Spring is coming! Spring is coming!

It's true!  The birds have been telling me and so have the flowers.  Take a look at what I have blooming already in the garden.

Indian plum is the first plant to leaf out and bloom in our garden.

Oemleria cerasiformis is native to the Pacific Northwest and will grow to be 5-16 feet tall. Important  as a source of food and medicine to Native Americans in this region, the Indian plum has a small edible fruit that birds, rodents, deer, bear, foxes, and coyotes also relish according to Rainyside Gardeners.   I doubt we'll see those larger mammals in our little urban garden.  We will, however see hummingbirds and bees hovering around the blooms of our two Indian plums.  I plan on taking a flower of each to work tomorrow to have our Taxonomist sex them.  If we don't have a male and female, no fruit!

The flowers will soon emerge on this and the other dozen or so rfcs we have in the garden.

Ribes sanguineum, or Red flowering currant, is a gorgeous native plant, which we have planted in abundance throughout our garden.  Soon, to the delight of hummingbirds and pollinators, these plants will be covered in pink blooms.  Rfcs are especially fast-growing, which makes them all the more exciting.  The fruit is also edible, but not too tasty to humans.

White flowering currant

Ribes sanguineum 'Alba' is a white variety of flowering currant.  Matt and I just purchased two from Echo Valley Natives in Oregon City, which we installed along the foundation in the front of the house.  I look forward to the cascading white blooms covering the shrubs as they mature to their 13 ft height.

How many fruit will you produce this year?

One of our non-native plum trees has begun blooming.  Hopefully it will save some of those blossoms for pollination with the other two plum trees.

While I was busy snapping photos of the blooms around the garden, these two were stealing collard leaves.

Matt and I are getting our vegetable beds in order.  For now we have some delicious kale and collards that are probably the tastiest they've been in a while.  Doggle approved.

VeganMoFo: When life gives you figs...

You know, I'm not sure why the phrase "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade" exists.  They're not just some sour, single-use ingredient.  I put them in everything.  Enough about lemons, though.  Today we're talking about figs, and more importantly, fig jam!

Our neighbor has a 20+ ft tall green fig tree in her yard, which happens to have sent a bunch of branches over our way.  We're not complaining and neither are the dogs, who immediately zoom to the spot below the fig tree when they're let out.

Yesterday I set out with my ladder and my biggest colander (which I had to empty three times) to collect roughly 170 figs (and I left a ton on the tree).  Remember, this amount was only from the branches that have grown over from our neighbor's yard since Feb 2011 when we put up the fence!  Basically, I got a lot of figs.

This photo is deceptive.  This bowl is HUGE.  I ended up only using half of these.

Then I made Super Scrumptious Fig and Crystallized Ginger Jam 

I am not a canning expert, so I mostly just followed the directions that came with my pectin box.

Here's what I did:

Ingredients:

24 cups quartered figs (will turn into roughly 12 cups when cooked)

1/2 cup water

Juice and zest of one lemon (~1/4 cup juice)

1/2 cup chopped crystallized ginger

6 cups sugar (can you believe this is the "reduced sugar" recipe?)

A full box of Pomona's Universal Pectin (follow the directions on the pectin box you choose)

1. I sterilized several jars (although not enough, so I ended up making a few jars to keep in the fridge) and their lids.  As they were sterilizing I began chopping figs and preparing the rest of the jam.

Sterilizing the jars at 350* F for 20 minutes.

2. I quartered figs until I had 24 cups of fruit, which was all that would fit in my biggest soup pot.  I placed them in the pot along with the water, lemon juice, lemon zest, and that calcium water made from a packet that came with my pectin (yours may differ).  I cooked this over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the volume decreased by half and the figs were pretty soft- about 10 minutes or so.

24 cups of quartered figs!

3. I mixed the pectin powder (your directions may differ) with the sugar, then added the mixture to the figs, stirring continuously for 1-2 minutes.  Then I brought the mixture to a boil and removed it from heat. 

4. I filled my jars, leaving 1/4" of space on time, wiped the rims clean, screwed on the dried lids, and tightened the lids until my wrists hurt.  I gave them a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

That's it!

15 jars of varying sizes

Oh we did some very yummy things with the jam last night.  More on that tomorrow!  For now, some more dog and fig photos!

