Summer's ... not quite here yet

Brrr, it's cold! Where did summer go? After biking to the train station last week in capris, sandals, and short sleeves, I'm back to long pants, socks, a jacket and gloves. It'll warm up again by next week (I hope!), but until then, we seem to be back to spring instead of early summer. I'm a little concerned for the seedlings I bought last weekend which need to be protected from these cold nights.

The garden has undergone a major transformation in the last week. Loris and I (but mostly Loris) put up a chicken-wire fence. We bought 3 rolls of 25-feet long, 3-feet high shicken wire and some poles and erected a somewhat flimsy fence around the garden. It didn't quite reach because the edges were so ragged that we lost about 6 inches to a foot off each end of all three segments, so I had to make up the difference with some different chicken wire and poles, which were harder to put up.

But! Now we have a garden fence. With a doorway. It's not really going to keep anyone out who really wants to get in, but hopefully it will keep out errant dogs, trash, and people who think my garden is abandoned and they can help themselves to my veggies or supplies without any guilt. Now, hopefully, they'll feel guilt.

Really, though, the important thing is the veggies. I planted most of the tomatoes yesterday, probably too close together. I put eggshells and compost in each hole, then buried the tomato plant fairly deep at the edge of the usual trough I dug in the center to hold water. Each tomato plant gets its own stake, with the exception of the romas which will be held up by string tied between stakes placed every three plants.

I didn't have enough space for all the tomatoes. I only managed to fit 24 into a space where I was hoping to fit 30, and they're still really tight. I'm reformulating my garden plan right now. It's tough. I have 12 romas, 6 brandywine, 4 super Italian pastes, one Juliet, one Cherokee purple, and 3 yellow/orange varieties. I want to get three more yellow/orange varieties (or maybe 2 plus one more purple or other heirloom), for a total of 6 more plants to find space for.

I finally pulled out all the chard(it was going to seed), turnips (Loris is thrilled), and fennel (we ate it all last week, yum). I have basil and peppers ready to plant, if not for the stupid cold weather. I also have some green beans that will get into the ground today. I need to get more, though.

This year, I'm planting two hot peppers for my sweetie - the same Anaheim pepper I planted last year, and a Cayenne pepper. Otherwise, I also have red and yellow bell peppers, and hopefully I'll find some orange ones.

And that's it! Photos and updates to come.

Beautiful San Diego Sunshine

I just got back from a conference in San Diego, where I had to present a session in front of about 120 people. I did a great job of not stressing, and everything went really well. The best part about the conference was a few nights of good sleep (sorry to my kitty, but sleeping on me is going to have to stop!) and a few mornings of running in fantastic weather along the San Diego Bay.

All the running was inspiring me to start getting in shape for 2009. I may start riding my bike to work again, once a week or so. I hope to make a running date with a friend once or twice a week in the evenings after work. My husband and I will (hopefully) start rock climbing once or twice a week again, and running stairs once a week. And on the weekends, we’ll continue to go ski mountaineering.

My hope for this year is to do at least one of the following (if not more – listed mostly in order of likelihood) : 1) run a half-marathon; 2) compete in at least one Olympic distance triathlon ; 3) compete and place in a sprint distance triathlon; 4) run a marathon – probably the California International Marathon in December; 5) consider a Half Ironman.

In the meantime, I also want to improve my health by eating more nutritiously. After 4 days of eating out, conference food, and heavy hotel breakfasts, I’m really appreciating coming home to my organic vegetable garden. We’ve been feasting on broccoli, cauliflower, fennel, and turnips. The lettuce has gone into hibernation, but already I can see promise for fava beans, spring peas, onions, and carrots.

After a fall and winter of slacking off and eating a lot of junk food, it’s time to get serious about being healthy. I’m looking forward to it.

Settling into fall

Fall is definitely arriving. While the weather has warmed up again, it's definitely more of an Indian summer, and it's getting dark earlier and earlier in the evenings. We're still eating outside because the weather is so nice, but we need to turn on the lights even when we eat a bit early.

