{from top: Angelique tulips, Japanese maple, dogwood, Tom Thumb pea shoot, herbs--yes, two-thirds are lavender, violet cake}
We celebrated all the spring flowers this week with a violet cake, picking the violets before the rainstorms rolled through one morning and letting their petals dry on our kitchen counter. We used the vanilla cake recipe from Apples for Jam, which yielded a simple, buttery cake and a sweet vanilla frosting. Definitely a recipe to pull out again and again, adding in berries, peaches, lemon balm, and mint as the seasons progress.
We filled our raised beds with soil, and now they're just waiting to be planted. I've got beans, cucumbers, carrots, peas, lettuce, chard, and flower seeds ready to go, but I need to figure out what to plant where. I'm thinking Companion Planting for the Kitchen Gardener by Allison Greer might help out (I love Allison's blog, Homesprout, and Liesl recently recommended this book on her new podcast).
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What's growing where you live? Have you been doing anything special to celebrate the seasons? We've been eating outside every chance we get. It gets so hot and humid in Kentucky during the summer, so we're taking advantage of the mild weather right now.
Awww, thanks for mentioning my book! Good luck with your spring plantings. It's still cold at night here, so the seedlings are indoors.
ReplyDeleteYour spring plantings are just itching to grow under your fostering hand. It's cold, gray skies and wind here. I've been snuggling up in my vintage, hand-me-down, wool coat and a knit.
ReplyDeleteoh, how did I miss this post!? Lovely images + how exciting about your veggie garden! I can't wait to see more pictures of it! Little seedlings waiting to be planted or freshly planted are one of my favorite things because of their intense promise of a future harvest. :)
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