My Babies

Thanks to the cabbage for making the ultimate sacrifice to make way for my new babies: Mortgage Lifter, Box Car Willy, Brown Berry, Mystery Eggplant (forget what type it is), and Poblano Pepper. It's hard to tell from this little picture, but the carrots are nice and frondy in the bottom right, the lettuce is thriving on the far left, and the radishes are making do in the top right. Beets, beans, and spinach are mixed throughout. The eggplant is the big thing in the lower center with the largest leaves. Brown Berry is at the center of the trellis. Mortgage Lifter and Box Car Willie are in the upper right keeping the radishes shaded. The Poblano is in the center but so are some beans so it may be difficult to distinguish between the two at this point.

Here are my other babies, sleeping like babies. At least one of them was snoring right before I took the picture but I won't say who.

Dreyer Farms = Heaven

We went to get my tomato seedlings last night! Dreyer Farms was even more exciting than I had imagined with many, many more varieties of heirloom tomatoes and vegetables to choose from than they led on to on their website. Tonight I'll be planting my healthy looking Mortgage Lifter and Box Car Willie plants. I also picked up a Brown Berry Cherry as recommended by Mr. Dreyer when I requested "an unusual cherry with high yields that I can trellis." It too is an heirloom variety and replaced my other choice (Mr. Stripey) when I found out it was not a cherry. For the center of the plot I chose a small white eggplant with purple stripes. I seem to have lost the tag for that one. There's a four pack mix of mild hot peppers including Jalapeno, Mexibell, Poblano, and Garden Salsa that will be planted in containers by our apartment. Finally I chose a trio of herbs for even more container planting: French Thyme, Arp Rosemary, and Hidcote Lavender.

They probably had 60 varieties of tomatoes, 20 eggplants, 20 peppers, 10 thymes, 10 oreganos, and just about enough of everything to make my head spin. We didn't even have time to look beyond the vegetables. Josh saw a sign pointing towards fruit trees and vining plants. It's a big place and they know what they're doing. The staff was friendly and helpful and passionate about plants. What fun!

Pictures tomorrow, I promise.

More Marigolds Than I Know What to Do With

You can't tell from the photo I took this morning, but my plot has about 25 baby marigolds in places that are not going to be good for marigolds. I need to make room for three tomato plants and hopefully a Thai eggplant plant. Where should I put all these little soon-to-be-flowers? I've already got a slew growing in the foreground in front of the plot. They could stand some thinning out, too. As you may recall from garden images in the past, this particular marigold variety approaches bush-sized proportions by August. I am happy to share the plot with two or three at the most so some are going to have to be relocated.

Everything else is doing well. I thinned out a bunch of pea "shoots" (more like plants) and plan on sauteing them in butter for dinner. We've been enjoying lots of lettuce. The radishes are getting too hot and just threatening to bolt. The spinach actually looks like baby spinach now but I'm holding out for bigger leaves. The beet tops are close to being edible. The last cabbage now looks like it might make a head! Wouldn't that be exciting.

I know I made a big deal about having to wait to buy my tomato seedlings until May and now it's May and I haven't gone yet. We had planned on going last night but Josh had to work late and the trip has been put off until tomorrow night. At this point, it looks like I'll be getting Mr. Stripey for my prolific cherry/small tomato fix, Box Car Willie for loads of classic red tomatoes, and either Mortgage Lifter or Pineapple. Mortgage Lifter is the pink variety I enjoyed growing last year. It has a classic tomato taste and produced a moderate yield. Pineapple is one of those deeply lobed heirlooms that's a mix of yellow and red. It all depends on what they have, how they look, and what information the staff can give me at Dreyer Farms.

Salad Season Has Begun!

Yesterday I harvested the first of the lettuce thinnings for a dinnertime salad. Two White Icicle radishes and a Cherry Belle also joined the mix. Everything was delicious, of course. Alas, I did not have my camera at home to document it.

Thinning the lettuce is such a win win situation: we get to enjoy many tender green salads and the remaining lettuce gets more sun and soil and grows even bigger. Bigger lettuce then means bigger salads for us.

Plot News:
I can now confirm that the cucumber, squash, and four varieties of tomato seeds are sprouting. I know the cucumber will have no trouble catching up once the weather is a little more sunny. I think the squash should do well also. I planted three of the tomato seed types because I've had such lousy luck with growing things indoors and figured I'd try a new approach this time. Knowing I'd be getting tomato seedlings regardless of what happened, I just threw the seeds in the soil instead of going through the minor agony of starting them indoors. The fourth variety of tomato has sprouted from the droppings of the rather unsuccessful cherry variety I planted last year. Although I never had the chance to harvest more than a handful of the little orange tomatoes, there were always plenty all over the ground that I just missed. We'll see what happens.

