It's Busy Time

The garden's thriving, and cakes are getting made like they're going out of style, so it's a busy time. I know it's not officially summer, but all the natural signs say it is: peaches, plums and cherries are at the store, cilantro is blooming and tomatoes are flowering, and the baby swallows in the back yard are poking their heads out of the birdhouse as if they're thinking about trying to fly. And, we haven't had any frost since the week before Memorial Day -- yay!

Here's some cake pictures from the last couple weeks. I need to retrieve some pictures from the computer at work of cakes that I didn't get to see completely assembled. I'll try to update the garden pictures soon, too. It's looking very lush today, though I'm about to go harvest a bunch of cilantro and freeze it before it goes to seed.

The cartoons on this cake were orignally drawn by the couple themselves, and I transferred them onto the cake by freehand piping. It was definitely a challenge, but turned out really cute. This was set up and their reception was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art -- how appropriate!

I made this for my husband's Civil Air Patrol unit because they were celebrating their cadets who are graduating from high school this month. The decoration in the middle is their squadron logo, which I piped out over fondant.

It's Wedding & Graduation Season!

It's wedding season again, so I should have more cake pics to share in the next couple months.   Here's a few from the last couple of weeks.  Not all weddings, but still cute and fun.

A Test of Will

It's almost Memorial Day.  At this time last year, there was absolutely nothing in the garden.  Our last frost was on Memorial Day, and so I put all the seedlings outside that following week.  They did great from there, but we weren't harvesting tomatoes until mid-August I think, and then the first fall frost came as quickly as the third week of September and killed everything.

This year I've been determined to have food earlier and do something of a three-season garden.  I suppose it's moderately successful so far -- the perennial herbs from last year came back fuller and lusher than I imagined: oregano, chives, sage, lavender, and thyme.  The cilantro went to seed last year and managed to reseed itself all over the place, so that will be plenty.  I also started some cool-weather vegetables which are coming along slowly but surely: beets, carrots, peas, leeks, swiss chard, spinach, lettuces and a solitary broccoli plant.  We've been harvesting spinach for about a week for salads and pizza and quiche, so that's nice.

Now the summer crops, on the other hand, are testing my will again and again.  I started seeds way back at the beginning of March.  We were really brave but determined, and put the seedlings outside in April, because we built covers to go over the gardens to protect the plants and figured they'd be safe enough.  The problem has been, however, that it gets really cold at night and really warm in the daytime, so we can't just leave them on all the time.  They're fairly heavy, and there's four of them, so it's no little thing to go put them on or take them off the garden, and contrary to our original design, we didn't build in a way to just prop them open.  So I had put the seedlings out in the garden during a beautiful week in April -- sunny, warm, etc -- and then we had to leave town for a family wedding.  A day and a half later we came back and pretty much all the seedlings had fried.  I believe it was too much sun exposure; Scott thinks lack of water.  Granted, I didn't temper them for very long, just a few days (what good does putting them outside do when it's cloudy and rainy for three-four days at a time?) and it came back to bite me.

So I started over.  I put in rows of all the same peppers (jalapeno, pablano, mixed sweet and green peppers), tomatoes (roma & brandywine) and flowers (snapdragons, delphinium, columbine, nasturtium, pansies, and marigolds) with plenty of time to start over.  At least if they get started outside they don't need to be tempered for the adjustment, right?  Forget about the brussels sprouts, it's too late already.  I'll try those again for fall.  Everything's been coming up a little at a time, and I was breathing a sigh of relief that we would have vegetables after all.  Now suddenly this week, the week before Memorial Day, the weather's been up and down and rainy and sunny and generally unpredictable.  We've had the covers off for weeks, but put it on two nights ago because it was gonna be really cold and there was a chance of frost -- good save.  But I took them off again yesterday because it was in the 70's.  Last night I worked late and didn't think about it.  This morning I went out and it looks like most, if not all, the seedlings are shriveled again, and the tomato plant we bought a few weeks ago on a whim is barely hanging on.  I checked the weather from last night and -- WHAT?!  28 DEGREES?!?!

