Calendula & Concrete

Growing Eggplant

2009-06-24T07:23:00.001-04:00

One of the things I'm most looking forward to from my garden this summer is eggplant. We tried growing eggplant at the community garden several years ago, but we were terribly unsuccessful with it. At best, we got one marble-sized fruit from a plant that had leaves as lacy as a bridal veil because of persistent flea beetle damage. I came to the conclusion that it just wasn't possible to grow eggplant around here.

Eggplant and catnip growing together on the left, peppers and marigolds on the right

But I've since heard that others have had success growing eggplant in our Zone 7, and so I decided to give it another go this year. This time, I did more research and wanted to try out a few tactics I'd read about:

1. I sowed seeds early -- indoors in February -- so that I would have good-sized plants to put outside after any danger of spring frost had passed. Flea beetles are less attracted to eggplant foliage that has toughened up. They prefer to feast on young, tender seedlings--something I witnessed first-hand with my own past plantings.

Eggplants, like peppers, are tropical plants that need a long growing season. So I started my seeds under grow lights around the same time I started my pepper seeds, in February. Eggplant plants like to stay warm, so I used a heating mat under their pots. By the time I put my plants in the ground in mid May, they were about 6 - 8 inches tall.

Admittedly, they weren't the healthiest looking plants I'd ever grown. The long stay indoors and the extended hardening off process, repeatedly interrupted by this spring's cold snaps, made the plants suffer. But these were still the earliest and biggest eggplant plants I'd ever started with, and that's progress.

2. I put bricks near the base of the plants when I planted them outside. Somewhere I read that putting stones near the base of eggplant plants will help them stay warm. The stones absorb warmth from the sun in the day and then give off residual heat in the night, creating a cozy micro climate for these sensitive plants that don't like to be in anything below 55 degrees Fahrenheit. The plants have grown up enough now that the bricks are shaded during much of the day, so they probably aren't helping much anymore. Early on, though, perhaps they helped.

3. I made catnip the companion. Catnip is said to be a natural deterrent to flea beetles. I divided the catnip I grew last year (which, by the way, my cat wanted nothing of) and I put it to good use in the bed where I put my eggplants. The two companions are growing well--and I think they look nice together too.

So here we are today and I'm happy to report that I have my best-looking eggplant plants ever. There's even a blossom on one of them!

I do see a few flea beetles around, and there is evidence that something even bigger has been sampling the leaves, but the damage overall is far less severe than what I'd seen in the past when we sowed very young seedlings.

I can't say for sure if this conquering-of-the-bugs success can be attributed to any or all of the above tactics, but something seems to be working. We added mushroom compost to our soil, too, this spring, and that seems to have helped all of our plants come along. I just hope all goes well from here on out. We are already daydreaming about eggplant meals.

Fresh pea soup

2009-06-14T14:43:00.006-04:00

Have you ever eaten fresh pea soup? Prior to this latest experiment with my garden produce, I'd only ever had the kind made with dried peas and ham. Good as grandma's dried pea soup was--and, boy, it was good the way she made it--I was intrigued when I read Alice Waters' recipe for a version made with fresh peas (in The Art of Simple Food).

I needed to gather about 2 to 3 cups of peas for the recipe. And the exciting part here is that, for the first time in my five years with an edible garden, 2 to 3 cups of shelled peas was a real possibility. At last, I had a good space in which to plant a decent quantity of seeds, and I got them in the ground early. The result? A bunch of now-shoulder-high plants, dripping with pods ready for picking.

Having learned in the past that peas get terribly starchy and bitter if left on the vine too long, I've been keeping a good eye on them this year. I picked one round of the plumpest pods early last week. That gave me a little more than a cup's worth, which I decided to blanch and freeze until I could collect another round on the weekend. (Yes, a cup's worth of peas collected in a single day is considered "success" in my still "small scale" veg garden.)

Here's the simple process for blanching and freezing:

Put on a pot of water to boil while you're shelling your peas
Get a bowl of ice water ready
Add the peas to the boiling water and let them cook for about 90 seconds
Strain out the peas and drop them immediately into the ice bath to stop the cooking process
Leave them in the ice bath for all long as you boiled them--90 seconds
Drain the peas, put them in a freezer bag and store

That's it! The blanching process locks in the peas' sweet flavor. It's a good process to do if you want to store fresh peas for later use. That way, they don't turn starchy and horrible tasting.

Over the weekend, I picked a second round of peas--about a cup and a half or so--and combined the fresh and frozen batches with onions sauteed in olive oil, salt, and a few cups of water. I put the whole bit through the food mill, and there we had it--the freshest, sweetest, most brilliantly colored pea soup I've ever eaten.

