and Recipe Corner
I am getting ready for the 2011 growing season, and I am starting with an order from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I need to get my spring onion seeds planted quite soon, so that is the driving force behind getting this order placed right now. I have quite a few onions in the ground already, planted last fall. For the… View Post
Ingredients: Peppers, Olive Oil, Celtic Salt. Preheat oven to 375ºF. Lay whole peppers in Pyrex dish. Drizzle with a generous amount of olive oil. Sprinkle with large crystal celtic salt. Roast until skins brown and loosen (45 minutes – 1 hour) When cool enough to handle, remove skins & stems, but keep seeds. Toss peppers & seeds back into pan… View Post
Wonderful ever-producing Broccoli! On November 6, I harvested my first head of fall broccoli. At the same time I harvested from my spring planted broccoli seedlings, that were set out in very early April. It has continued producing all season long, and I am still harvesting. The trick to getting a continuos harvest of broccoli is to cut the first big… View Post
I really did not think I would even get any watermelons this year, since it’s been such a cool, strange and short summer – but I decided to put them in an earthbox this year, placed on the concrete in my side yard, figuring that way they would get maximum heat. The side yard gets lots of sun, and the… View Post
A few little things from the 2010 garden: Pimento de Padron Delicious to pronounce, wonderful to eat, with perfect piquancy, depth and many nuanced notes A single predatory wasp will consume more aphids and other leaf eaters than a squadron of lady bugs. Best of all: they have a live-and-let live attitude towards humans. This is a good reason to… View Post
It’s been a cool summer, and everything was late, oh so late. But finally the harvesting has begun. This is why I garden! Cucumbers are finally coming into their own. These were grown in an Earthbox – this is the first year for me growing cucumbers in an earthbox, and clearly, they are thriving. Any ideas on how to use… View Post
Peppers seem to thrive in containers. As cold as the spring was, and as late as summer was in arriving, the peppers are still thriving this year! I raised 90 pepper plants, sweet and hot, from seed, and they were doing great up until a purchased plant brought aphids to the entire batch. By the time I found the aphids,… View Post
The Silvery Fir Tree tomato, in the small hanging basket, has been almost the only tomato up until now to produce any ripe fruit this year! Other plants are JUST now starting to ripen fruit, but what an amazingly late year it has been. Meanwhile, nothing stops this intrepid little plant. Such a small container, and yet it keeps producing…. View Post
Garlic has been harvested, cured and cleaned. Below is a photo of the result. Not enough garlic planted this year, I can clearly see that now! And no really long storing varieties. There will be tears and gnashing of teeth when we run out and have to buy them! I will have to do better this year with my planting…. View Post
For the past couple of years I have grown the Tumbling Tom tomato in a hanging basket. It produced well enough, and since it’s a very early producer I grew it again. It’s not a very exciting tomato though. This year, I decided to try a Silvery Fir Tree in my hanging basket. So far, the plant seems to like… View Post
I was just looking through photos of the garden from last year, and found this photo: Wow! This year I have only a few green tomatoes as yet on my many plants. Granted, they went in the ground two weeks later this year… but it seems we are still way behind this year. My cucumbers are just setting the first… View Post
Today I harvested the first fennel from one of my earthboxes. Last year I grew fennel for the first time ever, in containers, not in earthboxes, but I let it go to far and it bolted and flowered before I got to them, so I just let them be for the bees to enjoy, and the bees did LOVE the… View Post