail kits, merch and more!

I’m sure you can find similar things near where you live, also! Use this guide as inspiration for your own city or town. There’s so much more I could have listed. If you want to see more small business guides, please let me know!

This mother’s day I probably won’t see my mother. I haven’t seen her since the beginning of March. I hope we can be reunited soon. And I you are reunited with your loved ones soon as well!

April Plant Update

Oh my goodness, being home and taking a walk everyday coupled with the fact that we had an early spring in March, made this April one heck of a month for plant observations. I literally had hundreds of photos to go through.

A carpet of magnolia petals.

A blurry yard bouquet.

Sun thru daffodils.

What kind of pine is this? I love the adorable cones!

Our Japanese maple just waking up for the year.

So many early azaleas!

Our monstera much prefers this spot to where it used to be.

This was some perfect morning golden hour light.

A very good holly tree.

I’ve been taking stump portraits.

Cannot resist cherry blossoms. Ever.

Lake views.

I have to crop these bushes, but at the moment they are bright and beautiful.

We’re trying to tame this grandma rose bush to go a different direction.

Love this neighbor’s cacti.

What is this ground cover? it is magical.

Perfectly rain soaked tulip.

The lilacs have been early, but i’m always happy to see them!

Apple blossoms?

We had some kale that bolted. When we put it in the compost bin, it flowered!!

I could have added so many more photos to this post! What were your plant observations in April?

2020 Goals | April Recap and May Goals

I would have thought that an entire month of quaretining would have gone by slowly. Not because there was nothing to do (I’m a firm believer that people who are boared are not paying attention), but bc I finally got to live the slow life style I’ve been craving. But April flew by and left me only wanting more time and more of the same. Although this month I thought I would have plenty of time to achieve all the monthly goals I set, the month still got a way from me in that department.

Learn some and do some yoga
I’ve been putting this off, but now’s the perfect time to make some progress.
This was my most ambicious goal and the one I totally failed. I should have known.

Finish some art and illustration
I’ve been enjoying @carsonellis ‘s daily quarantine art prompts and #transmundanetuesdays but haven’t actually done any yet. I want to finish my cross stitch. Many more projects I can think of!
I did do some art this month, not a ton, and I didn’t completely finish some of the things I wanted to, but progress was made. I’ll call this a partial win.

Read 3 books
I’m really trying to get off the computer and the phone and do more of the things I love.
Totally nailed this one.

Be mindful of the garden
I’m not a stellar gardener. I’d like to learn to be better at it.
I’d say I did ok with this goal.

Continue to improve my health
Eating well, cooking, finding new low waste alternatives, and home remedies are key at this time and I want to continue this journey in a purposeful way.
Eh, not much was done on this goal, but I was more mindful of it.

On to May:

Do not over work/take your days-off off.
Having not to go to work for six weeks, was some of the most relaxing and rewarding time of my adult life. I want to make sure I carry some of that feeling over while my work schedule is still sparse.

Remember all your goals/the things you liked about lockdown/isolation.
I really want to make sure that I keep up with habits and routines I had over those six weeks. It was a good lesson in what’s important and what needs to remain priority.

Keep sourdough starter alive.
I’m doing so far so good on a once daily feeding.

Walk every day.
Gotta keep it up.

Tackle one big project.
In the beginning of April I had high hopes to get some projects done. This month, I want to make sure to do at least one of them.

What are your May goals?

Victory Gardens

One of our new favorite things to do on our nightly walks is to spot all the victory gardens cropping up everywhere. We always liked to see when and what and where people were planting but it has taken on a new meaning and a new sense of pride. I’m always happy to see people turning to a new avenue of sustainability even if it’s one that’s actually ancient.

I have a chip on my shoulder about beds in front yards, I love them!!

The bucket method.

All strawbs lining both sides of the drive.

Such a great use of limited space!

Very elaborate set up!

Simple and using reclaimed materials.

All you need is a little space. Sometimes just a very little space.

Have you started you victory Garden yet? Have you seen them cropping up where you live?

April in Review

In many ways, April might have been one of the best months for me, ever. I am so extremely lucky and grateful that my family and extended family are well and safe. For me staying home is a blessing and a privilege and a glimpse into a better life more aligned with my priorities.

That being said, this was still a month of fear, uncertainty and anxiety as well and my heart goes out to each and every person affected now (so everyone on Earth).

1) Early apple blossoms 2) Homemade zero waste citrus marmalade 3) Corn bread, honey and butter from an expired bread mix 4) Dogwood.

1) Deal Lake Drive #watchercat 2) Kitty in high contrast 3) In greens and black 4) Porch cat

1) Night heron out a little early 2) Matte black!! (#myfavoritetrucksofasburypark) 3) Sunset 4) Vanished

1) Restricted area 2) Evening light through daffodils 3) Fire side 4) Sleeping late

April, you were a surprise.
May, welcome to the new world.

Something Nice: Presents from Friends in Lockdown

We have some wonderful friends who Summer in Asbury Park. Due to the state of the world, they are here early. The other day they left on our porch a gift of seeds, homemade jam and preserved lemons.

Mad Cat Garden | March 2020

A lot went on in the garden in March. The early Spring was definitely showing. We did a lot of work in the garden, but nature was really doing the harder tasks.

