Garden update

My, have I been lax. I've been taking pictures of my garden, but not sharing them! Here's just one glimpse of the progress.

Right around May 17 I planted this spaghetti squash. It's actually two starts lumped together because I'm lazy, foolish, optimistic - your choice of adjective.

 

 Less than two months later, this is what we're looking at (look at the bricks in the pics to get some scale): 

Here's another shot: 

I just counted at least 14 squash-bubbles forming on the plants. Here's the biggest - I swear it's getting larger on a daily basis: 

It's clearly too soon to harvest it, and I know they probably won't all make it .. but good thing I like spaghetti squash fairly well. I may have to make some secret deliveries, too, to get rid of the bounty!

Catchup

If I don't do some kind of update, I'll never get back on the blogging wagon!

Hawaii was great fun - I went on two dive trips, for a total of four dives. One of the dives was advanced and we went down to 100 feet! I have to admit I freaked myself out a little bit at the depth, but once I calmed down and got my ears to clear it was fine. We explored a barge! And everyone could  hear whales singing! I confess I'm not sure *I* identified the whale song, but probably because I was borderline hyperventilating, I could barely focus on anything outside my body. All in all the dive experience was fun, and the next time I'm someplace tropical for a period of time I think I'll pay to take the advanced dive certification course.

The house is still standing, though the night I came back from vacation I had a dream that the oven caught fire, the fire department wouldn't come, then it spread to the attic, then the whole ceiling caved in from a deluge. So, I guess the reality is settling in a little bit - owning a house is all well and good but is a responsibility too! Also, there's the whole yard thing - at the moment my sister is doing the lion's share of work out there, but I keep thinking I shoulda got a condo. Oh well, I didn't, and I can handle this. I'm going to spend the next few years lessening the grass imprint and boosting the path/bed/ground cover/patio/deck elements. Or at least that's the plan. I DO talk a good game!

Spring has sprung and while it's not the glorious SUMMER that was in Hawaii, it's been pretty lovely this week. My garden is starting to grow, and I get five more sets of plant starts soon.

AND I'm heading out of town for another week - I get to go visit my stomping grounds in the Bay Area. It will be a very very very intense week though so I hope I squeeze in sufficient volumes of Fun.

Garden 2.0

When I lived in the Bay Area I organized a community garden at my apartment building. Only about 15% of the residents participated, but it was still pretty awesome. Now that I've got my own place I wasn't sure how much (if any) gardening I'd be doing.

However, fate intervened: on the day of my housewarming party, one of my former housemates let me know she was getting rid of three 5x5 beds, and asked if I wanted them - delivery & setup included! I'm not one to look convenience in the mouth, so I said sure! She and her boyfriend delivered and set them up on the day of the party, which was very exciting. Not only that but she came up with a source for garden dirt - another friend of hers is getting rid of the raised bed at the house she just bought, and was willing to lend us her truck to transport said dirt.

Fortunately it was GORGEOUS on Saturday, so all the heaving of buckets of dirt was nearly enjoyable. And progress was made. From this:

 

To this: 

In just a few hours! 

You'll note the beds are shaded in the morning, so I'm not certain the location is perfect. I wanted them to be someplace where I would see and remember them, and if they were at the sunniest part of my yard they'd be much more out of sight. As it is I can see them from my kitchen and office windows. 

So far I've planted three kale starts, and seeds for carrots and radishes.  I'll be getting more plant starts from a CSA I joined, but I think before I get them I'll add a couple bags of dirt to the beds I haven't already started using. Still - off to a great start.

Summer salad

Early-summer produce has hit the markets big-time here in the Bay Area, and I was inspired to try a strawberry-basil salad dressing.

I got the strawberries at the market, and the basil and lemons from my building's garden:

My life changed for the better when I realized my immersion blender works PERFECTLY in a mason jar:

Does this look like summer, or what?

Garden update

Now that summer is ending in the rest of the world, it's really kicking in here in the Bay Area. Sunshine! 70 degrees! Who cares if I'm in the mood for fall? Not my garden!

I harvested a bunch of cherry tomatoes last weekend. I was home sick but managed (barely!) to summon the energy to halve and slow-roast these. Now I have a jar of slow-roasted tomato goodness in my fridge - great for pasta!

Those tomatoes were from a hybrid plant I bought at the nursery, so I can't harvest the seeds and use them next year (that only works reliably with heirlooms). So I bought some heirloom tomatoes at the market and am saving their seeds so I can grow these next year:

I'm also saving the seeds from some of the massively prolific green beans we grew. I think they're blue lake green beans, but I'm not positive. I just pulled some of the shriveled pods off the vine and pulled out the hardened beans. I don't know if it'll work but it's worth a try!

