Brunswick Street Garden Cats

These two are brothers. I remember them when they were kittens. Looks like I caught them during bath time. 

Growing Food in the Garden

I've been pulling in some sizable harvests over the last few weeks. This week's haul of long beans was split and half wound up in a batch of long bean antipasto in a friend's kitchen. The other half is destined to show up in breakfast (smoothie), lunch (veg soup), and dinner (fresh in salad or steamed side) for the next few days. When we get really sick of them, I'm making a batch of refrigerator dilly beans.  Why did I feel the need to also plant green beans?

A few weeks back the lettuce was going strong and the green beans were a novelty. Chard, kale, carrots, and a tomato also made it home that day. 

The first tomato basil salad of the season tasted divine. 

Josh doesn't enjoy fresh tomatoes so these will be all mine!

Isn't it wonderful when you can supply your family's fresh vegetable intake?  It doesn't happen often, but this year has been special. The weather has been cool enough to keep the lettuce happy but sunny enough to satisfy the tomatoes and eggplant (coming soon).

 

Growing Chinese Red Noodle Beans

The beans are here!  It's been about 70 days since sowing the seeds back in May and I had my first official harvest yesterday. I pulled the three fattest beans, measuring in at 16" long. They were surprisingly bendable - just like a noodle. For dinner they went raw into a chopped salad. The flavor was similar to any string bean but slightly more nutty. In the future I might pick them when they're smaller and slightly more tender. 

This is just the beginning of the harvest. I had an amazingly successful germination rate (about 100%) and all of the plants reached maturity (even those planted in the shade of some massive sunflowers).  

The bean begins with a flower, pale lavender to white, almost shaped like a clamshell. After pollination, a threadlike bean begins to form. 

It doesn't take long for the beans to stretch out and adopt that signature red color. 

After about a week the Chinese Red Noodle Bean is nearing 18" and ready to pick. They can be eaten raw, steamed, or sautéed just like a regular bush bean. One to two beans per person is plenty.  The plants are quite heavy producers so I'm trading my beans with other gardeners for what they've got too much of. 

The plants are also fast growers and I've supported mine with an unfortunately unattractive combination of tomato cages, bamboo canes, and willow branches. Some of the vines are trained up a few tall sunflowers in my plot too. If I had a proper trellis they'd probably be at least six feet tall. Right now they've begun growing back down on themselves so harvesting will be at a slightly more manageable height. 

The verdict? They're easy to grow, they make lots of beans, and they're fun to look at. I recommend!

Summer Color in the Community Garden

After a little lull in blooms at the end of June, the garden is back to floral vibrancy. The sunflowers are the stars right now and my red mix from last year has definitely shown up in the variety of volunteer plants surrounding my plot. 

Rusty yellows, oranges, and deep brown hues are all represented. 

Even brilliant red sunflowers have bloomed. The bees seem particularly drawn to these striking colors. 

The rich warm tones look wonderful with the 6' tall shaggy daisies and orange day lilies nearby. 

This year the day lilies are putting on a fantastic show. Although the blooms only last a day, they just keep coming. 

How My Garden Grew in June

Last week in the plot, getting bushy. 

At the beginning of June, the sunflowers were only hinting at the obstacles they would soon become. At this point I moved a few to the common beds and left the rest, hoping a few would be the offspring of the unusual red/brown variety I planted last year. 

A week later almost everything in the plot doubled in size. I dug up 16 marigold plants to transplant at my parents' home and could have taken out 2 dozen more. I have no recollection of spreading the seeds. I think they just fell from the plants at the end of last season. Marigolds thrive in my plot. 

The Ramapo tomato really became a monster by mid-June. The plant was covered with flowers and itty bitty tomatoes by this point. The miniature musk melon plants in the lower left of the plot also began to grow at this time.  Everything is green and happy so it's difficult to distinguish one thing from the next in the photo. 

This was the situation last week in the garden. I added some stakes in the rear of the plot for the Chinese yard long beans to climb and trained the rest to the sunflowers. I moved lettuce seedlings out from under the sunflower canopy. I trimmed sunflower leaves and staked the plants to open up some space around my cute little white eggplant seedling. And I moved several more marigolds to the common beds. 

And the garden cat just sat there. In case you didn't know, being really cute can be exhausting. 

Spring Harvests

All things leafy have been the stars of the harvest basket this month. I've been picking almost daily salads of mixed lettuces and baby Ragged Jack kale. Mixed in, there's been the occasional radish and baby carrot too. 

I had a very old packet of leftover radish seeds that I sprinkled here and there. Only a few sprouted and many bolted during a couple of warm afternoons. The ones that made it to bulb form were crisp and spicy. 