The spinach is sloooowly getting larger. The bush beans may surpass them and could even cover them. Timing and space allocation is something I am still mastering!

The carrots are all short and frondy. I wish I planted more! After the huge rainstorms last month and the seeds getting washed everywhere, it doesn't look like I'll have as big a crop as last year. The beet area is a different story. I may have gone overboard but I'm really looking forward to stealing their leaves from time to time for some braised greens. Last year we accidentally pulled most of all the leaves off the beets thinking they were chard and the beets seemed totally unfazed. They are a hardy bunch.

The peas are also slooooowly getting bigger. It may be somewhat of a struggle to keep them from using the baby tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash as a trellis. I'm adding lots of other stick options whenever I can get to the garden.

Rain, Sun, and Rogue Peaches

We are moving into mid and late spring flowers now in the garden. These white things are going crazy. The iris have been giving me steady arrangements for a few weeks now. The peony blossoms are growing and promising a spectacular display.

This is what the plot looked like at the end of last week. I might stop by again tonight on my way home from work to see if anything's changed. We've had days of steady rain and cool weather and I think we could use some warm sunny weather now to get stuff going. Last night was in the low 40's and tonight will be just as chilly before we get up to 80 on Saturday. Maybe everything is just a little confused.

Last week I did verify that the radish seeds I planted were a mix of White Icicle and Cherry Belle. I'm hoping for more Cherry Belle than Icicle and tried to thin out the latter to make room for the sprouts that seemed slightly pink. Last year the Icicles seemed less flavorful and slightly woody in texture.

I found quite a few peach trees sprouting throughout the common areas last week and transplanted one in the pot beside my plot. Maybe one will find a future home at the Bay? We used to have a peach tree by the driveway when I was a kid.

What should I do with that last cabbage?

Enjoying Springlike Weather in the Garden

Now that the weather is being more spring-like, the garden is thriving. Lettuce is in the lower left, first round peas are under the left side of the trellis, followed by later peas on the right, radish are behind the remaining cabbage, and bush beans have sprouted in the right center. Some of the carrots are beginning to frond out, the beets are about 2" tall, and the spinach leaves are about the size of a quarter. Marigolds are popping up everywhere so I've been experimenting with transplanting them in other locales. I have a secret fantasy of planting them in green spaces all over my neighborhood a la Guerrilla Gardening. Later in the summer when they're all thriving and I'm walking around I can point them out proudly and say, "I planted those!" I may even do that with the sunflowers too since they are all over the place including in the pathway next to my plot.

The lettuce is looking really crispy and delicious. I'll wait until it's a bit larger to thin it out so the thinnings can be part of a little homegrown salad. You can see a marigold in the lower left. I scooped this one out and gave him a new home in one of my stoopside pots. A later planting of lettuce is in the upper right. I didn't plant too much this year and I'm wondering if I'll have enough. Usually it bolts before I eat it all so we'll see if this is the right amount.

In the very upper right corner of the plot the snapdragon seeds are sprouting. A few weeks ago I noticed that the old snapdragon stem was showing signs of life but it has since died off. I'm excited to see the new little sprouts. I bought a multicolor mix so it'll be a pretty display.

Tea Garden Trips

I've always dreamed of taking a vacation to the Far East to visit a tea garden and to sample tea from the source. As many of you know, I'm somewhat of a tea snob. I like to inspect the leaves before I buy them. I'm precise about steeping times. I would feel uncomfortable purchasing tea bags. I like good quality tea and often have friends and family around the country purchase tea for me from trusted sources. It would be lovely to get one step closer to the process and visit an actual tea plantation.

Then earlier this week I learned that there's domestically produced tea in the US on a plantation that is open to the public. I read about it on the tea blog The Tea Scoop. The big tea bag purveyor Bigelow actually grows a certain line of tea in Charleston, South Carolina. They carry it under their American Classics line and it's available in loose form on their website. I haven't purchased any yet and I'm certainly curious about the quality and the leaf varietal. Regardless, it's nice to know that we can get some tea that doesn't have to travel halfway around the globe to get here. I've always wanted to check out Charleston sometime too, so a visit to a tea garden doesn't seem so far fetched now.

