Garden Update July 2015

This happens every year.  I take a lot of pictures of the garden early in the season.  At that point, it's all about hope, progress and anticipation.   Then, we may get a few pictures in of the first of the crop.  This stage is all about vindication and success.  The phase that I rarely document in blogs is the point in the season when we are so over-whelmed with produce that we can barely make it out to the garden to pick what's ripe, much less photograph what's going on.  This stage is all about shame, regret and self doubt.  There are starving kids in Africa and what am I going to do with all these cucumbers!!!

Well, I'm picking about 2-3 lbs of green beans a day, and 13 cucumbers every 2 days, give or take, but I want to make an actual effort to document the rest of the garden, so here we go.

1 of 2 walls of green beans.  So. Many. Green beans.  

Wall 2 of green beans, and melons.  I also have let some dill and cilantro flower so that I can save the seeds.  There's a few volunteers potatoes in there, too.

These are sweet peppers.  We don't have many that have ripened yet,
but we've been using the green ones in fajitas and gazpacho.

Check out these little melons!

I'm also saving celery seeds!  They are the little brow specks!

Remember when I saved radish seeds?  2 whopping radishes have sprouted from the batch.

The little dude, snacking on sun gold cherry tomatoes after swim lessons.

The 2 pumpkin plants are unimpressive so far.   Bummer because I left them so much space to have a wild pumpkin patch.

Oranges coming along.

Stunted zucchini plants, because I'm the only gardner who can't grow these very well. 

So, 4 tomatillo plants in the background and they are looking kind of weak compared with last year.  Meanwhile...

... dynamite volunteer tomatillo plant which cropped up amongst a bunch of garbage.  The gardening gods are funny.

Sunflower taller than our house.

Grapes coming along nicely.

Fueling our mojito habit with this mint.

The cucumber jungle overtakes all.

The basil is largely a casualty in the cucumber jungle, but this one variety is doing ok.

I'm pretty happy with the tomatoes so far!  Some giant ones back there.

This eggplant has only one destiny. Baba ghanouj.

Best looking onions I have ever grown.

The carrots are suffering in this heat.  I've let the lettuce go to flower so the bees have some food.

And, peeking inside the bee hive, this is what we can see from the top.  It smells amazing!

Hot Jam, Summer in the City

Last year I made Jalapeno Jelly and I truly dug it.  I enjoyed eating it with homemade goat cheese.  I was pretty skeptical that I would like it because I'm not that into spicy things.  So, I made a small patch that netted 2.5 8 oz jars.  I gave 1 full jar to my folks, one to the in-laws and was sure that 1/2 of a jar would be plenty for my consumption.  Once I tried the jam, I knew I totally miscalculated.  I enjoyed every last drop of my jam and vowed to make more next time around.

Flash forward to next year, and we planted like 8 hot pepper plants.  2 padron peppers.  2 jalapenos, 1 serrano, 1 fresno chili, and I can't remember what the other two were and I've since lost the signs.  I figured I would likely also do atkins again this year and there's nothing like jalapenos, cream cheese and bacon as a diet staple food, right?

Earlier in the week I selected 4-5 peppers, plus one bell pepper for the purpose of making jam.  But every night I was too exhausted and the weather was just too hot to heat up a kitchen with all the canning falderal.

However, tonight was the night.  I still made a small recipe because of the relatively small yield I have ripe... but this time I might not share.

The Paradox of Community Gardens

When I was living in an apartment with no balcony or outside space to grow anything, I would have jumped at the chance to take on a community garden plot.   I've always been a fan of them.   They provide space to the spaceless, and they break up the suburban/urban landscape with interesting plants to look at.  They are teeming with life.  What's not to love?  I never gave much thought to the "community" aspect of it, though.  And after an experience today, I really wonder whether they do, in fact, breed a sense of community.

I'm thankful that my employer organizes volunteer events.  I managed to snag a spot to volunteer at a community garden about a mile from my house.  It's been around about 10 years and I've visited it a few times for special events like seedlings sales.  In addition to the chance to participate in back breaking labor, we also got an hour long tour of the grounds, detailed descriptions of the various plants being grown and loads of gardening tips.  All of this was great.  But of course, leave it to me to dwell on the one negative thing that was said.

