Umm, so it's been a year....

I've been gardening, just not blogging. I do still find my blog useful occasionally though, so I'd like to try to keep it a little more up to date.

For instance, this week I noticed my chive plants were finally blooming. I thought for sure they were about a month late, and I remembered that two years ago I'd kept notes on harvest times. So I looked back at that list, but lo and behold, they were right on time. Amazing how your memory can be so wrong!

I'm still living in the same home, although hoping to move. For a variety of reasons, we just haven't put the house up for sale yet. My son is now 2.5 and keeping us busy. Therefore, I'm continuing to go light on gardening and trying to keep things simple.

Here's a few pics I've managed to take so far this spring.

On March 31st I had my first harvest: some baby chives that I used on potato salad for our Easter dinner. They really put this humdrum side dish over the top!

     

And this is my strawberry bed on April 21st. Unfortunately you can only see 2 strawberry plants, and the rest are romaine and buttercrunch lettuces that I'd just planted. The triple digit heatwaves last summer burnt my poor strawberries to a crisp, and this is all that came back. Compared to this photo from 2010 it really is so sad. Hopefully they'll survive and send out some runners for next year. 

I also planted a few flowers in the back, along with some wild violets I'd successfully transplanted from our lawn last summer. 

That's it. Not very exciting, but at least it is something! We'll see how much I can blog the rest of the season.

A Berry Delicious Harvest

Last year it seemed the heatwaves killed off most of my strawberry patch. But I was wrong! To my great delight, we had quite a good harvest this year. To the left is the 1st ripe strawberry, picked on May 20th.



Then over the next two weeks I picked all of these (and another bowl, but the picture is still on my camera):

I ate them in several delicious salads and a heavenly chocolate breakfast. Details and recipes will follow soon in another post.

More Strawberries!

I can't even believe this harvest!! I got these two bunches, and then another four cups worth that I still have to eat.







It looks like the plants are slowing down now - mostly just the smaller everbearing types are left. But there are definitely still some ripe ones that I need to pick tomorrow...

Strawberry Harvest!

I didn't think they'd be ripe until June, but here are the first 4 ripe berries of the season. We ate these beauties on top of a nice tall stack of chocolate chip pancakes outside in the garden, with my favorite drink, a (vegan) NY Egg Cream. :-)Then, just a day later I picked about 8 more, but ate them before I took a picture. After it stopped raining for two days, I was able to pick this whole plateful. It doesn't look like much, but I'm really excited since this is the most strawberries I've ever harvested at once! It was enough for me and my partner to share for dessert. I can't wait until the next batch is ripe - there are still plenty more on the plants.

Strawberries and Cilantro

Strawberries! Yay. I'm really happy they filled in so nicely compared to last year. There are tons of light green berries on the plants so I can't wait for June. You can't quite see it in the picture, but they are covered in bird netting for protection.

There were even tons of them that sprouted out the back of the bed. I want to turn that area into a place where chamomiles and borage can self-seed to their heart's content, so I pulled out all the extra strawberries and gave them to my neighbor. There must have been at least 20 plants. I left just a few in back there, outside of the netting - so at least the birds and squirrels can have a little treat.

You can also see the herb garden in the background. I can't believe how big so many of the herbs are, now in their third season. I'm also quite impressed that a pretty decent sized group of cilanto plants all self-seeded this year. Here's a close up of them:
I should have harvested some earlier, since of course they're going to bolt with all this hot weather we've been having. But that's ok, it just means more plants will grow and I don't mind the taste of bolted cilantro anyway.

Quick Catch Up

So many pictures, so little time! Once again summer has me outside and not on the computer. But, it has been a good month so I'm not complaining. Here's a quick slideshow of some garden highlights:J.J. taking time to smell the borage flowers.

Somehow both pink and purple flowers grew on the same borage plant.

Fresh picked blackberries went into my morning fruit salad for work.

The nasturtiums are doing fabulous in their new spot by the fence. Much better than the tiny one that grew then died in the hanging pot last year!

Just picked all of these kung pao peppers on Saturday. I can't believe so many grew on just three plants.

