Adventures in Gardening

Italian Roaster: 1

2011-07-25T20:28:00.001-07:00

I picked and grilled my first Italian Roaster pepper tonight. Picked green, instead of letting it ripen to red. Mild flavor, slightly bitter. Will probably be sweet when fully ripe.

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Eggplant, at last!

2011-07-25T16:49:00.001-07:00

It took a long time, but I finally spy tiny eggplants growing. It looks like an alien species!

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Smart move

2011-07-16T13:09:00.001-07:00

Moved the trellis directly behind my cucumber plant.

Also, look at my gigantic pepper!

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Cucumber wonder

2011-07-16T13:03:00.001-07:00

I am very impressed with my cucumber plant this year. It has broad, beautiful dark green leaves, and it is a climbing vine so it looks really lush. I'm trying to get it to climb up the trellis. A perfect summer garden backdrop.

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Crook(shanks)neck Squash

2011-07-14T16:12:00.001-07:00

The final film in the Harry Potter series is coming out at midnight! Hence my garden/HP pun. I'm very excited for the last movie; we'll be viewing it tomorrow night and then hunkering down for Carmaggedon (405 fwy closed all weekend).

Some lovely pictures. You can see my rapidly growing Italian Roasting peppers, cucumber growing up the side wall with tiny cukes sprouting, and baby yellow crookneck (Crookshanks) squash.

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Green beans in my soup!

2011-07-05T17:42:00.001-07:00

First serving of green beans....

...added to my lentil soup. Yum!

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It's getting ripe out there!

2011-07-05T11:44:00.000-07:00

I'm holding my breath until my first tomato is ripe--please let no critter decide to eat it before we're ready to harvest!

And, check out plucked green bean #1. We ate it raw. Very good.

Squirrels and beer

2011-07-05T11:32:00.000-07:00

As promised... a blog post on squirrels and beers!

This Saturday we went down to San Diego to take in a few of their nearly 40 breweries and to visit the zoo. Our favorite stop was at Port Brewing/Lost Abbey. A small scale company located in a nondescript, warehouse block-style building, you wouldn't know it's there except for a large tank outside the building emblazoned with the brewing companies' logos. I especially enjoyed the gorgeous hops vine growing up the tower. While we may be some ways away from attempting to brew our own beer, a decorative hops plant may be in our near future!

The big news this week was that Marcia, the squirrel rescue lady, returned to our backyard with a new box full of adolescent squirrels. We discovered Marcia last year when we rescued a baby squirrel and she told us that when we was old enough, she'd bring him back to our backyard to live! We decided to sign up for the yearly delivery. Doing our part for the "wildlife" of Los Angeles. They're really cute too.

First blush

2011-07-03T10:09:00.001-07:00

Folks.... I am so excited. A tomato has started to ripen. It now is a particular shade of green that is also pink. And it is the prettiest thing I've seen so far this morning.

More zucchini blossoms today, huge and yellow.

Strawberries are abundant and ripening two or three at a time--just right for a small treat while roaming the yard.

Another blog post later today about baby squirrels and breweries...

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Squash blossoms blooming

2011-07-01T12:16:00.001-07:00

Zucchini blossoms opening in the morning light. Dear Garden Goddess: grant me too many zucchini this year, that I may make zucchini cake with cream cheese frosting and still have more to give away to friends. Amen.

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Videos from the garden

2011-06-30T20:02:00.001-07:00

The first video is of my squash plants, the 2nd illustrates how I strung my tomato plants. Enjoy!

YouTube Video

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More seedlings and green bean babies

2011-06-24T16:16:00.000-07:00

For the few years I've been cultivating my home garden, I've struggled with starting my plants from seeds. I think the main problem is I don't get enough sun on my garden. The seeds will sprout, but not flourish, for want of sunlight.

Today I stopped by the nursery and got a few plants to add to the garden, now that it looks like the seeds just aren't cutting it. Next year, with the select few exceptions, I'm going straight to seedlings.

Joining my garden: three kinds of peppers, eggplant, cucumber, yellow crook-necked squash, musk melon, watermelon, and 12 new baby lettuces. The lettuces I added because I've been eating so many salads this year, and the six plants I have are having a hard time keeping up. Now I think I'll have enough lettuce that I'll be giving it away in bulk. Fun!

Meanwhile, back in the wine barrel, the plants are doing really well, getting all the sun they need. And we have baby green beans. They're so adorable. Look for the tiny bean in the above picture. Cute, right?

High-Strung Tomatoes

2011-06-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

Watching the video on how to string and sucker tomatoes (see my previous post, "Suckers...") inspired me to string up my tomatoes in the same fashion.

