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Food Garden Planting Schedule 7 Feb 2010 10:49 PM (15 years ago)

Housebound after a 2 foot snowfall, I took some time today to make a spring planting schedule. It took a literal "snowed in" status to get me to sit down and finally do this. Each year, for the last six years, I've consulted books and websites to determine planting dates for specific food crops. I typically jotted down a smattering of "to-dos" on my wall calendar, but I never wrote up a complete schedule specifically for all my desired crops and their planting dates for an entire season. It takes a blizzard to get me this organized.

Here is my food garden planting schedule for spring. It is based on an average last frost date of April 15 in USDA Zone 7.

I came up with this plan after consulting the following information sources:

• Nancy Bubel's The New Seed Starters Handbook
• The University of Maryland Master Gardener Handbook
• Grow It! Eat It! website
• Maryland Home and Garden Information Center's Fact Sheet, "Planting Dates for Vegetable Crops in Maryland
  
• Southern Exposure Seed Exchange Catalog & Garden Guide 2010

I was also influenced by my own experience with certain crops over the last few years.

What I hope to do, now that I've got everything down on virtual paper, is to keep detailed notes from season to season, year to year, and adjust planting dates according to my own backyard conditions and microclimate. I also plan to watch for phenological cues--environmental goings-on that provide planting indicators for specific crops (e.g., plant parsnips after daffodils bloom).

My next task is one of geography--mapping each crop to a designated location in my garden.

Snow days are for garden planning 30 Jan 2010 7:36 PM (15 years ago)

It's a perfect January day today -- snowy and cold! I am sitting inside by the window, thoroughly entertained by the 10 cardinals and other various birds clamoring for the feeders out back.

With a view of the garden beds nestled in snow, I'm at the computer punching in my order for this year's new selection of seeds. My list includes:

- Fava beans
- 'Blue Lake' bush beans
- 'Detroit Dark Red' beets
- 'Vates' kale
- Mizuna
- Chervil
- Leeks
- 'Jericho' lettuce
- 'Oakleaf' lettuce
- Parsnips
- 'Wando' peas
- Salsify
- Brussels sprouts
- 'White Icicle' radishes
- Sweet banana peppers

A quick check of my seed stash confirms that I have plenty of tomato, eggplant, squash, and other pepper seeds left over from last year. At some point, I'll want to order potatoes. I haven't grown potatoes since my community garden days, and I'd like to bring them back into the mix this year. I have my eye on 'Rose Finn Apple' or 'Russian Banana' fingerlings, but really, it could be any variety. There is no potato I don't love.

Coming up in February: I'll be firing up the grow lights. Time to get the leek seeds started!

Tomatoes for dinner 11 Aug 2009 10:33 PM (15 years ago)

Here's a look at the latest treats from our garden. The first peppers are coming in now, and we've been trying to keep up with a bumper crop of heirloom tomatoes. I know, what a problem to have, right?

We planted four varieties of tomatoes this year: 'Cherokee Purple,' 'Green Zebra,' 'San Marzano,' and 'Gold Medal.' Favorites-wise, I'd rank them in that order, with the 'Cherokees' reigning supreme.

We've been knocking out a lot of these in gazpacho -- a perfect, refreshing meal for hot summer days. We've also had various tomato salads. And here's a tomato stack filled with a tangy chive goat cheese we picked up from the Stonyman Gourmet Farmer. The finishing touch is a homemade chive oil, made by my own resident gourmet, Michael. He creates, and I happily eat!


We made this season's first batch of tomato sauce with the 'San Marzano' tomatoes, and then we promptly taste-tested it for Sunday night's dinner! Mmmm...

We finished off dinner with this fresh nectarine tart I made. There aren't any garden ingredients in there, but it was so pretty I figured it was blog-worthy.

Eggplants coming along 31 Jul 2009 10:28 PM (15 years ago)

I have at least 5 eggplants that are plumping up now. So far, this is my best success with eggplant -- ever. The variety I'm trying out is 'Black Beauty,' which can grow fruits 8-10 inches long, 1-3 pounds each. The one in the foreground of the photo is not quite tennis-ball size yet, so we still have a way to go before picking. Not a problem, since we are presently trying to keep up with an abundance of ripening tomatoes!

