SATURDAY IN THE GARDEN | Broccolini and Things

OUTSIDE

With a 2.5 month hiatus from the blog a LOT has changed in the garden.  All my starts grew big and graduated to the outdoors.  I've been enjoying lettuce and the occasional radish for the past couple weeks (as has Ella the bunny).  I got most of my early stuff  planted a little late so it's not as developed as I'd like it.  I'll probably dig up the radishes and lettuce and most of the beets (which have performed super pathetically), to replace with green and lima beans in mid-June.

  

I planted some bulbs last fall and they came up really nicely and my lilac finally put on a full bloom.  It was a nice spring for flowers all together! Right now I am loving the Spiderworts which are a native prairie plant here in Iowa.

Horseradish

Allium bulbs

My lilac in bloom - not sure why the blooms are white

Spierwort

The garlic has scapes!

One of my new adventures this year was Broccolini - my neighbor gifted me a few plants.  It's got heads and if nothing goes awry I should be able to harvest soon!  Broccolini is a cross between regular old broccoli and an Asian crop like asparagus. Fun!  The heads are much smaller and your cut and eat a good bit of the stem as well.  It will also sprout new heads when you cut the initial one. Like Hydra.

Finally, Ella got a new outdoor home!  I had it custom built by a friend of mine.  She still spends most of her time in her pen indoors but now she has a safe place to hang outside when the weather is nice.

WATCHING, READING and BLOGGING

Watching 

My TV watching has been pretty blah the last couple months - a lot of re-watching of favorites which I tend to do when I am lacking in the energy department and just need comfort watches.

One new show I did watch that is worth mentioning was Stranger Things, produced by and available on Netflix.  I'm only like 8 months behind everyone else who was raving about it - a new record for me of being hip and with it.  Thankfully for me, the show lived up to the hype and I loved it. I think a good part of my love can be attributed to being a child of the 80s and being the same age as the show's kid protagonists in 1983 (~10-12 years old).  The show runners did such a good job reproducing that era and emulating the suspense/horror movies/shows of the time.  Anyway, I highly recommend it if you like mildly creepy, suspenseful storytelling with a great cast of characters.

Reading 

Finished Since the Last Time I Posted:

It's been a while so there's quite a lot!  I haven't read as much as I liked - I got bogged down by Eona and The Star-Touched Queen both of which I struggled with.  Highlights include Crooked Kingdom, the Cormoran Strike series, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, City of Mirrors and of course my re-reads of the first two books in the Lymond Chronicles.

• The Prophecy Con (Rogues of the Republic #2) by Patrick Weekes:  Happy to be back with the gang!  
• Eon: Dragoneye Reborn (Eon #1) by Alison Goodman:  I've so enjoyed her Dark Days Club books, I decided to try Alison Goodman's other series. This was a really interesting read but see below for Eona.  I am conflicted.
• Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo:  LOVE. THIS. DUOLOGY. MUCHLY.
• The Paladin Caper (Rogues of the Republic #3) by Patrick Weekes:  This was such a fun trilogy and this was a great concluding volume.  
• Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3) by Patricia Briggs: I've continued to enjoy this urban fantasy series.  This one focuses on the fairy community which was good fun.
• Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson #4) by Patricia Briggs: Ditto of the above though it focuses on the vampires.
• Eona (Eon #2) by Alison Goodman: This book drove me crazy for so many reasons so I ended up feeling very mixed up by this duology that takes place in a medieval Asian setting and has dragons!
• An Irish Country Doctor (Irish Country #1) by Patrick Taylor:  I was hoping for a delightful look at mid century Irish life and that's exactly what I got.  Very James Herriot but focused on a human doctor...and fictional. 
• The Cuckoo's Calling and The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike #1 & 2) by Robert Galbraith:  This series is fantastic!  Wonderful, involved, unique mysteries and great characters developed well.
• The Game of Kings  and Queen's Play (Lymond Chronicles #1 & 2) by Dorothy Dunnett: I'm re-reading this series, in audio format, for the first time since college. It's SOOOOO good.  
• The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (Wayfarers #1) by Becky Chambers: This book totally lived  up to the hype.  Really lovely science fiction.  
• The Star-Touched Queen (The Star-Touched Queen#1) by Roshani Chokshi: Unpopular Opinion Time! This was a book many people loved but it really wasn't for me.  
• The City of Mirrors (The Passage #3) by Justin Cronin: This conclusion to The Passage trilogy was my favorite of the series.  A really good finale and overall a great series.
• A Man of Some Repute (A Very English Mystery #1) by Elizabeth Edmondson: A British mystery set post World War II.  It was okay.

CURRENTLY READING

• First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones: I can't remember where I first heard of this book/series but it's been on my TBR for ages.  It's a hoot and pretty entertaining but it is not threatening to be one of my faves of all time.
• Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman by Lindy West: A memoir of a journalist, feminist and comedian.  
• Strong Poison  (Lord Peter Wimsey #6) by Dorothy L. Sayers: Only a few more of these left :( but I hear Lord Peter gets a girlfriend in this one - Ooooohhhhh!

Added to the TBR:

This is a list of books that I have added to my Goodreads TBR list this week.  It helps to burn the books I want to read a little more firmly into my mind, maybe get them on some other folks TBRs and gives me a chance to recognize a lot of the awesome bloggers that add stuff to my TBR!

I haven't really been keeping up with blogs and therefore little was added to my TBR but there will likely be a bunch next week:).

On the BLOG since I last Posted:

WEEKS AGO: The Twelve (The Passage #2)by Justin Cronin
MONDAY: Well. That was Unexpected....  I took an unplanned hiatus from the internet.
TUESDAY: TOP TEN TUESDAY | Most Anticipated Reading in the Second Half of 2017
WEDNESDAY: REVIEW | A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers  LOVED IT!
FRIDAY: REVIEW | Mr. Impossible by Loretta Chase Did not love it as much as I should have.

Have a Great Week!