Wedding and Cherries

We did it.  We finally got married!  It took us months to actually set the date, and then a week to plan the wedding.  It was perfect, and very low-cost! A friend of mine painstakingly made my dress, and it turned out graceful and beautiful.  The groom's suit was found at the thrift store.  We paid for a photographer with a veggie share, and the dressmaker's work with a work day at her house, home-made cheese, and herbs.  Seating was on home-made benches...boards supported on log sections, covered with a length of unbleached muslin.  My bouquet was collected from my parent's backyard.  A close friend made the cake, her sister did my hair, my sister made the flower decorations, bouquet, and some of the refreshments, and my mom made the rest of the refreshments.  That same sister also played the piano for the ceremony, perched up on the back of my brother's pickup truck.  I rode to the wedding in the back of a Madsen, pedaled by my father.

The ceremony was on land we lease, under a spreading cottonwood tree.  We had no attendants, a friend did the 'marrying', and there was no reception; just a simple dinner with family.   

We did take a short little honeymoon at Allegany State Park, in a rustic cabin beside a babbling brook.

 It was just what we needed...a little break before diving back into work on the houses and garden.  

I do thoroughly enjoy married life!

While my Dear Man and I were busy marrying and making merry, all the plants in our garden were busy growing...and the fruit trees were fruiting!  We recently picked the biggest Chinese Cabbage I've ever seen... 

Such a lovely head...it is very satisfying.

We also have Kohlrabi that is getting too big, broccoli and cauliflower growing to picking size, and cabbages swelling.  Frustratingly, varmints are getting into our fenced-off garden, and doing their best to destroy our crops! 

This spring we discovered four different cherry trees on our land...and they are all loaded with cherries!

And, for a day, with children...

We harvested quite the bounty!  Yum! Yum!

Apple Blossoms!

The apples are in bloom!  Casting their sweet scent abroad and beautifying the view...

Preparations and Plantings

Tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, celery, onions, eggplant, leeks, radicchio, cauliflower, cabbage, and ground cherries.  All these veggies we've started inside on the plant shelf my Dear Man threw together.

Tiny tomatoes...

Baby brassicas...

And the onions were finally planted out in the garden...somewhat overgrown and rootbound, but healthy!

My Man, with help from my brother, turned under the sod in the garden area, and we discovered that most of the ground is saturated with large railroad gravel!  We'll be pulling out rocks for years...but the dirt is lovely!

Pruning season is over, and we got more work done on the trees than we expected!  We did stretch the pruning season in order to get some of the most urgent cuts done...
Now to wait and see how they respond!

On another note...isn't the spring weather lovely, when it isn't pretending to be winter?

The Beginnings of New Beginnings

It is a new experience, planning a whole garden, just for two people.  I'm accustomed to planning the peppers for Mom's big garden (you can read about it here... Wilson Street Urban Farm) and helping out with the rest of it, but planning my own? and for just 2 people?  I'm trying, with plenty of help from my Man...

We started our onions and leeks earlier in March, and they are growing merrily on the mostly-assembled plant shelf with super-bright grow-lights.  

We started celery too, which is also growing...

Last fall we rushed a few garlic bulbs into the ground, and they are starting to grow, but unfortunately the frost heaved them out.  Next year we hopefully will have mulch to keep that from happening.  I don't know if they are salvageable...maybe once the ground thaws we'll be able to shove them back in.

  

On a different note...but not really that different...

My perfect future home with my Dear Man is in a little dilapidated city home (that was free!) at the end of a notorious dead end street in an area of Buffalo that few people want to move to.  The other thing that makes this ideal is the fact that there is a plot of land beside the house...and this plot of land is 6 acres of open grass, old apple trees, and tall cottonwoods.  Surrounding everything are train tracks.  Don't you agree?  Perfection.

The apple trees are old, neglected and in desperate need of tender loving care.  They have many broken and dead branches, and diseased and overcrowded limbs that we are trying to figure out how to start pruning.

The orchard is a little piece of heaven in the congestion of Buffalo for those who love and long for wide open skies... 

Our future garden plot....the orchard is behind the photographer (me).

I think I mentioned the house needs work....but can you see the new life thriving within?

It is amazing, being in the city, but feeling like I am in the country.  

A new chapter is beginning...and spring is coming.  Life is good.

For those with concerns:

The street retains its bad reputation from a few years ago.  Now all the drug houses have been demolished and 'those people' are gone.