Spring at Colonial Williamsburg

  While living in Virginia Beach, I was able visit Colonial Williamsburg several times, including this year at Christmas time, and most recently this May. Its possible to tour many of the historic buildings, but I never have, I just enjoy walking around. On this particular trip, I stayed until after dinner when all the buildings had closed, and discovered that I was free to wander in and around many of the yards.

 The gardens are beautiful, and I especially love the kitchen gardens, which incorporate flowers and vegetables together. I like the formal design of many of these gardens, often juxtaposed with unruly plants. The colonial farming methods, although not organic, are very interesting too.

Colonial Gardens

  Way back in May I took a break from packing up my house and spent a day in Colonial Williamsburg. I just fell in love with this garden. I love the colors, and the use of plants that would have been common in the colonial era. Next spring I'm hoping to plant a butterfly garden, and I'm planning on using some of these more "old fashioned" flowers, snapdragons, foxglove, and peony.

Begin at the Beginning: 52 Photos Project, Week 1

Tomato Seedling, originally uploaded by Scarlett Design.

Catching up on blogging my weekly pic for 52 Photos Project. This is from about a month ago.

One of my few surviving seedlings, a cherry tomato called "sweetie". I tried to save money and start my veggies from seed this year instead of buying plants. I didn't have much luck though. Maybe because it was such a warm spring? And of course the time Panzer landed on the tray of seedlings probably didn't help...

Sprouts!

Have you tried growing sprouts? Its really easy and much cheaper than store bought sprouts. Its also great way to grow some vegetables in a small amount of space, or in the winter, when outdoor gardening becomes more difficult. You can add them to salads, stirfries, and sandwiches, and they are a good source of vitamins.


To grow sprouts you will need sprouting seed, a mesh screen, and a mason jar with a lid. Sprouting seed are different than seeds needed for full sized plants, so you may have a hard time finding them. I got mine at the local hippy store, as well as a mason jar sized screen to use in place of the lid. There are several websites you can by sprouting seeds from too.

First, place 2-4 tablespoons of seeds in your mason jar, and cover with twice as much water. Leave them to sit over night. Drain in the morning.
Twice a day, rinse the seeds with water, and drain.
Your seeds should start to sprout in a few days, and should have grown enough to be edible within a week.

There have been some issues with sprouts getting moldy, or carrying salmonella. That was with large corporations, and not something that I worry about with my home grown sprouts. My advice would be to only grow a small amount of sprouts at a time, and to refrigerate them once they are done growing. If you are really concerned about this you can buy more complicated (and expensive) growing systems, made up of a series of mesh trays.

Daffodils

Some cheerful photos I took at the Norfolk Botanic Garden this week. I love this time of year, with something new coming into bloom each week.

My Garden

I don't know about everyone else, but currently, I am not pleased with the progress in my garden. Fortunately, I know every gardener out there feels like this until July or August. Right now my problems are very fixable: weeds will take work, slugs can be drowned in beer, and soon the caterpillars will metamorphosize into butterflies. My greens seedlings didn't take and I still need to put the rest of the marigolds (they provide nitrogen for the tomatoes) and the annual border in the ground. But on the positive side, my corn, which I'm growing for the first time this year is doing wonderfully, my hot pepper already has some unripe fruit on it, as does one of my tomatoes, my mums have come back to life (predictable in VA perhaps, but I'm used to New England), my Nastergiums have unexpectedly seeded themselves and are already doing better than last year, my Malabar Spinach, also a first this year, has climbed as high as my head up its trellis. Also, I'm continuing to start seeds of carrots and beets for the first time, and in another month will be starting the seedling for my autumn crop. Overall, I'm optimistic.
This may seem silly, but about a week ago I was ecstatic to see a butterfly on my butterfly weed. Saturday I discovered small caterpillars all over it. I was still extremely happy.

Yesterday, I discovered those fat little bastards had gotten much bigger, by eating half of my butterfly weed. I was actually considering sacrificing the plant for the bugs, because 10+ caterpillars (future butterflies) is better than one plant. Then I found them on my corn, tomato, and a mystery squash (I labeled the peat container, than buried it in the dirt). The caterpillars had to go. I briefly considered going and picking some milkweed for them, but instead settled on gathering them up and carrying them to the front yard instead. Hopefully, they'll come back when they turn into butterflies.
I looked it up online, and discovered that they are Monarchs. I must admit, I have a softness for Monarchs, no doubt a result of studying them in kindergarten. It was so much fun watching them grow, and spin crysallis, and emercge as butterflies. Heres some basic info I found on them.

This is some sock yarn I bought from Grasshopper Handmade. I love it. Its a pure merino sock yarn called "Boat Drinks." Its so soft, and a 475 yds is more than enough for an average pair of socks. I'm currently working o a pair of socks made with it, that I love. So expect some pics of anothe FO in a few weeks.

How about you? I'd love to see some of your garden pics, so send me a link in the comments, or add me as a contact on flickr.
PS: The reorganization of my studio is going well. I've gotten rid of quite a bit and the office is "clean" but I need to bring everything I temporarily displaced to the living room back into my studio. Fortunately, although I do miss him, my boyfriend has been gone this week, so the clutter wasn't an issue.