My tomatoes are indeterminate varieties (Boxcar Willie and Stupice) which means they will keep growing taller and taller, and they need to be suckered. I used some handy-dandy string to gently wrap the tomato plants up their stakes, and tied the string off on the lattice behind them in the planter. I'll have to add more string next time I tie them up, but they should be all set for a while.

AND... I'm such a proud mama... I have 12 baby tomatoes coming in. 10 of them are on the Stupice plant. The word "bounty" comes to mind, but I'll have to be watchful and take good care of them until they ripen. I also added some Jobe's tomato stake plant food today. I can hardly wait for the tomatoes to be ready!

Suckers.....

2011-06-22T10:02:00.001-07:00

I was talking with my friend Alyss about a week or so ago about suckers. Namely, the extra growth on a tomato plant that needs to be pruned away so it doesn't draw on the nutrients needed to create delicious tomatoes.

I did a little research and found the following excellent video. In a nutshell, you only break off the suckers on indeterminate plants (climbing variety), and only below the new blossoms, never above. On determinate (bush) variety, the "suckers" are the new growth that will eventually blossom and give you more fruit.

Here's the video: How to string and sucker tomato plants.

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Tomatoes, can't waitoes!

2011-06-17T15:51:00.001-07:00

Yeah, that's a pretty bad name for this blog post, but my tomatoes are really looking good. Here's a picture:

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More edible plantings at Dland!

2011-06-11T13:37:00.001-07:00

Great edible plantings at Disneyland!

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Leftovers

2011-05-31T17:09:00.001-07:00

Leftover chicken from Healthy Family Farms on lettuce from our garden. Farmer's market tomatoes and peppers too. Yum.

Hang on to the vine...

2011-05-29T09:54:00.001-07:00

Hang on little tomato! Baby tomatoes have appeared on my Stupice tomato plant ("Stupice," not "stupid." Har de har).

It's an exciting day. And judging by the number of flowers on the plant, we're in for a fruitful summer.

Most seeds have sprouted. The plants in my full-sun, half wine barrel are truly flourishing. Used the basil in pasta this week, and I had my first salad from my mixed salad greens. Yummy!

In other responsible eating news, we're very excited to become a Venice pick up location for the CSA members of Healthy Family Farms. They're a local farm that we like to get our eggs and meat from. Pasture raised, humanely treated, and lovely people who work there.

We made a beer can chicken recently, using one of their birds. Chicken that tastes like chicken!

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Welcome squash babies!

2011-05-18T09:03:00.001-07:00

I could see the sprouts from the window. They must have pushed through last night. All the rain we've been getting is a big help.

How exciting: here come zucchini and yellow squash!

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Holy green beans, Plantman!

2011-05-14T09:39:00.001-07:00

One week of growing, my green beans are twice as tall.

Before:

After:

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New garden bliss!

2011-05-08T19:29:00.001-07:00

Happy Mother's Day to all you mommas out there! I paid tribute to Mother Nature by finally giving my veggie patch the attention it's been needing.

Stopped by the local nursery and picked up a half wine barrel, Growers Gold dirt, and a couple of seedlings.

Home soon after and the project began in earnest!

Here's the half barrel under a shower we have but have never used in our backyard.

I think it's a little kitchy, but fun to put it there. The barrel is big enough that I could bathe in it if need be... But I'd rather plant stuff!

After planting tomatoes (Boxcar Willie and Stupice), green beans, basil and zucchini (seeds) in the wine barrel, I moved on to the more daunting task...

...of cleaning out the overgrown mess that used to be my garden. It took a while, but at the end of the process, here's what I planted:

Spinach
Lettuce
Jubilee watermelon
Sweet bell peppers
Cantaloupe (heart of gold)
Cucumber (straight 8)
Sweet corn
Moon & Stars watermelon
Black beauty eggplant
Broccoli

Can't wait for the first sprouts! And I think I'll have an even better growing season with my sun loving veggies in the half barrel in the sunniest part of our backyard and the other veg enjoying more space and water. Time will tell!

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Edible gardens at Disneyland

2011-05-01T13:49:00.001-07:00

A beautiful example of edible landscaping is in the gardens of Tommorowland at Disneyland.

Check out the chard, bok choy, lettuces and herbs!

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Cool way to view my blog

2011-04-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

Hey There! This is a beautiful way to view my blog (or any blogspot blog for that matter). Add /view/mosaic to the end of my url (http://greenthumbtroop.blogspot.com/view/mosaic) and you can see an artistic look back at my years of gardening! Enjoy!