The garden is looking good, although the bermuda grass is already coming back. I can tell it's going to be a huge problem this year. The fennel, leeks, turnips, and radishes have sprouted, and in no time I'll be back to weeding. We should be eating our own lettuce by next week, with luck.

We're about to have the last of the eggplant, and tomatoes as well. The peppers are still there, but they're clearly at the end of their season as well.

Does anyone know what to do with lima beans? They're about ready, and I have to confess that I don't know if I've ever eaten lima beans, let alone grown them. I am completely clueless. It'll just be another experiment, which I'll write about after the fact.

Even though the zucchini is gone from the garden, the fridge is still full of it, so we'll be eating that for a while. Too bad, Loris.

It's late (for me, I'm old) so I have to get to bed. There's laundry to be put away and straightening up to do, but it will have to wait for another day. Maybe another week.

First fall plantings

Now that we're finally having some cooler days, I can think about planting my fall and winter garden. It's still in the low 90's in the afternoons, but the nights are cool, and the days are bearable. It's a good idea to give the plants a start before it gets too cold for them. Plus, this way we may have some vegetables for Thanksgiving!

On Saturday, I cleared out a lot of the garden, dug in some compost, and planted lettuce and chard seedlings, and fennel seeds.

Today, I dug in some more compost and planted two rows of carrots, two rows of turnips, one row of radishes and one row of beets. I would have planted more beets, but I ran out of seeds. Whoops! It's the same package I started in the spring.

So we'll have the lettuce and radishes for salad by mid-October, and turnips, beets and carrots by late fall, hopefully. It will be my first time growing fennel so I'll have to do an update on how it goes.

Three cheers for the new seasons. If you have garden-attention-deficit-disorder, like me, you'll find that the seasons are just the right length to always keep you interested and excited by what comes next.

Getting lost in the weeds

Whoops, I wrote this back on January 16, and forgot to post it. Just an update - I spent a while the other day racing the weather to try to get a good amount of weeding done before it started raining. But now it's going to rain forever again.

After a LOT of rain and stormy weather here, I've finally had a chance to get out to the garden. Which, by the way, is still quite wet, so I can't really do much. And I'm dreading going back that first day that it's dry enough to work, because what I will have to do is weed. And weed some more. And then even more. Because weeds are everywhere. Except, amazingly, around the brassicas. For some reason.

The worst part is that they grow very well right around the above-ground watering system we put in, which is really difficult to weed around because 1) the pipes get in the way of weeding, especially when the weeds are rooted underneath them and 2) I can't really use my weeding tools for fear of destroying a part of my system. So my main strategy up until now has been to ignore them.

I planted some kale and broccoli right before the big storms hit and they haven't really done much. Neither, unfortunately, have the spinach and chard. What's going on with my dark leafy greens this year? Last year we were so sick of chard! We ate it sauteed, I added it to soup, I made stuffed or rolled chard with any kind of stuffing, and I added it to everything I could think of, like risottos. But now I miss it. Maybe I should have planted more. I need my dark leafy greens!

I picked a bunch of turnips, and I have a lot more coming up. I'm tempted to plant even more because they are so easy. And relatively fast. I'm also going to plant radishes pretty soon, and I'll be happy to have them in my salad, even if the boy groans about it.

The garlic's coming up! And I saw at least one of the shallots, since it's my first year I'll be happy with even that.

I had hoped to do well with carrots this year, but my first planting is just coming up so slowly, and the second planting is overgrown with weeds. Weeds, argh! So maybe that will be a vegetable that I conquer next year, instead. I do seem to have trouble with plants that I grow from seed. On the bright side, we should have cabbages soon, they're forming heads about the size of a, um ... small melon? I can't think of anything that's actually the right size to describe them.

My biggest worry right now is figuring out what I still have time to plant before I need to start getting ready for the summer veggies. I'd love to plant more carrots, turnips, and cauliflower, and maybe some peas, but I don't know how long they'll really take. I should keep better track of these things.

