Storiography is the documentary work of designer Christiana Aretta.

In full disclosure, I actually finished planting my summer garden a couple of weeks ago. It’d be nice to pretend that finishing the garden a month earlier than last year is due to careful planning and organization but I actually place all the blame at the feet of the post-snowpocalypse (there, I’ve done it. I used snowpocalypse in a blog post. Ugh… I feel so, so… trendy).

We started the beginning of March with 3 feet of snow and ended it with about 90 degree weather. Which is awesome unless you’re a lovely little patch of maché and think that means it’s time to go to seed and get all bitter. The downside is I had to pull up some of the winter lettuces and brassicas and replant them. The upside is, I do love me some bitter greens.

And while I’m resowing lettuces and leafy greens, why not just plant the whole garden? Especially if it’s 90 degrees already – just imagine the jump I could get on the regular growing season… I’m sure you can imagine the visions of vegetables and canning projects dancing in my head…

Tiny baby lettuces next to a much bigger weed. Grown from Seed Savers Exchange seeds

This year’s summer garden is quite an ambitious one – 4 cherry tomato plants, 2 yellow boy tomatoes, 3 cucumber vines, summer squash, eggplant, lovely Dragon’s Tongue beans (grown from Seed Savers Exchange seeds), jalapeños and bell peppers planted in rows. With lettuces, chicory and radicchio in containers joined by carrots, leeks, chard and brussels sprouts. The strawberry patch (the flower at the top of this page is a strawberry flower – it is in full bloom for less than a day) is a new addition as are the African marigolds and the flame plants (better known as colecia).

Dragon’s Tongue beans – they just poked through the ground this week – here you can see the leaves emerging from the newly split bean. These beans will be purple and green striped when they’re fully mature. Grown from Seed Savers Exchange seeds

For herbs, I’ve still got the same tarragon, thyme, rosemary, marjoram, and mint from last year. I figured the mint and the rosemary would survive the winter and was really pleased to see that everything else (save the bay plants) did as well. I added a sage plant and a valerian plant from a photo shoot I assisted on earlier in the year. Haven’t quite figured out what to do with it yet but I’m sure it will come in handy for something. Oh! and garlic – to keep Bunnicula from munching on the carrots ’til they’re ready ;)

Planted cloves from Seed Savers Exchange back in October. They won’t be ready for harvesting until late May but look at those leaves! They were completely flattened by the snow and have fully recovered and nearly tripled in length.

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