Happy Spring--Strawberries and Kale

2011-04-26T17:21:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long hiatus away from my gardening blog--I kept thinking, "get those pictures online and then write a blog post," but today I decided to just go ahead and write a little note without any pictures.

I went into the yard this afternoon to see a bunch of beautiful red strawberries growing in my strawberry pot! I thought I would surely have to plant new strawberry plants to get a crop this year, but instead it's looking like I can just trim back some of the dead leaves and let it be. I ate one--delicious.

Also, we're having a Kale and Mustard Greens explosion. I will need to make a big pot of melted greens soon and make way for some new plants.

This year I'm also going to get a half barrel to plant some of the kinds of veg that I've been struggling to get growing because my garden is in part shade. I'm going to plan a tomato, cuke, zucchini and a green bean plant, and put it all in the sunniest place I can find on our property.

More on that and other adventures very soon, I promise!

Just a few pictures

2010-09-07T15:45:00.001-07:00

A lengthier blog post will soon follow. In the meantime, pictures of delicious onions, and a pretty tomato and cucumber pairing.

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Zucchini! Strawberries! Corn! CUCUMBER!

2010-07-31T16:29:00.001-07:00

Yes, oh yes, it helps that there's more dirt in my garden this year. It helps that the weather has been warm. It helps to use drip irrigation. And it really helps to start from seedlings instead of just seeds.

I actually have harvested a good number or zucchini so far this year! And they've been delicious. Still not experiencing the crazy abundance I keep expecting, but there was a little accident.

We had plumbers working in the yard, and they splashed water onto the zucchini plants. I was hoping they'd be okay, but powdery mildew started to set in. Bah. I've trimmed off the bad leaves, but the plants seem to not be producing as they were. I'll keep you posted!

The strawberries have been amazing. They really grow themselves. The best thing I did was move the strawberry planter into the sunniest place in our yard.

We've been enjoying beautiful, perfectly ripe strawberries for months!

The corn is getting freaking huge. HUGE. I'm watching it carefully, as I think it will soon be time to start harvesting, but the ears are still a little small. For being HUGE.

I'm concerned as there seem to be some ants living on the corn. I don't know what that means, and I also don't know how to get rid of them. The corn itself seems unaffected, so for now I'll just keep watch.

Cuke. Um. Ber. Holy moly.

Its almost indecent how enormous my cucumber is. I'm letting it get a little bigger--it still has some spiny thorns that don't look like good eats--but soon, we will be enjoying our first home grown cuke!

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The corn is as high as a.... Labrador's eye!

2010-06-29T00:37:00.000-07:00

The garden is having a June boom! The tomatoes are ripening up and have been delicious so far.

The corn is getting to be very tall--about 2.5 feet. It's exciting to think that we'll be harvesting our own sweet corn this year.

I'm especially pleased with the progress of our zucchini plants. With the drip irrigation watering only at the base of each plant, there's been no powdery mildew this year.

The onions are coming along nicely, and I harvested several garlic. I've never had garlic this fresh. It's wonderful! And very easy to grow. I think I'll get another crop started--if I plant enough regularly, I should always have fresh garlic at home.

In other sustainable food news I finally watched the documentary "Food, Inc." Very interesting, and it made me even more concerned about where my meats come from.

We went to the farmer's market and purchased meat from two different vendors. They're both family farms that pasture fed and pasture raise their animals. From Healthy Family Farms we bought some chicken which I fried up that evening. Fantastic! And we also purchased ground beef from Rocky Canyon ranch.

I'm hopeful that by buying directly from small farmers and by growing a portion of our own food that I'm helping strike a blow, albeit a small one, at industrial farming.

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Have you seen my strawberries?

2010-05-30T13:44:00.001-07:00

A big success this year was moving the strawberry pot into full sun, and hooking it up to my drip watering system. The strawberries have been productive, sweet and delicious. The trick is harvesting them before little animals come and take nibbles out of them.

Unlike store-bought strawberries, which are bred to be "tough" in
order to survive shipping, these berries are so fragile that there would be no way to store them.

They simply start to melt once you plucked. Best thing to do: pick and eat. There are two kinds of berries growing in my planter, though I can't remember the names. One is smaller and has an almost floral sweetness. Incredible!

Bad news on the pea front (that sounds a little wrong, doesn't it?)--the leaves have started showing signs of powdery mildew.I think that they may now be on the decline.

Good news is that my Early Girl tomatoes are looking fantastic! Lots of green tomatoes getting fat on the vine. Maybe a good tomato summer at last? Stay tuned.

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Cure for the common cold? Not so much...