I wish I had another plot for experimenting and growing plants that either 1) take up a lot of space or 2) take a lot of time to grow. I would plant melons, potatoes, peas, onions, and maybe more winter squash. I mean, wouldn't that be worth another $50 per year? Plus all of my free time?

Some cauliflower recipes

Cauliflower soup

1/2-1 onion
Butter and/or olive oil
1/2-1 onion
2-3 boiling potatoes
1/2-1 cauliflower, broken into florets
broth
3-6 cloves of garlic
a handful of drained canned or cooked garbanzo beans
Mushroom broth (optional)

Chop the onion and the potato, peel the garlic (and cut any large cloves in half), and break the cauliflower into florets.

In a medium-large pot, heat the olive oil and/or melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onion and saute for a few minutes until it is soft and translucent (but not browned). Add the potatoes and garlic, stir for a minute, then add broth to cover. If you have some mushroom broth, add it too. Cook for 10-15 minutes. Add the cauliflower and garbanzo beans, and more broth to cover. Leave as is if you prefer a thicker soup, or add a bit more broth if you prefer a thinner soup. Simmer until all the vegetables are soft, then blend with a food processor or blender. Boil soup to make it thicker, or add broth to make it thinner (optional). Serve warm.


Cauliflower and turnip risotto

1/2 to 1 head cauliflower

5 turnips

1 cup arborio rice

1/2 to 1 onion

olive oil

broth

wine (white would be best)

parmesan cheese

Peel the turnips and dice them. Boil them in the broth until they start to get tender, about 5 minutes. Remove them from the broth and set aside.

Chop up the cauliflower and add to the broth. Cook until tender, then lower heat to low, but keep warm.

Chop onion finely. In a medium-large pot, add olive oil and onion, turn heat to medium, and cook onion gently until it becomes translucent, but not browned.

Add the rice. Add more oil if necessary so the rice is coated in oil. Stir constantly so the rice does not stick and burn. After a few minutes, the rice will start to make a sound like beads knocking together. At this point, add the wine (about /2 cup to 1 cup). Stir constantly but gently until the wine is absorbed.

Now start adding broth, about a ladle-full at a time. Stir the rice gently as the broth is dissolved. After a few ladles of broth, add some of the soft cauliflower as well. Try to mash the cauliflower as you add it.

Meanwhile, if desired, saute the turnips until slightly browned. After adding broth to the risotto for 15-20 minutes, begin to taste to see if the rice is done. When it is done, remove from heat, strain the remaining cauliflower from the broth, and add the cauliflower and turnips to the risotto. Serve with parmesan cheese.

December garden update

I haven't had much time for the garden recently. The weather and the rest of my life have been conspiring against me. It hasn't rained much, or actually it hasn't rained almost at all, but it has been windy and the wind can be bitterly cold. Especially during the few hours I ever have free, which are typically early in the morning or in the evening.

We have been eating broccoli and cauliflower lately. We still have peppers in the fridge, although some of them aren't in the best shape. The pepper plants are still in the garden, but they're very sad-looking. I really need to get them out along with the weeds that grew up around them. I'll have a huge space freed up as soon as I take care of that.

Recent meals we've had include a broccoli and cauliflower frittata, cauliflower and turnip risotto, pasta with broccoli and ricotta, and lots of roasted peppers. I'd like to try making some cauliflower soup pretty soon. Really, I need more ideas for cooking with broccoli and cauliflower. Which is funny, because I used to put broccoli in EVERYthing! Pizza, pasta, stir-frys, everything. And now I'm stumped for ideas. I did make a delicious creamy broccoli soup last year, I'll have to see if I can remember how I did that.

I just planted garlic, and I've been considering planting shallots as well. Especially since I have a decent amount of space available, and apparently they grow like the garlic does. I'll have to follow up on that if I end up planting them.

