Banking Food For The Off-Season

Today I harvested about 3 quarts of Sungold cherry tomatoes. I washed them, cut them in half and put them into small containers and popped them into the freezer. They are destined to be thawed on dim days and tossed with hot pasta, or stirred into risotto, or spun into salsa.

I also reaped about 2 quarts of blueberries. Washed and frozen too.

And since I have so much garlic this year, and so much of it was harvested a little too late, and was splitting apart, I decided to roast up a big pan full and hopefully freeze it for later use. As a sneak preview we schmeared some onto crusty baguette, drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with coarse salt and pepper.

The garlic can be thawed and spread on bread, stirred into soups and sauces. This may turn out to be one of my best ideas ever. It's got to be better that dried out cloves before the new crop is ready to dig up.

And I trimmed all of the excess leaves off the tomato plants, along with any fruit that didn't look mature. I really just want the plants to ripen any exiting fruit.

But what I really need to do is plant some salad greens. I may have left it a little too late, but it's worth a try. Who knows what kind of weather the next few weeks will bring. If the rest of the summer is any indication it should be changeable and unpredictable. At least we can count on that.

I'm Not Complaining, But...

So after a what seemed an interminably cold, wet / wet, cold, spring we now have a heat wave. From Monday morning low temp in the 60s we have swung to highs in the 90s for the next few days. It feels great, but I worry that the sudden heat may be a little hard on the plants.

I gave everything a good soak yesterday morning, and I'll be monitoring soil moisture closely for the next few days. Today we may hit 100 degrees and break a record.

The hens don't seem to mind the heat at all. 2 eggs yesterday, and 2 more today. I made sure they have full food and water feeders, and I set up another big dish of water outside of the coop, in the shade so they have plenty to drink. And for a treat today I gave them some frozen corn.

Poor Pearl , my black cat, is not enjoying the heat as much. She's doing a lot of laying around on the cool kitchen floor and looking at me as if to say, "turn off the heater, why doncha".

Hot again tomorrow, they say, then cooling as we head into the weekend.

Crispy Kale

The Kale is coming on strong. I plucked this gorgeous bunch yesterday planning to try something new.

Kale Chips. Yes, I said chips. Crunchy, salty, and very snackable. Oh and just as good for you as dark leafy greens, because that's what they are. What could be better?

My friend Carolyn and I laugh about the list of unlimited items allowed in most diets, which always include kale and friends, but never include chips. Sure, live it up, enjoy all the cabbage, lettuce, celery, kale you want...

I think I first read about this culinary magic on the Yarn Harlot's blog.

This is the recipe I followed. But if you google "kale chips" you'll find many more recipes, and many more devotees of this kitchen trick.

It worked great, they were audibly crunchy, slightly salty, and very satisfying. I will definitely make this recipe again. Thank goodness I have plenty of kale on hand.

Big Garden Project for 2008

This is the before photo of our beautiful double wide driveway.

We decided we really didn't need this much non-permeable surface in the yard. And we do need more dirt for more plants, so...

All busted up, ready to be used for stepping stones.


This what it looked like after I turned the dirt a little, dirt that has been under cement for about 30 years. I added some straw and coffee grounds and compost. I'll seed it with fava beans, and buckwheat, as a cover crop, which I'll turn under as green manure.


And just like that, about 130 additional square feet of dirt becomes available for plants.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Eyes on the Prize

These are San Marzano Roma tomatoes from last year's garden. These plants were prolific, even though I crowded them a little. The tomatoes were not great for slicing, but made wonderful sauce and were fantastic for drying. I have started seeds for a few plants for this year.













Eggplant from the 2006 crop. Beautiful, tender, fresh. These were great grilled and stir fried and cooked to soft perfection in curries.

Farming in the City

Here's a link to an article I saw on The Energy Bulletin.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Farming in the City

I spent most of this past weekend moving compost around the farm. I really enjoyed it and I am even more excited about the coming growing season. Even though this part was mostly just hard labor it was good food for the soul. Now I have rich, black mounds of new compost adorning my raised beds and new flower beds in several spots around the yard. I split a 7 yard load with 2 of my neighbors, which made it really economical.

Where Have All the Bees Gone?

Bees are disappearing from hives and from the landcscape in general. The dramatic decrease in the bee population is expected to have an negative impact on agriculture. Remember most plants need a pollinator in order to produce fruit or vegetables. Bees do a large portion of this work.

This story appeared in the Daily Telegraph recently.
Fears For Crops as Bees Vanish

Check out my squidoo lens on Orchard Mason Bees. I am trying to attract more bees to my garden. These little guys are hard working pollinators. It is just about time for the Mason bees to emerge from the house, mate, and produce larvae for next year's bee population.

Bees may be like the canary in the coalmine. It is important to find out why they are disappearing and to figure out how to stop them from diappearing. We need the bees. They are an integral part of a sustainable garden.

Seed Swap

Last night we got together with my brother and sister in law. She's an avid gardener and suggested that we get our seeds together and share with each other before we place our orders for new seeds.

This is a great idea because most seed packets give you way more seeds than you can use in a year or 2 and after that the germination rates may decline, so the seeds you have may not all sprout.

I scored corn (Peaches and Cream), swiss chard (Bright Lights), sunflowers ( Red Sun and Infrared Mix), Zucchini (Romulus), and lovage. I shared some of my tri-color beets, edible pea pods and soybeans (Black Pearl) with her. We still managed to circle about 10-12 items from the Territorial seed catalog that we could live without.

Territorial Seeds

Territorial Seed sells seeds for varieties specifically chosen and tested for the Pacific Northwest. Their seeds would probably grow fine in other climates, but if you have the choice to buy seeds from a local company in your area, that tests and chooses based on your specific conditions, I would recommend that you do so.

We both plan to buy plants already started for tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. These vegetables can be safely planted in May. I can't believe we have so long to wait. I'll just have to make do with some early spring lettuces, kale, chard, beets, etc.