Springtime in the Garden: this year's simple gardening plan

Hello hello, and welcome to Episode 112 of Life On the Brink!

One of my favorite things about April is that it’s the start of growing season where I live. It’s finally time to put seeds in the earth and watch them grow! I’ve spent the past several weeks preparing and planning this year’s garden, and it feels so good to finally execute some of that plan.

In this episode I'm sharing my simple, easy-to-maintain garden plan for this year, from flowers to herbs and veggies to garden bed overhaul. With a baby coming in June, my goal is to make things as lovely as I can with little maintenance.

Plus, this week's Little Joy is a wonderful tea-centered experience, and I'm sharing a sweet jazz album that's perfect for spring.

For the complete show notes, click here!
For full transcript, click here!


Site: lifeonthebrink.live
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Transcript

Unknown: 0:07

Welcome to Life on the brink, a lovely little place filled with inspiration and creativity that is dedicated to enjoying life one day at a time. I'm Ana. And together, we're exploring the beautiful things in this world that fascinate us, and often discovering something new. Hello, hello, welcome to episode 112 of life on the brink. As I'm recording this, it is a beautiful spring day, I've got the window open next to me. So you may hear some birds. But a lot of the rain that the beginning of spring brings has kind of eased up. And it's beautiful. It is covered in pollen. Everything's covered in pollen right now. But I'm so excited to finally be outdoors again. And that's what today's episode is all about. Basically, I hope you're doing well, that you're enjoying your April, I had a beautiful Easter weekend and a trip away with Josh, we had a few days away in Washington DC before the baby comes. And that was very nice. I'll talk more about that later. But another thing that I really love about April is that where I live, my last frost date is April 1. And if you're like what in the world does that mean? I'll get into it today. But it means that I can safely start planting things in the ground. And it's kind of the official start of the actual growing season here, which is in Tidewater, Virginia like Southeast Virginia, very close to the water. We have pretty mild winters. And so when it was approaching the beginning of April, I was looking at the weather and I was like yep, I think we're done with freezing temperatures. And gardening has begun. I love to be outside working in the garden. Although this year, admittedly, I'm much slower at the work. I'm now seven months pregnant. And I've had a lot of help thus far, which has been very, very lovely. But today's episode is just going to be a bit of a spring refresh. When we're talking about working in the garden, I'm going to be sharing my personal gardening plans. For this year, I'm keeping it very simple. And we're going to be providing you with plenty of inspiration and resources. So that no matter what level you're at, you're able to just add a little bit of some gardening springtime sunshine, to your April to your spring. And if you live in a colder climate than I do, and you're not quite done with the freezing temperatures, that's fine. Now you have time to plan and it won't come upon you without you thinking about it the way it did for me. So let's all pause and make ourselves a nice cup of tea. Today, I just have a very classic Earl Grey, back to basics, but it's really treating me very well. So make yourself a nice warm cup or maybe an iced cup. I've really been enjoying some iced tea lately as well. But it's early, and it's a little bit chilly outside still. So I'm enjoying a hot cup. And let's talk about the garden. As you probably know, I moved into the house where I am right now. About a year ago, it was February of 2023. And we inherited a beautiful backyard that has some lovely trees and bushes. And there were so many plants that were just already here. But I also brought a lot of plants with me. When we moved from the apartment, I dug up basically everything that I could bring. And so last year, it was kind of like a, like a setting up year. I transplanted a lot of herbs and some flowering plants. And I just waited to see what what took. And it was really about observation and trying to keep things simple, simple ish, you know. And I think it went very well. It was really enjoyable. I love being out there in especially the spring and fall. And I can see how over the years that we'll be here at how we'll be able to grow more and more perennials and to just make it even more lush and complementary to my tastes and lifestyle. And the nice thing about gardening is it's it's easier every year If you have to do a big overhaul like I did last year, the next year won't be so difficult, especially if you plant perennials, so plants that are going to come back each year, then it's just a matter of tending pruning, weeding, you know, a lot different than having to do a big overhaul every year. And you also don't need a lot of fancy equipment, not at all. Everything that I've used so far this season, I've used a shovel, like a sturdy shovel, as well as a hand trowel, few pairs of gloves, a bucket, a pair of garden shears, and just some various soils and composts. It's really minimal stuff. And I'll talk a little bit about soils and things as I go. But I do want to just give you some other podcasts if you're like, completely lost, like what are we talking about? These will help. Firstly, podcast number 23 was a simple guide to starting your own