General garden update

Painted Red Lady Beans 
I see flowers but no beans.  Maybe it's too early or maybe the morning glory is crowding it out.  It might be time for a murderous attack on the morning glory, but the MG is so entwined in my peas and beans that it might be difficult.  Carrots Love Tomatoes said that they were good companions.  I will rid my fence of the MG once and for all at the end of the summer.  It's dead to me.

 


Potatoes
The potato plants look strong.  I added some more potting soil to the container today.  In theory I should've added soil every time the plants peaked above ground, creating large root systems and potatoes of different maturities at different levels of the bin.  Unfortunately, I left for a month and the plants got big, so I wondered whether is was too late to fill up the bin with soil.   Sunset Nursery suggested that I do a little bit at a time until the pot is full of soil and making sure not to over-water.  I asked if I should trim the leaves on the lower part of the stem like you would do when you plant a tomato plant super deep to encourage the stem to turn into root.  She didn't think it was necessary to I left the leaves attached.

 

Lettuce
After a winter of too much lettuce, I cautiously planted a few seeds in my tomato garden.  They've been super slow to grow and before I left for Nicaragua, they looked like they might be eaten by aphids by the time I returned.  They've battled the bugs and are still alive, but aren't exactly flourishing.
 

 

Tomatoes
Some of the tomatoes look great.  Here is one that doesn't look so great.  I'm not sure what the bug is.  I'll continue to monitor.
 

 

Okra
I planted okra here in front of the nasturtium. I'm 99% sure this is not okra. I'll give it a couple more weeks to prove me wrong and then something else is going in.
 

 

Zucchini 
The one super happy and thriving plant in the garden right now is the zucchini.  Thank goodness for that.  It might be crowding out my herb garden, but it's beautiful nonetheless.
 

 

Don't you just want to be tiny and take a nap in there with that pretty green filtered light?

 


Eggplant
I broke my seed-only streak and bought some plants from the nursery.  I put Japanese long eggplant in this bed and will put either watermelon or pumpkin seeds in the bottom left corner before I go to Seattle.

 

Peppers
After removing the giant celery trees that loomed over the peppers, I'm seeing some good fruit.  I bought a couple more pepper plants to supplement. 

 

Cucumbers
The cukes look good -- not as good as the zucchini, but I think they are going to take off soon. 

So quickly the peas turned sad

I'm not quite sure how this happened.  The other day when I came home to abundant English peas, I saw some dying vines toward the back, but I assumed it was just survival of the fittest.  A few days later the whole lot seems to be suffering.  The lower leaves have a white powdery substance on them.  My first diagnosis with the help of the internet is powdery mildew.  It looks like powdery mildew should look.  In a cursory search for the possible sins I could've committed to make this happen,  I came up with not enough fertilizer, not enough mulch, and too much watering.  It's probably been a bout 9 weeks since my last fertilizer round, I did not mulch this bed, and  I could very well be over-watering with my automatic soaker hose, but the ground doesn't feel saturated.   Thanks to the soaker hoses though, I know I'm not having problems with water splashing fungus up onto the leaves.  I've got a call into my parents at Maas Nursery to see what they suggest -- rolling over or somehow fighting back.  Meanwhile I collected the pods that aren't already shriveled and brown for what could be one last meal of peas.  And do I need to get those plants out of the yard so they don't infect anything else?

 

Minty English Peas, Sesame Carrot Salad, and Built-in Bacon Burgers

From the yard: peas, carrots, mint

I came back from a month in Nicaragua to find a beautiful garden filled with peas and carrots. And my husband!

   


Put a tablespoon of butter, two tablespoons of chopped mint, and a tablespoon of water into a pan.  Cook on medium-high until peas are cooked (about 7 minutes).  Salt to taste

 

Shred carrots, add a tablespoon of sesame oil, a tablespoon of soy sauce, and two tablespoons of chopped cashews.

 

We went by Lindy & Grundy, a fantastic new butcher at Melrose and Fairfax.  It blew my mind a little.  I bought a half pound of this brilliant idea: chopped beef with house-cured bacon built in.  It was as ridiculous as it sounds.  Matt rolled his eyes when I said it was the best burger I've ever had, but I think it might be true.