Previous posts about peas:
Eating the Peas
Little Marvels and the Not-So-Marvelous

Plant diversity and benficial insects

2009-06-05T18:55:00.000-04:00

Chervil flowers attract beneficial insects

Last night I attended a talk on plant diversity and its influence on beneficial insects, presented by University of Maryland's Dr. Paula Shrewsbury at our monthly Master Gardeners meeting. Going into it, I figured I already knew the gist of the message: gardens with a greater diversity of plant types will provide habitat for a wide variety of insects, and so, in this bug-eat-bug world, there will be enough "good bugs" to take care of the "bad bugs," naturally, without chemical intervention. That was the essence of the presentation, but there were several points that were new and particularly interesting to me:

1.) Structural complexity is as important as plant species diversity. Translating the bio-speak, that means it's good to have a mix of distinctive layers of vegetation in your landscape, if possible: overstory trees, understory trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants, and ground covers, and then a variety of different plants at each level.

2.) Fertilized plants attract more insects. In Shrewsbury's research, insect populations (a bad kind) were twice as high on fertilized plants versus the non-fertilized. I had learned previously that when fertilized plants send out a lot of succulent new growth, they're especially attractive to pests such as aphids. The take-away: don't fertilize your plants if they don't really need it. Personally, I think compost goes a long way to keeping things healthy.

3.) Insects referred to as "natural enemies," the good guys, are beneficial only at certain stages in their life cycle. So, for example, the syrphid flies that I knew to be beneficial only feed upon prey while they're in their larval stage. Adult syrphids don't eat other bugs, they eat nectar and pollen. The take-away: Plant flowers that provide a variety of nectar and pollen sources, so your garden will support natural enemy insects in all of their life stages.

What to plant in order to attract beneficial insects?

Choose plants with long-season blooms and varying architectures. This includes big flowers like daisies or coneflowers, and small lacy flowers such as sweet alyssum, caraway, dill, and parsley. Herbs are great in general, as are cover crops like buckwheat and clover. Members of the mint family, such as catnip and hyssop, are good choices too.

In my own garden, I have catnip, herbs, and yarrow that are good for the insects. And I usually let a few veggies go to flower too, such as my mustards. I'd like to gradually add more native plants, and I definitely want a more "structurally complex" yard, especially the front, which is still mostly plain old turfgrass and ho-hum azaleas.

For more on natural enemy insects, what they look like, what they eat, etc., check out Michigan State University's excellent website: http://ipm.msu.edu/natural-enemies.htm.

Spring dinner with peas, onions, lettuce

2009-06-02T20:53:00.003-04:00

Jamie Oliver's recipe for Incredible Smashed Peas and Broad Beans on Toast was the inspiration for Saturday night's supper. We wanted to prepare a meal that featured the first gleanings of our pea crop and other now-abundant garden offerings: onions and lettuce.

We don't have any broad beans (a.k.a., fava beans), but we were able to harvest the season's first few handfuls of shelling peas.

Michael bashed up the fresh (uncooked) peas with a mortar and pestle, adding fresh mint, lemon, cheese, salt and pepper. The mash went over garlic-rubbed toasts, with mozzarella cheese on top and a final flourish of pea shoots. It was refreshing and light, and the combination of flavors was something a little different than we've ever had before. We'd never made a dish with raw peas. The recipe can be found in Oliver's beautiful cookbook, Jamie at Home, which contains a whole slew of recipes inspired by the seasons in the chef's own very-gorgeous-I'm-envious-of-it garden.

Our version of Jamie Oliver's fresh pea mash on toast

For dish #2, I picked a bunch of onions and tried to make a go of Alice Waters' Onion Tart recipe from The Art of Simple Food.

I'm not sure what-on-Earth onions I've got here. These are the progeny of pass-along onions I got during my days at the community garden. There are some reds and some yellows in there. None of them bulb up for me, no matter how long I leave them in the ground. Still, it's nice to have a steady supply of whatever they are. This bunch was crowding out the asparagus plants, so it was time for them to hit the cutting board.

I sliced up at least six cups worth and would have cried the seven seas in the process had I not been saved by our trusty pair of onion goggles. This was a heavy-duty job and I needed equipment!

I cooked the onions with fresh thyme for about 30 minutes. Along the way, as I was tasting and testing, I had an unfortunate "uh-oh" moment. I realized that I shouldn't have used the green stalks of the onions. Early in the season, the green parts were soft enough to use like scallions, but now, when the onions are producing their bulblets, the stalks are really tough. Even with 30 minutes of cooking they were too fibrous for eating. I ended up sorting through and picking them all out. It was a lot of extra work, but after I had come so far with all that goggle-donned onion slicing, I was determined to make something good of this dish.

No! Don't use the stalks!

Ultimately it turned out fine. Smooth onion shavings piled inside a delicious buttery crust. We thought it was really good, in fact, and called it a definite keeper for times of onion abundance.

We completed our spring meal with dish #3, a simple salad of mixed greens buttoned up with a basic vinaigrette. We've been eating plenty of salads lately. I'm hoping to keep the momentum going as we get into the hot-weather months. I've been sowing succession plantings of lettuce seed for the past several weeks. We'll see how far it gets us.