Amazing tomato goodness

I'm so terribly proud!

zucchini madness omg

Friends, I don't really like zucchini. It just figures, doesn't it, that it's the easiest dang thing to grow?! Here's a picture of the one zuke plant from my group garden project, about 6 weeks ago:

It's the big green leaves to the right. Believe me when I say that freaking monster has more than doubled in volume since then! And of the five of us in the garden group... it doesn't seem like anyone is that into the dreaded green veg.

My biggest hits so far this year have been Simply Recipes' Chocolate Zucchini Cake, and zucchini pickles!

When I was growing up, our next-door neighbor had a HUGE garden, and I distinctly remember these pickles she'd make. Oddly enough, I liked neither pickles nor zucchini, but it seemed like the two negatives cancelled each other out; I liked her zucchini pickles! I hadn't thought of them for years until I had a burger at a restaurant in Portland and they came with a side of the distinctively-colored pickles. Now that I'm ..um.. blessed with an abundance of the Loathsome Green Monster, I made my own. They came out pretty tasty, though next time I may use cider vinegar to bump up the sweetness a tiny bit.

I used this recipe (I think... they are all about the same) and here's my pickles getting briney. yep, everything is now that turmeric yellow color.

What else can I do with zucchini? I should probably just give in and pick 'em really small, but I keep hoping one of the gardeners will want one or two (or ten).

Garden = miracle

Surely I live in a crazy place. How else can you explain what can happen in two months?? Look at how the garden grows:

Overhead shot taken May 1 2010

Overhead shot taken July 3 2010

Tomatoes, tomatillos, zucchini - taken May 2 2010

 Tomatoes, tomatillos, zucchini - taken July 3 2010

Look at the size of this zucchini plant! Here's my hand holding the leaf, for added scale:

And finally, the miracle of the tomato. In September, I harvested seeds from some local tomatoes. In March, I got some sprouts. And now the enormous thriving plants are starting to make fruit!

Update on the garden project

I successfully germinated some tomato seeds:

and already have a brave sprout!!!!!!!!!!!

mostly pictures, some text

Here's an overhead shot of the beds in the garden. They're empty for now - I need to figure out drainage (gravel?) then we have to get soil, then we have to figure out planting. Sigh. But it's going forward!
They are beautiful, made of redwood, and measure about 4x4 and 18 inches deep. They're going to produce a LOT of awesomeness. I hope!

 

Also, my knitting is coming along. I started this sweater last March, put it down in April, and will have it finished sometime in February. (I was hoping for January, but.. that's today, so, I don't think I'll make it.)

  

  

I've got some Meyer lemons, mandarin oranges, and fresh rosemary from some coworkers' yard. I'm going to make lemon OR citrus curd, and rosemary shortbread. But I'd better get cracking: it's just past noon.

Garden project update!

It's been a few months since I posted about the garden project. Truthfully, it's been a while since there's been anything worth writing! But we're finally making steps in the right direction. The building manager finally got us some wood (actually completely unexpected, but the building owners gave it the okay). As a reminder of the situation, here's an overhead shot taken out my window in September:

Last September

The middle area clearly used to be a pool at some point. We're going to take over the dirt-filled part of the pool, and built beds to cover the first third of it - the part in the middle of the pic closest to the table & chairs. That area gets a TON of sunshine in the summer, and even in the winter gets a few hours per day, so it's going to do really well. Here's T preparing the area (note the dual-purpose rain/garden boots!):

 

Here are the beds being built upside down - the legs got buried in the ground to anchor the bed:

And here's the thing of beauty ready to be installed:

We have two 4x4 beds side by side. It started raining pretty much right after they were installed and hasn't stopped for a couple of weeks, but I'm hoping to get a picture this weekend if it stays dry.

Here's some of us weeding the beds (at the top of the picture taken from my apartment) - note the lemon tree putting out a ton of fruit just behind us.

And look! A tiny harvest!

oops

So, I stopped shopping in October and found that it made a BIG difference in my spending. I decided to do it this month too.

But then I went to a nursery for a class on worm composting (more on that later) (it was fascinating), and I slipped. I bought two small blueberry bushes, two pots, and dirt. For a total of 87 dollars and some change. If I guesstimate that blueberries go for 2 bucks a pound, it'll take 44 POUNDS of blueberries to get me to the break-even point.

Here's hoping! I'm kind of a fool for blueberries - and they're in a container so I can take them with me if I ever move!

They are the Sunshine Blue and Southmoon varietals.. but I can't tell them apart! 

Tomato update

Earlier this summer I posted about trying to germinate tomato seeds for next summer's garden.  I took some more pictures but never added them here! (Or I can't find the post. Practically the same thing.)

As a reminder: here's the tomato whose seeds I harvested:

Then, according to this article, you put 'em in a jar and let them get moldy:

Then you rinse them off, dry them, and voila! Seeds for next summer's planting! I've got a lot... anyone want some?

Garden bounty

I performed a little kitchen magic.