 

Again with the ugly food photography.

Nicaragua

After an April of very long days prepping for a film and a May in Nicaragua working on the film, I'm back in the garden. Before I left, I installed drip hoses on a timer both to conserve water and to ensure there would be a garden when I got back. The project cost about $150 and about 8 hours.

I bought drip hoses for each bed and connected them with parts of regular hoses using hose connectors.

 

There were a few splitters.

 

Unfortunately there is only one faucet on my entire house, so I had to buy a 4-way splitter to run hoses to all the beds in the front and back yard.

I chose the $35 Orbit single-dial timer.  It's been great so far.  Very easy.  Very reliable.  I still have a garden after being gone for a month.  It's weedy, but there is food in it.

Two weeks in LA and then in Seattle for two months for another film. I've got some planting to do.

the yard marauders

The weed-whacker is the the most formidable opponent that my garden has faced thus far.   I was out of town for 10 days, and I came back to a grizzly scene.   I've seen aphids on old plants, I've heard tell of horrible tomato blight in years past, and there are definitely plenty of slugs in my lettuce, but none of these tiny pests have come close in destruction to the yard guy with a weed-whacker who descended upon my yard two days ago.  The guys my landlord pays to cut the grass hacked down my 3 month-old arugula, some carrots, and trampled my baby beets.  I put fences around most everything to keep the dogs out, but the few spots without a fence got it.  I pulled the carrots, the beets have a good chance since they were so small, and I guess I'll see what happens to the arugula, but it doesn't look good.

Next steps:  Get the yard guys off the calendar.  Buy this.   Cut the grass myself.

Butternut Squash Soup

From the Yard: Thyme, Bay Leaf

I've never really been a squash person -- I've had flings, but nothing serious. Two butternut squashes have been staring at me since Christmas, so I decided to do something about them tonight. I made a soup, and it was kind of delicious. This recipe will make about 3 or 4 servings if it's not the main course.

Cut a butternut squash in half. Put oil and salt on each half and put facedown on a cookie sheet. Cook at 375 for 35 minutes. Meanwhile caramelize half an onion in a dutch oven with a little olive oil. Scrape the flesh from the squash into the dutch oven. Add 4 cups of chicken stock, 1 tsp fresh thyme, a bay leaf, a pinch of cayenne, and a teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and blend with a submersion blender. Add a tablespoon of heavy whipping cream, a splash of apple-cider vinegar, and salt to taste (about 4 tsp).

Roasted Beet and Avocado Salad with Pickled Onions

From the yard: beets, onions

Unpeeled roasted Beets are not much to look at.

The salad. Slice onions thinly and soak in vinegar for at least an hour. Roast beets at 375 for two hours.  Peel, slice, and layer on plate with sliced avocados.  Top with pickled onions, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with kosher salt. 

Out with the beets, in with the kale.

My kale along the back of the house just hasn't done well.  I planted it a month ago, and the plants are only about an inch high.  The arugula next to it has done better.  I probably just need to plant herbs there.

The kale plants in the front bed, which were there when I moved in, have gone to seed along with their giant entangled arugula buddy.  I went to harvest today, and found them fully infected with what I think are aphids.  I probably should have smashed the aphids by hand, harvested the seeds, and tried to eat some of the now-tough leaves, but I got a little squeamish, so I ripped them out to make way for something new.  Below is a picture of the critters.

So I decided to start planting kale seeds whenever I harvest any beets. I'm quickly realizing the value of staggering a crop to keep harvesting more consistent. The bed is 15 feet away from the bed where the above-mentioned kale was murdered, so it seems like a good place to plant them.

First beet harvest

These beets were planted on November 3rd, about 4 months ago. This is the first harvest.

