I found actual veggies in the garden!

I am proud to announce that my green find of the week comes from my garden. I got back from a weekend and some Up North to find wonderful green surprises at the farm. Turns out really do know how to garden and grow things other than weeds!

Peas

My gitanas (gypsy peppers)

Baby heirloom tomatoes
(they still have a ways to grow)

My dinner
(just kidding, although add an avacado and this does closely resemble my diet)

Gardening is great. This is the gardening I signed up for.

Green find o' the week.

I bought this J Crew dress in "dusty sage" (a soft, greenish blue) for my cousin's wedding in a few weeks. I had a hard time not getting the very green one below, but I was thinking versatility and practicality. "Can I wear it three out of the four season?" is the new question to myself when buying clothes. It's either going to be one thrifty saver idea or a big fashion mistake. We'll see!

I love the dress' simplicity, airiness, and length. Wait, airiness. That makes it unwearable in the winter, right?! Should have gone green.

Favorite finds

In celebration of my favorite day of the week, Thursday, I am going to start posting a favorite local and/or indie green find. As you'll notice, my first fav is not green. But it's Mexican so it fits with the blog theme. And Mexico beat France today en la Copa Mundial (¡Que viva Mexico!), so celebration is in order!

Check out this beautiful vintage Mexican dress cerca 1960s or 1970s. I love the color, the embroidery, the flowers, the puff sleeves. A new garden outfit, perhaps.

I found this through my new favorite hobby -- cruising Etsy's "Treasury" section. It comes from Honeywood Vintage. I'm in love.

The girls next door

I met my first garden neighbor. And I think I've found my long lost gardening twin! Someone else who doesn't like to work too hard. Who I overheard gave up at the garden today because the soil was too hard. Who bossed me around last night because I wasn't pulling the weeds correctly. Or at least I think that's what she was saying -- I don't speak an East African dialect.

Meet Fadumo, my garden neighbor (who looks like she's watering her friend)

After we become better friends I'll take an actual photo of her (one where she knows I'm taking it). It'll be a unique friendship we have. One where she talks, I listen, I have no idea what she's saying, I smile, I make up what I think it was she said and then I respond. And she repeats. I learned today that Fadumo doesn't want to learn English. I'm still trying to conquer Spanish so I won't be adding any African language to the mix just yet.

It's a collective group of women that garden the neighboring plot with Fadumo.


It looks like they each take a row or two.



Their neat, organized, well-planned garden.


Mine. No wonder Fadumo was bossing me around about the weeds.



I want to be a part of their gardening club. One because their garden is so orderly. But more so because they cheer, laugh, chat a mile a minute their way through gardening. It's like girls night out at the garden. Today there were cheers all around for the first cucumber plant to sprout.

Fadumo, can I quit my garden and join yours instead? Woo hoo is universal, right?! I'll bring the matching gardening tools.

More plants, less weeds

Mis suenos (dreams) did not come true. I do not have a weed-free garden. See photo below. Embarrassing. And, no, those aren't plants in the upper left-hand corner. My mom informed me they are extra large weeds. I was thinking they were spinach plants.

Weeds with a few plants mixed in.

Luckily, my sister just gave me some garden tools to help with the weed removal. The tools were given to her by someone special. Any guesses who? (If you can't read that logo is says Grand Casino Hinkley.)


The tools are compliments of grandma, and the many nickels she's donated to Grand Casino Hinkley. Conveniently, they fit with the green theme of the garden. (Otherwise I would not be using them).

Despite the weeds, plants are starting to sprout. It's exciting to see them growing.

Pepinos.

Guisantes.

Cebollas.

The next photos will be more plants and less weeds.

Sowing seeds and waiting for weeds

The seeds are in! The seeds were in three weeks ago – I am a tad bit behind with the blogging!

A few things have been keeping me from the jardín lately:

• Cinco de Mayo Fiesta wrap-up (I help to plan St. Paul's festival) and multiple margaritas.

• Graduation of a fellow Spanish-speaker and future garden helper. ¡Felicidades Tomas!

• Baby shower for my adorably pregnant sister.

Prior to the margaritas, graduations and tiny, baby-blue baby things I found some time to sow the seeds. Or rather watch my family sow the seeds for me. It's the dirt.

My Aunt Mary did remind me that I hated, HATED to get dirty when I was little. I went through multiple wardrobe changed in any given day due to a dirt or anything that resembled dirt.

Why am I gardening then you ask? I love vegetables more than I hate dirt.

Mom and dad putting up the trellis for the ejotes (beans) and guisantes (peas).

My cousins Bailey and Josie and garden compañera Emily planting pepinos (cucumbers). Looks like Josie and I both dislike dirt on our hands.

Look, I'm working! Or posing with a garden tool? You decide.

No really, I helped to plant, too. I did indeed get dirty.

So the seeds are in. The ejotes (green beans), guisantes (peas), espinaca (spinach), cebollas (onions), zanahorias (carrots), pepinos (cucumbers), and calabaza (squash). The jitomates (tomatoes) and serranos will be planted this weekend.

Lesson for the day (and disclaimer). The Spanish language differs country to country. Certain words can mean very different things depending upon where you are. Names for vegetables are a great example of that. I may have just embarrassed myself. I think I used above a blend of Mexico, Spain, Spanglish, chilango, and who knows what else.

Now it's a waiting game. And a weeding game. I've heard organic gardening involves a lot of weed-pulling. Here's to hoping my organic garden is the non-weedy exception! En mis sueños.

Starting a garden, starting a blog, staring at a computer

I’ve been staring at my computer (and watching a horribly addicting episode of the Real Housewives of New York City) for the past 30 minutes trying to write the very first sentence of my very first blog about my very first vegetable garden. Such an important sentence. I caved and am babbling my way into blogging instead.

Just about as much staring went into starting the garden I am blogging about, too. I’m renting a plot at a community garden in St. Paul this summer. A few weeks back our garden manager e-mailed to let us know the rototiller would be available soon for garden prepping. (Rototilling?! What's that?! I though the plot came with seeds already planted?! Tilling sounds hard. And dirty. That's not what I signed up for.) Of course I e-mailed him back to ask if he was tilling, or did we have to do it? Come rototiller day Matt, the garden manager, tilled my plot for me. I took photos for my new blog. And pointed out the spots he missed. (Pointed them out to myself in my head -- I don't want to be kicked out of the garden on day one.)


I should back my tiller up a bit to explain this garden and blog project. At the start of the new year I wrote down a list of things I want to do before 2010 comes to an end. Blogging was one of them. Taking up photography another. Pretending I’m a farmer was number three. And using and improving my Spanish is on la lista también (hence the title and the Spanglish you'll see throughout my blog). I figured why not throw them all together. If I love them all, they match -- right? (That's also my decorating and fashion philosophy, and it's worked pretty well for me so far.)

"Jardinería verde" (I just love the look of the word "jardinería”) means "gardening green" in Spanish. And "green" meaning 1.) organic and eco-friendly; 2.) all things leafy and edible; and 3.) I have near to no idea what I am doing, but I can’t wait to learn. In this space, I’ll share my adventures of learning how to farm organically in the city, and how to look cute and bokeh while doing it.

I hope you enjoy reading what I have to say. And I invite all the green thumbs (and not so green thumbs) that want to help at my farm in the city this summer to come on down. I’ll need it. So far gardening has been a whole lot of staring at it through the lens of my camera. I’m afraid I’ll want to keep it that way. I don’t do dirt well.