Spring Meal of Three Garden Things

Coming up: Swiss chard, beets, and garlic scapes. What, besides pesto, can we make with our scapes?

Early eats from the garden

2009-05-13T18:53:00.000-04:00

Here's a quick tour of what I'm growing and eating in the garden these days. First things first: the strawberries are ripening! I ate the first one yesterday. It was still warm from the sun and had a fragrance and soft texture like nothing I ever get from store-bought strawberries shipped from who-knows-where. I definitely need to expand the strawberry patch in future years. I also need to do a better job of keeping the birds out so I don't end up with dreadful scenes like this:

I do have netting over the strawberries, but this particular berry was close to the edge and got nibbled by a feathery (or furry?) visitor. I wait and wait and patiently observe the berries' every transition in color from first blush to blood red, and then this. I hate it when the birds get them.

The garden is spilling over with onions and garlic right now. I enjoy having both, not only for eating but also because the plants give a nice green heft to the garden in the early spring before the summer veggies get going. They make the garden look full, even when it's not quite so. Here's the view from the opposite angle.

I sometimes cut the green onion tops and use them in salads. Here they are on top of my own-grown lettuces.

I have a nice selection of greens growing right now -- enough for fresh salads every day. The red ones on the right side of the photo below were in the 'Valentine' Mesclun Mix from Botanical Interests. Left of that is Green Oakleaf from Seed Savers Exchange. After that, I don't know what the frilly green kind is. Once again, in my typically excited haste to get seeds in the ground in early spring, I failed to label everything. I'm trying to be more diligent about using labels, but I still have my failings.

My radishes have been a delightful addition to salads. New this year, I planted the 'White Icicle' variety. I like them just about as much as the 'French Breakfast' variety, which is always a favorite of ours.

I discovered recently that I like radishes cooked -- sauteed, greens and all, in a little butter and olive oil with salt. Cooking takes away a bit of their bite. I'm going to experiment some more and see if I can come up with some interesting radish recipes. Suggestions welcome!

Elsewhere in the garden, the first pea pods are shaping up. I enjoy checking in on the little ones' progress every day.

The green beans are up now too. See? I did a good job of labeling those. I got those fancy copper labels in gift kit from Smith & Hawken years ago. They're of no use sitting in a box in the shed, so I finally started using them -- even if they are a little fancy for ordinary green beans.

I'll close out with my belly-on-the-ground shot of a pair of wax beans. Up, up and away they grow!

Blueberries

2009-05-02T09:10:00.002-04:00

Here's what I'm most excited about in my garden these days: my new blueberry plants. Blueberries have been at the top of my gardening wish list ever since my days at the community garden. My plot-neighbor, Brad, planted blueberries and I would always ogle at them from the other side of the fence. He had great success with his, and I've wanted to try my own ever since.

Here we are three years later. I chose two different varieties of highbush blueberries: blueray and bluecrop. Both are said to be good varieties for Maryland gardeners. Planting two or more varieties that bloom at the same time can result in more and bigger berries on the plants -- that's what I'm aiming for.

I started preparing a place for the plants last year, first with the remova l of the crape myrtles along the border between our yard and the neighbor's. Then I added compost to the planting area and grew a cover crop -- winter rye and hairy vetch -- to improve the soil through the fall and winter. Before planting three weeks ago, I dug in pine bark soil conditioner and LeafGro.

The most important step I missed along the way, however, was a soil test. I know, I know. Bad gardener! I should have done a soil test first. Blueberries like acidic soil and I've been more or less winging it and guessing that my efforts have been making it such. I really need to test for sure.

When I bought my plants at the wonderful Homestead Gardens, they were full of flowers. The Maryland Cooperative Extension recommends removing all the flowers and pruning the plants back by about 50-60% after putting them in the ground. Okay, I know that might sound crazy, but the idea is to let the plants put their energy into growing good roots rather than berries the first year. I sacrificed the blossoms for the greater good of establishing strong root systems. My efforts will be rewarded with healthy plants that produce lots of berries next year, and in many future years -- I hope!

The guy at the nursery recommended that I use a liquid feed of root stimulator at planting time. I could have just handed him my credit card with a glazed-over look in my eyes -- Yes...I will do/buy whatever you say... I must. Have. My blueberries...

So I bought a special 3-10-3 (heavy on phosphorus) liquid fertilizer and added it at planting time. I also added a bit of Holly Tone, which is formulated for acid loving plants.

Okay, so that leads me back to the soil test. No sense in adding all these extra nutrients without really knowing what's necessary. I plan to submit a soil sample to a lab this coming week.

Sure sounds like a lot of fussing, doesn't it? Fuss I will do. I want good blueberries. And lots of them.

Peas are up!

2009-03-31T19:29:00.001-04:00

The peas I planted at the beginning of March are about an inch tall now. I'm testing three varieties: Alaska, the romantic sounding Meraviglia D'Italia, and Wando. I planted them all together so that they're all getting the same type of soil and light. So far the Wandos are doing the best, followed by the Alaskans. At a distant third are the not-so-marvelous meraviglias.