New use for that old pickup truck 31 Jul 2009 1:44 PM (15 years ago)

Too bad we traded in the old pickup truck. We could have grown food in it! Check out this video about the Truck Farm. Fun idea. Inspirational. And I love the singing. "...The arugula grows, the basil grows, the lettuce grows... oh, oh, sweet, sweet Truck Farm grow...". You've never seen a CSA like this.

Beans, tomatoes, beets & brussels 21 Jul 2009 8:46 PM (15 years ago)

We've eaten a lot of beans from the garden over the last month. Wax beans, green beans, purple beans -- we've had them by the colander full.


My favorite way to eat fresh beans is in salads with a simple vinaigrette. Quick, easy, no fuss summer food.


After several rounds of picking though -- and yet another colander full -- I was getting tired of beans. I'm absolutely hankering to move on to...

TOMATOES!

It's been a long wait for the tomatoes we started from seed back in February. This past weekend we had our first couple of ripe 'Green Zebras.' I love their beautiful green contrast when paired up with regular red tomatoes in a salad.

We are about a day away from slicing into the season's first 'Cherokee Purple.' Those were our favorite among the heirloom tomatoes we grew last year.

Elsewhere in the garden, one of my favorite scenes is this one: A riotous mess of greens (and reds!) in all manner of textures.


In here is curly endive (so bitter that we never eat any of it), and bolting red lettuce and 'Red Russian' kale. The spiky plants are my globe artichokes, which I'm really excited about. No sign of any chokes emerging yet, but the plants are absolutely gorgeous.


Whether they get any artichokes or not, I'd consider keeping these plants in my landscape just for their pretty and unusual foliage.


Here's one of my pickings of beets. These were from a 'Gourmet Blend' of seeds that included 'Golden,' 'Chioggia,' and 'Bull's Blood' red. No matter how many beets I get, I never seem to have enough to suit my liking for them. I perpetually have on my garden to-do list: plant more beets.

I've started sowing seeds for fall crops. Yes, beets are in, and so is kale, kohlrabi, carrots, and cauliflower. I have five brussels sprouts plants growing. Last year I failed miserably with brussels, having planted them too late in the season. This time around I planted seedlings right after we dug out our garlic at the end of June. So far the plants look healthy and content, and I can see an add-on of growth with each passing day. Promising!

Growing Eggplant 24 Jun 2009 11:23 AM (15 years ago)

One of the things I'm most looking forward to from my garden this summer is eggplant. We tried growing eggplant at the community garden several years ago, but we were terribly unsuccessful with it. At best, we got one marble-sized fruit from a plant that had leaves as lacy as a bridal veil because of persistent flea beetle damage. I came to the conclusion that it just wasn't possible to grow eggplant around here.

But I've since heard that others have had success growing eggplant in our Zone 7, and so I decided to give it another go this year. This time, I did more research and wanted to try out a few tactics I'd read about:

1. I sowed seeds early -- indoors in February -- so that I would have good-sized plants to put outside after any danger of spring frost had passed. Flea beetles are less attracted to eggplant foliage that has toughened up. They prefer to feast on young, tender seedlings--something I witnessed first-hand with my own past plantings.

Eggplants, like peppers, are tropical plants that need a long growing season. So I started my seeds under grow lights around the same time I started my pepper seeds, in February. Eggplant plants like to stay warm, so I used a heating mat under their pots. By the time I put my plants in the ground in mid May, they were about 6 - 8 inches tall.

Admittedly, they weren't the healthiest looking plants I'd ever grown. The long stay indoors and the extended hardening off process, repeatedly interrupted by this spring's cold snaps, made the plants suffer. But these were still the earliest and biggest eggplant plants I'd ever started with, and that's progress.


2. I put bricks near the base of the plants when I planted them outside. Somewhere I read that putting stones near the base of eggplant plants will help them stay warm. The stones absorb warmth from the sun in the day and then give off residual heat in the night, creating a cozy micro climate for these sensitive plants that don't like to be in anything below 55 degrees Fahrenheit. The plants have grown up enough now that the bricks are shaded during much of the day, so they probably aren't helping much anymore. Early on, though, perhaps they helped.