The blueberries are all budding out to various degrees. We have 7 bushes now and they vary from early fruit bearers to late. Our first group, now several years old, are looking fantastic now. The middle group, looking a bit ratty. The last group, only a year or so old, look so so. It’s early to tell what they will all end up like and since we’ve long forgotten which plant is which, we just have to wait for fruit.

We started seeds inside this month with varying success. Some are still working in the dirt, other popped up seedlings right away! We have limited space inside suitable for seed starting, so we are planning on doing it in waves. Right now, based on what seeds sprouted, we will have a good pea crop!

We also have our small jackfruit forrest in increasingly larger pots. We are excited for it to be warm enough for them to go outside on a more regular basis. In March, we took them out for sun sun on warm days.

Outside, we took some time to clean flower beds, divide and repot some of our decorative plants, checking on what’s growing in the herb pots, and turn and refresh the veggie beds.

There were a few items that we left in certain beds. We have an orange sage plant that is going strong and we basically just leave alone. Our spinach from last year is still producing (don’t mind the arugula spike). We want to leave it and see how it goes. We also transplanted an overgrown kitchen onion that has been in a bed since last Summer.

Next, we got to planting! We love to support local farm markets by buying their baby veg. Right before we went into lock down, we made sure to buy up some items as we weren’t sure if farm markets would be open. As of writing this, the farm markets and farms are considered essential so we look forward to braving out for more plants in April. Hooray!

We planted about 1 and 1/2 beds with the veg we bought, leaving room for tomatoes, peppers, and our seeds once they were ready to plant. We also planted some veg in pots to see how they would fair. We planted one bed with all herbs as well. In the past, we have kept our herbs in pots, but are hoping to get a longer season from them this year, so are trying them out in beds.

One thing we love to do on our daily walks is keep an eye out for other gardens in the neighborhood. Look at these beautiful raised beds in Loch Arbor! Checking out our fellow gardeners is great for inspiration. We also love to see who has their gardens in the front yard, as we get some side eye for keeping beds in the front. We are very much of the food not lawns mentality, tho, so we don’t mind having to explain that.

The last few days of March were spent tending to our new plants in the garden and seedlings in the house. It’s been rainy and grey, so we are hoping they all get enough sun to grow big and strong!

What was your garden like in March?

March Plant Update

March was amazing for flowers, plants, greenery, buds, seedlings, critters, colors and getting out and about. Thank goodness that groundhog didn’t see his shadow this year, bc I think we all needed the early Spring. I know I did. It is always astonishing to me that just seeing the blooming magnolias makes me SO. MUCH. HAPPIER.

Here they are.

Whoever was the genious that planted this sidewalk bump out in AsBury Park with hundreds of daffodils?

Loved this color combo this month. In Sea Girt.

And in Asbury Park…

…twice.

These chicks and hens are from my former landlady in BK. This year I finally decided to divide them as she used to do.

We haven’t done the big houseplant replant, replenishing of soil yet, but these few needed new pots ASAP.

Happy by the window.

Houseplant tableau in greens.

New monstra leaf.

Less new, but still good.

A day with the birds.

One side of a sunset….

… and the other.

Evening walks with Magritte light.

We had plenty of cold and rainy days in March, plenty of grey days. But the warmer weather and brighter skies made up for all of them. What a pleasure that long walks are not only allowed but encouraged while self isolating (as long as they are on your own or with your partner/person/child/parent/etc… only!). What a pleasure that it is Spring here.

Are you observing Spring where you live?

Something Nice

Seeing a favorite number in various places.

Plus a bonus: Hitchhikker’s Guide to the Galaxy bumper sticker!!!

Mad Cat Garden | February

February saw little action in the garden, but lucky for us, the groundhog predicted an early spring!! We have seen some buds springing up and the days started getting longer and warmer. Our blueberry bushes all started showing early signs of growth.

This wild kitchen onion I planted seems to be doing really well. I’m excited to plant more if I have onions past their prime, and to try it with potatoes too. I don’t know the appropriate time to dig this fella up to see how oniony it has gotten, but we will eventually need to move it, I think.

Our compost has been too cold to turn, but I’m hoping in the coming months we can turn it and utilize some of the good earth it’s produced for our beds.

Next to the compost, someone has been using this little throughway.

Feb was still too chilly for fires, but I’m hoping in the early spring we can get out to arrange the wood pile and have a few.

Most of our early propagated plants died inside. But our jackfruit is going strong!

As expected, February didn’t see too much movement in the garden. March might be a totally different story. What did your winter garden look like?

Something Nice: Found Skull

A neighborhood street in Asbury Park, NJ, is not where I usually expect to find a cat skull. But a few months ago, walking for breakfast, that is exactly what we found.

Life Lately - Winter in Asbury Park

Winer is a hard time for me no matter where I am. Being in a beach town certainly eases that burden a bit. But only if I take advantage of it.

Here are sone things I love about life in the winter.
Fog.
Winter light on the beach.
Grapefruit.
Making time for friends, even if you have time for little else.
Cozy naps with cats.

I took an unexpected break from the blog this month. I needed it even though I didn’t know I needed it. I’m hoping that the break gave me a rest and I will come back renewed. This blog is something helps me to get thru Winter as well.

Have you taken a break this Winter? What have you done to recharge?