2010-05-20T19:55:00.001-07:00

Last week, while I was sick and somewhat feverish, I decided that I had to work in my garden for a while. Not just the vegetable patch, but the whole backyard. I went to the gardening store in a foggy daze and wandered around putting various plants in my wagon. Ended up with a bunch of drought tolerant plants to spruce up the "decorative" part of the back yard, a six pack of corn seedlings, lettuce seedlings, zucchini and cucumber. And a huge back of top soil. Oh yeah, and a can of grass seeds.

Planting the veggies was no big deal. The soil in my veggie garden is nice and soft, easy to dig into. The soil of the backyard however was another story. I think I worked for about 2.5 hrs in the dwindling daylight, sweating both from effort and from my low-grade fever.

I don't think I've ever heard it recommended that one should garden for several hours, trying to dig into hard, clay-packed dirt, in order to beat a cold. And guess what? Didn't help it. Ooh boy, was I tired that night. But the backyard looks great!

P.S. The new plantings are filling in GREAT!

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Pea Salad, First Tomato

2010-05-14T09:30:00.000-07:00

What a difference in pea production from last year! It's very satisfying to be able to harvest enough peas to actually cook something for two people.

I'm a little concerned about my green beans. They should be easy to grow, and yet the leaves are pale green and a little spotty. But maybe it's just because it's been a cool year in SoCal, and they'll perk up once it's fully summer.

The pie pumpkins have lots of blossoms, and there are three baby cucumbers developing on their vines.

I also picked and ate the first tomato of the year. No pictures--it went straight from plant to tummy. Stupice tomato; delicious, great texture.

I made a fresh pea salad, using the peas in their pods, mixed with some asparagus, red onion and a white vinaigrette. Yum!

Funky-Lookin' Carrot

2010-04-27T22:40:00.001-07:00

So.... I really don't have a deep enough garden bed to grow root vegetables.... which means I ended up with some mutant carrots. We tried to eat this one, but it kinda tasted funny. Aw. Enjoy the picture.

Springing Forward

2010-04-06T16:16:00.001-07:00

Okay, making up for lost time here. The garden has really been taking off. I'm hopeful for some good harvests come summer! Note to self--planting in January is really the key to having a good growing season.

I'm most excited about the progress of my pea plant. Last year I only harvested ONE pea pod. I mean, that's just silly. The pea plants grew hardly bigger than a couple of inches and withered very quickly. This year's planting really shows how peas are meant to look when they're growing well. There are already a couple of pea pods emerging from flowers. Fingers crossed that there will be more and more!

Also, my first tomato has appeared. Hooray!

Here are some recent pictures of my garden, plus a really unique veggie and herb patch that is growing on a wall (yes, vertically) outside a local restaurant.

3 Weeks Later

2010-02-07T14:09:00.000-08:00

It's been about three weeks since Ona and I replanted my garden, and miraculously (especially for Southern California) it's been very rainy! The weather has been cool, but not too cold, and all of the seeds we planted are sprouting. The seedlings are starting to flourish, and I will be able to start harvesting lettuce, kale and chard this week. Here are a few pictures to show the changes. I'm just hoping this year that I get a good pea and bean crop--last year I was sadly disappointed.

Baby carrots sprouting in the foreground, purple carrots thriving in the background.

BEANS!

Lettuce loves the rain.

Chard loves the rain.

The garden is flourishing!

New Year, New Garden!

2010-01-16T18:41:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, Brandon and I spent a portion of each day redoing the garden bed. First I went through and harvested the few remaining crops: three broccoli florets (I was amazed! The only broccoli all year), several bunches of little yellow onions, and one baby carrot.
Then I cut down all the remaining straggler plants, pulled weeds, and turned the soil over. We got some more siding and attached it to the walls of the garden bed to increase the height by a few inches. Then we mixed another batch of "Mel's Mix" (corse vermiculite, compost and peat moss) and filled in the bed. Unfortunately we'd underestimated how much mix we'd need, and so we wound up doing yet another batch today.

We also visited the nursery and picked out some good "cool weather" crops, such as broccoli, kale and chard (keep in mind that the temperature right now is on average in the 60's during the day).

My friend Ona came over to help with planting. She has a plot in a local community garden, and she's constantly harvesting so much food that she has to beg people to take it away. She certainly has a green thumb! We had a good time figuring out the new layout for the plants, and she advised me not to plant the same kinds of plants in the same place year after year (i.e., if you plant tomatoes in the right corner of the garden one season, then plant them in the left corner the next). Different plants absorb different nutrients and need to be rotated for the best growth.

We also sewed a bunch of seeds. Hopefully by planting in January instead of in late March I'll have gotten a good jump on the growing season and will have more to harvest! After everything was planted, we installed drip irrigation. I'm expecting that by using a drip irrigation method, rather than a spray from the sprinkler, my squash will fair much better and not develop powdery mildew.