No More Cabbages

This photo was taken on Monday just minutes before a very knowledgeable fellow community gardener suggested I go ahead and pull the cabbages and eat them. They had begun bolting and I was going to loose the only tight little head that the large plant produced if I let them grow any longer. It's been a very warm spring and things are getting a little confused around here. The cabbage thinks it's summer already. So we ate it Monday night. I chopped it up and we had some slaw to go with the grilled cheese on fresh garlic and herb bread that I baked in the afternoon. A simple but tasty meal.

You can see that they lettuce in the lower left is growing. In the upper left are radish. Some of the larger green things around the plot are volunteer sunflowers from last year's flowers. I left the seeds on those through the fall figuring I was feeding the birds. Looks like they missed a few so I gifted some to the other gardener and transplanted some to the public areas.

I filled in some more radish and beets. I located the spinach (it looks like grass at first). The marigold seeds that I planted outside my plot in the front have sprouted. The carrots are identifiable. Lots of red sunflowers are sprouting. The peas are slowly doing their thing.

Happy Peas

Iris Aplenty

Cherry Tree Extravaganza

The Plot Thickens

I visited the garden last Friday and took some update photos as well as some Pretty Spring Flower photos. I didn't have my camera wire at home last week so they never made it up here. Yesterday I also spent some time at the garden snapping photos, planting more seeds, and even doing a little Spring Harvesting! First we have two Before and After photos with the pics I took last Friday and the ones I snapped yesterday.

You can see the cabbages are a little bigger and there are a few more green things showing up around the plot. At this point, I can locate peas, lettuce, beets, radishes, and carrots. I cannot tell which sprouts are the spinach. There are some other volunteer seeds poking up that may or may not be something from last year. A couple sprouts look like chard and there may even be a sugar baby watermelon but I won't hold my breath.

The peach tree in the garden is in full bloom now and the bee population is very busy with all the blossoms it has produced. We'll have to do some thinning if each of these turns into a little peach.

I'm hoping the peas survive this heat wave we're having (they're predicting 88 tomorrow). They haven't changed much over the past few days so I'm guessing they would prefer cooler weather. They have been joined by some squash seeds, cucumber seeds, and tomato seeds just in case.

My Big Plan included replacing the peas with some trellised vining vegetables. I'm hoping to get a cucumber plant out of the seeds I planted but if that doesn't happen I'll buy a seedling. The same goes for the tomato seeds. Last summer I saved seeds from some particularly tasty tomatoes and decided I'd give direct planting a try. The squash seeds were a mixture of acorn, crookneck, and summer. I would be very happy if one of the vines took off and made a couple of fruits.

The radish section of the plot must have turned into a lake last week during the storm. The seedlings are sprouting up in clumps rather than the tidy rows I had created for them. I filled in the gaps yesterday with additional seed.

A green leaf lettuce is sprouting. Again, the row was in disarray so I filled in areas with additional seed. I guess we're doing a little sussession planting.

The Gourmet Blend lettuce is sprouting. Three or four different leaf lettuces make up the mix. Somehow this row remained intact so between it and the next I put in additional carrots. The plan is to have the carrot tops shade the lettuce in early summer.

In other areas around the plot I put in mixed red sunflower seeds and more marigold seeds. I noticed the snapdragon plant from last year is springing to life and I added some new snapdragon seeds around it for company.

Around the garden everything is blooming. Big clumps of this white flowering stuff are everywhere!

I harvested the three chinese cabbages! I'm pretty sure the florets were a sign that it was bolting so I took action, cut it down, sauteed it with some garlic and ginger, and called it a success. It tasted good and now there's more room for other stuff like the bush beans I planted.

All in a Day's Work

Bottling the Homebrew

We made a lovely batch of beer last month based off of a recipe from our beer making how to book. It took a bit longer to carbonate than we expected and we drank the first few bottles prematurely. Now that it's nice and bubbly we have a near-perfect brew. We experimented with different hops and went a little lighter on the malt and came up with something that is very drinkable.

Lap Warming

Mao Mao never misses an opportunity to spend some quality time with Josh when he's working at the computer. She keeps his lap warm and in return he protects her from her annoying little sister. I don't think Cha Cha even knows that Mao Mao hides here.

Sink Patrolling

Sink Inspecting

While Mao Mao is busy warming laps, Cha Cha has taken an interest in plumbing. She's been discovered hanging out in the wet kitchen sink, staring blankly into the depths of the drain, and emerging later on with a damp coat. She is also the first to inspect the shower post-use and has taken Mao Mao's post at the side of the tub where the cold spigot drips.