Wando peas are supposed to be fairly heat tolerant, so I have high hopes that they'll hold up when our spring snaps into summer. Last year I let my peas mature in the June heat and they turned bitter. Absolutely worthless. I plan to do better this year and harvest them before it gets too hot.

Inside under the grow lights, I have a couple of globe artichoke plants that are coming along nicely. I also started my tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. Most of those have their first "true" leaves now, so I transplanted them into larger pots. The eggplants were slow to start, but now that I added a heat mat underneath them, they seem to be picking up the pace. That's the good news.

The bad news? The groundhog is back! Or rather, our resident groundhog came out of hibernation. It spent the winter under our deck out back. I spotted it lumbering across the lawn on Sunday, looking notably slimmer than it was last fall. Surely it's hungry!

The city police department provided us with a trap so that we can catch it and get it out of here humanely. With groundhog in place, there's little hope for those peas, artichokes, and everything else we want to plant in the garden.

So wouldn't you know it...we set up the trap on Sunday and the groundhog hasn't been seen since. I'm sure it's still around though. Most annoying is that we have to bait the trap with fresh carrots and apples; this after the beast munched up practically everything edible in our garden (and the neighbor's) last fall. Curses!

Starting Seeds

2009-02-05T07:03:00.000-05:00

I started my first seeds last weekend -- leeks, lobelia, and something new I want to try this year, artichokes. Lobelia 'Crystal Palace' is always the first of the flower seeds I put under the grow lights. I plant some every year for its stunning deep blue flowers. The blossoms are tiny but when the plants are grouped en masse, they practically glow in summer's dusk. They're just beautiful, and they are super-low maintenance once established.

The artichokes fall into the "wouldn't it be nice if I could grow some of those" category, but I'm not holding my breath. I've never seen artichokes offered at the farmers' markets around here, and that's a sign that I'm probably pushing my luck. Artichokes are a perennial plant and it might not be until next year until I see a choke, if I even get that far with them. We'll see. This is definitely an experiment.

Here's a picture of my seed stash. Last year I had just one bucketful of seeds; I've since added a stuffed-to-the-brim shoebox. This past weekend I had the best intention of going through all those seeds and throwing away the oldest ones that I'll probably never plant. Like the cucumbers. Somewhere along the way I accumulated a lot of cucumber seeds. I have some packets in there dating back to 2004 and 2005 -- some of them unopened. My eyes were bigger than my garden plot back then, clearly.

I ended up composting only about 10 packets of seeds, mostly the unwanted cucurbits. I really have trouble getting rid of the excess. I always think, maybe THIS will be the year I'll plant those extra beans from 2006, or maybe THIS will be the year I'll plant that free packet of flower seeds I got in 2007 when I didn't have the space for them.

But if past behavior is any indication of the future...

What can I say? My seed stash looks pretty much the same after my half-hearted vetting process. And I just received 7 new packets of seeds -- my mail order from Seed Savers Exchange. I'm popping the lid off another shoebox.

Kale, it's what's for groundhog's dinner

2008-11-18T20:48:00.003-05:00

This isn't the post I wanted to write today. I wanted to boast that my garden was flooded with verdant waves of kale, lettuce, kohlrabi -- all the things that revive in the garden when summer wanes into fall and then gasps at the first frosty breaths of winter. I wanted to report that the harlequin bugs finally headed out to wherever harlequin bugs go for the winter and left behind a pair of perfectly formed, ivory globes -- my first try at homegrown cauliflower. The harlequin bugs are gone, finally, yes, but I have not a single cauliflower to speak of. And that parsley that grew so slowly - from seed - over the summer? When Michael went to the garden to cut a few leaves, he found in parsley's place only a few sad-looking blank stems. Curses.

Houston, we have a problem here. A big, fat, furry, four-legged problem -- the groundhog. As if squirrels weren't enough (and they, too, are baaa-aaack), we now have a voracious groundhog that's taken up residence under the deck. It's been coming out to eat just about everything in the veggie plot (AND the neighbor's), never mind my attempts to protect a few choice items with a bit of netting. I swear, we've got the best-fed groundhog this side of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Could have been a cauliflower

I contacted our city's animal control department and hope they'll send someone to take Chubby off to greener pastures, or wherever groundhogs like to be when suburbanites like us aren't feeding them with our green thumbs.

On the bright side, the garlics I planted about a month ago are reaching their newborn stems to the sky, oblivious to all manner of encroaching herbivorous creatures and the first icy coughs of an awakening Old Man Winter.

Pickled Cherry Peppers and Red Bell Pepper Sauce

2008-09-02T16:56:00.015-04:00

I picked these beautiful cherry peppers and set them up in a pickle using a recipe I found in Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Vegetables. Garlic and sweet bay from our garden combine with black peppercorns, fresh cilantro, and two kinds of vinegar to give them their flavor. I made only one small jarful as a tester and also because we don't yet have the pressure-canning equipment that is recommended for canning larger quantities of peppers safely. These cured for one week in the refrigerator where they'll keep for up to two months.