The baby plants are so cute, and I can't wait and see if adding those extra inches of dirt will do the trick. Here's hoping!

The Garden was Dead

2010-01-05T14:13:00.001-08:00

In the paraphrased words of Charles Dickens: "The Garden was dead, to begin with." It's now totally gone to seed... er, gone fallow... and as the weather seems to be brightening up, I think it will soon be time to turn over the soil and start again.

My plan this year is to increase the size of the garden bed, and the depth. I'm also going to install drip irrigation instead of using the sprinkler heads as this killed a lot of my squash this year.

In the meantime, I picked up my CSA box this week. It's totally full of dark leafy greens. We are so healthy! But I'm looking forward to a change of pace to break up all of the green. Spring is just around the corner (at least, it is in California).

Not as local as the backyard, but still eating locally

2009-11-01T09:42:00.000-08:00

It's November 1st and my garden has given up the ghost. With the exception of a few very fine looking onions, I've got fallow land on my hands.

In all honesty, this first attempt at growing my own food was a bit of a bust. The reason, as determined by me and as verified by reliable resources (my mom, other gardening friends), is that I just didn't have enough dirt in my raised bed. Sometime before I plant again in the spring I'm going to add another several inches to the sides of the garden bed and fill it in with my Mel's Mix. According to my friend Pat, broccoli won't even consider growing without about a foot of dirt. So... now I know what my goal is. Also, I'm installing drip irrigation in my garden. My zucchini never had a chance against the powdery mildew. Next year I will prevent it from even thinking about touching my squash.

In the meantime I've taken up the next best thing to having a personal garden: I've joined a local organic CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Because we live in Los Angeles, there are actually a fair number of these CSA's in the area. Basically, an interested person can "subscribe" to a CSA, paying either a weekly, monthly or annual fee. Depending on the CSA and on your household needs, you can pick up a box of fresh, seasonal produce from a drop off location (often a farmers' market, though sometimes from a private residence) once a week or twice a month.

The CSA I've joined is the South Central Farmers' Cooperative. The farmers in this co-op used to farm a large community garden in downtown LA that was eventually bulldozed by the city and inspired the documentary, The Garden. Now they have a larger piece of land that is funded in part by the CSA.

This week's box included several kinds of kale, collard greens, two eggplants, cilantro, spaghetti squash, green tomatoes, zucchini, sunburst and scallop squash, and purple pole beans. To add to my local mix, I also visited the farmers market for organic apples (Red Winesap and Pink Lady), California olives, and fresh vanilla bean quark. Here's the menu for the week so far. I'm providing links when I can find them--so many recipes that I have in my cook books are also available online:

Halloween Night (yesterday):
Pumpkin Soup (local pumpkin from a family farm)
Melting Greens (I used up all the green leafy veggies from the CSA box)
Crusty bread with Parmesan

Sunday Morning:
Pumpkin Waffles
Organic free-range scrambled eggs
Vanilla Bean Quark
Local blackberries and raspberries

Monday:
Helen's Polenta with Eggplant (pg 287 in Laurel's Kitchen)
Purple Pole Beans with a cheesy, lemony, garlicky topping

Wednesday:
Pancetta Pasta with sundried tomato cream sauce
Zucchini Squash

Thursday:
Still seeking a good recipe for spaghetti squash--any suggestions?
Fried green tomatoes
Starburst squash
Maybe I'll do something with cilantro too

New Stuff, Lotsa Stuff

2009-08-19T13:17:00.000-07:00

My new strategy with my garden is to cram it full of plants. I think I started a little too conservatively, so I've now planted seeds in every free bit of space. This includes corn, pumpkins, other kinds of squash, new tomato plants, purple pole beans- you name it!

I have another theory in play as well, and I guess it will all depend on how this latest bunch of seedlings thrives. The theory I'm nursing is that I may need to double the depth of the soil in my raised beds. A friend of mine who has an amazing garden pointed out that I'll never get broccoli to grow unless it has a foot of soil beneath it. Huh. But then another resource said that tomato plants will grow as far down into the soil as they grow up.... and with 6 foot tall tomato plants I'm sure that can't be the case! Anyway, once it gets too cold here (come December or January) I'll add another layer of Mel's mix (that's the perfect potting soil mix) and we'll see how next year's garden fares.

Looks weird, tastes great!

How to know when it's time to get new lettuce.

