Our very good friends are here visiting from California and we had the loveliest family style picnic in the backyard last night. They’ve been gone for a year and we’ve missed them so much. We spent the evening exchanging a whole lot of stories while nibbling on caprese salad, homemade bread, paté from Provence & homemade mushroom pizza. And, you can’t end a backyard picnic without ice cream in pink cones!

When the sun is out, we spend most of our time out in the garden – and Luna loves being outdoors. This morning, Luna kept herself busy running around and exploring while I puttered around in the kitchen. I also got our outdoor clothes line out as I find it so much nicer to be able to air dry some clothes. Then Heather came for a visit with her sweet little girl Lily. We got a bag of rhubarb from Heather’s farm & a bunch of flowers as little presents. So sweet. Not to mention, more Missing Goat jams. Yeah!

You know it’s Spring when the tulips in the garden are in full bloom. Our tulips pop up whenever the temperature warms a little. They’re the easiest perennial flowers to grow. Plant some bulbs in the fall and watch them bloom come Spring-time. Actually, we didn’t plant ours. They were planted before we moved into our house and gave us a pleasant surprise when they sprouted up three Springs ago. We’ve never watered them, fertilized them or helped them along in anyway. The bulbs in the ground pack all the nutrients and the Spring rains give them plenty of water. They just take care of themselves, year after year. This year, I like the classic yellow ones because they’re an exact match with Eye of the Storm.

Fresh-baked bread, late season tomatoes, fresh oregano, fleur de sel with soft-boiled eggs – that was today’s breakfast. Extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar was drizzled on after. That’s pretty much the last of the tomatoes for this year. Our oregano is relatively vibrant through the winter but it becomes a bit of a bother to hand-pick the tiny leaves when it’s cold and rainy. Enjoying every bite while it lasts.

This summer salad makes for a nice bright snack. The picture and title pretty much says it all: mix together cherry tomatoes with cantaloupe melon and slivers of basil with a drizzle of olive oil. Season with a good pinch of sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper. For some acidity, you can add a squeeze of lemon or a splash of balsamic vinegar but these particular tomatoes had enough zing on their own.

Even though I ignored them all season long, my cherry tomato plant pulled through and produced a crop of sweet fruit all on its own. Having too much for a single family to eat, we always share our harvest with friends. For one package, I created a gift box packed full of cherry tomato goodness. These little guys are sweet like candy. Fittingly, both metaphorically and physically, I found an old bright red candy tin to use as a container. The ribbons are book headbands and the card is a vintage miniature playing card scavenged from eBay. The embossed overalled girl licking her lips on the front of the box is too cute for words. Delicious sweetness, indeed.

For my birthday, Nerissa made me a Terrarium Kit with all the parts needed to make a terrarium: rocks, charcoal, soil, decorations and a glass vessel. It’s an awesome gift because I’ve been wanting to make one of these for a while now. You can find lots of instructions on Google and many how-to videos on YouTube. The only tip that I’d add is that an oversized pair of chopsticks works really well for placing objects neatly where hands can’t reach. I put the arrangement below together in half an hour, racing against time as the sun set. For a first attempt, I like it. It’s pretty rewarding to design your own miniature eco-system. I can see why it turns into an obsession for some people.

For Mother’s Day, I bought Nerissa a Boskke Sky Planter. The day after I bought it, I picked up a nice orchid for it but the root ball was too big to fit inside the small Boskke. Two months later, I got around to finding a replacement plant and hanging the planter up. I chose an Areca Palm which should stay fairly petite with long lyrical leaves once it blossoms out a bit. It’s a clever piece of the design. The act of hanging the plant upside down abstracts the form. It’s no longer just a plant in a white pot. It becomes a whimsical, living piece of sculptural art. It’s a nice addition to our home.

Allium are my current favorite flowers. Allium are part of the onion family. They bloom in near-perfect spheres, especially the giant ornamental varieties. And what designer doesn’t like geometric perfection? It’s the kind of flower I imagine Buckminster Fuller would decorate his domes with. Pictured above is a 5″ allium bought at the florist ($4/stem) next to a chive flower from our garden. They say you shouldn’t let your herbs flower too early in the season because they’ll cycle to their dormant state but I can’t resist. I just let them be and let them flower when they want to. C’est la vie.

Glass beer or soda bottles can be used as vases for tall slender cuttings. The weightiness of the bottle keeps it upright and steady. The tapered neck and small mouth gathers the stems snuggly together while keeping the arrangement neatly in place. Look for bottles with a nice shape and labels that are easily scrubbed off. To dress it up, drape some pins over the neck. To get extra sparkle, you can loosely fill the bottle with clear glass marbles. This tends to make water changes and rearrangements a bit fussy, though. So, in this case, we didn’t bother. All that was needed for a finishing touch was Pee Wee Herman.

Finding imaginative vessels to display our garden clippings is always a joy. We found these vintage-looking glass bottles at Ruby Dog’s Art House, near Kingsway and Fraser. They were in a section with test tubes and petri-dishes, so I assume the little bottles are for pills or medicine. In any case, they were a steal at 35¢ a piece. The only catch is that vessels this small, even when filled with water, are really light. They’ll topple over if the clippings they hold aren’t as light as a feather. Pictured from left to right are: (1) a sprig of mint, (2) buds from an unknown shrub, (3) bamboo leaves, (4) chive flower, (5) berries from an unknown shrub. Thanks in advance, if you can ID numbers 2 and 5 for us.

Waiting eagerly for summer to come. The image above is what our backyard looked like last summer. Lush, inviting, green and so summery. This is what country living is like. No traffic noise, no neighbours looking down at us, no shopping carts in the alley (no alleys, at all, actually). In the summer, we spend almost all of our meals outside and sit there for hours until the sun goes down. Our backyard has been neglected since summer ended last year. Soon, if the weather holds up, we’ll be out there again watching our herbs, vegetables and fruits grow and just enjoying the hot summer days…

Spring is here and the flowers are starting to bloom. However, none of our flowers right now are big enough for a regular size vase. So, I created a mini-centerpiece using a spare spice jar as a vessel. The flowers are crocuses which were the first to sprout up in the backyard. Our rosemary bush stays vibrant all year long and I added a sprig for color & contrast. The cut crocuses opened wide shortly after hitting the water but the delicate, paper-thin petals are starting to expire after only a few days. No worries. We have lots and they’re all free for the picking.

Winter was mild this year which means an early spring. In our backyard, we’ve already seen crocuses, daffodils and irises sprouting up. The tulips are on their way too. We’re looking forward to warming the house up with weekly fresh cut flowers. Pictured above are clippings from last spring (dahlias, rosemary buds and baby’s breath) which should make their return sooner rather than later this year.

Peter gathered all the green chilies we had growing out in the garden and I was surprised to see almost a full bowl of chilies! There was no way the two of us could use that many chilies so we decided to share some and give them away as presents. We gathered bunches of peppers together and created custom packets for each. We experimented with simple paper/tape techniques, different ways to tie thread and finished it off with an ink-jet sticker label.

(Updated: Jan. 30, 2010 with new photos.)