Square Foot Garden: Why Community Gardens are the Best Gardens. And Fall crops.

I had to leave my garden for almost three weeks. In the middle of summer. Just as the green beans were coming in. Hard to do. Very hard. But made easier by my community I garden with. An email out to the others with raised beds in the garden, asking for help watering when I was gone (and with hopes they would harvest a few things) kept my garden more beautiful than I could have hoped. I nervously headed to the garden after my return to town, not sure what disaster I would find. But, I found this lovely garden:

Lush and ready for harvest. If anything, I wish that my lovely water crew had helped themselves to more veggies- the green beans were a bit starchy and after I picked some I gave up on them. So, I did a little maintenance on my return (mainly tying up wild tomatoes trying to refuse the trellis and picking corn) and said many quiet thank yous to my watering crew. Below is my first harvest after arriving home:

The corn was disappointingly not so sweet. I thought maybe I waited too long to harvest... but some of my later planted is the same as well. Maybe variety? Who knows. Maybe a question for the OSU extension services.
As I picked corn I pulled the stalks and set them aside to dry for fall decor. I also started plotting fall crops. As predicted early in the summer, I'm trying broccoli/sprouts/cauliflower again. I went from starts, as I'm about 5 weeks too late for seeds. We'll see. I'm skeptical, but I also hate blank garden space.

 In go the new plants! As the corn gets pulled, I keep adding to it. Some onion seeds and carrot seeds. Looking forward to seeing if I really prolong the harvest season.

 I've also enjoyed garden cooking- below is an all garden meal (except the mushrooms). Finding a way to stay ahead of the veggies is the final trick in all this gardening.

Hitchhiker's Guide to a Birthday

 "All right," said Deep Thought. "The Answer to the Great Question..."

"Yes..!"

"Of Life, the Universe and Everything..." said Deep Thought.

"Yes...!"

"Is..." said Deep Thought, and paused.

"Yes...!"

"Is..."

"Yes...!!!...?"

"Forty-two," said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.” 

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

My husband loves birthdays. In general. All birthdays. And so, as his birthday approaches the excitment builds. Always. And, when we can pull it off, we go for a big party with a theme, friends, food and drink. And this year, we pulled it off. 

Sign on the front door

Yes, this year my husband turned 42. Being an amazingly awesome nerd, this meant only one thing. He needed to have Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy birthday party. We weren't sure what that meant, exactly, but it had to happen. So I got to work. There is really not much out there in internet land on Hitchhiker birthdays. (Weird, right? Ha.). So, I got creative and got to work. 

Of course, there had to be dolphins. Dolphins leaving the earth right before it's destroyed by Volgons.

“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”

 So, we had Dolphins. I found a party supply store that shipped FOR FREE and then I got them filled at Dollar Tree. Speech bubble added by us, of course. 

"So Long, and thanks for all the fish!"

Who doesn't love a dolphin?

Dolphin Kisses to the Birthday boy.

You'll notice the 42 towel. A towel is an essential part of galaxy travel. 

“A towel, [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. "

I made "42" towels for decor- and guests were encouraged to take one home (I mean, what would we do with 20 towels decorated with the number 42?)

I used the freezer paper stencil method that's been floating around internet craft land. My sister had already tried it and confirmed it as an awesome technique. To make it easier, I used a Cricut machine (but I'm still pining for a Silhouette, if it must be known). The freezer paper worked in the machine wonderfully. I ironed the stencil down, painted with fabric paint, and let it dry. Then I peeled off the freezer paper and I had a fantastic little towel. 

I hung them around as part of the decor. 

42 towels and dolphins

The weather held for the day and we had a perfect back deck party and BBQ.  We had galactic lights strung and ready for the evening. 

 It seemed almost too convenient that petunias are part of a great scene in the book AND are currently being sold at every garden center right now.

"Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was 'Oh no, not again.' Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now."

 We had pots of flowers all over the deck... nice to have decor that isn't thrown away when we are done with the party.