Cucumber Nugget

2009-08-03T13:46:00.000-07:00

I decided to go ahead and harvest one of the weird curly cucumbers. The cucumber was half engorged and half completely underdeveloped and spiny. I cut off the spiny part leaving a "nugget" about the size of an egg. I peeled it and ate it. Inside the seeds all looked squished together, unlike in a regular cucumber where they're spread evenly throughout the fruit. It tasted good though- just like a cucumber!

There are a couple other quasi-cucumbers available for harvest, but in the meantime I've planted a different variety of cuke. We'll see how these fare. They've already sprouted so I'm hoping for a quick growth to harvest time.

Recently I've given up on labeling all the plants in the garden. After all, even if I forget what they are while they're growing, I'll know what they turn out to be at the end. I've planted more butternut squash in a less sunny part of the garden. A different variety of watermelon. More pole beans (I should be giving them away by the bucket this time of summer, but since I'm not I've planted a bunch more). More zucchini. New yellow squash. More onions. Garlic. More everything! I want my garden to be busting open at the seams! I'll let you know if that happens.

Road bumps and weird growth!

2009-07-24T10:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, I knew there'd be issues eventually. First of all, I have a bit of a powdery mold problem on my zucchini plants. I cut away the very damaged leaves, and I'm trying only water the plants at the base. The mold forms because of moisture on the leaves and it can kill the plant. It can also spread to other kinds of squash, gourds, melon etc. So that's a poopy problem for an organic garden. I'll just have to keep trying to contain it.

My second issue is that thus far, most of the tomatoes harvested have been mealy. I read that this happens when the temperature drops below 50 degrees. I don't remember the weather getting that cold after the tomatoes had started growing, but I guess it's possible. The only tomatoes that haven't been mealy have been kind of deformed (see the picture of the yellow tomatoes below). Their deformity probably has to do with how consistently I've been watering. Maybe sometimes they got too much and other times not enough. But they tasted good anyway! Had to cut around all the weird parts, but that's no crime.

Finally, the cucumbers are looking WEIRD. They're curling as they grow, and this one is half developed (see picture). I have no idea what this means. None at all. Any ideas?

Powdery mold.

Cucumber weirdness...

Tomato weirdness. And some critter took a bite out of the one on the left.

Beautiful, but mealy.

How to ketchup!

2009-07-16T10:51:00.001-07:00

Get it? It's a pun... catch up, ketchup...

Anyway, I know it's been a couple of weeks. In brief we've now:

Harvested our first green beans

Eaten the majority of our first crop of carrots

Harvested our first zucchini (yum!)

Harvested our first two tomatoes, though dealing with mealy texture

Am trying to figure out how to organically combat white powdery mold

Here are some pictures. More soon!

Hard to tell, but my thumb is actually green in this picture (from trimming back the tomatoes).

Baby cucumber. Weird looking!

I had no idea that this is what zucchini looked like on the plant. It grows from what looks like the stem at the base of the flower. I thought it would grow from the flower itself.

BEANS!

This one looks almost ready.

C is for Carrot!

2009-06-16T18:53:00.000-07:00

I was watering the garden last week, thinking about how to tell when root vegetables are ready to be harvested. I had just come to the conclusion that I probably should research this question on the web when the water from my hose showed me the orange top of one of my carrots.

With trepidation I grasped the carrot top and pulled.... and out popped our first carrot! Since then I've gotten a little more daring, and I've learned a valuable lesson: plant the carrots farther apart. I just sewed a few more carrot seeds with that lesson in mind. In the pictures you'll see a carrot that was planted far enough away from its fellow carrots, and a bunch of carrots that were planted too close. It's like a mutant carrot monster... Still tasted good though!

Tomatoes are getting so big, but when will they ripen?

Climb beanstalk, climb!

I love carrots whole bunches.

A proper looking carrot.

Mutant carrots. Call Professor X!

An Intriguing Development

2009-06-07T20:20:00.000-07:00

About a week ago, Brandon and I spread our homemade (or should I say worm-made?) compost throughout the garden. The plants responded quickly and voraciously, and what with the warmer summer days and the new food, we had a lot of stunning growth.

Then I started noticing little sprouts... all over the garden. But specifically right near the base of each plant, where we'd spread the compost. I suspect that there must have been seeds of some sort in the compost, though I have no idea from what. There's part of me that wouldn't mind letting a few of the sprouts keep growing to see what they turn into! I'm not in the practice of putting seeds into my compost box, so it had to be from old strawberries or tomatoes... something where the seeds are small. The kind of seeds I assumed my worms would eat. Well, now I know better!

