Lots of Basil (and More Beans!)

I really need to get better at using the garden produce.  It always comes as a surprise to me when something needs to be used & it really shouldn't be.  I vow from this point forward to take stock in what will likely be ready to harvest *before* I go grocery shopping and meal plan accordingly!

The big disappointment is my onions.  I think it's a little too shady for them & I planted them too close.  They haven't really bulbed much and the leaves are dying back.  The same story with my garlic!  Alliums, what's with the hate?!?

Luckily, I have basil, beans & cucumbers to cheer me up!  My cukes are taking over despite having a 6' tall trellis.  There are probably a dozen or more baby cukes just on the tee-pee trellis.  Pickles here I come!  The beans are also doing well.  I can't believe how much they produce.  Of course, the lettuce & Swiss chard makes it hard to find them which means they are often a little too mature (but still edible).  Oh, well.

The real hero, though, is basil.  Good gracious, the basil!  It was like 2' tall and definitely time to do a hard harvest (taking 2/3 of the plant).  It ended up being over 10oz!  I'm freezing most of it for winter use as there's no way we could eat that much basil in a few days (I need a break from pesto).

Totals for the past week are:

Basil 10.75oz
Cukes 4oz (not all pictured)
Beans 7.25 oz (not all pictured)
Onions 7.5 oz (not pictured)
Lettuce 2 lbs (!!! and there's still more...not pictured)
Kohlrabi 3 lb (this is all of it. not pictured)

Grand total for the year: 37.55

Not too shabby!

Garden & Harvest Update

The garden is looking awesome right now.  The cukes and pole beans are filling up their trellises, the lettuce hasn't bolted yet and the tomatoes seem to be growing a foot a week.  Oh, and the zucchinis!  The zucchinis!  I think at least 1 plant is going to need to go.  I planted a bunch b/c I didn't label & I was concerned one could have been a winter squash.  I'm just one person...that can't eat the output of 5 zucchini plants.

Also exciting?  I realized that some green beans need harvesting.  So I picked.  And picked.  And pickled.  Over a pound!  There were also 2 cucumbers (weighing over 5 oz total).  This brings my harvest this year to over 30 lbs.

May Local Eating Challenge: Week 4

We're nearing the home stretch!  To be honest, the lack (and expensive) of onions and garlic has been what is killing me.  I was so thrilled to see both garlic scapes *and* garlic at the farmer's market that I bought both in some sort of garlic-induced frenzy.  Then, of course, I forgot to buy onions (mine are still quite small).  I also long for some of my pantry meals that mostly rely on frozen vegetables, so there's none of this washing, chopping, and cleaning a cutting board business.  It's been a very busy month for me and being able to pull something out of the pantry or freeze would be so welcomed right now.  Just another week!

Review of last week:
Well, I didn't burn my lunch, so that was a plus.  I'm really getting sick of washing greens though.  All that damn pollen from maples and oaks and other trees gets lodged and stuck to the leaves.  So time consuming!


Week 4:
As I've already mentioned, garlic had arrived!  I'm so excited.  I feel kinda exhausted from all the meal planning lately, though.  I just want to go on autopilot a bit and buy some frozen corn and canned tomatoes for chili which we can eat off of for days & days & days.  But I will resist.

I spent $45 at the grocery store & $50 at the farmer's market.  Note, however, that $10 of the grocery store trip was in arborio rice because the bulk bin lever let the rice flow faster than usual.

Here's what I did get at the market: bacon, tongue, pork shoulder, lots of apples, garlic scapes (!), garlic (!!!), 2 bunches of asparagus, tunips, & 2 broccoli crowns.

Meal plan:

My lunch: Kohlrabi pasta (kohlrabi from the garden, garlic scapes)

My husband's lunch: Tongue braised with turnips (tongue, turnips, garlic and some stock made from the carcass of the chicken I bought a few weeks ago).

Saturday: We ate leftovers

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday: BBQ Pork with Kohlrabi & Apple slaw (pork shoulder, kohlrabi from the garden, apples.  Also served with baked beans)

Wednesday, Thursday: Vegetable Risotto (asparagus, broccoli, bacon and e more stock from the farmer's market chicken)

Friday: either leftovers or hummus flatbread sandwiches (with salad from the garden)

May Local Eating Challenge: Week 2

I actually did most of my farmer's market shopping on Thursday and then I forgot to take a photo of everything.  So, you get a view of my dinner + some of the other stuff I bought.