Petunias falling to the ground

The petunia scene came up in a couple of outfits people wore. Not only did this friend have a pot of petunias he wore the entire party- he had a tiny whale pin that looked like it was falling with the petunias. 

bathrobe, towel, petunias and whale!

“Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet.And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more."

And, one particularly fun (and camera shy) 13 year old wore this shirt:

From "ThinkGeek.com"

And what did we serve for food and drink?... well, along with normal BBQ fare we had goldfish and Swedish fish ("So long, and thanks for all the fish."). A friend brought homemade chips and salsa with custom signs in it.

 And of course, our own take on the Pan Galactic Garble Blaster.

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy also mentions alcohol. It says that the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. The effect of which is like having your brains smashed out with a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick."

We decided best to make the drink family friendly and allow for adults to add brain smashing ingredients as they saw fit. Basically I mixed containers of limeade, lemonade, grapefruit juice, and 7up. I sliced up lemons and limes and let them float in it. We put this sign next to it:

An amazing graphic from internet land...

For a take on the infinite improbability drive, husband covered the alcohol choices in paper. Adding it to your drink was a hit of the improbability button- anything might happen!

"Side effects of using the Infinite Improbability Drive include temporary (and sometimes permanent,) changes to environment and morphological structure, hallucinations, and the calling into being of large marine mammals. An incredible range of highly improbable things can happen."

Infinite improbability drive

Of course, we had cake. The cake. was. awesome. I bought a cake from the greatest place in town- they wrote on it for me- then I made mice.

"These creatures you call mice, you see, they are not quite as they appear. They are merely the protrusion into our dimension of vastly huperintelligent pandimensional beings."

 I melted white chocolate in the microwave, dipped maraschino cherries in it, attached a Hershey's Hug and used sliced almonds for ears. I put them ALL over the cake. Delightful. 

Ack! There are mice on that cake!

ready to blow out the candles

white mice- the smartest life form on earth. Kind of. 

It was a general, smashing, wonderful time. So great to see friends, so great to be able to include our daughter. Fun to enjoy some unusually nice weather for April. Glad to toast another year with a great guy!

The lemon hat, to get his brain going

Our real answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything

Relaxing together

Goodbye 2010

A Song for New Years Eve
by William Cullen Bryant

Stay yet, my friends, a moment stay— 
     Stay till the good old year, 
So long companion of our way, 
     Shakes hands, and leaves us here. 
          Oh stay, oh stay, 
One little hour, and then away.

Before we hit the town we hosted a (fancy) dinner for good good friends.

Out came the fine fancy china, a gift from my mother-in-law.  I gave in to temptation and made napkins to match the china. I again used the purl bee tutorial, but increased the dimensions by 2 inches. Bigger napkins are tres tres fancy.

A beautiful fancy table. Ready for dinner, conversation, laughter and toasts to what has been and what will be.

The food. Oh my goodness the food. In courses! In fancy courses!We started with roasted red pepper soup then on to roasted pear halves stuffed with goodness over a bed of lettuce.

Our fancy main course consisted of a root vegetable gratin and stuffed pork roast with apples. Then, a dessert that allows a small glimpse of nirvana in each bite. Coconut milk, palm sugar, vanilla, bananas and pineapple. Warm and served over ice cream. A recipe from our honeymoon in Bali. 

A sweet and delicious goodbye to 2010. And everyone loved the napkins. 

 Happy New Year.

A new tradition

Sufganiyot are widely consumed in Israel in the weeks leading up to and including the Hanukkah holiday. At Hanukkah, Jews observe the custom of eating fried foods in commemoration of the miracle associated with the Temple oil.
 -wikipedia

My first soofganiyot (or sufganiyot, if you prefer).

Oh fried goodness. Oh delicious little sugared things.  Some with jelly, some without. These have officially become a holiday tradition in the Chandler house. Husband and I are having fun figuring out what the holiday season will mean to us and to the family we hope to have some day.

I used the recipe in 1,000 Jewish Recipes by Faye Levy.

 Hot and fresh- I've perfected the oil temperature.

A team effort in the house- frying and sugaring. A pleasant day in the busy month of December. Happy Hanukkah.