The other development of the last week is that my salad greens have gone bitter. As they get old, the flavor changes pretty drastically. We decided it was time for a fresh sweep, so we now have baby lettuce in place of the old, gone to seed, lettuce. This time we'll start eating it sooner. The first time around I didn't realize how quickly the lettuce would grow new leaves and it was hard to keep up with so much growth. This time we'll start eating salads earlier and hopefully we'll get to enjoy more out of those plants' lifetimes. Adding to our earlier salad mix, we now have an Italian blend, and an heirloom blend. Should be delicious.

Here comes a cantaloupe blossom!

Zucchini is just a few weeks away.

The old lettuce was getting out of hand. Notice the really tall green leaf lettuce right next to the tomato plants. Needless to say, the leaves were no longer sweet tasting.

After planting our new lettuce blend. It's hard to believe that the first batch was just as small when we planted them just a few months ago.

Hang on, little tomato!

Tomatoes Ahoy!

2009-05-29T11:07:00.001-07:00

I have now counted four beautiful fat little heirloom tomatoes growing on one of the Rainbow Mix tomato plants. Also, the Red Currant tomatoes are turning, you guessed it, red! Check it out.

What's at stake?

2009-05-24T15:19:00.001-07:00

Tomatoes! Our tomato plants are growing by leaps and bounds. They started outmaybe 3 inches tall and are now 3 FEET tall! A couple of them had started tipping over. I had already taken time to tie the Red Currant tomato to its trellis, but new shoots were starting to sprawl into the rest of the garden. I ended up tying even more of that plant to the trellis. I wonder what it would look like if I didn't take the time to do that... my guess is that it would probably take over a good third of my garden plot!

The heirloom Rainbow Mix tomatoes each needed their own stake. We employed the "reuse" part of "Reduce, reuse, recycle" and chopped up an old trellis to create stakes. Brandon hammered them into the ground and then I tied each tomato plant up. It not only was good for the tomatoes, but it looks cute too. And I discovered the first baby tomatoes on those plants!

The rest of the garden is growing very quickly as well. I can't get over how huge the zucchini plants are already. Apparently we're "in trouble" with five zucchini plants and will end up having to pay people to take extra zucchini off our hands.

We also sprinkled fresh compost and worm castings from my worm box. It was the first time I finally had enough compost to use in any practical way. I think the plants really like it too. The pea shoots grew about an inch over night, as did the broccoli... don't even get me started on how much bigger the zucchini are after the compost!

Baby Acorn Squash, thriving now that's it's been transplanted

Holy Moly- look at that zucchini!

First time using our homemade compost. Yum!

Baby heirloom tomatoes

Everything in the garden is growing and growing!

Garden Explosion

2009-05-14T10:11:00.001-07:00

No time to write today, just wanted to post some amazing pictures. Garden EXPLOSION!

Giant Plants!

2009-05-04T18:32:00.000-07:00

I've decided not to blog at the end of the week on the dot anymore, so no more "week one" etc titles.

It's been a little over a week since the last blog and my plants have grown about a foot! When we got back from our trip, a few seedlings had kicked the bucket. But I replanted and have been taking very good care of my garden and now we have seedlings once again. The romaine lettuce seedlings are back, and we have three zucchini sprouts as well as 3 or 4 cantaloupe sprouts! Here are just a few pictures. Amazing differences.

And have I mentioned how tasty the salad straight from the garden is? I also appreciate that I'm wasting less produce now because I'm not buying a whole bag of lettuce and then only using half. And there's no plastic bag! Yay.... making an impact feels good.

Baby zucchini

Lettuce close-ups

Oooh, that romaine is so sexy!

Go tomatoes go!

Adorable little cantaloupe

Week Three

2009-04-26T14:03:00.000-07:00

What a difference a week makes! We got back in town yesterday to discover some delightful and some less-than-delightful changes to the garden. First off, only one baby pea shoot has survived so far. The baby romaine also kicked the bucket after dealing with temperatures in the 90's this week. However, the rest of the garden is thriving.

Here's a picture of the garden after week one, just to show the difference in plant size.

Aside from what's growing in my garden bed, we have a tree that's bearing some sort of mystery fruit. Could it be apricots?

The baby basil is coming in strong, as is the first acorn squash shoot. The carrot tops are taking on a more "carrot-y" appearance, and we have four bean sprouts pushing out of the dirt. We also have baby cantaloupe! The most exciting development is the first itty-bitty tomatoes. Hooray!

Baby Basil

Acorn Squash

Carrot tops

Looking green-beany

Cantaloupe- yum

The itty-bitty tomato committee!

Week Two

2009-04-17T10:12:00.000-07:00

The end of week two brings a bit of sad news. It was very cold and windy here midweek, and all but one of the pea shoots fell over and wilted. I'm not sure if they'll revive or not, but the good news is that warmer weather is on its way.