The verdict on taste? Hot, sweet, and sour all at once. The peppers are almost too spicy-hot for my liking, but just sweet and vinegary enough to keep me wanting to try more. Michael loves them. A hot pepper relish that accompanies the cold-cut subs at our favorite deli was my inspiration for this first foray into pepper pickling. We plan to use these peppers in a similar manner to fire up a few ordinary sandwiches.

Also on the subject of peppers, I am so happy to have bell peppers that are finally growing large and thick-walled enough to pass for the store-bought kind. I don't know if I can put my finger on an exact secret to this success; I've just been giving the plants periodic feedings of compost, regular watering, and full sun. I have so many peppers that are turning ripe now. I plan to freeze some, chopped and ready to use for cooking during the winter months. My mouth waters at the prospect of warming up to a bowlful of sweet bell pepper soup, made with our own peppers, in about February or so.

This weekend I used two of my fresh bells to make a red pepper butter sauce from the Moosewood Restaurant's Simple Suppers cookbook.

I started by sauteing the peppers in garlic and olive oil and then blended the mixture in a food processor with lemon, butter, and salt. Fan-tas-tic. This was a nice change from the usual tomato sauce, and it really was so simple to make. Unlike the cherry peppers that I pickled, these peppers were entirely sweet. I could drench my pasta in this sauce and still go happily for seconds without fear of taste-bud injury. Beautiful on the plate, it was food for the eyes, too.

Red pepper butter sauce on angel hair pasta with fresh basil

Grilled pepper night

2008-08-10T11:15:00.008-04:00

It is immensely gratifying to go into the garden and pick a bowlful of peppers like this. I started these from seed in February, and now they're finally coming into form. Here we have purple and red bells, a sweet banana pepper, and a few poblanos ready to meet their fate on the grill.

Michael cooked them until their skins blackened and blistered, and then we peeled them, sliced out their seeds, and filled them with a mixture of grilled corn, diced red onion, Monterey Jack cheese, and cilantro. Then back on the grill they went for baking.

The poblano peppers were a lip-numbing hot, just the way hubby likes them; I picked out the sweet peppers in the bunch. We dined al fresco and soaked in all the satisfaction of our long-awaited peppers -- grown, grilled, good. And still more to come.

Do it for the crabs

2008-07-29T22:42:00.000-04:00

Maryland Blue Crab,
Photo from chesapeakebay.net

Today I received an invitation to join the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Gardeners for the Bay, and I signed on without hesitation. The population of Chesapeake Bay blue crabs -- the paragon of local food for us Marylanders -- has declined by an astonishing 70 percent since 1990. 70 percent! And that decline is attributed in part to pollution from farms, cities, roads - everything we do to the land that washes away down river.

As a Marylander, I cannot imagine a single summer going by without at least one opportunity to devour a pile of steamed Chesapeake Bay blue crabs; they're a delicacy. And eating blue crabs is really an experience. It's sitting down to table covered with a big sheet of butcher paper; sleeves rolled up; wooden mallet, roll of paper towels, and bucket by one's side. It's the sound of peeling into shell, the scent of sea meets spice, and the exceptional flavor of each sweet little morsel inside. For 10 minutes, its just you and that crab, your devotion punctuated with dips of vinegar and melted butter and gobs of Old Bay Seasoning accumulating on your finger tips. Add ice cold drinks and greasy-fried hush puppies on the side. This is summer in Maryland.

Photo by imageining

Shortly after we moved into our Maryland home almost a year ago, we learned about BayScaping. That's just a fancy term for landscaping set within the context of and for the benefit of the Chesapeake Bay. The concept is simple: plant native species that reduce the need for chemical pesticides and help prevent erosion, thereby keeping the bad stuff out of the Bay.

While I avoid the use of chemical pesticides and herbicides in my garden as it is, it's been a goal of mine to add more native plants. We do, in fact, have plans to tear out the entire front lawn and replace it with perennial flowers, shrubs, and native grasses. We're driven mainly by the desire to have less of a boring lawn to mow, but we also want to do our part for our beloved bay and our favorite crustaceans therein. Our yard is just one little corner of the world, but we can do our part with it, and what we do here does matter downstream. Everything is connected.

The Chesapeake Bay watershed includes portions of six states -- Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware -- and the District of Columbia. So, if you're gardening in one of those places, sign on to Gardeners for the Bay and make an effort to do something in your garden or yard to save this natural treasure. Do it for me. Do it for you. Do it for the crabs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Blue crabs -- How you can help
Chesapeake Club -- Learn how to "Save the Crabs, Then Eat 'Em"

How it grows on July 27, 2008

2008-07-27T13:23:00.006-04:00

This is how the garden looks today. We are right now at the pinnacle of the gardening year; the crops planted in the spring are bearing fruit, while the fall plants are just now emerging.