Turns out that a big problem in the garden is rampant theft.   Theft of supplies (tools, wheelbarrows, etc.) and theft of entire crops the people spent months growing.  I can't even imagine how demoralizing that must be for those who spent so much time on those plots.  I also cringe thinking about the situation of the people desperate (or mean?) enough to take someone's entire crop.

Now, I grow plenty of produce in the front yard.  I have noticed a missing tomato or melon now and then, but never had anyone go so far as to clean me out just because it's there.   Perhaps there's more of a fear of being caught trespassing on personal property.  Or maybe there's a fundamental misunderstanding re: what the gardens are there for -- there is a total lack of signs explaining what is going on or what the expectation is.

So, does that garden feel like a "community"?  Or does each gardener eye any passerby with suspicion?  Does that suck all the joy out of gardening?  I know there's got to be economies of scale in community gardens, so I'd really love to see them as a healthy ecosystem.  But I don't have any great ideas without turning them into a police state.  Sigh.  I would, however, like to see city governments get more involved in promoting & expanding the use of such gardens to feed the hungry (or malnourished in the case of food desserts...).

I know this is a luxury of the fortunate to be able to grow food on their own land.  And I treasure it every time I walk into my garden.  For me, I have made an effort to garden with a sense of community.  I love that people stop and look at my plants as they walk down the street, sometimes offering a kind word of encouragement.  I love that I have traded crops with families down the street when we each have an excess of something.  I love that when my friends or family have an excess of a crop, they give me some to enjoy, or I repurpose or preserve it and give it back to them.  For instance, tonight I was the lucky recipient of a bushel of carrots and onions.  We ate some fresh with dinner.  But then I pickled a bunch too and will give most of those pickles back to the original owner -- helping them enjoy their harvest after they had thought they got the last bit of joy out of it.

While it's a lot of fun to share the bounty this way, it would be even more fun if some of my friends got into this whole canning/preserving hobby so we can do it together.  Seriously, people, I'm running out of jars. :)

Milestone: everything on this cutting board was home grown either by me or my friend!

No guts, no glory

As promised, we went back to the fishing spot again today.  This time, I came prepared with a container to take home the fish guts to add to the garden.  The proprietors were nice enough to give me lots of extra fish guts from other patrons!  Last week they asked me if I wanted to take any home and I regretfully passed.  I thought I wouldn't really have use for it because the garden has been planted for months -- the time to use that kind of material is a month or two before you start planting, right?  

Well, then I remembered the area that is supposed to be our pumpkin patch.  While we do have 2 pumpkin plants and 2 butternut squash plants, none of those plants are taking off like gangbusters, so maybe that area could use some supplementing.  I dug a trench in that general area and a couple of extra holes, and in went the fish guts.

I tried to do a decent job of covering it up, lest a random animal digs these up.  

It struck me how much of gardening is a "planner's" game, and how much it inherently fits with my personality.  I guess every worry wart should take up gardening.  I'm serious... what is gardening but planning for the future?  We pour through seed catalogs.  We make meticulous garden plans.  We amend the soil.  We plan for pests and predators.  We preserve the harvest lest we let any crop go to waste.  And then, we save seeds to do it all again next year.

I thought a lot about seeds this year.  I helped run a school fundraiser where we grew seedling starts.  A bunch of our sales inventory was derived from seeds that I saved in previous years.  It bugged the crap out of me to have to go to the store to buy seeds.  For example, I bought a zucchini seed pack that had a measly 13 seeds in it.  Of those seeds, I think only 2 or 3 germinated.  The pack probably cost somewhere between $3 and $4.  It's not that the money will break me or anything, but knowing that in my own garden I can generate a giant pile of seeds makes it hard to justify buying into a crummy supply chain that probably treats those seeds with God knows what.   So, if my laziness about pulling plants allows me to reap the reward of having free seeds, so be it!

When I used a hot pepper the other day, I kept those seeds.  I love saving pepper seeds because it's so easy.  I don't have to do the same fermentation treatment that I need to do for cucumbers and tomatoes.  I just leave it in a fine mess sieve over a few days and let it air out.  I know I'll be planting these again!

