Finding beauty

Irish Boxer Husband claims that for the longest time, I wasn't much of a fan of cut flowers... he might be right, as I have no doubt his memory may occasionally be more reliable than mine, but I have decided that I love flowers and can't have too many of them around the house. Attached to a plant and living or in a vase, I see their glowing colors their delicacy, and that subtle iridiscence... and it makes me happy.

The growing that will happen at the end of the tunnel

Today is day 9 in the hospital, and the walls are definitely starting to cave in on me.

The incessant beeping, fluorescent lighting, doctors and nurses at all times, needles, tubes, endless medications... It all wears a person down. Not to mention I have never been away from the Irish Boxer Husband (who visits everyday), Monkey (who has been brought by once) and Lion Cub (who charms all the nurses) for this long. And the garden, too! Thank goodness for my wonderful friends who do all they can to keep me sane and fighting.

So to try and stay positive, I figured I would start planning out my 2014 growing. In a fit of just-because-I-am-stuck-here-doesn't-mean-I-can't-do-some-damage, I ordered a mess load of fruit trees. I also have all the seeds I ordered and also saved from last year's crops. So in a nutshell, here is what I am setting myself up for, existing and new:

Trees/fruit

• Low Chill Apple, 3 on 1 
• Flavor Grenade Zaiger Pluot
• Gold Kist Apricot 
• Burgundy Japanese Plum 
• Saturn Peach Tree 
• Black Beauty Fruiting Mulberry 
• Snow Queen Nectarine 
• Hachiya Persimmon 
• Fuyu persimmon
• Desert Gold Peach
• Babcock Peach
• Garden Prince Almond
• Spice Zee Nectaplum
• Meyer lemon
• Mexican lime
• Nagami kumquat
• Black Mission fig
• Hass avocado (he needs a friend!)
• Raspberries (Heritage, Fall Gold) and Blackberry (Triple Crown)
• Southern low-chill blueberries, I forget the exact types
• Sequoia strawberries

Vegetables

• Tomatillos, green and purple
• Tomato: Amish Paste, rainbow cherry mix
• Green Globe artichoke
• "Summer Melody" squash mix
• Kabocha squash
• "Mixed fingers" eggplant mix
• Bush beans: Contender, Tendergreen
• Pole beans: yard long, Rattlesnake
• Buttercrunch lettuce
• Cucumber: lemon and straight eight
• Peppers: Chinese Giant and Tam's Jalapeño
• Red orach -- very curious about this one!
• Garlic: Music, Russian Red, Elephant, CA Early have all been planted along with shallots

Herbs

• Basil basil basil!
• Cilantro, slow bolt
• Garlic chives
• Chives
• Thyme
• Maybe a few others... IBH got me a pack of seeds and many I am not even familiar with

Flowers

• Sunflowers
• Nasturtium
• Cosmos (no choice here -- they are volunteering all over the place)
• Calendula
• Wild flowers

I don't know where I am actually going to *put* all of these... But it should be an exciting summer!

Taking the time

I've probably mentioned this before, but Irish Boxer Husband and I both work full-time at demanding jobs. We have a very busy five-year-old Monkey who has birthday parties, playdates, swim lessons and school functions. Then we added a five-month-old Baby Bluebird (soon to be renamed Lion Cub, BTW) to the mix. Last year we bought a house on a half acre and proceeded to completely gut and renovate the interior... and when it was about 95% done, we started to move mountains outside to reshape the landscape completely.

All this to say, we don't have a lot of spare time on our hands. I can't remember the last time we went to see a movie -- wait, yes I do... it was more than 6 months ago -- and we've had exactly one date night since Lion Cub was born. I'm naturally an introvert, and crave peace, and quiet, and calm, so it's silly little chores like shelling peas (when's the last time you shelled peas?!?) that help me maintain my sanity.

It's been a challenging few weeks... months... okay years... but something as simple as my Lincoln peas finally gearing up into full production so that I can get more than a handful of peas at a time is what keeps me balanced nowadays.

Winter growing

This is the first winter I've done any real growing, and I'm now confident that I vastly prefer cool-weather gardening over the summer. Granted, winter in San Diego County means there is a chill in the air and the nights just MIGHT dip below freezing... MAYBE. Which means putzing around out there is much more enjoyable than during the months of 100+ temps and blazing sun.

I harvested our second head of Graffiti purple cauliflower, as well as the potatoes from one of my Smart Pots. I should have given it at least another month, but I went ahead and did it. Because I prefer my potatoes small. My impatience has absolutely nothing to do with it. Nope.

The garlic is sprouting, the peas are producing, the leeks are swelling, the greens are all still pumping out leaves, and I have managed to leave my other potatoes in the ground to continue growing. Love winter.

