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?

fall garden '09

this year, thanks to teresa (or her husband?) i am getting the fall garden started early. we are moving to a different house on august first, and were told that we can start gardening there any time. since it is just across the street from our place, i have taken advantage of that offer.

cosmo came home from pre-school (in the spring) with a bunch of tiny tomato starts in a dixie cup. i already had all my tomatoes in, so we planted his in the new yard. i didn't expect much from them, but they have really taken off (they are currently twice the size shown in this photo)!




i also transplanted some of the (very slow growing) leeks over there, and recently, four tomatillo plants from jack. the soil in the new garden seems good, but it appears to be lacking in organic matter, so i have been throwing compost in with everything i plant, and perhaps i'll do a cover crop in the late fall or early spring.

yesterday, with some rare time to myself, i cut a path in the new garden space, and planted beets, lettuce, bush beans, basil, cilantro and peas. hopefully i can find some broccoli plants at the farmer's market, and maybe a dill or two. i will probably plant arugula and carrots within the next few days.

last year's fall garden was a big disappointment, but i think i just started it too late. can't wait to see what happens this year.



in other news, the garlic is out of the ground! some of the bulbs were smaller than i'd hoped, but overall, they did well. most were too small for seed garlic, so i'm getting more to plant in october (double what i planted last fall). right now, the garlic is hanging to dry in our shed (where we store things like empty boxes).



we also tasted the first of our ripe cherry tomatoes this week! they are yummy, and those plants are loaded!

frost date

we've past the predicted first frost date of october 20 and it still has not been down to freezing yet, here. i'm sad to report that many of the greens in the cold frame are refusing to grow. i know the soil is pretty good, so i guess it just doesn't get enough sun in that spot this time of year. the broccoli and kale is doing great though, so i can't complain really. but i do anyway because arugula is my new favorite green, it is easy to grow, two of my neighbors have large, healthy plants, and mine just seem stunted at the seedling stage. luckily, said neighbors are generous.

i've been happy with the carrot crop. a good percentage of them are still in the ground. they are stubby but delicious. i had reported earlier that cosmo didn't like them, but that has changed. if i peel them, and slice them into "carrot coins" he gobbles them up. they are perfect on a fresh salad too.


our crazy, volunteer tomato plants, growing from the compost bin, are still producing lovely tomatoes long after our other ones have withered. i even saw some blossoms on one of them yesterday!



the peas i planted are doing well, growing fast, but i doubt we'll get any peas off of them. the plants are supposed to be frost resistant, but i bet the blossoms are not. we'll see how far they get before it turns really cold.

finally, i planted a small herb garden to bring indoors for the winter. i've become accustomed to those fresh herbs, and don't want to do without them in the cold months.



anybody else out there doing some fall/winter gardening?

recycled cold frame

cold frame construction is as complicated as you make it. my plans simplified once i realized that the purpose is to warm the soil and block wind. i was wondering if i needed to bury the sides into the earth, and if so, how far? but i spoke with an experienced local gardener/farmer and she assured me that i just needed to place the box on top of the soil, tilt the windows toward the south, and that should do the trick. then my plans got complicated when i realized how tall a broccoli plant gets (about two feet!). my salvaged windows were dictating the width and depth of my box, and the broccoli was determining the height, but when i got the whole thing put together, out of these honkin' 2"x 8" and 2"x 12" boards, it looked like a tunnel, or a large, narrow coffin-- the place where all good plants go to die. i took one look at it, once it was all screwed together and flipped over, and cried, "i can't grow plants in there!" i put the windows on anyway, and couldn't deny it had rather striking form, (i didn't think to photograph it) but it was still not a suitable place for a winter garden. the whole point is to maximize sunlight, and the tall sides would have shaded the plants. i should have remembered from architecture school, the importance of building a model. sometimes it is the only way to clearly visualize what you're building, before you build it.

i considered burying the lower half of it, to make it shorter that way, but soon came to my senses, and decided that taking off a row of 2"x 12" boards would solve the problem. it was easy enough to do that, and then i set the shorter structure on a row of bricks i had salvaged from another demolition site. i am pretty sure that what i have now will work just fine, and i rather like the look of the old paint on the brick.

as it turns out, almost everything was recycled, salvaged or reused. the hinges are from some old cabinet doors, carl spotted them at a flea market in gnaw bone. i bought one long, two-by-four, and those huge boards i took off the cold frame had been purchased as new lumber. i'll turn those into a sturdy shelf to hold all those home-canned goodies we've been squirreling away (see my other blog for more on that).

i've been covering the broccoli and kale with floating row cover, to keep the cabbage moths from laying eggs on them. i had been pulling dozens of those green cabbage worms off of the half eaten leaves, every time i took a look at them. my summer kale was completely demolished by those guys. the cover is not pretty, but it does seem to work.

fall garden

the fall garden is planted, and includes arugula, lettuce, spinach, chard, kale, broccoli, and peas. those arugula seeds germinated in TWO DAYS! crazy. i worked over half of the edamame bed, and plan to build a cold frame out of some old windows and lumber we salvaged from a renovation and a demolition site. i am still researching the best way to construct it with what i have.

our yard is still sprinkled with summer color, though the cheery brown-eyed susans are fading fast. i cut a bouquet yesterday, and brought it into the house. the marigolds i started from seed took some time to establish themselves, but they're in full swing right now. they are easy to overlook, since everyone seems to have them, and their primary job in the garden is to deter pests. i noticed yesterday how lovely they are.

our top-heavy sunflowers may not fulfill their duties, but i still have hope. i know some birds who would really enjoy those seeds.