We're enjoying a steady supply of crookneck squash, green and wax beans, peppers, and... the first TOMATOES! On Friday night, we rang in tomato season with a celebratory eating of tomato sandwiches: tomatoes with mozzarella and fresh garden basil, tomatoes on grilled cheese sandwiches, and tomatoes simply sliced and topped with a sprinkling of salt. I can't even put into words how satisfying they tasted.

Our tomatoes aren't perfect; most of them have cracks or holes or blemishes of some sort. But we cut the little imperfections away and enjoy what's on the inside: deeply colored, intensely flavored flesh matched with an unbeatable fragrance that eludes the supermarket counterparts.

Here are a few more scenes from my garden and table...

Green and wax beans

Squash and beans stirred into fettuccine with fresh basil

San Marzanos, now neatly aligned on their vines and still green, are the raw material of choice for our tomato sauce.

We have a cascade of watermelon vines. There are only two plants here of the Crimson Sweet variety and they are growing like mad. Lucky us!

Ready to eat?

This is the healthiest crookneck squash plant I've ever grown. We've eaten 7 good-sized squashes from it so far, and more are setting up.

Sadly, things didn't fare so well for my Lebanese cousa squash plant. That one died a very sad death from not one, not two, but four squash vine borers that decimated its stem. It was so badly mangled; not even my Band-Aid trick could have saved it.

And then we have this one, the mysterious winter squash. I swear I planted an acorn squash in this place, but this doesn't look anything like an acorn squash. It doesn't come to a point on the bottom like acorns usually do. Whatever it is, though, it's growing splendidly. I see 5 squashes on the plant so far.

This morning I transplanted my cauliflower starts. Everything I read about cauliflower indicates it's a temperamental plant that's difficult to grow. That's not going to stop me from trying at least once.

For fall, I've also planted seeds for arugula, carrots, beets, mizuna, tat soi, bok choy, kohlrabi, two kinds of kale, mustards, broccoli raab, radishes, dill, and lettuce. Later I'll put in spinach, garlic, and more arugula. We can't have too much arugula.

Beet Harvest

2008-07-20T10:08:00.002-04:00

Last weekend I pulled my spring crop of beets. There weren't many to speak of, but I did have a few good-sized ones in the bunch. The largest among them were about three inches in diameter.

I baked these in the oven, placing them in an aluminum foil packet with a little olive oil and water to steam them. I thought I would make a beet salad, but I ended up just eating them plain, cold, slipped straight from their skins. Incredibly sweet, they tasted like candy, which is precisely what I love about beets!

In past years, I've left my beets in the ground too long and they turned woody and bitter. This bunch turned out so well that was inspired to scale up my fall crop. I've planted about four times as many beets to harvest by season's end. In our Zone 7, now is the perfect time to sow their seeds.

Kitty was impressed with the beet harvest, too.

Kale Tortilla

2008-07-13T16:49:00.003-04:00

I picked a bunch of my Red Russian kale today and sent it on a culinary excursion to Spain. Here's its transformation into a Kale and Potato Spanish Tortilla (following this recipe from Epicurious.com).

I cooked the kale in salted boiling water for 3 minutes, shocked it in cold water, and then chopped it into bite size pieces.

Imagine... a lazy Sunday afternoon with the smell of onions and potatoes cooking in olive oil in an iron skillet... homey-good cooking smells permeating all nooks and crannies of the house. Then add homegrown kale to the picture.

I substituted Egg Beaters for half the recommended 7 eggs, to cut down on the cholesterol. The most challenging part of making this dish was following the last instruction listed on the recipe: "Remove from heat and let stand, covered, for 15 minutes." The wait was agonizing. At the 10 minute mark, I wanted to cheat, lift the cover, and start poking at the tortilla's bubbly edges. It smells so good, can I just take a peak?

Finally... let's eat!

This one's going on my short list of what-to-do-with-kale recipes. Loved it, loved it... Loved. It. Count me among the 95% of Epicurious eaters who said they would make this again. I don't know what the other 5% are thinking.

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Related Post: Russian Kale in Portuguese Soup

5 favorite things

2008-07-08T18:57:00.001-04:00

My five favorite things in the garden right now are:

#5 - The Foxglove plants delivered from my Mom and Dad, straight from their garden to mine. I planted them in my new shade garden under the Bradford pear tree out back.

#4 - Two Redbud tree seedlings from my aunt. I need to find a place of honor for them.

#3 - Gobs of tomatoes hanging heavy on the vine. (Hurry up and ripen already; I have a basil that's eager to mingle with you!) These are an heirloom variety I'm trying out this year, Black Krim.

#2 - Well, not exactly "in" the garden anymore, but these are the mustard seeds we harvested from the Red Giant mustard greens grown in our garden earlier this spring. And yes, in case you're wondering, we are planning to grind them into, well, mustard. Mustard powder, that is, which is a key ingredient in the spice rub Hubby makes for his rotisserie chicken done up on the grill.

