Good Things List No.72: Spring Garden, New Raised Bed, Fun Serving Bowl, Book Reviews & More

A monthly list of good things to see, buy, read and watch.

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Hello May! I love this month – it holds a special place in my heart for all the memories from my birthday as well as Mother’s Day. But I also love it because the garden is just so alive and in process in May.

There are things to plant, things to watch bloom, things to build and cover – and even things to harvest. The weather can be hit-or-miss, but I always hope for more hits to enjoy this sweet spring month!

And so our list this month starts with the garden – what’s happening as well as what new things are on the horizon. It moves on to the wonderful serving bowl I found (way more than just a bowl…), April’s book reviews (another for the year’s best!), and a few good things we’ve watched.

Let’s get to it!

Good Things List

Spring Gardening

After the success with the plums blooming, I waited and waited for the apple trees – would they bloom for the first time ever this year, too?

As you can see above, YES! Well, the oldest tree – I’ve got two younger trees I planted last spring and they didn’t bloom, but that doesn’t seem completely unexpected.

I’m super happy to have finally gotten blooms on this 4-year-old apple tree. Hopefully a few apples will follow!

This is what the vegetable garden looked like on April 30 – up here in the north, it’s always a bit more bare than what I see in other gardeners beds that are further south of us. But there are still lots of things going on:

• After three years I’m adding another layer of wood chips, and I’m using cardboard again on the areas with quite a bit of weeds coming through. You can see the weedy situation on the right – it’s not terrible, but cardboard will take care of that. In between the beds has less weeds, so I’ll just add a layer of chips to those areas.
• The two long beds in front will hold tomatoes this year – I am hardening them off right now and should have them planted within a week like this.
• Besides the center clematis, the circle bed holds celery and will be planted with zucchini, basil, and flowers.
• The far beds in the back: peppers will go in the farthest left, cabbage and broccoli are under cover in the next bed, carrots and beets will be planted this week in the uncovered bed, and the second covered bed holds spinach, lettuce, and kale.

These were some of the seedlings I planted in April that I had grown under lights inside as well as started in milk jugs at the end of January.

The smallest seedlings are alyssum and baby’s breath and I’ve kept them in these trays the longest to give them the chance to grow bigger – I’m hoping to plant them in the next week or two (I’m feeding with a fish fertilizer in the meantime).

What I’m harvesting:

• Overwintered chard. I call this overwintered because it’s survived and I’ve been picking leaves off it continually, but I actually planted it last spring – it’s one year old! That’s a lot of small harvests off of one planting. They are starting to go to seed, so I will take a last harvest and pull them when it’s time to plant the tomatoes.
• Spinach. This is a quick crop here since it bolts so fast – as soon as we get even a bit of warmth, it seems. I started some of these in the milk jugs, and some were direct sown and I’ve been harvesting for a couple weeks. Hopefully they last through May.
• Lettuce. I harvested two large heads that overwintered and I have some romaine I planted with the spinach that will be ready to pluck the first leaves soon. Now the challenge is to keep planting in succession to be able to harvest for a number of months.
• Onions. I’ve pulled quite a few purple onions as green onions – they bascially were sets that when to seed early. I pull them as soon as I see the little seed head starting to shoot up and then they are perfectly fine as green onions.
• Fall planted and overwintered carrots and beets. I’ve been harvesting from this bed as they’ve been ready since the end of January and I recently pulled them all to plant the bed with cabbages.

Kind of amazing what you can harvest during the garden’s “down time” isn’t it?

New Raised Bed

There are three new areas I’m planning to add plants to this year and all three will include metal raised beds.

The first is this area near our fire pit that I’ve always wanted something to fill all that blank space.

I decided on a 29″ tall Birdies raised bed and I think it will be perfect:

It took Brian about 45 minutes to put it together with all the screws, but that was certainly easier than building a bed from scratch.

I love both the color, the quality, and the size that fills the area nicely. I had my heart set on a trellis to go up between the windows, but I can’t find a small vine that deer don’t eat, sadly.

Option 2 is a tall narrow evergreen. I’ll plant other deer resistant flowers around it.

I’ll be sharing how we fill it and the end result, so stay tuned for that.

If you’re interested in Birdies raised beds you can go here to view the different sizes and finishes – AND you can get an extra 5% off with code ANOREGONCOTTAGE5

Charming & Functional New Serving Bowl

I found this serving bowl with a bamboo lid that holds the serving utensils just a couple days ago and I love it so much. What a great idea!

The pattern and color is fresh and my favorite and I can’t wait to use it this summer for both taking places and meal prep here at home.

I’m thinking it would be great to make a dinner salad like this (it’s plenty big) in the morning, keep it in the bowl (the lid has a silicone edge to make it airtight) and just bring it to the outdoor table at dinner – so easy!

And of course if you take it somewhere, you won’t forget the servers since it would be obvious they weren’t in their holders.

It’s part of the summer Hearth & Hand products at Target, so it’s a decent price, too.

Hearth & Hand Green Check Travel Melamine Serving Bowl and Utensil Set with Bamboo Lid

April Reads

Words With God, Addison D. Bevere. This is a deep dive into the Lord’s Prayer with an emphasis on making it accessible for us today as a way to pray with a deeper connection to God. He also addresses what to do with unanswered prayer, why pray, and how to learn to hear God’s voice. He uses very real examples from his life, vulnerably sharing his own struggles with prayer as people who move through life quickly from one thing to another. I was challenged to slow down and give God some time to become more real to me.

