I really love taking photographs and looking at photographs by other people. More than words, photos give you the chance to actually look at the world from someone else’s perspective, and cameras give you a chance to look at your regular life through a different lens. I have a fancy Nikon D90, but my most trusty camera is my iPhone. Not because it takes better pictures, but because I always have it with me. Lately I’ve found myself photographing the gorgeous apricot colored roses dangling over the sidewalk just down the block,  the alliums growing in abandoned lot nearby, and my sneaky chicken, Inky, whom I found looking for worms in an off limits area of the yard.

I just started sharing my photos on Instagram, a wonderful Twitter-like app for the iPhone. Instagram lets you easily share photos with friends and view photos of people from all over the world. It is really a lot of fun. I try and share at least one photo every day. If you’d like to get a little peek into my world, you can follow along on instagram. My handle is willigalloway. If you don’t have an iPhone, you can still see my daily photo feed on Twitter, where I also post my pictures.

Here are a few things that caught my eye this past week…

This gorgeous rose is growing in a little strip of soil between the sidewalk and the street. The bush is nearly 8 feet tall and the roses cascade in an arch over the walkway. I snapped this picture in the late evening while I was on a walk with our dog, Domino.

My mom just got an iPhone and she texted me a picture of some flowers in her garden in Wyoming. It was a fun message to receive, and such a pretty picture that I decided to share it on Instagram.

We have a pink and yellow theme going on in the yard this summer. I got these super cool solar lanterns at IKEA for $14.99 a piece. During the day they soak up the rays (well, the weak light that makes its way through the clouds) and then they cast a rosy glow over the lawn and hammock in the evening when the sun goes down. I love looking out the window at night and seeing them bobbing in the breeze.

My English peas are setting pods right now (it’s about time!) and I cannot wait until they are ready and I can make my all-time favorite summer meal: pasta with garlic scape pesto!

I decided to spruce up our rusty bistro set with a little spray paint and chose “school bus yellow” as the color. Even though I have limited DIY skills, I was super pleased how the chairs and table turned out!

Domino and I like to explore the neighborhood and we spotted these alliums growing in an abandoned lot not far from our house. Whenever I see a garden in disarray I always wonder who loved that little spot of earth before and where they are now.

My garden is in one of its transition stages. The spinach and radishes I planted in March finally matured, so we ate them and then planted dill and bush beans in their place. Soon I’ll need to pull the lettuces before they bolt and sow something in the blank space left behind. I try to plant a little bit of food all throughout the summer—a technique known as succession planting—so that we’re never left with a bare patch of soil and nothing to harvest. Today over on Re-Nest I pulled together some ideas for what plants to put in your garden after you’ve pulled out spring crops (as in my cilantro is out, so I am putting basil in). But I’m curious, what are your favorite things to plant right now?

The favorite part of my garden this year is my patio salad garden. I bought a collection of wooden crates at an estate sale earlier this spring and turned them into planter boxes. I planted two up with lettuce seedlings, I direct sowed an Asian baby green mix in the third, and sowed peas to harvest for their shoots in another. I have two more crates that I’m planning on filling up with basil next week. Over on Re-Nest I wrote about how I turned the crates into planters.

The romaine lettuce variety ‘Breen’ is an absolute stunner in a container. Upright with black leaves that are kissed with chartreuse, it is such a welcome change from regular red or green lettuce. The heads are just starting to mature, so I am planning on making Caesar salad (the recipe for the dressing will be in my book!).

I got the idea to grow peas for their shoots from my friend Lorene. I sowed five rows of peas just one apart in this box. They have grown much faster than my peas in the ground, I think perhaps because the soil is warmer in the container. I planted them about 6 weeks ago and we’ve already harvested two big salads and the peas keep producing more shoots.

I sprinkled about 1/2 a packet of a mesclun mix over the soil in this container. It looked a bit bare for about two weeks, but then the seedlings popped up and filled the box in with a riot of color and texture. I’m so glad that I decided to direct sow seed in this container because these greens will be ready to harvest just as the lettuces that I planted as seedlings are finishing up.

This box produces lettuce like crazy. We just keep picking off the outer leaves and using them on sandwiches and in salads. Eventually I’ll harvest the whole heads and then replant. I just can’t decide what to put in next. Suggestions??

I always manage to kill at least one plant every year. On Saturday, a tomato fell victim. For the record, I was trying to help my ‘Stupice’ tomato grow faster in our frigid spring. So I placed a cloche over it. Then we had a fabulous, hot, sunny, summery day. The kind of day where you don’t need a sweater at night. The kind of day where all you want to do is eat ice cream and drink lemonade. The kind of day that would be awesome for a tomato, unless you happen to be the one sweltering inside a cloche. I’m guessing it topped 100 degrees underneath the little glass dome. It also appears that the sun literally fried the plant’s leaves, since they are as crispy as a chip. Happily, other plants in my garden are thriving…

‘Cherry Belle’ Radish

‘Breen’ Romaine

‘Romanesco’ Cauliflower

Happy June! I am in love with this month’s chicken themed desktop calendar from Anne Bryant. Jon and I have kept chickens for four years and I am pleased to say that our girls recently made the move to Portland from Seattle. It was quite the journey. Placing them into individual cardboard boxes and loading them into the car turned out to be the easiest part, because about half way to Portland I got pulled over. It was 10:15 at night and when the officer leaned into the car to collect my license and registration the girls decided to make their presence known. “Bwak. Bwak,” they said quietly. The officer gave me a quizzical look and directed his flashlight to the back of the car. Four little boxes were neatly lined up, along with a bale of wood shavings, two galvanized cans of food, and other assorted chicken accoutrements. “Bwak. Bawk. Bwak.” I put on my best smile and said, “Um, yes, officer, I have my chickens in the back of the car. I’m moving them down to their new coop in Portland.” He gave me a look that said, “I see the weirdest stuff in this job” and headed to his patrol car. He came back, issued me a warning, and wished us good luck on our move. Phew! Apparently the girls are good for more than their eggs.

To put this month’s calendar on your computer’s desktop, all you need to do is click on this link—it will take you to a page where you choose can choose the file size that best fits your monitor. The calendar will then automatically download to your computer and you can set it up as your background image.

Also, for all my Seattle readers, please consider attending the NW Lawn & Garden Summit this Saturday from 9:00 to 2:30. People from the community are gathering to explore options for passing a ban on the usage of pesticides for cosmetic use—similar to the one already in place in Canada. Pesticides from home gardens cause significant pollution in the city’s streams and have a profound impact on the health of salmon and Puget Sound. Even if you cannot make it to the event, check out this great article on a study that shows the correlation between pesticide concentrations in local streams and sales of these products at local retail outlets. It really reminded me of the many reasons why I have always been an organic gardener.