The rest of the garden is looking lush, and I've made three salads so far! The fresh greens are so tasty, and it's immensely satisfying to eat what I've grown.

The little broccoli shoots are also flourishing, and we welcome the first green bean sprout this week. The tomato plants have grown about an inch since I planted them, and more baby carrots have started sprouting.

Baby broccoli, grownin' and growin'.

Here come carrots!

The first green bean sprout.

The Obama Garden

2009-04-15T09:07:00.000-07:00

Here are some links to articles about the Obama's garden. It's a little bit bigger than the average home garden.... but it serves the same purpose!

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/04/09/the_first_garden_gets_its_firs.html

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b118088_michelle_obamas_home_garden.html

More baby veggies

2009-04-14T10:33:00.001-07:00

Please welcome to the garden....

Baby "Little Finger" carrots

and baby "Black Beauty" zucchini squash!

First Harvest

2009-04-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

It's only the start of week 2 and I'm excited to announce my first harvest! We started the salad greens from seedlings, but they grew so fast; it's very satisfying to think that I'm already able to eat what we planted.

In other news, the Baby Gem romaine has started sprouting, and the peas are unfurling their leaves.

Baby "Baby Gem" romaine

The peas are growing so quickly!

Week One

2009-04-10T17:02:00.000-07:00

The seedlings are here! I can't believe the changes that have happened in just one week. The lettuce mix is getting huge and I think I'll be ready to start harvesting some very small salads soon. The most exciting development is that the seeds have started sprouting. Little baby veggies. Yay!

Baby Broccoli

Baby Shelling Pea

Building the Garden

2009-04-10T16:20:00.000-07:00

When my parents and I set out to build our new home garden, we had the advantage of having a nicely located flower bed as our starting point. The bed had become overgrown with weeds. With a normal vegetable gardening method we would have had to pull all those weeds. Instead, after my dad conquered the formidable task of pulling out a tree stump from the flower bed, we just leveled out the dirt. We then added a six inch flexible border to the existing flower bed border and lay weed cloth inside the new bed.

Next came the fun part of mixing various kinds of dirt. The "Square Foot Method" claims to have perfected a gardening soil mixture, and who am I to argue with that?! So we mixed up the dirt (vermiculite, compost, manure etc.) and then filled in the new vegetable bed.

The most fun was finally getting to plant the seeds and little seedlings. Many of the seeds and plants I chose are heirloom. I like heirloom vegetables and fruits because of their varied and interesting flavors, their history, and because it feels to me that I'm part of the legacy of maintaining the growth of these particular varieties of plants.

Here's a list of what we planted, in no particular order:

Lettuce mix

Little Gem Romaine (heirloom)

Brandywine tomato (heirloom)

Black Beauty eggplant

Vidalia onion

Blue Lake green bean

Little Finger carrot (heirloom)

Di Cicco broccoli (heirloom)

Hearts of Gold cantaloupe

Moons and Stars watermelon

Black Beauty zucchini squash

Table King Bush Acorn winter squash

Green Arrow shelling pea

Spinach

Red Currant tomato (heirloom)

Rainbow Mix tomato (heirloom)

Adventures in Gardening

2009-04-10T15:45:00.000-07:00

The world's climate is changing. That's a simple fact. Unfortunately there's not a lot an individual can do to make a BIG difference. However, there's a lot that individuals can do to make small differences. Differences that really add up.

Food choices constitute one of the largest ways people affect the environment. There's a new movement of people trying to eat only locally through CSA's and home gardening, and this blog is about my foray into trying to curb my environmental impact by growing my own home garden. Even just 70 years ago, home gardens were the norm, not the exception. I believe that it's time to bring growing back to homes and communities. Even the Obama's are starting their own "victory" garden. Even if you only have one square foot, you can grow something that won't have to use fossil fuels to arrive in your fridge, and most major cities have community plots available for apartment dwellers to use.

I'd been wanting to create my own home garden for a while now, but I felt a little daunted by the amount of work having a vegetable garden could entail. Then my mom read a book called "Square Foot Gardening," by Mel Bartholomew. Foll

owing his instructions she created a beautiful garden in her backyard in Florida. When I saw how easy it was for my parents to create their garden, and when I learned how little upkeep it required I decided I wanted to build one of my own.

On a recent visit with us, my parents guided me through building my very own raised vegetable garden. It's not a "square foot" garden, because it's not divided into square feet, but it utilizes pretty much the same techniques. My goal is to track growth of the garden through this web log and share my experiences, both good and bad, with whomever would like to learn about growing a simple home garden.