salad fixings (or fixins)

this year i'm growing radishes for the first time. they are incredibly easy to grow. i sowed them directly into the garden about 6 weeks ago, and now they are big enough to harvest. the variety that i have is called 'watermelon radish' (thanks for the recommendation liz!). as you can see the color is the inverse of regular radishes.  they have a wonderfully spicy flavor - perfect for adding another dimension to salad.

i also have lots of lettuce and arugula ready to be thrown into a salad.  i brought back some arugula seed packets from my trip to italy last fall.  it's quite tasty and seems to have more of a bite to it than the arugula i get here at the grocery store.  i did initially have a problem with slugs eating the lettuce and arugula plants. i had heard that slugs can't resist beer, so i strategically placed some containers of beer around the plants. i was amazed how many slugs drowned themselves in the beer within a day or so.

swiss chard that wintered over in my garden

the good, the bad, and the ugly

 

the cherry tomatoes have been ripening consistently each day now.  i've been eagerly awaiting the chance to harvest some of the bigger tomatoes.  a few days ago, the anticipation rose as i spotted a red roma tomato that looked like it was nearing ripeness.  how disappointed i was though when i bent down to take a closer look at it.  looks like at least some of my plants are afflicted with blossom end rot.  it's a condition i had heard of but never experienced.  it is primarily caused by not having enough calcium in the soil.  i usually throw in a handful of lime to for each tomato plant, but alas this year i didn't.  also each year i tell myself i need to send some soil samples to a soils lab to get an analysis done to see what kind of amendments it may need.  of course though no matter how many times i think of it, i never manage to get to it before it's time to put the plants in the ground.  guess i learned my lesson.  so far it looks like it is just a couple plants that have the problem.  maybe the romas are more susceptible to it.  this is the first year i've grown them and the first time i've had this problem.  hopefully the other tomatoes will provide.  meanwhile though, my basil is going strong.  i harvested a big bunch of it today to keep it from going to seed.  looks like i'll be making lots of pesto!

Salad Days

 

i couldn't resist cutting a few of my irises and chives for a bouquet.

 

with the past few rainy days and mildly warm temps, my lettuce has been going crazy.  in my limited gardening experience i feel like lettuce gives you the biggest bang for the buck.  the seeds are ridiculously cheap, easy to sprout, and once they get going, well you better like eating a lot of salad.  fortunately i do.  there's something wonderful about just going into the yard, picking some leaves, washing them, and tossing them with some oil and vinegar.  now i know home grown lettuce isn't as dramatically different from store bought lettuce as say homegrown tomatoes are.  but there is a sweetness and tenderness to lettuce that has just been picked that i think is missing from store bought lettuce.  

 

 

freshly harvested cilantro

  

chives i started from seed last year.

 

lettuce ready for the salad bowl.

i rarely use store bought dressing unless i'm feeling exceptionally lazy.  lately my favorite dressing has been to mix some good extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a drizzle of pomegranate molasses, and a pinch of salt and pepper.  the pomegranate molasses gives the dressing a tangy sweetness.

Into the ground

last weekend (april 23), i transferred my tomato seedlings into the garden.  i had been putting them out during the day and bringing them inside in the evening for a couple weeks to harden them off.  the truth is though that they had run out of space under the lamps, so i didn't have much choice but to start putting them outside.  i gave a number of the plants to friends and neighbors and kept 10 for myself.  when i plant my tomatoes, i plant them deep enough to cover the first couple branches of leaves.  the tomatoes will put out roots anywhere along the stem that is touching dirt, and this helps to make them sturdier.  i also put a shovel full of compost/ manure into the hole to give some them some good organic matter to feed off. 

about half an hour after getting the tomatoes planted, a fierce thunderstorm rolled through.  i watched the plants from my kitchen anxiously as the rain beat upon their leaves.  they all seemed to have survived the thrashing, and i thought to myself, "oh well, welcome to the real world now."

i'm still waiting a bit more on getting the peppers and eggplants into the ground.  they could go out now, but they really like the temperatures to stay consistently warm.  i'll be getting them into the ground sometime this week, now that we're into may (unbelievably).    

It's amazing how tall the tomato seedlings have gotten.

These are the tomatoes I selected for myself

A tiny pepper is starting to form.

Ok, so not all the plants are perfect. This one is bound for the compost

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spinach is emerging

Tiny Kohlrabi

It's time to harvest some lettuce.

asparagus is here

i looked out into the yard today and noticed my asparagus spears were starting to come up.  asparagus is a perennial so each year you can harvest off the same plants.  this is the third growing season for my plants so i should be able to harvest them for 4 weeks or so.  each year, you can harvest them for longer as the plants get more established.  i love asparagus, so it will give me something to look forward to during dinner the next few weeks.

basement growhouse

so by now my basement is full of amazing little seedlings.  the first week of march i got my tomato seeds (4 different types) and the eggplant seeds (just one type this year) started.  the eggplants have taken longer to get going, but by now the tomato and pepper plants are really going strong.  once the seedlings start to develop their first set of real leaves, i transfer them into potting soil.  i use a very advanced technique learned in elementary school of just using plastic cups to grow the seedlings in.  i poke holes in the bottom of the cups so they can drain well and usually end up cutting off the top rim too so they aren't quite as tall.  you have to make sure though that you remember to write the name of the plant on each cup.  it's pretty easy to tell a pepper from a tomato plant, but if you have 4 different kinds of tomatoes, it is sometimes hard to tell them apart.  i have way more plants growing than i'll need, but it's just so hard to discard the seedlings.  plus i love being able to give some of the plants away for others to have in their garden.

 

   sun gold tomato (yum) 3 weeks after sprouting

 

   4 week old pepper plant

   tiny eggplant seeding that i just potted today.

 

   the petunias are filling out 

   i took this picture of my peppers today.  it is really looking like a pepper plant now

 

   lots of tomatoes

 

   this is the grow light setup.  i keep the lights on for about 15 hours a day

sprouting seedlings

i got the first seeds started the last week of february: peppers (hot and sweet), lettuce, petunias, and marigolds.  i usually make my own seed starting mix - 1 part perlite, 1 part vermiculite, 1 part spaghnum moss.  i then fill the flats with the seed starting mix that has been soaked heavily with water.  then carefully, i place the seeds into the flats according to the depth recommended on the seed package.  that's it.  i keep the flats under fluorescent lights so as the cotyledon emerge, they are ready to start photosynthesizing.  within a few days the lettuce was already sprouting.  the peppers took longer, but within 10 days they all had begun to grow. 

 

 

     peppers beginning to sprout

 

   the lettuce gets going really quickly

   my workbench in the basement