vegetable garden. But all of those also do transfer over into you know, like a lot of the actual gardening information is just general. But I talk about all kinds of like the the hardiness zone, the soil types, the equipment, the beginner friendly herbs and veggies and stuff. Then there's Episode 51, in which that was called welcoming springtime, and I had a lot of cool garden updates in that one. And then Episode 86, which was from last spring. So it's called it's spring, seasonal reads and new garden plans. So that's where I was really breaking down everything that's on this new property. Just to give you a better idea of the landscape that I'm working with now, which is fortunately beautiful. And I will include photos in this blog post as well. So you can see what I'm talking about. But first, let's talk about what kind of grew back from last year that I don't need to do anything with really and it's fantastic. Which will also give you an idea of things that are more hearty that might be fun to plant. But firstly, I'm so excited because so many of my herbs did really well through the winter. There's a section of the back garden that I have dedicated to the herb plants because I just want them to kind of grow all over each other and basically just become the whole ground cover of that area. So these are the hardier herbs like I have sage, oregano, thyme, two different times of time, actually, mint and lemon balm, oh, and green onion, they all came back. I'm waiting to see about the lavender. Because it I had to you know, cut it back a little bit. It got a little bit unhappy last year in the transfer, but I think it's going to be fine. And the oregano especially it's just taking over. It's so happy right now. And I love it. The only ones of those herbs that I keep in check are the mint and the lemon balm because they will take over they will actually take over. So the lemon palm is in a pot and the mint is sort of segregated from the rest of them. But all of them came back. I'm really excited about it. And there are also some like hardier Bush like perennials that are really they're quite mature at this point. And so you can pretty much count on them coming back year after year, such as the hydrangeas, they have, they're covered in leaves now. And the Azaleas are just starting to bloom. I love them. This is like it's like a two week span where they start to really open up these particular hydrangeas and it's one side of them is white, and the other is pink. And I just love them. Let's see we have a big butterfly bush, which I had to trim and prune back a lot. And that has already started to grow back. Several of our rose plants are very happy. And my favorite of the roses is the one that climbs up a trellis off the side of our house and it is a Don Juan rose, which is a huge red rose. Not very fragrant but beautiful to look at. And those are kind of interspersed throughout the whole backyard. Then there are some smaller bulbs and things. There's some irises that are on the side of well near the herbs I should say. And they their leaves have shot up so I'm waiting to see how they do and I transplanted some day lilies last year. And there's some dailies already in one of the garden beds, and they have also come back. And finally, this was a cool project. I'm glad this worked. I had a ton of daffodil bulbs, they were given to me and Josh, by a friend of his, and I just put them in various containers last fall just so they could be in the winter, arms or in the soil during the winter, as bulbs like to do. And I just thought, Well, we'll see what happens with that. And they all came up. So I have a ton of daffodils. And some of them are even like double daffodils, where instead of one flower, at the top of the chute, it's a little cluster of like small flowers. I actually had never seen this before. Until last week, when we happen to be in DC. We saw some in one of the one of the gardens there. And I was like, Oh, I've never seen anything like this came back home. And I've got some now and they're fragrant. Like they smell wonderful, almost like a lilac to me. But yeah, so that worked. And I just had them growing in containers that now I need to use for other things, but they came up. So that's what I was working with, which is a really great place to start. But I had probably almost a it was probably a month ago now, I had a day where my mom and my uncle and I, they helped me a lot. I had not touched a garden since probably, I don't know, mid summer, it just I was not in a gardening headspace with the exception of planting those bulbs. I just didn't really do anything to clean it up. And then you know, all the leaves fall. And we just needed to do some weeding and some a lot of work. So had to pick up the dead tomato plants and, and weed a whole bunch of stuff. And they helped me with that. So I think that if you're dealing with a brand new space, or you're looking at a garden bed, and you're like, what, what do I do first? That's the first thing just clean it up any dead plants, they gotta go. Now if you're wondering, is this plant dead? Or is it not just cut one of the stems and look inside, if it is dry and brown, like within the stem that's dead. But if it's at all green, or looks like there's some sort of moisture or life there that is likely alive, and it's just waiting to come back so you can leave him alone. And I also had another work day with Josh, we worked in the front garden bed. That's the big plan for this year. And I'm about to get into that because there's there's nothing going on with this garden garden bed in the front of the