The two strawberry plants I have tucked in a corner gave us a handful of the sweetest fruit I've ever tasted this year. The plants don't seem to love the location, in fact they want to spread into the walkways instead of the rest of the bed. I keep them around because they're so polite :)

The Swiss Chard plant I bought on a whim from Priapi has been very happy. We sauted a bunch last week and the flavor was exceptional compared to the watery stuff you can get at the grocery store. I'll get a couple more cuttings from it I think. 

I'm not sure where the orange carrots came from, but they're definitely sweeter than the underdeveloped yellow variety. 

I'll put together a post showing how my "jungle" has grown over the past month. 

Bloom Season: Brunswick St Community Garden

It's absolutely beautiful this time of year in the garden. Almost every bed has something in bloom and some beds are awash in color. Yesterday, under overcast skies, the colors really popped. 

Columbines easily naturalize in the garden. Seedlings grew unannounced in my plot last year and tend to sprout up all over the place if left unchecked. This year I counted four different varieties, including the ubiquitous purple kind seen above. 

After a very poor showing of roses last year and a tough winter, I was pleasantly surprised to see the bushes bouncing back. I chose a single bloom off this pink plant for a bud vase at home. 

I'm impressed with everyone's participation in their individual plots this year. We had at least 10 plots turn over to new members this year. I've never seen such weed-free, carefully planted beds in the garden in all the years that I've been a member. And so much mulch!

My own plot is on its way to being overtaken by sunflowers. I've moved several to neighboring shared beds and am using the rest to shade my lettuce crop. Otherwise, I would say this year's garden is my most unplanned effort. I've been sticking those pepper seedlings that I started indoors almost anywhere they will fit. I've reseeded inbetween lettuce with more lettuce. I've also randomly planted nasturtium and bush beans in empty spaces. Honestly I can't remember everything I planted and am only reminded when something sprouts. This week a nasturtium popped up and I think some lettuce leaf basil. 

Two strawberries and a bag of greens (kale and lettuce) were harvested on Wednesday this week so I'd say the plot is up and running. Next week I might throw an eggplant plant in if there's room...

Spring Love

I love when the weather cooperates in spring and gives us a stretch of warm sunny weather. All the plants shoot up. The bees are going crazy. I'm picking fresh mixed greens for salads almost daily. And there is so much promise for the coming season. 

My Ramapo tomato plant has grown about 4" since planting last week and it even has a couple flowers. It's an old New Jersey variety so it should feel right at home in the garden. 

The bees are loving the indigo blue flowers of the borage plant. I haven't tried eating any leaves yet as they're an unappealing fuzzy texture, but they're supposed to taste like cucumber.  I love the flowers though, so I'm hoping it keeps growing through the season. 

I might be in for a bumper carrot crop. These are Amarillo carrots - bright yellow, juicy and sweet. Carrots are so easy to grow, I grow a different variety every year and always get a good yield. I sometimes leave them in the soil through the summer and have a few left in the late fall when everything else in the garden is finished. If you're wondering, "should I grow carrots?"  The answer is yes!

Last Week in the Plot

With all the sun and showers, stuff is popping up in the garden, including lots of rogue sunflowers. To discourage the garden cats from turning my plot into one big litter box, I'm draping the soil with tomato cages and branches. When the plants are more established, I'll remove the mess. 

The Ragged Jack kale is looking healthy. I planted a second row of the dinosaur kale next to it, but the old seed didn't germinate. 

My red salad mix seems happy. It's not as red as I thought it would be but I'm excited about the speckled leaf variety in there. 

The carrots are now identifiable as carrots. I planted a second batch inbetween these rows. 

The soil has been top dressed with compost. In areas without plants I dug some of it in. Then I sowed nasturtium, yard long beans, melon, and additional rows of lettuce where the first batch didn't take. 

I haven't decided yet what my new trellis will look like. It has to be at least 6' tall to accommodate the yard long beans. 

Tonight I'm planting some organic and conventional plants that I got from http://www.priapigardens.com

Seedling Update

The seedlings are up and thriving. I lost a few to drought (weekends away) and an unfortunate earthquake (I bumped the tray and everything fell on the floor) but the survivors are hardy little plants. I moved them into larger containers and separated out the plants. 

When it isn't like a wind tunnel on our balcony, I've been hardening them off and letting them bask in the direct sunshine. The red romaine lettuce could have stood better lighting early on - it's a little leggy. Ok, it's really leggy. I don't know what's going to happen to it when I plant them out. The peppers are gorgeous, stocky little plants though. They're the best seed sprouting experience I've had yet. 

This week I'm direct sowing melon seeds on my balcony and yard-long beans in the garden. Time to consider trellis designs!