Oh-so-cute Parisiennes... carrots, that is.

I've never grown carrots before. Between our warm climate, the difficulty in getting them to germinate, their general finickiness, and the fact that I can get a bag of organic "baby" (yes I know they're not really babies) carrots for under a dollar at Sprouts, I never really saw the need. But I got a sample pack of Parisienne carrot seeds so decided to see what would happen.

My dish of carrot seedlings actually had to endure a few late-season heat waves -- which incidentally haven't stopped, but I digress -- so went from a thick planting to only a few of the strongest making it. I thought of the whole thing as a project of curiosity and yesterday actually was able to pull a couple carrots!

Haven't tried them yet, but do find them almost irresistably cute. Who knows, maybe I'll sow some more.

Parisienne carrot

Small, round carrots that are so popular in France. Tender, orange globes are superb lightly steamed. Easy to grow even in heavy soils. This little carrot is great for home and market gardens, as this variety is fairly uniform.

 

Purple!

I like to grow things that are either prohibitively expensive to buy, hard to find, or best when extremely fresh. And I usually have a long list of things I want to try but am not above an impulse buy at a neighborhood nursery, either! While putzing around the garden the other day, I realized I must have purple on the mind...

Chitting a batch of these beautiful purple potatoes to plant out by end of the year, once the Russetts and Yukon Golds are done... I thought it was so neat how even the little sprouts are a dark, intense purple.

Purple Majesty potato
Oblong. mid season potato with smooth dark purple skin. Almost solid purple inside unlike All Blue. Very good table quality. Makes a great blue potato salad.

I picked up a six-pack of purple cauliflower transplants on a whim from our Green Thumb nursery. I had no idea if they'd even grow in our climate, let alone head, but two out of the six have good-sized heads now and the other four look like they're right behind. I'm so excited to try them. Since purple is the little Monkey's favorite color, maybe she'll be more inclined to eat it too...

Graffiti cauliflower

The medium sized heads of this vigorous, uniform, main-season cauliflower are intensely purple, with large, purple wrapper leaves. It looks absolutely stunning when served raw on a veggie platter, but also retains most of its colour when cooked. A novel, nutritious, delicious cauliflower choice! - See more at: http://www.westcoastseeds.com/productdetail/Vegetable-Seeds/Cauliflower/Graffiti/#sthash.aVpVFxXT.dpuf

Easily the darkest and "truest" of the purple cauliflowers, Graffiti is here to brighten the plate and jazz up the vegetable patch! This widely adapted, vigorous variety sets large heads of deep purple that keep their color even after cooking (reaching a shade of mauve). Perfect for coastal climates, the far north, and the humidity-laden south and southwest, it's both a gourmet selection and a tried-and-true dependable performer in the garden.

These heavy, well-packed heads intensify their shade of violet with exposure to sun, and need less wrapper protection than most others. They make a splendid fall crop, but are also suitable for spring. Highly resistant to downy mildew, they can withstand rainy and humid climates far easier than older varieties. And they just look spectacular!

Graffiti

The medium sized heads of this vigorous, uniform, main-season cauliflower are intensely purple, with large, purple wrapper leaves. It looks absolutely stunning when served raw on a veggie platter, but also retains most of its colour when cooked. A novel, nutritious, delicious cauliflower choice!
- See more at: http://www.westcoastseeds.com/productdetail/Vegetable-Seeds/Cauliflower/Graffiti/#sthash.aVpVFxXT.dpuf

 

Graffiti

The medium sized heads of this vigorous, uniform, main-season cauliflower are intensely purple, with large, purple wrapper leaves. It looks absolutely stunning when served raw on a veggie platter, but also retains most of its colour when cooked. A novel, nutritious, delicious cauliflower choice!
- See more at: http://www.westcoastseeds.com/productdetail/Vegetable-Seeds/Cauliflower/Graffiti/#sthash.aVpVFxXT.dpuf

I have plans for you...

I planted Lincoln Garden Pea seeds on September 8th. They looked decent at first, but then really started to struggle. I realized they were being attacked by cabbage loopers... ugh. A quick Bt spray later, they are bouncing back.

After 4 days out of town, I came home to find my first blossoms!

I am determined that the first solid food to pass into our new Baby Bluebird's mouth will be home-grown, heirloom, non-GMO, organic peas. Cannot wait!

Lincoln Garden Pea
An old-time pea introduced in 1908. High-yielding and tasty, this pea does better than many in warmer weather. The tightly-filled pods are easy to shell, and compact vines are a good choice for small gardens.

It's almost garlic time!

The past year has been a whirlwind of doing LOTS of things we've never done before. Like build a retaining wall. Or three. Or start an orchard. Or put together a worm bin.