Review of last week:
We followed our meal plan pretty well and had one apple and some scallions leftover!  However, no one at the market had garlic and garlic scapes aren't up yet.  This is a Big Deal in my family as almost every dish begins with a clove or two of it.  Also a Big Deal is $20 for a whole chicken.  Ouch.  I love making soup with greens and chorizo, but sinking $20 to make stock for it (yes, I realize I'd have meat for something else) is daunting.

Week 2
I spent $38 at the grocery store this week (mainly yogurt for the kiddo, lentils, lots of grains, local mushrooms, milk, pita, tortilla and cheese).  I spent $35 at the farmer's market (3 broccoli crowns, 4 medium-sized bok choi heads, 5 lb bag of potatoes, 4 sweet potatoes, 5 apples, 2 onions, 1 qt. strawberries, 1 bunch radish and 1 bunch parsley).  Grand total for the week is $73, which is under the $100/wk we budget.  However, my pantry is pretty well stocked currently and we still have meat from our last big farmer's market meat purchase (we'd go once every other month in the winter & stock up).

Meal plan for the week:

Weekend lunch: Wheatberry Salad with mustard greens (kinda like this recipe, but with greens instead of root vegetables. Mustard greens from the garden & onion)

My lunch: Dal with Kohlrabi (kohlrabi from the garden, onion)

Husband's lunch: Moosewood's sweet potato and black bean burritos (sweet potatoes, onions, cilantro from the garden)

Saturday, Sunday dinner: Vegetarian Stir-fry with rice (broccoli, bok choy, scallions from last week, mushrooms & cashews in a sauce of oyster sauce, soy sauce, green part of the scallions, brown sugar, and lots of dried hot peppers...from last year's garden!)

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday dinner: Lamb meat balls with salad on pita, hummus & tabbouleh (lamb is from our last big farmer's market meat purchase, onion, radishes, parsley & lettuce from the garden)

Thursday, Friday dinner: a kind of Colcannon except with kale (from the garden) instead of cabbage (bacon from last week and potatoes)

The Garden is on a Roll- Harvest Update

It's taken 3 growing seasons, but I think I'm really hitting my garden stride.  What used to seem so difficult is now easy-peasy and...dare I say it...I'm having trouble keeping up with the harvests!  (It does definitely help that this has been a glorious spring.)

Since my last harvest update post, I've picked the rest of the arugula (over 3 lbs), all of the kale (over 1.5 lbs), some more mustard greens (12 oz) and just 4 kohlrabi (2 lb 2 oz)!  My total for the season is

::::::::::::::::::::::::::drumroll please:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

13.94 lbs!!! 

If I didn't have a food scale, I'm not sure I'd believe it, but it's true!  In the whole of last year I only harvested 26 lbs to put in perspective how monumental this is for me and my little patch of dirt. But, as I said before, as exciting as getting these big-for-me harvests are, the lingering question is: How can we possibly eat this many greens?  I'm getting over greens & I haven't harvested *any* lettuce yet, btw.  Yikes, right?


Worse case, we'll blanch & freeze.  Or see if mustard greens pesto is any good (and freeze that). 

More Harvests...

There have been several garden harvests already this week!  We picked some arugula for dinner salads and then sandwiches over the weekend (9oz total).  I also picked one full square of mustard greens and yielded 1.6 lbs!  I also thinned the radish patch and that yielded a respectable sized bunch weighing about .4 lb.

With all this heat, the rest of the arugula is starting to bolt, so I'm going harvest that & make pesto and something else. I'm really excited to see how much that yields!  It's time to move the Swiss chard outside anyways. 

All & all, I think I may actually reach my goal of under $3/lb of produce this year!  This time last year I had only picked 0.25 lb of arugula...

Garden Update- The Inside

With Sprout's new-found mobility, it became obvious that my seedlings needed to find a new home.  This also meant, however, that they weren't in a highly visible location.  Thus, they got a little neglected and some casualties have occurred.  My sweet peppers had sprouted, but then got dried out & died.  The Purple Opal Basil, nasturtium & Thai Basil haven't germinated yet...not sure if that's a result of old seed (in the case of Thai Basil & nasturtium) or not having consistent moisture.  I've replanted all but the nasturtium in hopes of not having to purchase these.

The good news is, though, that the tomatoes, and everything else that has germinated, are looking awesome.

Just under a month until these babies go outside, so I'll start a weekly fertilization of a diluted solution of fish emulsion.  As April 15th is technically the last frost date for my zone, so I've already directly sowed some carrots outside.

I'm starting to dream of grilled eggplant and tomatoes eaten raw with just a bit of salt and pepper.  Those days are still a few months off, unfortunately.