house. And it's just such an eyesore, I can't stand it. And I really want the front of my house to also be pretty because the back is so pretty just naturally. So he was helping me with that. And then this week, I actually I had a day by myself where I moved very slowly. And I was careful of my back because I've been having some back issues. But I was out there for a few hours just working and there's always so much to be done. And I have to just stay focused. But I have bought zero supplies. Well Josh did get a new shovel because we broke the one that we had. And I just got some more soils and composts and some seeds. So I'm about to talk about the plan for this year. But before I do, I'm just going to break down what I use in terms of soil and things like that. I particularly like to grow organically, especially if it's something that I'm going to eat or if the soil is growing something I'm going to eat, but then I just I just use it anyway because it's good. So I tend to buy Espoma organics, or they have it at my garden center. I really love them. And this year I've really only been I only got like two different things. One, I got the Espoma organics, raised bed, garden soil or potting soil, I believe it's in a red bag and it's basically just like a really nice outdoor potting mix that has organic material in it as well when I say organic material, I mean like compost already. And then the other thing I get is their mushroom compost, which is in a grey bag. And I've used that for years and I really love it. And generally if I'm digging up the Earth, which where I live is very sand and clay heavy. So not a lot of room for new things to grow very well. If I'm digging up a new area, then I will plant things in that garden bed mix. Because it's already got the compost in it, if it's a place where I've already grown before or the soil is already really well worked, or it's in a container that I've used before, then I will just use the compost and I literally just take a little handful of it, add it to the container, mix it around, good to go plant something new. And then this is what I love about gardening like yesterday, I was working with a bunch of the containers, just terracotta pots, and things had been growing, or the daffodils had been growing in them. And so after I'd picked all of them out, then I was just, you know, getting some roots out of the soil. And now you've got a little pot of soil. And all I did was add a little handful of compost, mix it up and put seeds in it and new stuff is going to grow like it's just it's like magic, really. And over the past several years, I've now collected quite a few terracotta pots. So I'm trying to use them to the best of my ability, but that's really all I use. It's definitely a good idea to add at least compost when you're planting something new. And there's many different kinds of compost. Like I said, I just really like Espoma organics, but you know, knock yourself out unless you have your soil tested. And it's like, deemed to be perfect. Usually some supplementing is nice for a new baby plant. So while I know like landscaping can be an intimidating thing, when it comes to like a smaller, like a container, you can literally fill a pot with as long as the pot has good drainage, you know, with soil, nice soil that has compost in it, you can put seeds in it, and water it and you're done. Or you can get a transplant of some other seedling put it in the pot, you're done, it will grow like that's the part that I just love about gardening and I got to do is water it. So let me get into this front garden bed, I'll definitely I'll leave a picture as to where it is right now. I don't know if I have any pictures of it over the winter, it was so sad looking. So envision this, you're looking at the front of my house, okay. On either side of the driveway, there's a really nice, like, divided with with rocks, kind of like a little garden bed. And the main focus of those beds is that each one has a crape myrtle tree in it. I love these crape myrtles they bloom in the summer. And there's just some shrubs and things that grow around it. Actually, there's some daffodils close to our mailbox, and that's really nice. Then there's lawn, right, the grass is fine. It's actually a really nice healthy grass. And Josh cuts it. And then when you're looking like right at the house, there's the steps to go up to the front door. And then to the right of that. There's this. There's there's a garden bed, and it's right in front of the one window that faces the front of the house. And what has been there since we moved in our roses. Probably there were like six rose plants when we moved in. Not all of them were very happy. One of them I think was already dead. And for like maybe two weeks, three weeks towards the end of April. They're beautiful, like they're covered and roses. And I would cut from them and make bouquets and like just loving that rose life. But every other time of the year. They're just asymmetrical weird shrubs, basically. And there's nothing else going on. And the stones that were used to edge this garden are the same ones that are used throughout the whole property. And I love them everywhere else. They're they're like, they have a very organic natural look. They're stones, they're not bricks. And so sometimes they'll be stacked two or even three layers of rock to give it a nice full appearance. But the thing is this, our whole yard is kind of on a decline. As you're walking from the front yard to the backyard, you're going down a slope towards the water. And so because of that, if you're standing on the street and