We have a lot of green lettuce, but the red lettuce isn't really big enough yet, nor is the chard or spinach. I'm looking forward to some chard and spinach, I've been craving greens in general lately. I don't know if that's because my stomach has been leading a minor revolt against fried and heavy foods. I can't tolerate that stuff at the moment, which is unfortunate, but it does encourage me to eat more healthfully. But I even had a reaction to the frittata.

Loris has been pointing out that we're not eating much of the food that I froze - mostly zucchini and peppers. I hate to point out that we still have fresh peppers to eat. I don't know if the frozen zucchini would do well in soup, but I don't see why not. I'll have to try experimenting with that sometime soon. We haven't eaten any of my canned dill pickles, either, I'll have to drag them out of storage. Ditto for the strawberry syrup, strawberry jam, and butternut squash jam.

Veggies still to come include leeks, carrots, and beets. I'm excited about all of these, because I've never tried growing beets or leeks before, and I haven't been terribly successful with carrots. It's certainly difficult to keep these veggies weeded. And I can't forget the cabbage. I think we only ended up with one cabbage last year, but it was delicious. This year, we should get 6 greens and 6 reds. I'm very excited about that!

pre-Thanksgiving update

It's Thanksgiving, and the garden is going well. I STILL have peppers! I probably could have kept the eggplant around longer, but I just wanted the space. We still have eggplant in the fridge in any case. And now it's finally getting cold, so the peppers won't last much longer.

The turnips are doing well. We should be ready to eat some of them really soon. One mistake I made was to not thin the first planting well. I tried to thin them recently, when the actual plant is pretty big, by moving the ones that haven't really formed bulbs yet, but they don't look great. Even if they recover, that was a royal pain. For my second planting, I've already thinned them, even though they barely have two sets of leaves. There's no point in having 5 beautiful plants that don't have space to form even one nice turnip.

The carrots seem to be doing well also. They grow so slowly that it's really hard to tell. The leeks seem fine as well. They are very difficult to weed, because they blend in with the grass sprouts. They are also planted behind some of the peppers, which I think are probably blocking out some of the sun. I really didn't expect the peppers to still be there at this point!

I just planted 32 garlic cloves, mostly big ones. I think they're from approximately 5 or so bulbs, so hopefully that will be enough variety. More notes on those later, when they actually start doing something!

The mixed lettuce I bought from the nursery is doing great, keeping us well supplied for our salads. It's really fantastic to have home-grown salads again, I'm loving it. I planted some red lettuce too, which hasn't quite recovered from being transplanted yet. I think next year I will try again to grow from seed, I'm learning a lot from growing the leeks, carrots, and turnips this year.

The cauliflower is really impressive - 7 out of 8 are producing, and 4 already have decent-sized heads. We're picking one for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. Loris will bread and fry it and we'll serve it with lemon. He did the same for some fresh porcini mushrooms we found at the farmer's market. I know we're both looking forward to it.

The broccoli is starting to form little crowns. I suspect they'll be ready soon, which is great! I love broccoli. The cabbage is also starting to form little heads, but I think it'll be a while before we eat it. They can grow to be quite big. The chard and spinach is not growing too quickly yet. Unfortunately, the first spinach I planted is really being overshadowed by one of the red cabbages. Whoops.

I think there's a very good chance that the peppers will come out this weekend. I will probably plant turnips or beets in the spot by the leeks. In the larger spot, I might plant carrots and possibly peas. I had no luck with peas last year, but I have learned an awful lot since then.

In general, I've learned a lot about the importance of weeding. I think it's made a huge difference since last year. It does take a lot of time, but when I put in 20 minutes after work a few days a week, it's not such a big deal. My plants are all so much bigger and healthier than they were last year, and growing much faster.

I also have a different layout. Last year I did 6-7 rows, but it was hard to move around the garden, and hard to weed. This year, I have four large beds with three walking rows. It's not always easy to reach the middle of the beds, but I've created areas where it's ok to step into the beds, so it works pretty well. The automatic sprinkling system has so far adapted pretty well, especially b/c I bought some sprinklers that use a finer spray which is much better for seeds.

All in all, it's so far turning out to be a successful fall!