Roast: some garden-fresh tomatoes, and garlic (at 375 for about 45 and 25 minutes, respectively):



Clean and pluck a whole bunch of basil leaves:




Puree the basil with some olive oil and a bit of salt. Plop most of the results into the bottoms of a muffin tin, and freeze. Once they're solid, combine them in a ziplock bag for later use.




Finally, puree the roasted tomato, roasted garlic, and the remnants of the basil (whatever was left in the food processor. Store the results in the fridge and meditate upon the best use of the delicious results.

garden snag

I've mentioned I'm helping coordinate the installation of a raised bed garden at my apartment building. The apartment manager has the okay to spend some money (he's been VERY vague about the amount) and after some conversation & back and forth, I gave him the list of things to buy.

I got a message from him yesterday: he's spent a bunch of money but hasn't gotten the wood to build the raised beds yet, so we may have to buy those.

I mean, I'm willing to throw in some cash and do it, but really?? The last thing on the list is the wood to make the beds????? sheesh. honest to Pete. I bet it's really because he doesn't want to have to go to another store, aside from the garden center.

.. who's Pete, anyway?

I am the Dirt Czar.

I've compiled the shopping list. I've submitted it to the rest of the people in the building for feedback. Then I'm going to give it to the apartment manager and devoutly hope he doesn't have a bunch of questions!

The biggest challenge so far is figuring out the size of the bed. One of the residents did some calculating and figuring, and suggested two 4x4 beds. We've got room for 6 beds of that size, but we're starting smallish to see how it goes.

Do you know how much dirt it takes to fill 16 square feet? It takes a lot of dirt. At first I was calculating 20 inches deep, but from what I could find, that's overkill. I changed the numbers so we're figuring on an average of 14 inches deep (more like 12 in one and 16 in the other, I think) and it's STILL a lot of dirt. We're looking at about $150 in dirt alone.

We could do it cheaper, but none of us have a truck, we'd have to drive a minimum of an hour round trip, and it would make a huge mess - not to mention taking lots of time. Even if I could find someone to deliver a bunch of dirt, we couldn't back the truck up to the prospective bed area, because it's fenced in, so we'd have to, what... get wheelbarrows and buckets?? Yeah that would be more work and mess.

So, I've made the list and will hold my breath til we find out if we get all the stuff. Fingers crossed!

You say tomato, I say YUM

When I was growing up, the best summer meal ever was BLTs made with the amazing beefsteak tomatoes my mom grew in the garden. I've never had a real urge to garden, but man, I miss amazing tomatoes fresh off the vine. Yes, I can buy them, but it's not quite the same.

Now that my building is doing a garden, I'm excited to try to save some tomato seeds and grow my own next year. I got three locally-bred tomatoes at the farmer's market today. The tomatoes are gorgeous: red, with hints of orange and green. The flavor is amazing - a bit tangy, a bit sweet; I couldn't stop myself from eating a whole one on its own. I'm inspired to save the seeds and see if they'll grow for me next year!

But now I've learned that you have to put a tiny bit of work into harvesting tomato seeds, and it could get a bit icky. Still, I've got to try. Stay tuned!

we have carrots!

teeny weeny green fronds are peeking up in the garden - carrots! I'll get a picture later this weekend, I think.

We also have soaker hoses laid in - these are new to me, but have teeny holes and get laid out amongst the plants, then just left there. Turn on the hose for 20 minutes and the ground is gently soaked. who knew?

we've decided on the measurements for the new beds and have asked for the parts we need. This thing is moving along better than I hoped, and with far less effort (so far) than I anticipated.

I'm Wednesday!

We actually now have seven participants, so a person assigned to each day of the week for watering duties. Later, when we have more garden space, we may assign primary responsibility to areas. That way we'd have a planned crop that we could all share, but we'd each get to be a bit more involved in the particular plants of our sections - if that's the way we want to do it, anyway. I think it's a good idea.

We've got some plans, but they are VERY ambitious. Right now I think we need to think kind of small - two 4x4 beds will be a big enough challenge, considering we don't have access to free dirt or a truck. I have a coworker with a truck, and I might try asking for assistance.. but we'll see. I'm just excited this is slowly, slowly lifting off the ground.

post-first meeting

Our first meeting went well - six of us showed up, and five were able to stay and help get some seedlings planted. I got a better sense of what we want to do, and probably some ideas about how to handle the process. It sounds like the building manager wants us to have some guidelines in place, and the property management company is willing to kick in some money. So, I think it'll take some patience and negotiation, but we can get something in place.

The garden already has some thriving tomato plants; today we planted lettuce, kale, broccoli, turnips, and carrots. All but the carrots were seedlings. It's so weird to put stuff in the ground in September!!!

We also kicked around ideas for what else we might like to plant. For this coming fall/winter it sounds like we're interested in potatoes, beets, brussels sprouts, and some other hardy stuff. I suppose we have to get the beds built first, and who knows what that timeline is.