I'm feeling defeated, but gotta be realistic and admit that I was gutsy (or just stubborn) this year.  If I never tried it, I'd always wonder.  Some of it's paid off.  At least we've got herbs and spinach already.  Beets and carrots and lettuce will probably be next, hopefully followed by peas and broccoli and leeks.  We may just have to go buy some tomato and pepper plants this year, though, because at this rate I wouldn't be harvesting until September, just in time for the frost again.

Cilantro is growing back in abundance here and several other places in the garden.  That's ok, ladybugs like it and supposedly it deters some bugs.

Perennial herbs that grew back bigger and fuller than last year: (L to R) oregano, chives & sage

Thyme that grew back from last year much fuller -- I can never have enough of that!

Frost damage to my tomato seedlings.  Notice how the weed just next to them (bottom right) seems just fine!

Peas in front and spinach behind

I think the bean plants got too much frost too -- maybe I'll try them again for fall.

Cakes In All Shapes and Sizes

I got to do a really fun cake for a big fundraiser this week with a St. Patrick's Day theme.  It was also the BIGGEST cake I've ever made in one tier.  It has 6 16" layers of cake, all split and filled with Bailey's buttercream, so the cake itself is about 13-14" tall.  The feet and hat on top were carved out of rice krispie treats (leg, anyone?) and covered in fondant.  Overall, I'm guessing the thing weighed around 100 lbs -- enough that I could barely slide it on the table but wouldn't even try to lift it!

This is another wedding cake I did that was getting lots of attention for its odd -- almost gothic -- color combo.  It also has sugar diamonds all around the bottom of each tier.

The Seeds Are In!

Yes, all the seeds for my garden that could be planted ahead went in last Wednesday, and by Saturday the brussels sprouts and tarragon were already sprouted.  Now I just have to get outside and clean up the garden and get some row covers.  I'm aiming to get things outside a month earlier than last year, which would be about the first week of May.  The way the weather's been, we may actually see an early spring this year.  Guess we'll just have to see how it goes...

My Best Cake Yet

I'm really excited about how this cake turned out.  It wasn't completely original -- mainly tweaking colors and rearranging from another cake design, but added a few finishing touches on my own that I think really made it pop.  It's a display cake we used for a wedding show a couple weeks ago and now sits in our display room.  Lots of customers have been excited about it.

This one was for a lady's 90th birthday, so they wanted it frilly and flowery using pastel colors.  I didn't want it too gaudy so I piped some lace and used some fondant buttercups.  They loved it.

Is it Spring Yet?

FINALLY, more cake pics!  I got so busy in August and September with the tomatoes I was harvesting that blogging fell off the radar.  Then I took a short vacation (sadly, when we returned the tomatoes were clearly finished because of the first frost in mid-end September!), then wedding season was pretty much over for the season, then it was Thanksgiving and Christmas, and now it's the middle of winter and here we are covered in snow.  Weddings don't stop, of coarse, but they definitely slow down until about May -- rather parallel to gardening season, as a matter of fact.  

I've already started getting seeds and planning, but debating whether to expand the garden space.  At the least, I'm gonna try a lot of flowers from seed to plant around the perimeter of the house, which means we'll have to get a lot of compost to amend our sandy soil -- that's why I opted for raised beds for the vegetables.  I'm glad, too, because it wasn't long and we had grubs move into the lawn but so far none in the garden boxes.  I'm not sure how they'll affect the landscaping or new flowers yet -- I'm sure time will tell.  I'd also like to incorporate some kind of row covers to extend our tiny growing season, but haven't found the perfect ones yet (size is the issue so far), so we may have to fabricate some ourselves.  If we had those, I'd start planting seeds in the next week or so.  Oh, to be springtime!

Here's some pictures from the end of last season I never got around to posting:

This was a cool effect of ivory over chocolate brown using brush embroidery technique.

This has a 3D cherry tree growing up the side.

This cake was another milestone in the evolution of my piping skills -- Loose swirls of vines with tiny leaves and flowers.

This turned out really nice -- big, but still elegant and clean.