Log: Spring planting and sowing 2012

Two weeks ago I set out some small tomato and zucchini plants.   I discovered that the tomato plants are already starting to blossom!

As an experiment,  yesterday I re-purposed some old five gallon paint buckets by filling them with potting soil and Miracle-grow and setting out some cukes and yellow squash plants.  In the other buckets, we sowed beets, more squash, turnips and something else I can’t remember.  Oh well, we’ll  see what comes up.   I hope these  do well in the buckets because I just cannot dig another shovelful  of that hard adobe clay.  Ugh!

2012

Harvest Time

Cukes, tomatoes, parsley and basil.

Lori G. (C) 2011

Tomatoes Running Amok

After two years of working a backyard plot where an RV had been parked for 25 years, I think… I HOPE…. I have finally conditioned the soil and coaxed it back to life.

In March, I planted out these three tomatoes plants and sowed some zucchini, cucumber, and cantaloup seeds.

Two months later I have gargantuan tomatoes bushes running amok in the yard, threatening to overcome the zukes and cukes.  So my dad and I put stakes in the ground this morning and tied the vines up.

The Early Girl bush is heavy with green fruit.  Yes, I do have a basil plant growing nearby.   We are going to feast well in a few weeks!

The Wayward Pelican (c) 2011

Dirt Under My Nails

I have not posted for three months primarily because I have been working so hard that my typical evening results in my crashing on the sofa in complete exhaustion and watching hours of television, mostly cable news.

I have finally reached the saturation point.

Starting with watching the psychological implosion of a television star, moving on to the blood-bath happening in North Africa, and now culminating with a trifecta of quake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown in Japan,  I just could not take one more minute of it.   Today, I flipped off the television and headed over to an elderly relative’s house to work in his garden.

A little therapy among the tomatoes, radishes, and weeds.

I read something recently on another blog — and I apologize for not remembering which one — which suggested that physical labor can be used as a form of meditation.  I know I was not meditating while I was mixing manure into a plot of ground, but I can say that doing something as basic as working in dirt made me feel better.  I am not going to speculate why.    It just did.

Well, okay, maybe I will offer just this one observation:  as I was pulling up some particularly tough devil-grass from among my radishes, it occurred to me that this was the first time I felt in control of a situation for a number of days.   For a few minutes, that feeling of utter helplessness in the face of the current world crises –  not to mention a few personal ones –  disappeared.

I felt empowered as I pulled up those wretched weeds.

But then I went home, washed the dirt from under my nails, and made the mistake of turning on CNN.

Now, I’m doing some ironing.

L. Gloyd (c) 2011

Newly installed tomato plants,  a radish crop ready for harvesting, and new snapbean runners in the garden.

 

Update, June

I’ve got this monster zucchini plant in the backyard which produced two monster zukes this weekend:

Lori G. (c) 2010

Finally!

Last year, you may remember, I accidentally bought eighteen zucchini plants (thinking I was only buying three).  I got no zucchini from any of them.   The soil was just not healthy enough.  However, I do not think this year will be that case again.  Here is my first baby!   I’m so excited.

Lori G. (c) 2010

Garden Update

Just a garden update:  Here are a few things I picked this afternoon –  lemons, mutant radishes, green beans, sage, rosemary, thyme (no parsley yet), mint, oregano, and two kinds of basil.    My next batch of radishes is not doing well, and neither are my pepper plants…. some @#$$%%$#^# creature is eating the leaves.  On the other hand, my tomato bushes are coming up and starting to blossom,  a couple of zucchini vines are beginning to creep across the yard,  several cucumber plants  have managed not to die,  and I have a row of beets that even if the roots don’t amount to anything, the greens will be good eating.

Until next time……

Lori G. (c) 2010

I got loose in the kitchen again….

So I got loose in the kitchen…. again.   I picked some radishes this morning from the garden to have in a salad for lunch.  While I was cleaning them up and just could not bring myself to throw away their gorgeous tops.   I wondered if they were edible like beet greens or toxic like rhubarb leaves.  Not wanting to take chances,  I appealed to the Great Google for advice.

The answer:  Yes, they are edible but why would you want to since they are very bitter.

I noticed a lot of folks online posted that radish greens are quite good when braised or sauteed.  Cooking them cuts the bitterness.  So I thought, what the heck, I’ll give it a try.

I slowly heated up some olive oil in a skillet.  I added a smashed garlic clove and some red pepper flakes.  I removed the garlic as soon as I started to smell it because I didn’t want it to burn and ruin the olive oil.  I added to the skillet the greens along with about half as much chopped parsley, sprinkled a little coarse sea salt over the greens, tossed them around a bit until they were just wilted, and then removed them from the pan.

As you can see, I didn’t get much from these three radishes but it was enough to make an interesting warm side salad to some lentil soup and fresh grilled bread.

In the words of the ever-exuberant Rachael Ray:  “Yumm-o”.

Just know that when I get loose in the kitchen like this, the outcome isn’t always this good.  

Lori G. (c) 2010

First Fruits…Well, Radishes, actually

On February 12, 2010, radish seeds were planted…..

and today, I picked these beauties:

I realize that it has taken twice as long as usual to get these…. things do grow here in the winter, but more slowly…but at least they grew, which is something that I was beginning to worry about.  I also started some zucchini plants from seeds back in February as well as a variety of tomatoes, beets and garlic, new basil, lemon thyme and oregano.  These seems to be doing well.  However, I planted a bunch of bell peppers plants and they are dying…… I cannot figure this out.  But I’m going to take these radishes as a good sign that at least one part of my garden is doing well.

Oh, and I ate these on a salad for dinner tonight.   Oh, man, what a difference from what I get at my local Food 4 Less store!

Lori G. (c) 2010

Spring Planting

Ladybug in the Parsley

It’s spring planting time, and I’m going to give this another shot.  After several months of manure and rain, plus the presence of my new best friends, the earthworms, I decided that I would plant again.

A few weeks ago I planted string beans.  As you can see below, they’ve gotten a good start.  Last week,  we sowed seeds for  radishes, beets, two kinds of squash, tomatoes, and cantaloupe.  I set out new plants of basil, lemon thyme, and Italian oregano.  The two Italian parsley plants that I put out last August are still thriving,  and this afternoon I noticed that they were nearly three feet high.   These parsleys have become the home of a number of ladybugs which, like the earthworms, tell me that life is returning to the backyard.

So in a couple of months, God willing and if the rains stay steady, I’ll be harvesting again.   If not, I’m going to toss out some grass seed and call it quits.

String beans and radish sprouts

More radish sprouts

Lori G (c) 2010

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