Next, I assigned the kids the job of harvesting the seed from the snap peas from the winter.  I kept one plant going after we'd had our fill of snap peas, hoping it will yield a bunch of seeds for next year.  I'm a little disappointed I didn't have more supply.   I'll remember that next year and save a few more plants.

Next weekend's project will be the meditative task of harvesting the radish seed pods.

The Case Against Waiting for Peak Ripeness

I had this bizarre garden stress lately.  I looked around my garden at the beautiful lush foliage and lamented the fact that there wasn't much to harvest.  It's the awkward feeling of being between seasons and not having much to show for it on the dinner table.   (At the same time, I feel a slight panic that come a month or two from now, everything will be ready all at once and we won't be able to eat it all or have time to process or preserve everything and all of the effort will feel like a big waste.)  I know this seems like a silly thing to worry about... but worry rarely listens to reason.

The bean plants, though amazingly tall already, have not produced any pods yet.  The tomato plants, even though they are leafy and big, have only a few (mostly green) tomatoes on them.  The peppers are really promising, but they are still green, and the kids like sweeter peppers, so we need to give them time to ripen.  Of the 3 broccoli plants, maybe 1 will produce a head the size of an apricot. (The other two are not long for this world...)  The carrots have a few weeks to go, I think.  The cucumbers (if they are even there) are hiding behind a mass of leaves.  We have a ton of onions... but that's not really a meal.  There's a lot of green all around, for sure, but what have you done for me lately, plants??

So I had to break myself out of this funk and take a closer look for some inspiration.

 I started with baby steps.  We had picked a couple of zucchinis earlier this week -- and truth be told, no one here is that crazy about zukes.  I basically grow them for zucchini bread or juicing.  I had used half of one to make zucchini muffins.  I decided to use what I had left to make zucchini latkes. I could incorporate some of our onions and basil that we had leftover from a previous meal.

Ta da.  Zucchini latkes.  (In the background, bacon wrapped hot dogs because... children.)

Well that wasn't so hard now, was it?  It's a meal (or at least part of one) from ingredients I wasn't previously that excited about.  What else ya got?

Well, my dill plants are looking really great.  My dill usually fizzles out 10 minutes after it pops out of the ground, so I feel compelled to do something with it.  But what?  Hm. Dill pickles are awesome.  I just know there has got to be some usable cucumbers behind that jungle of thorns.  I'm going in .... 

I manage to snag a few beauties. Normally I would wait till they got bigger before picking.  I think I'm still kind of wedded to the size that produce is when you buy it at the grocery store.   But I just have to get over that and recognize that if it looks good, eat it!   I happen to have a few more ingredients on hand that would go well into the pickle jar.   I add some garlic that I pulled straight out of the ground -- whose got time to let it cure, right?, and a fresno chile pepper (pictured way up above).  Then I combine those ingredients with peppercorns and a hot apple cider vinegar brine.  These will be refrigerator pickles - ready to eat in 48 hours.

Now we're talking.  Who is hungry for dinner?  The cilantro looks great and needs to be used.  We have half a hot pepper. We only have 4 orange cherry tomatoes ready to eat -- that's not going to work for salsa, but we do have some store bought grape tomatoes.  We also have more onions.  We have green peppers.  Fajitas it is.   I like to marinate the onions and cilantro with white wine vinegar and salt.  Next, the salsa, incorporating the grape tomatoes, cilantro, and hot pepper.   Next, I sautée the unripe green pepper with onions.  (Now, normally my peppers turn out thin and papery... this one was thick and crunchy!)  

Dinner (rounded out with avocado, and amazing skirt stake, seasoned by a homemade southwestern rub) was scrumptious.   I feel embarrassed that just a day or two before I roamed the garden, essentially complaining that there was nothing to eat.  

My takeaway is to seek inspiration in the small morsels and build meals around that.  The bushels can wait. 

Mint-spiration

I'm generally not a huge fan of mint flavored things.  (Exception: mojitos)  The flavor is typically so strong and artificial, harsh and medicinal.  I mean, who hasn't had a swig mouthwash and wished they could eat it as a dessert? Um, pass.

