[[90F, 75 dew point by: WontonBrutality]]

Scratch that, 80 dew point. I was going to poach some eggs for lunch and even that sounded like too much added heat

[[30 Days of Creativity - June 27 by: WontonBrutality]]

At the Pride parade in downtown Minneapolis. Also, humanity can be united by the love the confetti cannon. People go nuts for that shit

[[30 Days of Creativity - June 6 by: WontonBrutality]]

Without leaving the house at all today, this was, unexpectedly, the hardest day so far for 30 Days of Creativity

Last October, we did a fundraiser for the Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota and Child’s Play Charities. It was a big success. It was kind of a huge success, actually! The particulars are over at www.BeMostExcellent.org. We’re totally going to do another one, but this blog didn’t get a updated a ton while I was working on that. So head on over, check it out, and give us a holler if you’d like to volunteer, donate anything, or just want to keep up with when the next one will be. And, I’m redesiging this website soon too. Because I totally need more projects

[[photo by: WontonBrutality]]

We were up north for a wedding a few weeks ago and I grabbed a couple of shots that I really liked and make me feel like we’re sitting on the lake again. I’m not ready for fall yet!

[[photo by: WontonBrutality]]

[[photo by: WontonBrutality]]

The Backyard Harvest program has, so far, proven to be a really amazing experience. At least, speaking from the point of view of a homeowner – we’re hoping that Stefan likes stopping by the garden as much as we look forward to his visits!

And that goes to a point that’s become more clear as the season goes one. Backyard Harvest is a lot more than just getting a garden installed in your yard. As a garden host in the project, you get the harvests from the garden and it’s not dissimilar from a CSA in that way. Sometimes you get a ton of produce, and other years, some plants have a harder time. For example, this has not been the best season for tomatoes, not just for us, but for the whole state. It was cool when it needed to be hot, wet when dry would have been better, and every other alternate that a farmer could struggle against!

One week, we came home and Stefan had added some things from his own home garden to bolster our harvest. Not only was it delicious and very welcome to get a couple of great tomatoes, it was really generous and totally not required on his part. He did it, I think, because he wanted us to have some of the great vegetables that normally pop up this time of year.

The real effect was, though, that we realized that the project is about knowing your food and using your yard for more than grass, but it’s also very much a group of people excited and passionate and eager to build a community around the idea. We’ve already decided we’re in for next year, and a big part of that is how much we enjoy the people as much as the project.

[[photo by: WontonBrutality]]

The Backyard Harvest posts will always be replicated, and often expanded on, over at Backyard Harvest on WordPress. The full photo collection for this project is over on Flickr.

[[photo by: WontonBrutality]]

The middle of August was a weird one, wasn’t it? Drought, followed by Spring-like rains. Ninety degrees, then seventy. Oh yeah, and a tornado. With all of that going on, it makes sense that our garden seemed to take a little nap for a bit. Our harvests switched from mountains of lettuce to collections of a few pear tomatoes and squash with a cucumber added in for good measure. Delicious all, but strange mixes of things, you know?

Notes from Stefan have been prepping us for the switch to Fall plantings. The first bean patch went away last week and he pulled a few spent broccoli plants earlier this week. In there place we’ll get spinach, cilantro, radishes, peas, and mixed greens.

I’ve been noticing as the season has gone on how interesting the garden’s transitions have been (both the husband and I didn’t have a lot of vegetable garden experience before this), but I’m not quite ready for the switch to Fall. It looks like we’re just going to have to deal, though, because the plants will do it whether we want to go along or not!

PS – We started getting these cute little peppers and I’m loving them to death – spicy, but not crazy, and with some fruitiness going on too.

[[photo by: WontonBrutality]]

The Backyard Harvest posts will always be replicated, and often expanded on, over at Backyard Harvest on WordPress. The full photo collection for this project is over on Flickr.

[[photo by: WontonBrutality]]

Up until now, I’ve been posting pictures of one of our garden hauls a week, but Stefan comes over twice a week to see what’s ready to pick. For a number of random reasons, we had our harvest from Thursday and our harvest from the following Monday both together in the same place at the same time, so I took a shot of the whole shebang. This was a bigger week than earlier in the season, but gives a better frame of reference for what kind of quantity we get over the course of a whole week.

In this shot is a bunch of great stuff (starting at the left, going clockwise): head lettuce (x2), red kale, some chard, broccoli, a summer squash, a bag of green and yellow wax beans, the first carrots of the year, cucumbers, and another bag of delicious beans.

We have been making amazing salads with simple mixes of vinaigrette and feta. While that doesn’t sound super exciting, the variety and quality of the veggies from the garden have made the repetition a total non-issue. Another thing we’ve noticed is that vegetables are lasting a lot longer than those we got at the store. I suspect that is because there is zero transport time between the ground and our fridge.

The Backyard Harvest posts will always be replicated, and often expanded on, over at Backyard Harvest on WordPress. The full photo collection for this project is over on Flickr.

Some dudes standing by the dandelion fountain in Loring Park during this week’s Music and Movies festival. The band was Gospel Gossip and the movie was Cool Hand Luke (which got lots of cheers).

We went “up north” “to the cabin” last weekend. Those phrases are in air quotes because I’m trying to get used to using them – I had never been able to truthfully use either before.

Turns out, people are on to something great with this whole cabin idea!

A list of firsts for the weekend:

• being at a cabin
• up North
• learned to juggle
• saw first firefly
• played the hell out of kubb

It was a great time!

The rest of my album

Julie’s Album

Chris’ Album