I planted a few more seeds today along the back of the house between the arugula and the mint when I realized that we will eat through the November patch in no time. I added a bit of soil builder and mixed it in an inch and then made two rows of 1" spaced seeds.  The soil here is thick, I hope the beets are cool with that.

carrots and fennel show their true selves

I returned from a few days out of town to baby carrots and fennel!  What I thought were little grass sprouts in my carrot patch and my fennel patch started to look like their future selves.  I'm glad I didn't weed them.  I planted the seeds on 2/5, so it took about 4 weeks to get to this point.  Notice the little grass-like leaves on the outside.

carrots

fennel

Henderson Bush Lima Beans

After 13 days, my February 11th bean planting has yielded some green!  Still no activity in most of the bed, but the Henderson Bush Lima Beans woke up today.  Phew.  Also still no progress in the watermelon bed.

Tomato, Tomatillo, and Pepper Starts Progress

It's been thirteen days since I indoor-started the tomato, tomatillo, and pepper seeds.  Click here for more on that.  After a week I was still seeing no life.  I thought that maybe the plastic top was the problem.  It was keeping everything super damp and almost moldy.  I took it off, and I feel like I saw sprouts the next day, but that could have been a coincidence.  The peppers seemed to be a little slower.  I've been moving them into the sunlight throughout the day when I pass them and notice them sitting in the shade.  There are a few compartments with several sprouts.  I guess I should remove all but one?  I'll ask an expert (mom or dad) tomorrow.




Wisconsin Lakes Pepper, Hartmann's Yellow Tomato

Black Sea Man Tomato

Green Husk Tomatillo, Joe's Long Pepper

Dr. Wynne's Tomato, Black Plum Tomato

These are my February 5th starts after 19 days.

Salt's Cure Valentine's Day

We went to Salt's Cure, one of our favorite restaurants last night.  They do a lot of curing and pickling, and the food is fun.  We went there for the first time a few months ago with our friends Jim and Norm who were in town from Seattle on a food tour/rampage of Los Angeles.  I miscalculated and made breakfast tacos at 10am, not realizing that we had 2 food stops planned that day before our big food tour finale dinner at Angelini Osteria at 7pm.  Jim had read about the charcuterie case at Salt's Cure, so we figured we could just get something to go. We showed up on a very rainy Sunday late morning with very full bellies.  The place had a 45 minute wait and we were told that the charcuterie case was closed until February.  As we stood outside under the eave trying to figure out what to do in LA on a rainy day besides eat, the hostess came out several times to tell us what was sold out.  We explained that we weren't really even hungry, we probably weren't going to stay, and we were just trying to figure out what to do in LA in the rain.  Somehow we were still there after 45 minutes, and the hostess implored us to come inside and at least have a beer.  Even though they were about to close and out of almost everything, chef/owners Zachary Walters and Christopher Phelps offered to figure out something for us to eat.  And they did.  And it was incredible and interesting and involved cured pork.  We've loved them ever since (postscript: Because of our second breakfast, we were forced to play Just Dance on the Wii for 4 hours to prepare the way for Angelini.  It worked, and we ate like champs)

Last night we sat at the bar, and they brought house rolls with sage butter.  We ordered the pickle plate, which came with house-made sauerkraut, pickled onions, pickled black radish, a half-hard half-soft pretzel and a honey mustard sauce (it's not too soon, the 90s started 20 years ago, and that shit tastes good).  Next up were the grilled oysters, yum.  I hadn't eaten oysters in awhile that weren't raw or fried.  Next we had beef medallions in a red wine sauce.  They were perfectly rare and melted like butter in our mouths.  We bravely ordered the charred treviso radicchio.  It was good, but very very bitter.  I could handle a few bites, but Matt really liked it.  We didn't order dessert, but they brought over chocolate truffles with cardamom on account of it being Valentine's Day and their 6 month anniversary.  We left very full and very happy.   

salt's cure

the honey

the board

pickled onions

what was left of the truffles

A Carrot Sprout and Seeding Arugula

The first carrot sprout appeared today (I think).  It's super cute. 

And in other news, my established arugula plant has flowers all over it.  Oops.  Luckily my new arugula patch seems to be coming along. 

I now have 100% germination my first batch of tomato seeds.    

Smoked trout and celery salad

From the yard: celery


Another rough presentation, but it tasted good.  I will work on making the food actually look appetizing.  