My partner the pepper lover pickled them yesterday.

This was all but one of the italian frying and bell peppers that I've picked so far. A bit dissapointing, but, with this crazy weather I'm happy I got any at all. Hopefully things will pick up in the next few weeks.

The tomatoes are doing better - not quite as good as last year, but still decent. Here's the first batch of Roma, plus some grapes which have been producing a few handfuls each day now.

The yellow and red grape tomatoes, plus jalapenos and cilantro from the garden got made into this delicious black bean salsa yesterday. You can't quite tell from the pic but the bowl is huge - a few handfuls a day really adds up nicely. The only things we had to add were a can of black beans, a little white onion and some lime juice.

This was the biggest haul yet from two weekends ago. Who needs the CSA! It is beet greens, rainbow and fordhook giant chard, the peppers, turnips, beets, some blackberries, tomatoes, a cucumber and a lone calendula flower that I accidentally cut off.

The Emerite haricot vert were outstanding. This was the 1st batch from earlier in July, and I picked two more even fuller bowlfuls after that, plus about a half a bowl this weekend. This was the second batch of carrots I picked, and even more peppers. I just planted a new crop of carrots this weekend - now I can hardly wait until November!

Peas: From Harvest to Plate

Well, looks like my peas are about done for this season. I pulled the bush peas out this weekend. The sugar snaps are still there, but only have a few flowers. I think the high temps predicted towards the end of this week will be the end.

Overall, I'm moderately happy with the harvest. I honestly had hoped for more, but as you'll see from the pics below, I got enough for 3 big bowls. They were really delicious. I am going to replant the sugar snaps in August for a fall crop. And next spring, I will definitely try the Agribon to extend the harvest. This year they didn't get above a few inches until it warmed up in May, so I think that is going to be key to getting more peas. So without further ado, here are the pics.

Sugar Snaps (and lettuce) on June 2nd

Dark Seeded Early Perfection Peas & Strawberries

The harvest bowl. I got another bowlful about a week later filled about twice as much, and another this weekend filled almost all the way.

The plate: Garden Salad w/ Creamy Tarragon Herb Dressing, Cold Peanut Butter Soba Noodles covered in peas, carrots & cukes, lemon pepper cucumber slices, and strawberries. (berries, herbs & lettuce also just picked). Above on the shell plate was Red Pepper Bean Dip w/ oregano + Herb Onion Tofu dip w/ broccoli and cauliflower.

I'll update this with the Peanut Butter Noodles recipe when I get home tonight. It is so simple, yet so good. Definitely one of my favorite go-to dishes. Here is the bean dip recipe, I just added extra roasted red peppers instead of the pimentos. And this is the tofu dip recipe, plus chopped herbs and a packet of onion soup mix.

p.s. I know my camera skills need to improve. My camera is actually half broken at the moment, I dropped it and part of the lens fell off. Sooner or later I'll get a new one, and make sure to read the manual this time!

End of March: Wonderful News!

Despite having freezing cold nights at the beginning of this week, all of the veggies I planted outside are growing! I went outside Thursday and couldn't believe my eyes, all of the peas I planted (both types) are peeking out of the soil. I counted them last night - there are nearly 40 pea sprouts. The arugula also survived the cold, and the whole row looks great. We even have two radish sprouts.

The inside seedlings are still ok, though leggy. I'm going to harden off the lettuce this week then plant them deep so hopefully they'll recover once in the garden. Of course, as you can see below the cut-and-come again tray of extra seedlings I didn't even plan to plant is looking way better than the leggy lettuce in individual containers! Oh the irony.

