Projects in the Kitchen

I've been drying herbs all summer. It's wonderful to have them fresh on hand to snip into soups and onto salads but the warm days and summer bounty don't last forever. So I'm collecting bundles of sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano, and even mint to last us through the winter. They seem to dry out quickly in the kitchen with almost no attention from me.   Herbs are one of my favorite things to plant each year. They usually grow like weeds and don't mind the occasional neglect!

We've got a batch of hot sauce going on the counter too. We bought a basket of peppers at a farm stand last week (only $3) with the intention of making hot sauce and hoping that the peppers would in fact be suitable for such an endeavor. It turns out they pack a punch. And I found just about the easiest recipe imaginable (no cooking, 3 ingredients) at Bon Appetit http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/master-hot-sauce

Presby Memorial Iris Garden #7

I will be hitting the plot this weekend to assess the bug situation and possibly to plant some insect repelling herbs.  If I have to take out the broccoli, I might plant some zinnias in its place.  They have always been one of my favorite blooms; I'm a sucker for saturated hues.

Without further ado, here is the final installment of the Presby Memorial Iris Garden series!

Big, Green, and Bushy

Peonies

Pretty Yellow Things

Garden Jungle

Lettuce, Beans, Bolted Spinach

After a week away from the garden, I was pretty surprised at the transformation. The lettuce is gigantic and I did some major harvesting. Most of the spinach has bolted so that was pulled (and eaten). The beans are flowering. The peas, although short and preferring to spread laterally, are making plenty of flowers and pods. The beets are twice as big as they were this time last year and ditto for the carrots. Some of the radishes were large enough to eat. Two cucumber and three squash plants are beginning to look promising. The cherry tomato already has bundles of flowers and the other two are doing fine but requesting more sun and hot weather. The eggplant and hot peppers would like the same.

I missed the dramatic orange peony but the pink and white bushes were still looking lovely on Friday. There are quite a few things flowering right now and almost everything has doubled in size since last week including the little peaches on the tree. I tried to thin them out to the recommended 1 peach per 8 inches but I would need a big ladder to get any further with that project.

In regards to the squirrel problem outside my apartment, the cayenne seems to be working. I've even added a fourth pot with thyme, rosemary, and lavender.

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.