The cod came from McCall's.  It was local, but I can't remember exactly from where.  I salted it and smoked it over alder chips in the below stovetop smoker.  The smoke alarm did go off, but it was worth it.  It took about 10 minutes.  I also made a salad with yard celery*, comte cheese, toasted pecans, olive oil, champagne vinegar, salt, and pepper (other variations: bacon, marcona almonds, parmesan).  The most important parts are very thinly sliced celery at an angle (more thinly-sliced than below), a cheese, a nut, and a smoked meat.


The meal is pretty much ripped off from a cooking class I took with Rene Erickson from Boat Street Cafe in Seattle.  She also made vanilla bean risotto pudding topped with poached rhubarb and bay that killed.  And a couple of wonderful gratins -- the zucchini was particularly delicious.    

More gardens and more dirt

There's a nice area by the North side fence that I recently cleared of morning glory for a seating area.

I decided today to clear a little more of the morning glory and plant beans and peas to replace it.  I cleared the vines, dug up what I could of the roots, put some found wood around the edge, and added soil-building compost to the top.  I mixed the compost in about an inch and planted two little rows (from left to right) of Henderson Bush Lima Beans, Champion of England Peas, and Painted Lady Improved Runner Beans.  I put the wire in to protect the beds from the dogs.  I will put a trellis in the middle for the front row to grow up.  The back row will go up the fence.  I actually found a little tag from some pea starters indicating that someone else had the same idea about this stretch of ground at some point in the past.

This is the watermelon patch reclaimed from morning glory, a weird black box that says 'up' in red, and a small trash can with charcoal in it.  I put 8 seeds in a 12" mound to the right.  I need to find out if I can use the rest of the garden.  I'm not completely sure how watermelons grow.  The package says that you shouldn't create these mounds closer than 8' from each other, but I don't know if you can put other stuff in there.

I put soil-building compost around the kale and arugula in the patch adjacent to the back of the house.  I also did a little weeding which ended in me ripping up one of my 4 kale seedlings.  I replanted it and am hoping for the best.

These are the tiny kale seedlings.  I think they are anyway.  They are too small and sparse for me to actually taste one to be sure.

A new planting flat and some hopeful-looking tomato sprouts

I bought this little seed starter flat for $9.99 at Sunset Nursery. I could have used a mishmash of egg cartons, but I decided to splurge so that I can easily move the whole mess into the sun throughout the day if I feel like it. It's got a nice plastic top to create a little greenhouse. I planted Dr. Wyche's Yellow Tomato, Black Sea Man Tomato, Hartmann's Yellow Gooseberry Tomato, Black Plum Tomato, Wisconsin Lakes Bell Pepper, Joe's Long Cayenne Pepper, and Green Husk Tomatillos.  I actually used a soil-building compost to instead of potting soil just because that's what I have.  I'll see how this works.

The Dr. Wyche's Yellow and Black Plum Tomatoes that I planted last Saturday have started to sprout.

In the garden, I'm still waiting on the Danver Carrots, but I re-read the package and it says that germination is slow and erratic, so be patient.  So I'm being patient.  I think I saw a little fennel sprout in the fennel patch.

Reclamation - Carrots and Fennel

Last Saturday February 5, rather than laying newspaper on the grassy bed beside the driveway and letting the grass die over the course of a few weeks like I was probably supposed to, I took to ripping the grass out with my hands.  I tried not to disrupt the soil too much in the process, but I'm sure I did.  Below is the outcome.  I mixed in a little organic fertilizer, and planted a row of Canver Carrots in the middle.

There was a flowering plant in this little bed beside the back stoop.  My mom said it was 4 O'clock, but I'm not sure.  It has hollow stems that pop off when you try to dig them up.  Although the fennel seed pack said to start indoors, I decided to just go for it, since it's pretty warm here during the day already.  We are going to have to put extra effort into not running over this bed trying to cram our car into the parking space by the house.  Also yard legend has it that others have tried and failed to get rid of the mysterious flowering plant.  So we'll see if the fennel grow some and own this bed.