fancy

you may recall me waxing poetic about the humble husk cherry, aka ground cherry, aka cape gooseberry. i planted them, they grew, we have been harvesting the fruit all summer, and they just keep coming!



cosmo loves them, and enjoys hunting for them on the ground under the plants. he leaves of pile of "wrappers" around the garden bed.



they drop off the vine when they're ready, but it is best to set them aside, and wait for them to ripen a bit more. they taste okay with a little bit of green on the berries, but if you hold off 'til they turn golden---just like candy!



our favorite thing to do with them is to dip them in chocolate.




they look so lovely, like a fancy bon-bon, and taste fantastic. the berry has a slightly wild taste, and they keep very well, with or without the chocolate.

gardens grow

as soon as i finish writing this, i'll need to up-date again immediately, with fresh photos. these are so dated! we have had so much rain and warm weather, that the plants are growing inches every day, right before our eyes!

first off, let me say that this is the year of the lettuce! our lettuce, all 4 varieties, did remarkably well this spring, and we still have some that has not quite bolted.



we had heads, actual heads of buttercruch, and a variety of romaine (i guess, i don't know the name of this seed that i saved from a neighbor last year, but i love it), plus some thin leafed heirloom, and black seeded simpson. at first i thought it was the pricey fox farm all natural plant food i gave them, but i heard from other local gardeners that their lettuce did exceptionally well too. we have been enjoying delicious salads every night for over a month.

spinach, not so much. it just bolts so damn fast! i did manage to harvest two huge bowls, which, of course, saute down to nothing, but delicious, nonetheless. arugula has been wonderful, and i just keep planting it, and harvesting a round or two of leaves before they bolt.

the yummy peas have come and gone. i have ours planted in a spot that is okay for spring stuff, and they had a good start, but it gets shady when the trees fill in, and i credit our somewhat skimpy pea harvest to lack of proper sun. still though, cosmo snacked to his heart's content (and so did his parents).

the husk cherries are going nuts, and have tons of little lantern fruits, all tucked away under the broad leaves. the flea beetles like them, but don't seem to be doing too much damage.


we have peppers, from those little babies i started from seed! i am so proud. the peppers are way bigger now, than shown here, and so are the tomatoes--all of them completely loaded with green fruit.

i've got potatoes, hilled with dirt and straw, hangin' in there, despite the persistent attack of the flea beetle, and the pole beans have reached the top of their trellis this week, studded with lovely purple bean blossoms. the edamame is not only in the ground (june 6), but now has a second set of true leaves!



we have eaten broccoli from our garden, and have two cabbbages trying to form heads, while i hand pick those pesky cabbage worms off their leaves.



i tried covering them with floating row cover, before the moths could get to them to lay their eggs, but it didn't work. now i fear that if i cover them, i will trap the caterpillers under there, and won't notice the damage until it is too late. instead, i just inspect them VERY carefully, once a day.

but i am realizing that i'm just the kind of gardener that likes to fuss over my plants. i don't mind weeding, it allows me to spend time in each bed. and since i want to look at them all the time anyway, why not look for pests that might need to be removed? i love to walk through the garden just after a rain. everything is so green and lush. my farmer friend, shaun, says that's because there is nitrogen in rain water. maybe so. but this growing stuff?...it's pure magic to me. i am utterly astonished. every day.

one last little surprise: my butterfly plant (weed?) came back! i guess i didn't realize it was a perennial. so lovely.

what kind of season are you having?

mon cheri

i don't know if spring is actually coming early this year, or if it is just a matter of perception, or, if i am going to get a rude awaking with 3 inches of snow in a week. all i know is i've been digging and planting and hovering over seed beds and choosing the next section of lawn to dig up for garden expansion, like it's mid april. i'm a lot more cocky this year. i'm not so fearful of frost. i know the vegetables that don't mind a little cold, and i've planted them. we've had a few nights of below freezing temps since then, but everything is doing great.

indoors, i've started brandywine tomatoes (from seeds i saved last fall), cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers and hot peppers, poppies, and husk cherries. i found out later that the poppies could have just been direct seeded outside. they germinated quickly, and are growing like weeds. besides the poppies, the brandywines were the first to come up (let's hear it for heirlooms!). my farmer friend, amy, warned me that peppers can be difficult to germinate. they need warmth. so, i set a heat lamp over them, and a heating pad underneath. at one point i stuck a thermometer in the soil, and it was over 90 degrees. eventually they came up, and i'll tell ya, i felt so proud!

the last one to germinate was the husk cherry. i first encountered this lovely fruit when i was in switzerland for a semester abroad as a graduate student. i found them growing on the grounds of the villa where we lived and had our studio. they have a husk over them, sort of like a tomatillo (their close relative) but it's small, golden, and looks like a paper lantern. inside the husk is a marble-sized, orange-colored berry. being a brazen forager, of course, i tasted one. i could tell it was edible because it was so delicious. later i found them in a candy store, the paper husk still attached, but pulled back, and twisted above the berry, which was dipped in smooth, dark, swiss chocolate. wow.
since then, i've been searching for information about this plant. i would tell people about it, draw (and paint, see above) pictures of it, but no one would know what i was talking about. i found some growing in a park in chicago, but still didn't know the name. when i saw them featured in johnney's seed catalog, i decided i had to try to grow them. i figure, if they can grow in chicago, they can grow here. they are also known as cape gooseberry, ground cherry, and they had a very cute name in the swiss candy shop, which i cannot remember. in my bastardization of the french language (though we were in the italian part of switzerland), i refer to them as mon cheri.

what new plants are you experimenting with in your garden, this year?