Dana Burland

We’re back from an extra long weekend in Charleston with good friends of ours. Any little parenting break is a good break, but Charleston was exceptionally fun to breathe in. We spent the first two days at Folly Beach, an eclectic little Atlantic beach town where we could walk across the street to the ocean or down to the main tourist-filled drag. I’m a lake girl through and through but the expansive rolling waves, tide pools, crunchy shells and stellar sunrises were so relaxing. Folly Beach reminded me of so many little Michigan beach towns—with more of a tiny-bathing-suits-and-cheap-plastic-trinkets lean. Taco Boy, Bert's Market (do not sleep on their chocolate cake!), Lost Dog Cafe and Center Street Coffee Shop were my favorite stops in town. Rita’s makes the best margaritas (we collectively decided) and Blue (restaurant in the Tides hotel) had the best ocean-side dining. We did a low-country kayak trip and saw dolphins about 30 yards away! (That definitely made up for an aw...

It’s always bittersweet to shut the garden down for the year. On one hand I always feel very done with it. Produced out. Overwhelmed by the overwhelming plants. Ready to put it (and myself) to rest. But it also ends the fun of seeing what will grow, how much produce there will be. What this year’s challenges, wins and flops are. The garden fence, caging my tomatoes and growing cucumbers were the headlining wins from this year’s garden. I did a decent job of planting so nothing was growing on top of each other, and crops that could be removed early (snap peas, green beans) left more room for the later expanders (tomatoes). I definitely messed up planting two of the same variety of tomato plants. Next year I should get one larger heirloom tomato plant and one cherry tomato plant. I might not mess around with planting watermelon next year--these were massively full of seeds and just not a big win for my fam. I’d like to give broccoli a better try, but will leave carrots to the profess...