looking at the house, the grass like I said is nice and healthy and tall. And even if it's trimmed and edged properly, you cannot see this border very well. And so it just looks like there's patch of dirt and some shrubs. Or I should say like mulch because you can see the mulch and shrubs in front of the house. And it's really doing nothing. And especially through this winter, I was like, oh my goodness, now's the time, I need to do something else. I just want to add to this, there's so much room. It's like a really sizable bed. And so this is the plan. This is what's happened so far. Josh helped me move the three rose plants that were alive. And well, by the beginning of this season, we transplanted them all to the back of the bed. So the roses are now the closest thing to the house. And then the plan is to just plant things in front of it and around it. So here's what I've done. I got a hold of two Shasta Daisy plants from someone local. They're quite small right now, they just look like a little, little seedling, couple of leaves. But they will eventually grow into a nice dome of daisies. And she told me that next year, it'll be even bigger, like they tend to grow quite quickly, you know, comparatively and are hardy. So I planted two of those in front of the roses. And then off to one side, I have a chrysanthemum plant. I don't remember what color the flowers are, I think maybe yellow. I just got some mums last year and this one happened to live through the winter. So I said okay, you are going to fill out this front bed. And then I most recently dug up all those daffodils that I planted and transplanted most of them to this front bed, so they are aligning the front of, of the bed. And the idea is that something will be blooming or growing at all points during the season, starting with the daffodils and ending with probably the mom, the chrysanthemum. And then the roses do tend to have a second bloom in the fall. Already, I like the composition of it much better. And I can envision where it's going to be when these other perennials grow a little bit more. So now what's to happen besides that, we're going to get some new stones or bricks, not sure yet, some that are taller, that are visible from the street to edge, that bed. My uncle very kindly, carded all of the stones that were there, down the hill into some storage for me. And so we're gonna replace those. And then I need something that's going to bloom in the summer, I was thinking about seeding, some zinnias. I tried Zinnias a few years ago, and it didn't work. But maybe I just didn't do it right. But I've been seeing a lot on like Instagram about how easy Zinnias are, and how they make great cut flowers, and they just look beautiful. So I may just create some spaces closer to the front and in between some plants and just try some Zinnias from seed, probably what's going to happen is I'm going to go to my garden center, and just check out their summer annuals. And if it's too expensive, then I'll go with seeds. But I do have a couple of terracotta pots that are still unoccupied by the front door. And sometimes I like to just get a nice little annual, a nice something that's already colorful, and fill those pots. So I might do a bit of that in the front bed, but waiting to see. So like I said, I'm gonna leave pictures of this space on the blog post so you can see what I'm talking about. That is my main focus for this year. And it's taking more planning and work because as I said, starting something from scratch in the garden always takes a little bit more time than just maintaining it in the years to come. So everything else I'm really keeping simple, because I'm about to have this baby. And I just want minimal maintenance, easy things to grow. I'm taking it really chill with the vegetables. And so this is my plan for this year. So if you're also trying to do something easy, this is what I this is what I'm doing which is going to be easy. When it comes to the vegetables and herbs. This is what's happening. The herbs that came back I told you about already and I forgot actually I have a parsley plant and it's in a planter that's on our back deck actually. And I am surprised at how much it's thriving. I'm waiting for caterpillars to come and eat it up as always happens but we'll see. But I do plan on getting well I got some new basil plants which I always do every year. Right And now they're sitting in that container with the parsley, but I'm going to move them over to tomatoes because they like being with tomatoes. And I just plan on getting a new dill plant and a camo meal plant. They I think just where I live, they never last the whole season and definitely not through the winter. I think they're just a little bit too delicate. But I love using both those plants. So I'm going to get new ones of them. And then in terms of vegetables, this is all I'm doing. I've got one raised bed that has a bunch of strawberry plants in it, and they're going to grow, do whatever they will, I can see that the flowers have already started. But the squirrels and the birds will definitely eat all of the berries, I need to come up with a way to cover them so that I can actually harvest the strawberries. I don't know if that'll happen this year. But at the very least I will harvest the leaves and dry them for strawberry leaf tea. And then the other raised bed, I have nothing right now that they were holding daffodils. So I plan on growing some radishes from seed because they are the easiest thing in the whole world. And they don't take a long time, and they just really feel like spring to me. And then I think I'm