But a couple of years ago, J. and I had a great vacation meal where the only dessert option was a homemade mint chip ice cream with mint they were growing out back.  This was a whole 'nother ball game.   The mint gave just a hint of freshness in the background.  It's one of the first things I was looking forward to making when we got an ice cream maker last summer.

So, this year, we tried growing mint from seed.  It was doing great!  I usually kill mint pretty quickly -- probably from being in too small a pot.  So, when I looked at my lush red pot of mint, my mind naturally went to, "use it or lose it."  Same goes for the oreo cookie crust that I've had stashed that is nearing (ok, just passed) it's expiration date.

I used this surprisingly non-fussy Martha Stewart recipe.  I liked it because I didn't want to futz with making a custard, and I had a 3 year old insisting on "helping."  We got to muddle mint with sugar (easy to delegate that task).  Then let the milk & cream absorb the flavor of the mint for 2 hours.  I added Ghirardelli dark chocolate chunks about 3-5 minutes before the churning was done.  Then dumped it into the crust, and let it set for about 2 hours in the freezer.  

A good and delicious time was had by all. 

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

***

So, it's been more than a year since my last post.  What gives?  In short, I've discovered that I'm a pretty lazy blogger.  Sometimes it's easier to post a picture to your circle of friends without much explanation and get the enthusiastic response that friends can always be counted for.  But what I miss is the reflection that I used to come by when I would compose my posts.  There's a little bit more of a story -- beginning, middle and end.  I also liked (and, to be honest, sometimes dreaded) the hunt for a good post.  I've had a few of those 'oh, that would be a great post' moments, but overcoming inertia is hard.  Busting out the camera is hard. Setting time to actually write it before it feels stale in your head is hard.  Well, suck it up, lady!  Let's do this!

***

We discovered a great mom & pop trout farm.  It's called Troutmere (the page has no website, so the Yelp review link must do).   The pond is really well stocked and their only rule is that you must purchase every fish you catch (as opposed to throwing it back).  

We went there over the weekend with the kids (now 6 and 3) and no one had any problems catching fish.  The kids giggled like crazy and had a blast -- but I think I had even more fun!

Part of me struggled with the imminent bounty we were about to collect, because I knew that I could stand there catching loads of fish all day -- but we're not the biggest consumers of fish, so we really had to moderate ourselves.  We had 12 trout in the bucket -- probably the average length about 9-10 inches each.   As we were walking up to pay, I had a flash of inspiration.  Smoked fish!  (Somewhere my endless marathon watching of survivalist type shows like Alaska the Last Frontier, sunk in, and I had visions of smokehouses and endless trays of fishy goodness.)  I went in for just one more.

Fish in brine (not toxic sludge)

J. looked me like I was crazy.  We don't know how to smoke fish.  We don't have a smoker.  We don't have wood chips.   But, like most of my ideas, he typically is a good sport about it and lets me run with it.  

We saw a few guides online re: how to modify the weber kettle grill into a smoker.  I picked up some hickory wood chips at Safeway.    I already had all the ingredients at home for the brine.  (1/2 cup salt, 3/4 brown sugar, 1 tbsp granulated garlic, 1/2 tbsp powdered ginger, 1 cup soy sauce, 4 cups water).  We soaked the wood chips and brined 7 fish over night.  (We grilled the first 6 last night with friends.)

Today, J. smoked the fish on the grill.   I won't pretend to know all the intricacies of the timing and the temperature and what not, all I know is that what came out of the BBQ was heavenly.  The instant I tasted that rich, smokey, savory test-flake I knew that fishing would now be a life-long hobby.  

Even though it would have been easy to devour all of those fish in one go, I thought it would be fun to turn them into a smoke trout spread.  From our garden: dill and green onion.  (We never have much luck with dill, but this year looks like a promising start!  Hope they last for when pickle season comes).  So, to 3 flaked fish add the tablespoon of dill & 1/3 cup of green onion, 2 tablespoon of mayo, 1/4 cup of cream cheese, a tablespoon or 2 of capers with some of their brine.  

This easily rivaled the best smoke trout dips I've had at restaurants.   We're already making plans to go fishing again.  And J.?  He's in the kitchen right now brining chicken drumsticks for smoking tomorrow.  I think he's hooked, too!

a little of our arugula and spread on a wholewheat bagel