AND...

#1 - Peppers! Peppers! We've got peppers!

The last one is another new-to-me heirloom that I'm testing this year: fish peppers, which are called such because they were typically used in fish cookery in the Chesapeake region years ago - or so I've read. Check out the very interesting variegated foliage. With white and green leaves, and even a spot of purple in parts, they're beautiful plants in and of themselves. And we haven't even tasted the peppers yet. Wheee!

Garlic Harvest 2008

2008-06-24T21:20:00.003-04:00

Garlic fresh from the ground, 6/22/08

The squeak of the pantry door as I reach for the bowl. The rustle of nature-made paper surrendering to hungry hands. The sound of steel knife in a quick, crushing blow to clove on wood. Thwack! Another meal begins with garlic.

This past weekend we harvested the garlic we planted last fall. It's not the best crop of garlic we've grown -- not by any means -- but it's our own garlic. And it beats store-bought any day.

"Small is better than none at all" is turning out to be the theme of our gardening experience this year. Given that we really need to improve our soil, we're keeping our expectations in check. Puny little garlic heads they are, but they are better than none at all.

This fall, some of our first compost should be ready to put in, and we're planning to grow winter cover crops as well. That should help with the soil situation. Feed the soil and it will feed us loads more garlic - next year. For now, small is bliss. Garlic is one of my all-time favorite things to grow.

Pea-tiful

2008-06-16T18:55:00.001-04:00

Michael and I have been talking already about our next year's crop of peas. We want to grow more of them -- a lot more. Forget about "A few pods here, a token handful there." Sure, it's been nice to have small amounts of peas to taste and to feel the accomplishment of having grown our own, but now we want to scale it up.

I plan to devote one half to two-thirds of a garden bed just for peas next spring. They're good for the soil, we like to eat them, and they'll be out of the ground just in time for me to put in the summer and winter squash seeds.

This year's crop of peas (well, it's a stretch to call it a "crop" -- that's the extent of them in the photo above) was not so good. I left the pods on the plant too long. Worse, they suffered through the recent late spring heat wave. Code Red Days = No Pea Days. The peas got too big and starchy and we all but choked them down just to say we ate our own homegrown peas. Pitiful they were. Not even butter could save them.

Note to self: Never leave peas on the plant in that kind of heat. Never.

Better luck next year.

Salad Greens

2008-06-15T21:52:00.002-04:00

Accompanying our dinner tonight was this mix of lettuces, beet greens, endive, chives, and radishes (tiny as they were) pulled fresh from the soil. The lettuces are starting to go bitter now in the summer heat, so we need to use them up fast. These were delicious with a simple vinaigrette of olive oil, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard and a little lemon juice.

Give and take in the garden

2008-06-10T19:06:00.004-04:00

Black-Eyed Susans received from Debbie, 4/22/08.

A fish tank. A smashed hula hoop. And one ovulation prediction kit. What do all these items have in common? They're all among the recent offerings on my local Freecycle list. (And I suppose I could get creative here and write a fictitious story about how a fish tank, a smashed hula hoop, and an ovulation prediction kit relate in some way to gardening, but I will leave that to your imagination.)

If you have something you want to get rid of, chances are someone on your local Freecycle list will take it. Conversely, if you're looking for a specific item, you might consider posting a "Wanted" notice to the list. I wanted Black-Eyed Susan plants for my new front yard garden. Within a short time after posting my plant request, I had a response from a fellow Freecycler named Debbie, who offered to give me a few from her garden. Free plants, just for asking.

While it's nice to receive, it also feels great to be in a position to give. We had two crape myrtles in the backyard that didn't fit into our long-term plans for the garden. I like crape myrtles, I do, but they grow enormous around here, and we decided to get rid of them while they were still small and (somewhat) easy to dig out.

On the DC Urban Gardeners List, Gwen from Annapolis, Maryland, was looking for shrubs and perennials for her new garden. I was happy to find a taker for my crape myrtles, and it turns out they were among the plants on Gwen's wish list.

One of two crape myrtles moved out to Gwen's place in Annapolis.
Phase One of Blueberry Lane begins, 6/8/08.

This weekend, Gwen and her friend Maria came by and helped us dig them out, and now I have room to start the next phase of the garden. I want to put in fruit bushes - blueberries and currants, specifically - and I plan to start working on the soil for them soon.

Roses with black spot disease

2008-06-02T19:40:00.005-04:00

My rose bushes are exploding with their brilliant red blooms. Deep, satiny, sumptuous flowers they are. I enjoy going out in the mornings and taking a deep breath of their deliciously sweet scent. How lucky I am to have moved into a house with a row of established roses. They're a real treat. I only did a little bit of pruning earlier this year and -- bam! -- we have a flood of roses.

How easy it was, or so I thought.

When I went out a few days ago to get my daily fill of rosy goodness, I noticed that some of the leaves on the undersides of the plants had dark spots and were turning yellow. Those sickly looking leaves would fall from the plant at the slightest touch.