just gonna get some pepper plants and put them in there. I tend to grow because I go to the farmers market quite a bit during the spring and summer and early fall, I tend to get nice big peppers there. And instead, I kind of like to grow the more niche hot peppers, because you can only harvest them one or two at a time. And you wouldn't need to use more than one or two at a time. So last year, I grew jalapenos and habanero rose. And I really enjoyed that. But I'm going to see what the garden center has probably I'll just do a couple of hot peppers because I like them. And by mid summer, I'll be able to have a nice habanero Margarita, something that I've been missing. So I love doing that with fresh hot peppers. And then I just plan to get to tomato plants just like I did last year. I'll see what varieties I find. Last year, what did I get? It was like a larger like a big tomato. And the other one was a little bit smaller. I also do like cherry tomatoes. So maybe I'll do one cherry and one big or heirloom or something. And I tend to grow the basil around the tomato plants because they really complement each other and they make each other really happy in the soil. So I'll move the basil over there and maybe get some Thai basil because I like using that one too. But honestly, tomatoes I do use all the time. If I had a flourishing zucchini plant, I would use some of it and have to give some away like everyone who has zucchini does. But I use tomatoes all the time, especially in the summer, along with the basil. And so these are just the plants that I know I'll use and that I really love having fresh and harvestable basically, I do not tend to grow the peppers or tomatoes from seed. I've done it it just takes forever. So I will get some plants from my local nursery. And I do have a couple I have like two of the tomato cages you know what I'm talking about, where you just place them around the tomato plant and they climb all over it. You just have to trim it and prune it so that things are have enough airflow. But that's it like they're very low maintenance plants. And that's what I like about them. And finally, this is the last little section. This is my new project for this year. Last year, I had a fun little one where I tried to grow hibiscus from seed but the type that you would dry and make tea out of didn't really work. I think they needed more space, whatever, this year, new thing. And I've done a bit more research and I've I'm a little bit more prepared. I feel confident that this is going to work. But I like to try something new every year just to see what happens. And this year, it's edible flowers I received for Christmas. new cookbook, of course. And it's by metal leg live. I think maybe it's how you say your name. And her cookbook is simple French baking, if you remember bake off a couple of years ago this it's that mental who got to like the semifinals at least I think she was French. You get it. I love this cookbook. It's so beautiful. And she does a lot of decorating with herbs and flowers, which I feel like is a very fringe approach you know, very simple. And I do tend to garnish and decorate with herbs all the time but I want to try growing edible flowers. So to ensure that they are grown organically from the beginning, I'm just growing them from seed. Typically at your garden center. If you're buying a vegetable or an herb, they will make it clear whether it's grown organically or not. And usually it is because you're going to be eating it. But it's not always specified with flowers. So perhaps you can find out from that grower, but I'm just going to go from seed and that way, I know. And I got two different types. I'm growing pansies and nasturtiums. And it was so interesting because I planted the seeds earlier this week. Pansy seeds are tiny, itty bitty, they look like like strawberry seeds, or like almost like poppy seeds, but Brown. They're small. And nasturtiums seeds are like the size of a pea like they look like wrinkly dried peas. Huge by comparison. And so I was just following the seed packet. That's all I did, I got a seed packet of it was Swiss giant pansies, that's the variety that I found. And then the nasturtiums are called cup of sun. So they're more orange, yellow, pale yellow to white. And the pansies are going to be more pink and purple with some more yellow as well. And I have, like I said, a bunch of terracotta pots. And so I, I just planted them, and we'll see what happens, none of them. Like I've already given them the spacing that they need, so I won't need to transplant them into the ground, they'll be able to grow in the container just fine. Like I said, I just mixed in a handful of compost, made little holes, dropped the seeds, covered them watered them, and we'll see what happens it's supposed to be about 10 days to germination, and then I should see some little sprouts. So that's my new project for this year. I'm really excited about it. And hopefully, I'm gonna have several containers of pansies and assertions. And I suppose I could plant them in maybe even the front bed or in other places in the yard once they're nice and healthy. But I might just move those pots around and let them be on the front porch and the back deck. And just let them be pretty and easy to access if I'm trying to garnish a little cake or something. So that's the plan for this year. Basically, all I'm going to do still is mess with that front bed and plant the tomatoes and veggies. And I may I grew sunflowers last year on one side of the garden, one side of the backyard. And I might do the same thing. I've already dug the trench last