First Harvest!

And I forgot to take a picture of it!

Close your eyes.  Imagine a bunch of baby arugula.  Said arugula weighs 11 oz.

Voila!  You have a very good imagination as that's *exactly* what I harvested as I was thinning out my arugula planting.  There is still more thinning to do, but I didn't need so much arugula.

Garden Update

The nice weather has certainly been a lovely change, hasn't it?  Between enjoying the great outdoors, homework and general life I haven't been able to sit inside & blog (in fact, this post has been sitting on my computer waiting for me to hit "Publish" for days), but the garden is getting busy. 

I sowed some lettuce, arugula & mustard seed last Sunday in the raised beds.  No sprouting yet (to be expected) but I do need to set up my watering game on the non-rainy days.  I've noticed some digging by squirrels in the planted area, so I'm thinking some row covers will be put on soon for protection.

Here are the latest photos of the onions, kohlrabi & Red Russian kale I planted indoors. The onions, for some reason, are having really spotty germination. In some cells, multiple seeds will germinate but in others none will.  I'm trying to carefully separate the seedlings that are in one cell and put one in another cell.  I've also started some Swiss Chard.

The Red Russian kale will definitely be ready to put out next weekend. Just in time to make room for the summer veggies that will be started shortly thereafter!

In the 2011 Garden

Despite the below-average-temperature today, I'm getting ready to start my 2011 garden. I'm finalizing the planting plan and will start my first seeds (onions, kale & kohlrabi) early next week.  Here's what my 2011 garden has in store:

Nightshades
Eggplant (Early Black Egg)
Eggplant (Ping Tung Long)
Tomato (Sungold)
Tomato (Black Cherry)
Tomato (Eva Purple Ball)
Tomato (Amy's Sugar Gem)
Tomato (Siberian)
Ground Cherry (Cossack Pineapple)
Sweet Pepper (Tequila Sunrise)
Hot Pepper (Cherry...need to still buy this)

Gourds
Winter Squash (Delicata Zeppelin)
Summer Squash (Dark Green Zucchini)
Pickling Cucumber (Edmonson)
maybe another kind of pickling cucumber

Lettuces & Legumes
Pole Bean (McCaslan)
Pole Bean (Louisiana Purple Pod)
Bush Bean (Fin de Bagnol)
Bush Bean (Provider)
Lettuce (Deer Tongue)
Lettuce (Red Velvet)
Swiss Chard
Corn Mache
Kale
Mustard Greens

Root Vegetables
Onion (Yellow Borettana)
Potato (need to get this)
Kohlrabi
Turnips
Carrots

Annual Herbs & Flowers
Borage
Purple Opal Basil
Thai Basil
Sweet Basil
Cilantro
Nasturtiums
Marigolds

And, I'm starting all of this from seed. My grow lights are certainly going to be working overtime this year!  I'm slightly concerned about not having enough room for everything under the grow light (well, everything that is not direct-sown), but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I'm also a little concerned as I'm growing a ton of stuff I've never tried before (onions, potatoes, winter squash, beans!, borage, lettuce, turnips), but that just keeps me on my toes, right?!?

Note: I will be keeping track on the money spent on the garden this year. I got a bunch of seeds for Christmas this year. The approximate total for these, plus the Sungold & Black Cherry seeds I bought, are $32.

2011 Garden Resolutions

Well, that's another year gone.  In the span of 12 months, I quit my job, expanded our dining room, birthed a baby and (with ample help of my husband) completed 2 large yard projects: smothering grass on half the yard and re-doing our raised beds.  It's been a busy year.  And I expect 2011 will be just as productive.

I resolve to:
1. Plant a greater diversity of edibles.  Typically, I plant nightshade vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, eggplants), assorted herbs and ground cherries.  Last year I added in garlic, cucumbers and summer squash.  This year I plan to do proper crop rotation and add in: green beans, onions, lettuce, winter squash, potatoes and new-to-me herbs like borage.  I'm hoping to put in a grape vine or two as well.

2. Incorporate more native plants.  Santa got me Armitage's Native Plants for North American Gardens for Christmas and I was kind of surprised how many native plants I already have, but with a now grass-less patch in the front yard and a newly cleared backyard, lots of planting will be happening in 2011.

3. Be better about turning the compost.  I kind of resolve to do this every year & then get lazy, though.

4. And, not strictly about gardening but rather the results of edible gardening, I hope to do a lot more pickling and will, of course, continue the Local Eating Challenge.