So I figured, why not throw in one more... let's plant garlic. Lots of garlic! Several pounds of garlic, to be exact.

Apparently in Southern California, the right time is October-Novemberish. The idea is to get the cloves in the ground once it's cooled off a bit, giving them the fall and winter weather to slowly establish; then come springtime, they'll take off like gangbusters (I actually rewrote this sentence specifically so I could use the word "gangbusters") and hopefully be ready in June. Or so I read. Because I've never actually done this before.

Sampler pack from Peaceful Valley: check.
Read and re-read tips from Peaceful valley: check.
Stare longingly at garlic while waiting for the daytime temps to no longer hit 80: check.
Build raised bed for garlic: check.
Stare longingly at garlic some more: check.

At long last... next weekend might be the time. Should be an interesting adventure.

Taking pictures like a big girl

I'm usually too lazy to pull out the DSLR to take pictures for the blog, since my smartphone automatically backs up all my photos. But even my several-years-old camera blows the socks off a cell phone picture any day, so today I decided to take just a few. (Keep in mind, I'm still too lazy to retouch any of them.)

The dew was on the plants, the sky was overcast, and all in all the garden is really coming alive.

Heritage raspberries, growing quite happily on their trellis:

Calendula (pot marigold) brings a shot of sunny color to gray mornings:

 Heirloom Benning's Green Tint pattypan squash. Has decided it's a fall vegetable and not a summer one. :-)

Total experiment: Graffiti purple cauliflower. I have no idea if cauliflower will even grow here. But the purple was so cool:

And who is this guy, hanging out on the last of my basil?

There is autumn in the air...

Today was the first damp morning of the season, and it was almost disorienting to wake up to the patio (and patio furniture, eek) being wet. Forecast says there may be a bit more rain coming today. Summer may finally be over! And Halloween, the Monkey's favorite holiday, is just around the corner. You know it's happening when pumpkins start popping up around the house because we can't go anywhere without her picking out just a few to bring home. "But look, they're SO cute, can't we have one? Or two?" You'd think she was talking about puppies. But no. Pumpkins. Which might explain why, after the season, I have such a hard time cutting these guys up for pie. Because in my head, they are almost like puppies.

Yes, silly, I know.

The peas-and-lettuce Earthbox is coming along, and we've eaten salad from it a few times already. I've learned that, when growing lettuce, it's not about getting individual seedlings started and lovingly placed. It's about quantity over quality. Plant many, often... then harvest ruthlessly.

Baby kumquats!

Unfortunately no baby fruit on the Meyer Lemon despite a profusion of blooms and lots of bee activity, but maybe it will just take a bit more time...

The first batch of potatoes is looking a bit silly despite having been hilled up nearly a foot already. Oh well.

 

There are two big SmartPots of potatoes right behind it, and then 10 more pounds of seed potatoes coming in a month. The Irish Boxer Husband likes potatoes, what can I say.

And in the terraces, the rainbow chard (which is oddly un-rainbowy), lettuce-and-cosmos-volunteers, and pattypan-that-has-decided-it-likes-fall-better-than-summer are doing well.

Next up: raised bed kit is in the mail, destined to hold garlic and onions. We need to go pick up a persimmon tree. In the empty terrace, kohlrabi, beets and maybe some more kale. Because you can never have too much kale. And leeks. LOTS of leeks.

Because it's fall!

Fall feels like spring around here

After moving to San Diego, I had to learn rather quickly that my perception of the height of summer being when the garden was busiest was very, very wrong.

In my head, I thought... the weather's warm, sun is out, bees are buzzing, plants are happy...

It only took a few years of searing, dessicating, I'm-afraid-to-step-outside heat and the kind of sunshine that made my skin feel like it was charring by the minute to make me realize that plants felt no different. With the exception of a few that defied the intense Southern California summer, most living things seemed to wilt and give up after a few days of 100+ temperatures.

The winters, though -- when many parts of the country are tucking their gardens to sleep and crops do things like "hibernate" or "winter over" that make absolutely no sense in our neck of the woods -- are mild, and moist, and even occasionally rainy. So while tomatoes won't exactly be pumping out ripe, red fruit in weather like that, you can get by growing a lot of things right through those winter months.

Which means right around now is basically like our springtime!

All the summertime vegetables have been pulled out of the beds now, and new compost put down in preparation for our cool season crops. The Earthbox that used to house cucumbers now has baby peas poking their heads up:

Swiss chard seedlings are growing well and just need to hang on for one more weekend before the weather should be cool enough for them to be transplanted out:

 

Lettuce seedlings are also hanging out, waiting. Not sure what I was thinking planting these, as there is no way we will ever eat this much salad... and in the corner, those are beet seedlings that I just may have jumped the gun on. Oops.