year where I planted them. So I would just uncover the leaves, mix in some compost to plant the seeds and wait. So I might do that. I just really love how simple things like that are once you've already made the space and like dug up the earth and done everything the year before. So I might do that. And a nice thing when Josh raked up or we have a leaf blower now actually, the backyard was covered in leaves. But I told him everything that's fallen on a garden bed just leave it there acting as mulch this year. And everything that was on the grass, he bagged it up, and some of it, you know, went away and was picked up with like, organic waste. But two bags of these leaves I still have and so I'm planning to use them as mulch, especially in the backyard throughout the season. I have continually been using Lawn Clippings whenever Josh cuts the grass and try to use that as ground cover. But the leaves I think are going to be very, very effective. So that's something new I'm trying out this year rather than buying mulch. It turns out leaves are a nice organic, free ground cover. So that's my plan for this year. I'm trying to get as much of the work done before the baby comes. And while I still have a level of mobility, I can feel myself moving slowly. But that's okay. I think of my great grandmother. She lived all her life in Alabama, and I believe so anyway, but I always knew her to live in the country of Alabama and she lived to be like 9293 or something. And she was always gardening. She always had a garden which I think in some parts especially in the south, that's just like a thing you do like you just have a garden. Whether or not you're a gardener or not. And despite Actually, in the later decades of her life, she never moved very quickly. But she always had beautiful things growing in her garden. And she always was cooking and preparing really beautiful things. And they just they they showed up, like, sometimes the math, the time didn't seem to add up because she would move really slowly and deliberately, but never rushed. She always really enjoyed it. And then there was just like bounty. So that's, I think, how I'm trying to be when it comes to my home to my garden, especially in the spring and summer where nothing needs to be rushed. But it's just happening consistently. And gardening is good for that, I think. And really like a day spent out in the garden, as long as it's not hot, like superduper hot, which doubtful it is right now, depending on the time of day, no matter where you live. It's refreshing, it's good for the body to move, it clears the mind, I really, I can't recommend it enough that if you try one of the ideas that you've heard today, or if any of it has inspired you to just go looking to just get one terracotta pot and fill it with a little bit of soil and implant something. It adds beauty, and it uplifts the soul and the doing it the action of doing it is really refreshing. So I hope you try something new out in the garden this year. I'm just so enjoying being out there. Even though like I said, everything has been covered in pollen for about two weeks. I think it's finally subsiding. At least where I live, there's there's at least a one week two week stretch where the pollen is intense, and the allergies flare up. But I think we're just past that. The skies are clearing, the temperatures are raising the farmers markets are open it is picnic time, all of those things. And so to continue the springtime garden inspiration, I'll be right back with this week's little joy this week's little joy is something that I experienced. Last week when I was on a little baby moon with Josh, we were in Washington, DC, and surrounding areas. And we had several really beautiful moments, we went to a tulip farm, which tulips are my favorite flower. And so I This isn't even the little joy, but I just got to share it. We we got to this farm and you get five stems for free with your admission. And Josh looked at me and he said, Okay, you have 10 stems, do whatever you want. And we walked through so many rows of tulips looking for 10 perfect ones. My shoes got covered in mud. That's okay, though. They they washed out pretty good. And it was just, it was gorgeous. It was gorgeous to see all these flowers. And there were some other little fun things we did. But that was cool. And we walked around and we went to the Botanic Gardens in the Library of Congress, which I just loved. And point is one of probably like the highlight for both of us of the trip was this afternoon tea. Josh and I had not gone to tea, I had not been to like a fancy afternoon tea that I did not make since we were in Canada in the fall of 2022. And this is kind of something that I just like to do. Because I'm not at a point in my life where I feel like we can stay in these very fancy hotels. And it'd be worth it for them for the amount of money it would be. However, dining in those hotels, much more accessible and is still going to be a nice a little touch of luxury. And I especially love it in the form of afternoon tea. Of course. I love afternoon tea. In fact, what is it? It's episode, Episode podcast 24 of this of life on the brink of this episode 24 is called The Art of afternoon tea where I break down all of it and then episode 54 was the Tea Party picnic of my dreams. I just really love it and it's lovely. And we went to one at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel, which is like across the street from the White House. It was so fancy so beautiful. And when I was looking up, you know, Googling Washington DC after New tea this one came up all the time. And