3. I made catnip the companion. Catnip is said to be a natural deterrent to flea beetles. I divided the catnip I grew last year (which, by the way, my cat wanted nothing of) and I put it to good use in the bed where I put my eggplants. The two companions are growing well--and I think they look nice together too.

So here we are today and I'm happy to report that I have my best-looking eggplant plants ever. There's even a blossom on one of them!


I do see a few flea beetles around, and there is evidence that something even bigger has been sampling the leaves, but the damage overall is far less severe than what I'd seen in the past when we sowed very young seedlings.


I can't say for sure if this conquering-of-the-bugs success can be attributed to any or all of the above tactics, but something seems to be working. We added mushroom compost to our soil, too, this spring, and that seems to have helped all of our plants come along. I just hope all goes well from here on out. We are already daydreaming about eggplant meals.

Fresh pea soup 14 Jun 2009 6:43 PM (15 years ago)

Have you ever eaten fresh pea soup? Prior to this latest experiment with my garden produce, I'd only ever had the kind made with dried peas and ham. Good as grandma's dried pea soup was--and, boy, it was good the way she made it--I was intrigued when I read Alice Waters' recipe for a version made with fresh peas (in The Art of Simple Food).


I needed to gather about 2 to 3 cups of peas for the recipe. And the exciting part here is that, for the first time in my five years with an edible garden, 2 to 3 cups of shelled peas was a real possibility. At last, I had a good space in which to plant a decent quantity of seeds, and I got them in the ground early. The result? A bunch of now-shoulder-high plants, dripping with pods ready for picking.

Having learned in the past that peas get terribly starchy and bitter if left on the vine too long, I've been keeping a good eye on them this year. I picked one round of the plumpest pods early last week. That gave me a little more than a cup's worth, which I decided to blanch and freeze until I could collect another round on the weekend. (Yes, a cup's worth of peas collected in a single day is considered "success" in my still "small scale" veg garden.)


Here's the simple process for blanching and freezing:

• Put on a pot of water to boil while you're shelling your peas
• Get a bowl of ice water ready
• Add the peas to the boiling water and let them cook for about 90 seconds
• Strain out the peas and drop them immediately into the ice bath to stop the cooking process
• Leave them in the ice bath for all long as you boiled them--90 seconds
• Drain the peas, put them in a freezer bag and store
  

That's it! The blanching process locks in the peas' sweet flavor. It's a good process to do if you want to store fresh peas for later use. That way, they don't turn starchy and horrible tasting.


Over the weekend, I picked a second round of peas--about a cup and a half or so--and combined the fresh and frozen batches with onions sauteed in olive oil, salt, and a few cups of water. I put the whole bit through the food mill, and there we had it--the freshest, sweetest, most brilliantly colored pea soup I've ever eaten.


Previous posts about peas:
Eating the Peas
Little Marvels and the Not-So-Marvelous

Plant diversity and benficial insects 5 Jun 2009 10:55 PM (15 years ago)

Last night I attended a talk on plant diversity and its influence on beneficial insects, presented by University of Maryland's Dr. Paula Shrewsbury at our monthly Master Gardeners meeting. Going into it, I figured I already knew the gist of the message: gardens with a greater diversity of plant types will provide habitat for a wide variety of insects, and so, in this bug-eat-bug world, there will be enough "good bugs" to take care of the "bad bugs," naturally, without chemical intervention. That was the essence of the presentation, but there were several points that were new and particularly interesting to me:

1.) Structural complexity is as important as plant species diversity. Translating the bio-speak, that means it's good to have a mix of distinctive layers of vegetation in your landscape, if possible: overstory trees, understory trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants, and ground covers, and then a variety of different plants at each level.

2.) Fertilized plants attract more insects. In Shrewsbury's research, insect populations (a bad kind) were twice as high on fertilized plants versus the non-fertilized. I had learned previously that when fertilized plants send out a lot of succulent new growth, they're especially attractive to pests such as aphids. The take-away: don't fertilize your plants if they don't really need it. Personally, I think compost goes a long way to keeping things healthy.