Emerson Fig Lover, has become quite adept at standing on his back legs to position himself directly under a particular fig.  He'll even stay outside in the rain, something he ordinarily avoids.

Getting Emerson to look at the camera has never been easier.  A fig was the answer.

Andy, Jungle Beast.

Vegan MoFo: Milkshakes are pretty great

Milkshakes. They're pretty fantastic, amiright?

My faves to find around town include The Chocolate Moca from Back to Eden and the Strawberry shake from Sip.

But you know what the very best milkshakes are?  Those shared with friends.

Tommasina and I made milkshakes today with fresh peaches from the CSA box, a banana, almond milk, and So Delicious vanilla ice cream.

Do you have a favorite milkshake flavor?

Slightly off-theme

I'm the first to admit that I'm a little obsessed with my pups.  It's a good thing I don't carry around a photo of them in my wallet, because you could be sure I'd whip it out all the time and expect people to "ooh and awww" over my black and white beasts.

This week I received the ecofelt ornaments I commissioned from Panda With Cookie in Andy's and Emerson's likenesses.  They're pretty cute!

How do I justify this post on a garden blog?  Well, the photos were taken in the garden.  Duh!

A laundromat in the garden

I don't think there are many that claim washing laundry is fun, but when you can go outside on a breezy, sunny day and hang your clean linens and clothes to dry in your garden, well- that's pretty nice.  Plus it saves money and makes for a happier planet, so you can feel pretty good about yourself too.

The Methley plum and bed sheet make friends.

I decided to install a 40-foot retractable clothesline along my plum orchard and I have to say, it has motivated me to wash laundry more frequently instead of letting it pile up until the hamper is overflowing.

Not in focus, you can see the clothesline attached to the soon-to-be office.

I recommend this type of clothesline, especially for urban spaces.  It's easy to install and definitely easy to set up/retract upon each use.   I also have a stretchable clothesline (similar to this one) with hooks on the end that I string between two posts on the deck when I'm motivated to wash a few loads in an afternoon.

Mr. Dufresne finds soothing the swaying of linens on the clothesline.

Bonus plum shot.  This is our staggering Methley plum harvest.  I don't think the tree liked being transplanted this spring.  We have several more plums coming in on the Brooks plum tree.  And absolutely none on the weeping Santa Rosa plum for the second season since we planted it.

A growing garden= lots of changes

It's true.  It seems each time I step outside, something is noticeably different, whether it's plums, apples, or pears growing larger, something new blooming, or, as is often the case in our garden, a completely new plant (or two or twelve)!

Matt and I took advantage of a "20% off native plants" coupon this past weekend and purchased an oval-leaved viburnum, six checkermallows, one Washington lily, and a gooseberry.

I love the dense shrubby habit of viburnums. Viburnum ellipticum is deciduous with leaves that turn red in the fall.  Its white flowers appear in the late spring.  You can bet I'll be keeping my eye out for them.

Viburnum ellipticum

These Sidalcea hendersonii will likely end up in the front rain garden this weekend.  Their happy pink flowers are really something great.  I would love it if they spread throughout the rain garden and created a sea of pink.

The lily is hidden among the soon-to-bloom checkermallows.

A native with edible berries, Ribes divaricatum will grow six feet tall, and is sure to be a hit with birds.  We planted it along with the other, nonnative gooseberries, around the back rain garden.

Andy inspects the new gooseberry.

Other recent additions to our garden include a Brown Turkey fig tree (a gift from my dad and his girlfriend) and a Meyer lemon tree.

Emerson will be so excited when he gets to eat more figs.

Concerned our Meyer lemon might be lonely, we brought home a friend for him.  My plan is to buy two nice ceramic pots and flank the steps on the deck with the two trees in warm weather.  During the winter, we'll need to bring the citrus indoors.

The vegetable garden continues to grow really well, despite Andy trying to sneak tastes of everything.  The greens have been loving this cool, wet spring.

While the garden changes everyday, there are some things that never change: the doggles still enjoy their sun bathing on the deck.

A garden pest

Ack!  I have a horrible, kale-munching, collards-crunching pest in my vegetable garden. 

Please don't judge the horrible, neglected condition of my veggie garden!

Sure, he looks like an innocent grass-muncher in this photo, but you can be sure Andy jumped the fence to chew on some greens as soon as my back was turned.  A perimeter reinforcement is in order before our new veggie babes get tucked into their beds.