 

The experiment in growing leeks from seed is going okay... I may just end up tucking these in among other plants vs. dedicating space to them. I'm reading that planting alliums (onions, leeks, garlic) among other plants, especially brassicas, may even help deter some pests. All for that!

The next few weeks will be a flurry of planting and transplanting. Garlic, onions, potatoes, kohlrabi, beets, greens, herbs... all will hopefully thrive as the weather finally cools down over the next few months.

Hanging on to the last of the basil

Every summer I set out to grow a ton of basil. Coming-out-of-your-ears basil. Can't-keep-up basil. Why-on-earth-did-I-plant-so-much basil.

Some years, it does well. The best year was when I had 6 plants set in a homemade Earthbox on a very sunny patio. Between the constant moisture, abundant sunshine and just-right planetary alignment, that year had us in pesto for 24 months, give or take.

The next year, life factors intervened and the baking sun of a new home on a hilltop dessicated my plants before they ever had the chance to take off.

This year, good intentions but then being 9.999 months pregnant during the world's longest heatwave meant my basil plants were gloriously ready to be sheared back in June... but never got sheared back... and so my hopes for massive bushes of basil fizzled like my skin in the Escondido sun.

But I got some. SOME. And I won't tell you about how I kept cheating by planting more even though it was way too hot and I couldn't get myself out there to water them enough. But still, my love of basil persisted and I was determined to try and preserve it into the fall, winter... and maybe even spring?... until I could plant more basil, yet again.

So I hopped on the Internet and found a few articles about how basil can be preserved in the refrigerator almost indefinitely if stacked with salt and olive oil. And not only do you get perfectly preserved basil leaves that can be singly dropped into dishes all winter long, but you get beautifully basil-scented oil, too.

This isn't much of a recipe, and I certainly didn't come up with it, but the crux of it is simple.

Wash and dry your precious, precious basil. Gently. GENTLY. And it'll take more than you think to fill even a very small jar.

Then you just layer it in your jar with salt in between layers.

Top off with olive oil (it's going to take quite a lot) making sure to fill all the air bubbles, then tuck away in the fridge.

I have yet to see how well this turns out, but am hopeful we'll have basil flavor to take us through the (relatively) dreary days of winter.

End-of-summer kick in the pants

My daughter (now a five-year-old wise to the ways of the world) and I were commiserating yesterday about how, in the heat of summer, we long for winter... and yet in the dreariness of winter we pine for summer. How true it is.

I remember how anxiously I waited for the first of the season's tomatoes, watching the plants I packed into one of our terraces grow and bloom and yet those flavorful fruits seemingly never to appear.

 And then, bright green globes that were so reluctant to blush red.

And then finally! our first ripe tomato of the year, savored piece by piece. And yet I still waited for that dead-of-summer onslaught that meant I could really start making big batches of tomato sauce.

Well the onslaught came:

...and then went, and there are now 35 pounds of tomatoes patiently napping in our chest freezer, waiting for the day I muster up the courage and energy to pull them all out and can a dozen jars or so of pasta sauce (that will last us all of 3 months probably, but hey, we love our pasta). And as I looked out at the plants showing their age even as they continued to pump out more tomatoes, I longed to pull them all out -- ruthlessly yanking them out by the roots despite all they had given us -- so I could clean and replenish the beds and start afresh with the kales, lettuces, chards, greens, onions, garlics, leeks, beets, and other mellower crops of fall and winter.

Of course that leaves me with 10 pounds or so of the last stragglers. What to do with all those green tomatoes? I could wait for them to hopefully ripen on the counter, or I could make an amazing green salsa that has me wondering why I ever waited for those tomatoes to ripen at all! Maybe next year, we grow tomatoes just to pull green fruit?!?

Green tomato salsa (makes about 4 cups)
~5 pounds of green tomatoes, any kind
~2 pounds of ripe tomatoes, any kind
~6 jalapeno peppers, or more/less according to your taste (yes there is a theme here)
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic
1 medium lime (though being sadly lime-less at the time, I used a lemon and it worked out just fine)
1 bunch of cilantro
Salt/pepper to taste

In a pot, dump the green tomatoes and jalapenos and barely cover with water. Simmer until soft, which shouldn't take long -- 5 minutes or so should do it. Drain the water... you don't need it anymore.

Throw in the onion, garlic, juice from the lime, and ripe tomatoes and blend away. I like to use my immersion blender... makes it so easy! Then roughly chop the cilantro leaves and throw those in too. Blend to your preferred consistency, then taste and add salt/pepper as you like. If you're feeling particularly spicy, you can try adding other seasonings too -- oregano, cumin, paprika, smoked paprika (ooooh!), chili pepper...

Chill. Taste again. Then try and have this last for a week in your fridge. I dare you.