Green mountain high, it's my home yo!

This week has been the yester week of music. Thursday a band with the best name ever: Manifest next to me- a local hip hop- esh band political and fantastic played a reunion show. so fun
Then last night an instructor played in a band he describes as "the funky side of rock." they did covers of Kanye West, ray Charles, and a song of their own that talked about how great Vermont is and included the title of this post- the singer had long hair, a tie-dye shirt, and a great voice.

there are peas on the pea vines! woot!

and- my class this weekend, rustic furniture, was amazing. below see the photos of my bench! hooray!!! (sorry about the funky colors- not sure what the camera was up to!)

tonight- pickling a portion of the 8 pounds of garlic scapes we harvested last week.

they grow up so fast

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hello there! after a long weekend in Minneapolis /st. paul for the fabulous wedding of Jen and Louis (and lots of biking, swimming in lakes, farmers markets and friends) I am home to Vermont refreshed and excited about the garden. I came home to colorado potato beetles and tons of snails and slugs- but I also came home to: tomato plants with red 6 red tomatoes, huge kale, chard, beet greens, lettuce and mustard's, garlic scapes!, huge peas with tons of flowers on them, mass quantities of volunteer mint, amaranth, dill and potatoes, blooming flowers.
yesterday the lovely interns finished putting up the last trellis- we did it in an "L" shape to create a little room in the garden- perhaps it will even house a bench I plan to make in this weekends' rustic furniture class.

For dinner tonight I made middle eastern inspired little plates: white bean,basil and parm cheese dip. baba ghanouj. muajdarrah (lentils, rice and caramelized onions). olives,. feta. red pepper and olive tapenade. mint, cucumber yogurt raita. chapatti and pita. tomato, cuke, red onion and herb salad.
yum!

a few more photos

fun with baby cows at the dairy barn... their tongues are a million feet long, it's actually kind of cute...who knew! also the YM structures and some beautiful old trees (some of the oldest in VT, I think) thanks to Lindley for the pictures (I took a few, they are mostly Lindley's though)

farms (rather playgrounds for wealthy folk)

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Yesterday was the staff/ intern field trip to Shelburne farms: 1,400 acres of former Vanderbilt/ Webb
property that features barns as large as football fields nicer than any
house I will ever live in, a woodworking shop, farmstead cheese making
facility, beautiful gardens, and lots of Yestermorrow building projects-
all on the edge of the exquisite lake Champlain. One of the heirs of the families is connected to YM, so we were able to go up in to all of these cool spires, the clock tower, and see all kinds of unfinished and off limits parts of the old barns. most were built in the late 1800's and took crews of 500 men 2 years to build. In one photo you'll see a giant model of the old horse barn. The guy who made it went to the barn with his dad to sell horses when he was 10 years old, then went back when he was in his 60's and, never having made a model before, made a complete to scale (1" = 3') model of the barn- complete with hand cut shingles, and underneath you could stick your head inside to get a full 360 view...it took him 10 years and $8,000 to complete. wow!

also, images of the YM built projects on the property- a writer's cabin and an outdoor shelter overlooking the lake. Overall a fun day, not quite relaxing but full of really cool things to see and history.
It has been raining like crazy here..
I have been having some plant problems, what I think may be early blight on the tomatoes and leaf miners on the spinach, chard and now beet greens...boo!!!! I picked off all of the damaged leaves, put them in a bucket to burn, and sprayed copper spray on the tomatoes and neem oil for the leaf miners (both organic gardening approved) I hate to spray anything, but it makes the most sense... Tonight- intern fun night complete with Ice cream sundays, hot chocolate with pepermint schnapps and cozy blankets...funny how it sounds like a winter night and not summer...

i live in paradise (and the stl crew came to visit me in it)

a few weekends ago dear friends came to visit. I love them lots, so I showed them that by taking them on adventures that tested wills and made us all tired and aching- hooray!
we climbed up sunset ridge- part of the long trail path that hooks up with the AT- beautiful sunsets... went hiking up camel's hump- the best view in all of Vermont... quite a long hike though- and all of it was up up up a mountain ( there was even snow we traversed at the top - the peak was a bit above 4,000 feet high) and then down down down...
to Burlington to catch the sunset and some food- they have huge swings along the boardwalk by Lake Champlain... best idea ever. lots of bonfires at the school, tasty breakfast at my favorite cafe in town, and ended the trip with a dip in the swimming hole across the road...
perfect!
thanks for the visit, friends!

I saw the stakes....

Holy busy day- raining all day.

I Spent the morning putting twine over the big tomato trellises- planted 15 or so tomato plants and transplanted two tomatillo plants and 8 hot pepper plants in to the west end of beds 4 and 5 between the tomatoes on stakes…

Weeded lettuce and kale beds too. Afternoon made 107 stakes for the twine tomato trellises to anchor the twine to the ground - it took 4 hours, but now i have all the stakes i need for the beans, and tomatoes and any thing else that should come up...

It took so long Mostly because I broke the band saw blade and dave helped me fix it-it took an hour and a half of slowly going through the process with him- I appreciate the learning experience with him, and I feel confident I could change the blade on my own now, just took a while! Blarg.I'm learning to let those things happen more and more- trying to to feel so go go go with getting a million things done in a day and always being productive. I'm working on taking my time and enjoying the process- that said tonight I planted 10 more tomatoes... planning to get the rest in the ground tomorrow, (around 70 total!!! eep!) as well as the eggplants, habaneros, and mulch around them...