My Name is Barbra, Barbra Streisand. I have to start out to say I’m not a huge Barbra music fan, other than a few of her pop hits from the 70s and 80s that I played in piano class and heard on the radio. She’s an icon, though, and I’ve seen some of her movies, so I waited for the audiobook read by her from the library – and was shocked that it was 49 hours!! Wowsa. And as I started, I could see why – she explains IN DETAIL things she wears and eats in pretty much every life experience. She also goes into detail about people I have no clue of, so after I heard how she got her start (she wanted to be an actress and fell into singing – and she’s never had a vocal lesson in her life) and made it to Funny Girl on broadway and the movie, I skipped a lot. Thankfully, the chapters are titled so I could find the things I was interested in, like making The Way We Were, and a few other movies, meeting her current husband and similar things. It was really too much detail for me (as she starts buying and remodeling houses, we get those details, too…). Annnnd, well, she spends a lot of time talking about how she’s veiwed as hard to work with, a perfectionist, etc. while detailing the ways she would obsess about getting things right, whether it was music or movies. So, yeah, I could see how there would be people not wanting to deal with that. This is for the fan who would love all those details!

The Lily of Ludgate Hill, Mimi Matthews. This is the third book in the Belles of London series, a closed door Victorian romance, telling the story of the third “belle” Anne Deverill. I’ve enjoyed all the books as fun, lighthearted reads with a group of women who are caring friends. There is also really interesting history Ms. Matthews includes that is right up my alley. In this book the two leads are childhood friends who almost got engaged years before and the book tells the story of their slowly coming back to an understanding. This wasn’t my favorite of the series, but we do see some of the other characters and end with a foreshadowing of the next book.

Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes of WWII, Daniel James Brown. Oh, wow, how to review this amazing, important book that nonetheless is a hard read (listen)? It’s like watching Schindler’s List – you know you need to and you’re glad you did, but the going was tough. That’s this book – Brian and I listened and neither of us knew the extent and degradation that occurred when the US government rounded up every single person of Japanese descent living in the US after Pearl Harbor – American citizen or not – and moved them to rough camps without the facilities needed for groups of that size. And behind barbed wire with military officers with guns on guard – for grandparents, children, mothers and more. It was unconscionable, actually. This is the first half – then when the US needed more fighting men they all of a sudden allowed Japanese Americans a chance to enlist. Many didn’t (who can blame them after their treatment?), but those who did were able to go above and beyond fighting in Europe – able to do things other regiments couldn’t. They were true heroes in so many ways. This author (the same who wrote our favorite The Boys in The Boat) again gets personal with stories, anecdotes, and details that are nothing short of amazing, really bringing the people and the whole story to life. I totally recommend as both important and fascinating.

Meet Me In The Margins, Melissa Ferguson. I needed an audiobook for a Saturday garden session and this was available in the library – thankfully it was cute and funny with an novel premise that kept me interested! It’s a closed door romance set in the publishing industry, which I know nothing about, but was fascinating to get a behind the scenes look into. The main character is a lower level publishing agent who secretly wants to write romance novels. She’s written a manuscript and hides it in a room she thinks only she knows about but when she goes back to it, it’s been edited by someone – a male she thinks she knows, but then second guesses. And they fall kind of for each other through writing back and forth without ever meeting (similar to another favorite of mine, The Flatshare). I always knew who the mystery writer was, so that didn’t hold me, but I enjoyed the book as a whole.

Unequal Affections, Laura S. Ormiston. Best of the year book alert!! This will be on my list for sure – even though it took me a long time to decide to read it. I remember seeing it when it was published in 2014, but thought I’d had enough Jane Austen Pride & Prejudice retellings. Then recently a blogger I trust mentioned it and I’m so glad I picked it up finally because I think it’s the best alternate-retelling I’ve read! The author stays so close the the language, the actions, and the settings that I wouldn’t know it was written so recently. So, the premise is – what might have happened if Elizabeth accepted Darcy’s first proposal? If she had done what a lot of society did then and taken the route of marriage to ensure her and her family’s future? The book explores the emotions, motivations, and affections as they work through Darcy’s openness about loving her and her equal openness about accepting while not being in love with him. She realizes her mistake in judging him and he realizes his in bulldozing her. It’s really lovely to have this extra time with these two characters, seeing them a bit more in depth and how they are with each other as they both come to the realization that they were meant for each other. Lots of stares across the room, hand-holding under tables, and walks in the garden – with a few chaste kisses thrown in for good measure. Sigh. I may have to read this again- though actually, it made me want to reread P&P yet again!

Watching

Manhunt, Apple+. This tells the story of Lincoln’s assassination and the hunt to find his killer over the subsequent 11 days, told through the eyes mainly of the Secretary of War. Very well done.

3 Body Problem, Netflix. Brian LOVED this sci-fi series that help clarify the book that he had trouble with. I hadn’t read the book and thought it was okay. Another well done show.

Abbott Elementary, ABC/Hulu. We’re still enjoying this uplifting and funny show in it’s third season – I wanted to mention it again just in case you’ve missed it. It’s so good!

That’s it for another addition of the Good Things List!

If you’d like to see more of what I’m enjoying, you can check out all the Good Things Lists here. I’d love to know what you think – if you’ve tried any of these or what you’d recommend. Leave a comment below with your thoughts!

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