I'm getting excited now for the next few weeks in April. Lots of things to be planted. I made another plan (yes, I couldn't help it haha) for exactly when to plant the seedlings according to the moon cycles. I went with different dates since the Farmer's Almanac seemed to early considering the cold weather we've been having, based on the conventional wisdom that leafy plants with seeds on the outside go in the first quarter, annuals with seeds on the inside second quarter, root veggies and perennials in the 3rd and nothing in the 4th. I don't know if it is bubkus or not, but I figure there is no harm in trying since it is pretty much right on time as far as the weather anyway. This is the plan for the next two weeks:

Today:

• Pre-germinate radish seeds for early (non-moon) planting in the next few days. I want to put these in early where I will plant warm weather veggies in May so they'll be ready for harvest by then. It will be interesting to compare them to the later moon sown radishes, although I won't know if any difference is due to the moon or just warmer weather.

4/1 or 4/2:

• Start flowers inside - Tray 1 = Calendula (10 flashback, 5 octoberfest), Marigold (2), Bergamot (3 fitulosa + 3 didyma) & Garlic Chives (2)
  
• Tray 2 = Nasturtium (10 climbing, 5 empress, 6 whirlybird), Balloon Flower (2), Mallow (2)
• Tray 3 = Hollyhock (15) & English Daisy (10)
• Direct sow more lettuce & arugula plus mustard greens, mache and chard
• Transplant lettuce seedlings

4/4 or 4/5:

• Direct-sow a couple more peas to fill in any empty spots

4/11 or 4/12:

• Direct-sow turnips, beets, carrots & more radishes
• Plant purchased berries outside - raspberries, blueberries and strawberries

Luscious Little Strawberry

This is a catch up post. Last year one of the first plants I bought when we moved into the house was a lone little strawberry. You can see it here. Well, sure enough that one plant produced about 20 delicious little bites of happiness! Wow, are home grown strawberries better than the ones you buy in the supermarket, that's for sure. Not even close. And they are so easy to grow. The only thing I was worried about was birds- but as you can see from this picture, I just put a tepee of bird netting around it to prevent any birdies nipping away my berries. I didn't have any problems at all. I pretty much left the plant alone once it finished producing, and it ended up sending out several runners which found homes in the ground around the pot.

In just a few weeks, I plan on extending a small existing raised bed into that area and planting out about 20 plants. I think it would probably be able to fit about twice as many, but I figure I'll start small then let them grow bigger themselves (it will be cheaper that way and give me extra room to grow some more peas this year). I already planted tomatoes and peppers in that bed last year, which apparently is bad because it can give the strawberries diseases. Nothing I can do about that though, with such a small garden. So I'm just going to make sure to get resistant varieties. I don't know what they'll have in the store but I'm thinking I should get some June-bearers and some day-neutral so I'll have a longer supply of fresh berries. These are the possible varieities for my area according to the local Master Gardening program: Early - Earliglow, Noreaster, Mid - Allstar, Guardian and Neutral - Tristar.

Black Raspberry Harvest

This may be the best photo I got of the black raspberry harvest this summer. That dish is very small (I believe it is a cordial glass. I inhereted it from my great Aunt Sophie). So it looks to be about 8 raspberries in that photo, and we got maybe 3 or 4 times that over the summer that I didn't get pictures of.

They were good, although a bit sour. Especially at first, I wasn't sure when to pick them. They stayed red for quite a long time like the following picture before finally turned purple.
Some seemed to turn ripe really quickly at first, so I didn't even get to pick them. They ended up looking like this:


The first ones I picked were the sourest. And I really love sour, so for me to say they were sour is a big deal. But a got a couple more after that were plumper, purpler, and sweeter. I think b/c they were on the vine in the sun longer. So the rest of the summer was spent trying to get as purple and plump as possible before shriveling.

It was really cute too because my new dog JJ really loved them. He didn't like blueberries that much, or strawberries, which I read are good for dogs to eat. But he did really love these black rasperries. (I'll post the story of how we dogscaped our yard and garden for another day).

Still pretty good though, considering I just got it as a twig from my brother in March, and they aren't supposed to bear fruit the first year of transplanting.

I also got to pick some from his mother bush once or twice this summer. His berries were 2 to 3 times as big as these, and many many more of them, all sweeter. There were so many, he didn't have time to pick them all and they were falling on the ground. I picked as many as I could, but it still wasnt quite enough for a pie or jam. I couldn't help but think about little house on the prarie again, and how long it really does take to pick and harvest.