3.) Insects referred to as "natural enemies," the good guys, are beneficial only at certain stages in their life cycle. So, for example, the syrphid flies that I knew to be beneficial only feed upon prey while they're in their larval stage. Adult syrphids don't eat other bugs, they eat nectar and pollen. The take-away: Plant flowers that provide a variety of nectar and pollen sources, so your garden will support natural enemy insects in all of their life stages.

What to plant in order to attract beneficial insects?

Choose plants with long-season blooms and varying architectures. This includes big flowers like daisies or coneflowers, and small lacy flowers such as sweet alyssum, caraway, dill, and parsley. Herbs are great in general, as are cover crops like buckwheat and clover. Members of the mint family, such as catnip and hyssop, are good choices too.

In my own garden, I have catnip, herbs, and yarrow that are good for the insects. And I usually let a few veggies go to flower too, such as my mustards. I'd like to gradually add more native plants, and I definitely want a more "structurally complex" yard, especially the front, which is still mostly plain old turfgrass and ho-hum azaleas.

For more on natural enemy insects, what they look like, what they eat, etc., check out Michigan State University's excellent website: http://ipm.msu.edu/natural-enemies.htm.

Spring dinner with peas, onions, lettuce 3 Jun 2009 12:53 AM (15 years ago)

Jamie Oliver's recipe for Incredible Smashed Peas and Broad Beans on Toast was the inspiration for Saturday night's supper. We wanted to prepare a meal that featured the first gleanings of our pea crop and other now-abundant garden offerings: onions and lettuce.

We don't have any broad beans (a.k.a., fava beans), but we were able to harvest the season's first few handfuls of shelling peas.


Michael bashed up the fresh (uncooked) peas with a mortar and pestle, adding fresh mint, lemon, cheese, salt and pepper. The mash went over garlic-rubbed toasts, with mozzarella cheese on top and a final flourish of pea shoots. It was refreshing and light, and the combination of flavors was something a little different than we've ever had before. We'd never made a dish with raw peas. The recipe can be found in Oliver's beautiful cookbook, Jamie at Home, which contains a whole slew of recipes inspired by the seasons in the chef's own very-gorgeous-I'm-envious-of-it garden.

For dish #2, I picked a bunch of onions and tried to make a go of Alice Waters' Onion Tart recipe from The Art of Simple Food.

I'm not sure what-on-Earth onions I've got here. These are the progeny of pass-along onions I got during my days at the community garden. There are some reds and some yellows in there. None of them bulb up for me, no matter how long I leave them in the ground. Still, it's nice to have a steady supply of whatever they are. This bunch was crowding out the asparagus plants, so it was time for them to hit the cutting board.

I sliced up at least six cups worth and would have cried the seven seas in the process had I not been saved by our trusty pair of onion goggles. This was a heavy-duty job and I needed equipment!

I cooked the onions with fresh thyme for about 30 minutes. Along the way, as I was tasting and testing, I had an unfortunate "uh-oh" moment. I realized that I shouldn't have used the green stalks of the onions. Early in the season, the green parts were soft enough to use like scallions, but now, when the onions are producing their bulblets, the stalks are really tough. Even with 30 minutes of cooking they were too fibrous for eating. I ended up sorting through and picking them all out. It was a lot of extra work, but after I had come so far with all that goggle-donned onion slicing, I was determined to make something good of this dish.


Ultimately it turned out fine. Smooth onion shavings piled inside a delicious buttery crust. We thought it was really good, in fact, and called it a definite keeper for times of onion abundance.

We completed our spring meal with dish #3, a simple salad of mixed greens buttoned up with a basic vinaigrette. We've been eating plenty of salads lately. I'm hoping to keep the momentum going as we get into the hot-weather months. I've been sowing succession plantings of lettuce seed for the past several weeks. We'll see how far it gets us.


Coming up: Swiss chard, beets, and garlic scapes. What, besides pesto, can we make with our scapes?

Early eats from the garden 13 May 2009 10:53 PM (15 years ago)

Here's a quick tour of what I'm growing and eating in the garden these days. First things first: the strawberries are ripening! I ate the first one yesterday. It was still warm from the sun and had a fragrance and soft texture like nothing I ever get from store-bought strawberries shipped from who-knows-where. I definitely need to expand the strawberry patch in future years. I also need to do a better job of keeping the birds out so I don't end up with dreadful scenes like this:


I do have netting over the strawberries, but this particular berry was close to the edge and got nibbled by a feathery (or furry?) visitor. I wait and wait and patiently observe the berries' every transition in color from first blush to blood red, and then this. I hate it when the birds get them.


