Little Spring Garden

Well it's been a long, mild Knoxville winter, but in between thunderstorms the sun's out and things are looking up. For the past 8 spring seasons, I've lived in apartments with no sunlight, balconies, or backyards. This is the first chance I've had to plant anything close to a garden. There was a lot of talk all winter about tilling a huge plot in the back yard and growing rows of vegetables. Not so much action on that front, though. The yard's not flat, we rent this house, and it just wasn't really worth all that effort this year- particularly since I'm not even totally sure how to grow vegetables anyway.

So my 2009 container garden was born:


Now there are certain things that you can't really grow in a little pot, that I would have wanted to plant, but they're going to need to wait until next year (namely squashes and corn). I ventured down to the enormous Stanley's garden center in south Knoxville, and picked out some plants: yellow bell peppers, "sweet olive" grape tomatoes, "big rainbow" heirloom tomatoes, skinny eggplant, sweet basil, purple basil, sage, and chives. I rounded out the party with a big honkin' dill plant from a dude in a truck at the farmer's market this morning.

I'm pretty sure that the full size tomatoes aren't in big enough containers to really grow to their full potential. I'll be surprised if they take off. But the herbs are looking really great. The purple basil is the scene stealer. It's doubled in size in the first two weeks.


I have high hopes for the little eggplant though. And the grape tomatoes have taken off like crazy in two weeks. All the rain has helped I'm sure. Also, I think shoving three plants in one planter might have been overdoing it. But I have a feeling that it'll be a huge bush soon, and in a few weeks start shooting out more tiny tomatoes than I know what to do with.


I promise to take more pictures, especially when delicious food starts growing on my back stoop. Happy spring.

Spring in Macedonia Brook

Okay, so Connecticut is not a large state BUT the largest state park is Macedonia Brook. And boy, is it nice in the spring. The park is essentially two tall mountain ridges cut down the center by Macedonia Brook, a quiet little stream that snakes through a couple of miles of picnic areas and campsites. We visited last August, but our site wasn't nearly as idyllic as the one we stayed in this time. Oh site 43, you treated us well.

After a run-in with some angry teen girls who really wanted site 43, we were victorious. So we threw up the tent about 15 feet from the edge of the brook, just so the sound of the water could lull us to sleep. Cold sleep. It's still only May in New England. The site was nicely tucked away from other sites, and although this was by far the best in the campground- all the sites here are great. Compared to some of the dusty parking lots they're calling campgrounds up here, Macedonia Brook's sites are all nicely spaced out and wooded. Some are more private than others of course, but overall it's a really nice place to do some car campin'.



On Sunday the sun was shining and the trails were calling. There are many miles of trails all within the park, aside from the Appalachian Trail, which passes close by outside the park boundaries. We decided to stay in the park and hike up to the surrounding ridges right from our site. There is a 6.7 mi circular ridge trail that basically surrounds the perimeter of the park, with a bunch of other easier trails criss-crossing throughout. We ended up doing most of that ridge trail, but cutting off the north corner. We managed to hit Cobble Mountain though, which is the highest peak in the park, the route up there is a bit, let's say "rugged". When all was said and done it was 5.7 mi, 4.5 hrs. It was the first hike of the season and I felt it the next day, but it was a good first outing.