At least one handful got smashed into a puree and mixed with seltzer and fresh torn mint. It was awhile ago, but if I remember right I didn't strain it, but wished I had afterall. So I would suggest at least lightly straining the smashed raspberry puree at least through a fine mesh sieve before putting in the bubbly water. (otherwise you get yucky bits of raspberry stuck all on the insides of the glass).

Black Raspberry Growing Strong!

The black raspberry cane my brother gave me in April is growing beautifully! In fact, above you can see the first bloom of flowers on June 1st- which means it will produce berries this year.

This is so exciting because raspberries don't normally produce berries until their second year. My brother must have given me a very healthy cane- thanks Bro!

And here is it on June 23rd- first the whole bush, then a close up of the unripe berries showing up!

Compost Wuhoo!

I never thought I would be so excited about garbage, until the day I put up my new compost bin. Hubby and I got it at the free local Master Gardener workshop about compost for a discounted price of $25. Its called the "Earth Machine". We keep the little bucket it came with to hold kitchen waste in our freezer, so it doesn't get smelly, flies or mold if we don't dump it every day. This has been working out very well. The Master Gardeners said the compost heap shouldn't smell bad, although I did notice a little bit of odd smell coming off it so far. But nothing unbearable. We've been stirring it with a big stick at least once a week, (which you can see in the picture, up against the fence) so hopefully it will turn into rich compost faster. So far so good- I already see some dark crumbly stuff at the bottom of the bin.

The picture also shows the raspberry growing along beautifully. It was taken just a few weeks after planting. My mother's friend is a Master Gardener (not the one who did the compost workshop!) and he came over to check out my new house with her. Lucky he did, since he said I had planted the raspberry too low. He dug a bit around the roots and showed me how they were still green, and said that if I left it that way it would eventually rot. But this was only a week or so after I planted it, so he said it was fine to just carefully dig it up, put some more soil in the hole and raise it up. So that's exactly what I did, and the raspberry didn't seem to mind. It is really growing! My brother also came to visit a week or two later, and said he thinks I may even get berries this year at this rate! I hope so!! Come on, little flowers!!

Black Raspberry

My brother, who is four years older than me, already has an established garden. He grows these wonderful black rasperry bushes and was kind enough to give me a cane as a housewarming gift when we first moved in at the end of March.

I planted it about two weeks later, a few feet out from the fence because of all the shade that is thrown off the fence. I also put the cinder blocks around it to keep out the weeds, although this is probably only temporary until I can get something nicer looking. He told me it would require some support, so I put the black flower "mini trellises" there- these were actually the sides from an old spice rack that broke, which I couldn't bear to throw away because they were so cute.

The First Raised Bed

So I don't have a car yet, having just moved out of the city to the suburbs. But when I first moved in, my husband and I rented a car. Since we had the car, we tried to get as much house related stuff as we could, knowing we wouldn't have one again for a few months. In my excitement, I bought a couple cold weather plants, (this was in March) even though we did not yet have the bed set up. I got some mesclun greens, romaine lettuce, chives and a strawberry.

I decided to use cinder blocks as the most cost effective means to build raised beds. I figured the cinder blocks would also be good if I only used one layer, they could be moved next season if necessary. Being a beginning gardener, I knew this season would probably hold some lessons for me so I didn't want to do anything terribly permanent. We also picked up 10 40 lb bags of soil.

Two weeks later the plants were looking pretty unhappy in their containers, but I still hadn't any time to set up the bed. So after work on a Thursday hubby and I frantically dug up the weeds, arranged some of the cinder blocks and filled it with soil. I couldn't believe it took 8 full bags of soil just to fill this one tiny bed!!!! We realized at this point, we were going to need a better solution for getting soil then loading a million bags into a rental car.

To the right is a picture of the first finished raised bed. That's two mesclun in the front, with a chive in the corner on either side. Then 4 romaine in the middle and another 2 mesclun in the back.

I also put the strawberry in a self-watering pot that I was lucky to score on sale for $5.99. Here it is.