the nice thing was that we were there in April. So it was their special cherry blossom afternoon tea, because it's during the cherry blossom festival and they're all around DC. It was beautiful. So it was really nice because it was such a spring springtime specific tea. Everything was very fruit and floral forward. For example. Let me think, well the two different kinds of scones were vanilla bean and cherry cinnamon, very fun. One of the savories was a smoked duck with cherry jam, and like a marinated cherry. The sweets were all really interesting combining cherry and strawberry and lychee and violet, and matcha. Mandarin and pineapple. Like it was a really interesting collection of flavors. There was even one thing that I was like, Oh, no about that. It was a mango violet shortbread. And the mango was just a little bit too strong for me. But Josh liked it. And we had what do we have, we had a black tea that was decaf, so that I could drink as much as what I wanted. And we had a Lychee Rose green tea. Oh my gosh, it was delicious. So we were so full, as you can imagine, as you always are, after an afternoon tea, there was a harvest playing there were real cherry blossom. I guess like baby trees in huge planters lining the whole space. It was just stunning. And it made me excited to make another tea. I haven't done it since Christmas. But I really enjoy making that for people in my life for like maybe four to five people come over and I will make the whole thing all three tiers. And I have the equipment for it. So it's like really beautiful. And I have enough teapots and tea cups, of course. And so I want to do one again and make it very springtime and maybe elevate it a little bit. You know, when you always see cucumber sandwiches at teas like this, where they're kind of open face. And it's they've cut the cucumber long way lengthwise instead of the rounds. And it's just, it's beautiful. It's beautiful to look at. I kind of want to try that. And because we were celebrating having a baby soon, they also brought us like a little congratulatory cupcake, which was really delicious as well. We ate it the next day, we took it with us. But I'm just beautiful. I love afternoon tea. And I hadn't had like a very upscale version of it in a long time. But I love it. So that was this week's little joy. It was also really fun for Josh. And something I said to him that I really love about afternoon tea is that because tea is perhaps a more subtle drink. The notes are more subtle, they're more delicate. I think it really forces you to focus in and to appreciate the subtleties of flavor. I'm sure things like wine tastings, and other experiences like that will also do that. But I just I really love the exploration of flavor and creativity that happens. Such teas. So I'll leave some photos of that, of course in the show notes as well. And finally, I'll leave you with an album of music. There's a song that always comes to my mind at this time of year and particularly the recording by blossom dearie. I don't even was blossom like it's perfect for the springtime. But it's the tune. They say it's spring. And I don't remember much of the words but it's the they say it's spring. This feeling light as a feather. You know the one and it's on this album, which I'm blinking, which is called give him the Ooh la la which is a hilarious tune. But blossom Dearie has such a unique voice. Like if you've heard it, you'll know it when you hear it again. And I really love I really love it and it feels like springtime to me. And that tune they say it spring is on this album. So I'm linking that in the show notes as well. Feel free to check it all out. And yeah, I talked about some other garden related episodes earlier. But you can also if you go to the website, which is life on the brink dot live, Li ve then you go to the blog section like the blog tab, and there's a little search bar and if you just search garden, all of the guard unrelated episodes are going to show up. Sometimes they're mashed together with other seasonal things. Like one of the springtime ones I mentioned today is like books and garden. But some of them are very garden specific. And it's interesting, because you can track my own gardening journey because I started. Yeah, I really started in 2020, which is the same year that this podcast began. So you can kind of track my own gardening confidence over the past four years. Yeah. So if you are a little intimidated or want to hear, hear where I was, or just want to have other garden related episodes, feel free to check those out. Thank you so much for listening to this garden related springtime episode, we've got only a few more in season four of life on the brink. Before I take, I'm going to take the summer off to have a baby. So I will be back in two weeks with a new episode, and there'll be new episodes through April and May. And feel free to follow me over on Instagram. If you'd like to keep track. I put all updates over there and until next time, you have a lovely week, and enjoy your garden thank you for tuning into this episode of Life on the brink. If you're enjoying these episodes, please feel free to leave a star rating or even better leave a review on Apple podcasts to help spread the word. For podcast show notes and extra inspirational posts throughout the week. Head to the blog at life on the brink dot live. And if you'd like a little extra dose of inspiration in your life, sign up for the monthly newsletter, which lights up your inbox the first Friday of each month. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, friends you have a lovely week. Bye