"Is my rose honeymoon over already?" I thought.

Black Spot Disease on Roses

A few clicks around the Internet would introduce me to something called Black Spot Disease, an apparently fairly common problem with roses. According to this source, it's a fungal disease that can take hold of roses in "warm, damp conditions, especially when leaves have been wet." During the month of May we had, oh, about 9 inches of rain -- ideal conditions for Black Spot. Left unchecked, the disease can weaken an entire rose plant.

With my once-effortless roses suddenly calling for attention, I cut back all of the infected leaves and canes and put all the debris in the trash. I read that one organic method for controlling the spread of Black Spot is to mix a teaspoon of baking soda with a quart of water and spray it on the plants in the morning. If things get worse, I might try that.

On another note, while I was trimming away the sickly leaves, I noticed only 2 bees buzzing along the entire row of roses. ONLY 2 BEES! Where are all the bees?! I know I am not the first gardener to question this. Many garden bloggers, in fact, have been commenting on the bee situation for a while now. But this is the first time I've really noticed so few bees in my own garden.

Little marvels, and the not-so-marvelous

2008-05-27T18:34:00.000-04:00

Little Marvel peas forming on the vine

The pea pods are beginning to swell with their precious pearl-shaped orbs inside. I don't have many pea plants this year -- only about 7 or 8 plants grew from an older packet of Little Marvel peas I found in my seed stash. Numbers-wise, it's a less than marvelous crop. We'll most certainly have fewer peas than last year, hardly enough for a meal, but we'll at least have a few token ones to taste.

While it always helps to start with fresh seed, good soil helps too. The germination of our peas was probably hampered by our less-than-stellar soil. We planted in topsoil purchased from Home Depot last fall, and it really needs help. It's sandy, dry, and apparently lacking in nutrients.

A sure indicator of the soil's infertility is my radishes. They've been sputtering along for at least two months now, and all I have to show for it are these puny, thumbnail-size nubs. Radishes are said to be one of the fastest and easiest plants to grow, but mine are the most pathetic little radishes I've ever seen. Little marvels? Not so much.

Strawberries: One for you, one for me

2008-05-08T19:11:00.002-04:00

I wasn't kidding when I said we'd have our first pick of strawberries today. Here they are in all their glory -- the first two fruits from our new garden.

There are just two so far: one for Michael, one for me. It's only enough to whet our appetites for more. The next berries can't ripen soon enough.

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Related Post: Strawberry Shortcake

How it grows on May 7, 2008

2008-05-07T18:35:00.010-04:00

In the garden today, my garlic and onions are about knee high, the radishes are plumping up, and we should have our first taste of this season's crop of strawberries on or about... tomorrow! My mouth waters at the mere thought of it.

The first edibles from this year's garden turned out to be chives and mustard greens. We've been making good use of the chives; I love them on a baked or grilled potato or mixed into a potato salad.

Mustard Greens, Red Giant

The mustard greens are another story; those are taking a bit of getting used to. Eaten raw, they're so sharp and peppery that I can just about feel the optical nerves of my eyeballs tying into a knot in the back of my head, just before my sinus cavities get blasted out. It sounds like I'm exaggerating, I know, but really, these greens pack a punch -- almost like horseradish -- and they have that kind of effect on me. I've found that cooking the leaves tames the spiciness, and that's the way I prefer to eat them. I usually chop a few leaves, boil them in water for a few minutes, and then stir them into pasta. They're good that way.

Culinary qualities aside, I've discovered that the Red Giant mustard greens make a beautiful visual addition to the garden in the early spring when not much else is going on. I planted these from seed in my community garden plot last July, transplanted them to our new home last October, and they really started taking off in February. Now they're bolting to seed, which I plan to collect for a new crop of mustards in the fall.

Pass-alongs and stowaways

2008-04-22T20:21:00.005-04:00

Today I discovered two little stowaways in the potted rose bush my parents sent along with me the last time I visited. My newfound ferns are slowly unfurling their feathery little heads to wave at the warmer days of spring. Now I have ferns for my yard!

I've been accumulating quite a variety of pass-along plants lately: three rooting branches of a pussy willow tree, two spireas from my aunt, one housewarming butterfly bush from a friend, and the rose bush dad dug up from the back of his house. The latter is an offspring from my grandmother's roses, which are known in my family as the sweetest smelling roses on Earth. Can't beat those roses.

Now the challenge is to find a place for all my new plants. I'm still trying to decide which of the previous owner's plantings I like, and which ones I think I might part with. The camellias' days are probably numbered; I'm not feeling so great about those. Then there is some sort of prickly bush at the end of the yard. Ugly as it is, the birds seem to like it for shelter, so I'm torn about that one. And in the space where I thought I'd plant grandma's rose bush, there are lilies of the valley now emerging from the ground. Every space is filling up fast.

It's a fun challenge to have, though, finding new homes for my pass-alongs and stowaways.