The garden is spilling over with onions and garlic right now. I enjoy having both, not only for eating but also because the plants give a nice green heft to the garden in the early spring before the summer veggies get going. They make the garden look full, even when it's not quite so. Here's the view from the opposite angle.


I sometimes cut the green onion tops and use them in salads. Here they are on top of my own-grown lettuces.


I have a nice selection of greens growing right now -- enough for fresh salads every day. The red ones on the right side of the photo below were in the 'Valentine' Mesclun Mix from Botanical Interests. Left of that is Green Oakleaf from Seed Savers Exchange. After that, I don't know what the frilly green kind is. Once again, in my typically excited haste to get seeds in the ground in early spring, I failed to label everything. I'm trying to be more diligent about using labels, but I still have my failings.


My radishes have been a delightful addition to salads. New this year, I planted the 'White Icicle' variety. I like them just about as much as the 'French Breakfast' variety, which is always a favorite of ours.

I discovered recently that I like radishes cooked -- sauteed, greens and all, in a little butter and olive oil with salt. Cooking takes away a bit of their bite. I'm going to experiment some more and see if I can come up with some interesting radish recipes. Suggestions welcome!


Elsewhere in the garden, the first pea pods are shaping up. I enjoy checking in on the little ones' progress every day.


The green beans are up now too. See? I did a good job of labeling those. I got those fancy copper labels in gift kit from Smith & Hawken years ago. They're of no use sitting in a box in the shed, so I finally started using them -- even if they are a little fancy for ordinary green beans.

I'll close out with my belly-on-the-ground shot of a pair of wax beans. Up, up and away they grow!

Blueberries 2 May 2009 1:10 PM (16 years ago)

Here's what I'm most excited about in my garden these days: my new blueberry plants. Blueberries have been at the top of my gardening wish list ever since my days at the community garden. My plot-neighbor, Brad, planted blueberries and I would always ogle at them from the other side of the fence. He had great success with his, and I've wanted to try my own ever since.

Here we are three years later. I chose two different varieties of highbush blueberries: blueray and bluecrop. Both are said to be good varieties for Maryland gardeners. Planting two or more varieties that bloom at the same time can result in more and bigger berries on the plants -- that's what I'm aiming for.

I started preparing a place for the plants last year, first with the removal of the crape myrtles along the border between our yard and the neighbor's. Then I added compost to the planting area and grew a cover crop -- winter rye and hairy vetch -- to improve the soil through the fall and winter. Before planting three weeks ago, I dug in pine bark soil conditioner and LeafGro.

The most important step I missed along the way, however, was a soil test. I know, I know. Bad gardener! I should have done a soil test first. Blueberries like acidic soil and I've been more or less winging it and guessing that my efforts have been making it such. I really need to test for sure.


When I bought my plants at the wonderful Homestead Gardens, they were full of flowers. The Maryland Cooperative Extension recommends removing all the flowers and pruning the plants back by about 50-60% after putting them in the ground. Okay, I know that might sound crazy, but the idea is to let the plants put their energy into growing good roots rather than berries the first year. I sacrificed the blossoms for the greater good of establishing strong root systems. My efforts will be rewarded with healthy plants that produce lots of berries next year, and in many future years -- I hope!

The guy at the nursery recommended that I use a liquid feed of root stimulator at planting time. I could have just handed him my credit card with a glazed-over look in my eyes -- Yes...I will do/buy whatever you say... I must. Have. My blueberries...

So I bought a special 3-10-3 (heavy on phosphorus) liquid fertilizer and added it at planting time. I also added a bit of Holly Tone, which is formulated for acid loving plants.

Okay, so that leads me back to the soil test. No sense in adding all these extra nutrients without really knowing what's necessary. I plan to submit a soil sample to a lab this coming week.

Sure sounds like a lot of fussing, doesn't it? Fuss I will do. I want good blueberries. And lots of them.

