Garden Update 5/31/09

Today was a pretty productive day in the OR garden - we got Jubilee corn planted (a little late perhaps, but we've got our fingers collectively crossed), bush beans, cucumbers and summer squash. We also mulched all the paths with cut grass to try to keep weeds down, and we mulched the strawberry plants and peas with it, too. (Read about it in Mother Earth News).

Pictorial updates:

Jubilee corn, 4 seeds per hill

4 hills of cucumbers (far), 4 hills of summer squash

Green bush beans; 1/3rd of row planted. Planting next third in 2 weeks, and the final third the following 2 weeks.

What is eating our Pac Choi? Any ideas on how to handle it appreciated.

Peas! We mulched them today and thinned them a bit (and ate the thinned plants in our salad!)

Turnips! I can't believe these guys are already germinated. They share a row with carrots, although we've got no carrots sprouting yet. :(

One of my dad's 3 peach trees! See the cute tiny furry peaches?

The Growing Challenge: Check-in!

So, it seems I kind of can't have a challenge to work on. Actually, this isn't true! When I was reading Melinda's great blog, One Green Generation the other day, I saw her two challenges that she is running: The Growing Challenge and The Growing Challenge: Seed to Seed. Go there now and read about them!

I just signed up for the main challenge, although it would be cool to commit to saving seeds - so we just might do that, too! I'm excited to have a reason to document this and share it with others.

I wanted to update on our Oregon garden, which we're doing mostly from seed. With photos!!!

Overview: Right half of garden
Left Half of Garden
Right side, row 1: From left to right, Leeks, Scallions, Spinach (all almost invisible!) I'm a little worried about this row, it's not looking too active at this point.

Here's some spinach, I think...
Right side, row 2: Heirloom Lettuce, Pac Choi, Cabbage

Lettuce!
Pac Choi!
Cabbage!
Right side, row 3 (inside half): Snap Peas, Shelling Peas
Peas, glorious peas!
Left half (just planted yesterday, first 2.5 rows). First row is chard, kale, head lettuce (my dad requested it); second row is 2/3rds carrots, 1/3rd turnips; 3rd row (the wet half) is broccoli. :)
The back row:

Tomatoes! Three plants that we purchased as starts:

Strawberries! We have six plants, purchased as starts.

Look!!!
The tiller/waterer/toddler wrangler, extraordinaire.

So we still have LOT of work to do. Some of it I worry can't go in yet because the soil's not warm enough (note to self: buy a thermometer to check). Things like cucumber, summer squash, winter squash, bush beans, corn (all from seed). Silas and I are actually here in Oregon this week, so I might get some more planting done (if I can con my dad into re-tilling some of the rows). The dirt is SO freaking clumpy - it's like dirt rocks. There are a LOT of earthworms though, so I'm hoping that's a good sign. We did work a few bags of compost into the rows, so I'm hoping that will help a tiny bit. But I know this first year will probably be pretty rough because of the lack of organic matter in the soil. But we had to start somewhere!

Oh, and PLEASE! We are new at this, so if you have any pointers for us, we'd love to hear it!

What's on the Menu

My menu is abbreviated this week, because we're going out of town starting Thursday afternoon through Monday. Part of the time we'll be staying with my parents and cooking there, but we'll also be attending our first Unschooling Conference, Life is Good - we're so excited! So we'll be staying at the hotel two of those nights for the fully steeped con experience.

Monday: Tofu Pineapple Curry over Brown Basmati Rice (recipe from Vegan Express - new!)

Tuesday: Gimme Chimis (out of Eat, Drink and Be Vegan - one of our faves!) and Mashed Chipotle Sweet Potatoes

Wednesday: African Peanut Soup (from Local Bounty - new specific recipe, though we've had versions of this soup before)

Thursday: Leftover smorgasboard

What I've Been Up To...


I just took that bad boy out of the oven a few minutes ago. Yay, bread! It's half whole wheat and half (local!) white. I made some last week and it was really, really good and probably cost me less than $2 to make.

Farmer's Market, Revisited
This weekend we made it to the local farmer's market, and boy howdy has it picked up since the last time I was there! I was there probably a month or maybe a month and a half ago (it's year-round) but man, was I disappointed. There were so few veggies and they were SO expensive! And tiny. I can't even remember what I bought, but I walked away quite a bit poorer and much more down-trodden than when I arrived. Not so yesterday! Yesterday it was positively bustling with fresh food fervor - people lined up for local organic plant starts, veggies were piled high and inspiring, there was a band playing...and it didn't hurt that it was a gorgeous, sunny day! So I stuck to my meal plan and only bought a few food items, namely, some fresh asparagus, some spring carrots, an awesome mix of salad greens, including baby spinach and pea shoots (!!!), and some spring onions and garlic.

For lunch, I made Asparagus Leek Curry out of Local Bounty.
It was crazy good! I made a few substitutions: instead of leeks I used some of the spring onions and garlic, and I didn't want to open a can of coconut milk (it only called for 1 cup) so I used one of the plain coconut milk yogurts that have been haunting my fridge for a while now. The results were really, really good! I would probably use regular coconut milk next time (the yogurt has a sweetness to it, despite being labeled "plain). The spice combo of this recipe is off the hook - turmeric, cumin, cardamom, cayenne - really really amazing. We ate this over white Jasmine rice. And I was super proud of myself for using some previously frozen homecooked chickpeas instead of opening a new can. Bonus!

Leftover Transformation Shenanigans
I didn't get a picture of this meal, but I gotta say I *LOVE* transforming leftovers (that nobody wants) into new meals that we all do a little dance for! Last night for dinner I was poking around the fridge trying to figure out what we would eat then and what we would be eating for lunch today. The leftover Rustic Black-Eyed Peas and Mushrooms were glaring at me - I knew it was time to eat them or freeze them, and I honestly didn't think that I liked them enough to freeze them. So, to the cookbooks I went. I dug out Passionate Vegetarian and found a recipe for Hillbilly Hummus - and it saved the day!!! I threw my beans, some peanut butter, some of the spring garlic, salt, apple cider vinegar and some sage in the food processor, and voila! Totally new meal. We had the hummus in whole wheat pita pockets with some Chow Chow (also been haunting my fridge forever) and some of the fresh salad mix. What hummus was left over was devoured with the aid of tortilla chips. And my fridge is haunted no more!

Crazy Container and Topsoil-Bag Garden
On our farmer's market extravaganza we also purchased a bunch of plant starts (6 alpine strawberry, 3 (or 9?!?) broccoli starts, and 6 basil). Yay! We planted the strawberries and broccoli in bags of topsoil.


After we transplanted the broccoli, we started to wonder if there were more than one plant in each start...here's a close-up, can anyone weigh in? We think there might have actually been 3 starts in each one...to be continued.

We also had three tomato starts that we planted and I transplanted my perennial herbs (rosemary, oregano, chives) to bigger pots. (The thyme looks bad, but I think it's going to rally!)

Some of the basil went in the tomato containers, others are on their own in other containers.


We even planted some lettuce seed in two bags of topsoil. Oh, and some nasturtium seeds in a weird container left by the former tenants (trellis included!). So we're on our way with our goofy garden. Next up: peas! We just need more dirtbags. Heh heh.


Super Duper Bonus Points to anyone who can tell me what kind of flowers are growing behind the lettuce bags (the red ones). Peonies? I'll get a close up soon. There are a lot of mystery flowers on this property. Bless the former owner, she had a green thumb and we now we are lucky enough to reap the rewards.