13 August 2009

while we were away...



the garden exploded! we are now maintaining gardens at two locations: our old place, and our new place. luckily, they are across the street from one another. we came home to beans galore, more husk cherries than cosmo can eat in a setting (more on those in another post), and cherry tomatoes out the wazzoo. the tomatoes that cosmo started, in his little dixie cup at pre-school in the spring, the ones i planted in our new back yard in april? a jungle i tell ya! man! woman! child! all are up against THE WALL OF TOMATOES!



photos don't do it justice. we have to send cosmo into the tangle to harvest!



i pulled up most of the potatoes. the yield wasn't quite what i expected, but it was a lot of fun digging for them. like a treasure hunt.


the carrots blew me away. lots of them, and bigger than last year. we even harvested our very first cabbage!



carl made a delicious braised cabbage with poppy seed, and we roasted some of the carrots and potatoes. yummy.




last night i made this velvety carrot ginger soup, which couldn't be easier to make:
carrot ginger soup

2T butter
1 T finely mince ginger
4 medium carrots
3 cups stock or broth
1 cup milk or cream

sauté ginger in butter, add sliced carrots, stir-fry for a few minutes, add broth or stock and cook 'til the carrots are very tender. purée in a blender or food processor, then add some milk or cream, warm and serve. (adapted from superfoods, by delores riccio).
the fall garden in the new place is growing like gang-busters. the soil may not look like much (kinda crusty, not a lot of organic material, or worms), but the landlord says it's "river-bottom." not sure what that's supposed to mean, all i know, is the plants like it here. could be all that full sun too.



the lettuce, arugula and cilantro are all mature, and ready to eat. the tomatilla plants are loaded, and the bush beans already have blossoms. the peas got munched by rabbits, but i have protected them now, and hope they can recover. even the leeks are beginning to fatten up.



we also harvested our first peppers: sweet red peppers (carmen) and one hot paper lantern. we haven't tasted them yet, but aren't they gorgeous?



6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dh and I enjoyed the photos of your garden's bounty. We also laughed at your tomato jungle: we have that here too! But, we need to count ourselves lucky because apparently many people in this area have not had much luck with tomatoes this year due to the wet, cool weather.

Digging for potatoes is a lot of fun, especially when one stabs a few voles in the process too. ;P

The soup sounds wonderful; we make a similar version with sweet potatoes instead of carrots.

We'd not had much luck the one time we tried growing tomatillas, but we're thinking of trying it again next year.

Anonymous said...

Your cabbage looks heavenly and delicious. I got some at the market on Saturday but it was a little spicy. Iz ate it up anyhow, but I like mine on the sweeter side. You could almost have your own stand at the Farmers' Market what with all that beautiful produce, but I suppose it's so wonderful that you want to keep it all for yourself!

Anonymous said...

by the way, the first anonymous is me, b/c for some reason i couldn't figure out how to log in or whatever....

best,
malke

Actchy said...

Every time I read your garden blog, I get the "Garden Song" by Peter Paul & Mary stuck in my head. It was the cover song for my Kindergarten end-of-year slide show. I can't imagine that I remember it so well from only that occassion, but I seriously don't recall ever hearing it anywhere else.

Regardless.

Inch by inch...row by row...

Heather said...

Girl, I feel you. It's exciting and proud making to grow all this food, but sometimes it can swamp you!!!! We have been slow roasting our cherry tomatoes (three hours in a 225 degree oven, cut in half with cut side up, little bit of olive oil) and they are rocking our world and lasting longer (and keeping the fruit flies at bay).

cake said...

teresa,
i know that i should count myself as lucky. i have never had such healthy plants this late in the season! still though, it is difficult to harvest the fruit!

we don't have any voles here, but i did accidentaly stab a few potatoes, so, we had to eat those up right away. the tomatillas were volunteers in my neighbor jack's yard, so he passed them onto me. i am surprised at how well they are doing.

malke, the cabbage we grew was very sweet, but it could have something to do with freshness, and the way it was cooked. i have never enjoyed cabbage as much as i did that night.

actchy, i don't know that song. i'll have to youtube it or something.

heather, thank you so much for your slow roasting idea. i have dehydrated some, which are wonderful, and i tried canning some last night, but it was an awful lot of work to slip off all those little skins. this slow roasting sounds just right.