Peas are up! 31 Mar 2009 11:29 PM (16 years ago)

The peas I planted at the beginning of March are about an inch tall now. I'm testing three varieties: Alaska, the romantic sounding Meraviglia D'Italia, and Wando. I planted them all together so that they're all getting the same type of soil and light. So far the Wandos are doing the best, followed by the Alaskans. At a distant third are the not-so-marvelous meraviglias.

Wando peas are supposed to be fairly heat tolerant, so I have high hopes that they'll hold up when our spring snaps into summer. Last year I let my peas mature in the June heat and they turned bitter. Absolutely worthless. I plan to do better this year and harvest them before it gets too hot.



Inside under the grow lights, I have a couple of globe artichoke plants that are coming along nicely. I also started my tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. Most of those have their first "true" leaves now, so I transplanted them into larger pots. The eggplants were slow to start, but now that I added a heat mat underneath them, they seem to be picking up the pace. That's the good news.

The bad news? The groundhog is back! Or rather, our resident groundhog came out of hibernation. It spent the winter under our deck out back. I spotted it lumbering across the lawn on Sunday, looking notably slimmer than it was last fall. Surely it's hungry!

The city police department provided us with a trap so that we can catch it and get it out of here humanely. With groundhog in place, there's little hope for those peas, artichokes, and everything else we want to plant in the garden.

So wouldn't you know it...we set up the trap on Sunday and the groundhog hasn't been seen since. I'm sure it's still around though. Most annoying is that we have to bait the trap with fresh carrots and apples; this after the beast munched up practically everything edible in our garden (and the neighbor's) last fall. Curses!

Starting Seeds 5 Feb 2009 12:03 PM (16 years ago)

I started my first seeds last weekend -- leeks, lobelia, and something new I want to try this year, artichokes. Lobelia 'Crystal Palace' is always the first of the flower seeds I put under the grow lights. I plant some every year for its stunning deep blue flowers. The blossoms are tiny but when the plants are grouped en masse, they practically glow in summer's dusk. They're just beautiful, and they are super-low maintenance once established.

The artichokes fall into the "wouldn't it be nice if I could grow some of those" category, but I'm not holding my breath. I've never seen artichokes offered at the farmers' markets around here, and that's a sign that I'm probably pushing my luck. Artichokes are a perennial plant and it might not be until next year until I see a choke, if I even get that far with them. We'll see. This is definitely an experiment.


Here's a picture of my seed stash. Last year I had just one bucketful of seeds; I've since added a stuffed-to-the-brim shoebox. This past weekend I had the best intention of going through all those seeds and throwing away the oldest ones that I'll probably never plant. Like the cucumbers. Somewhere along the way I accumulated a lot of cucumber seeds. I have some packets in there dating back to 2004 and 2005 -- some of them unopened. My eyes were bigger than my garden plot back then, clearly.


I ended up composting only about 10 packets of seeds, mostly the unwanted cucurbits. I really have trouble getting rid of the excess. I always think, maybe THIS will be the year I'll plant those extra beans from 2006, or maybe THIS will be the year I'll plant that free packet of flower seeds I got in 2007 when I didn't have the space for them.

But if past behavior is any indication of the future...

What can I say? My seed stash looks pretty much the same after my half-hearted vetting process. And I just received 7 new packets of seeds -- my mail order from Seed Savers Exchange. I'm popping the lid off another shoebox.

Kale, it's what's for groundhog's dinner 19 Nov 2008 1:48 AM (16 years ago)

Houston, we have a problem here. A big, fat, furry, four-legged problem -- the groundhog. As if squirrels weren't enough (and they, too, are baaa-aaack), we now have a voracious groundhog that's taken up residence under the deck. It's been coming out to eat just about everything in the veggie plot (AND the neighbor's), never mind my attempts to protect a few choice items with a bit of netting. I swear, we've got the best-fed groundhog this side of the Mason-Dixon Line.


I contacted our city's animal control department and hope they'll send someone to take Chubby off to greener pastures, or wherever groundhogs like to be when suburbanites like us aren't feeding them with our green thumbs.

On the bright side, the garlics I planted about a month ago are reaching their newborn stems to the sky, oblivious to all manner of encroaching herbivorous creatures and the first icy coughs of an awakening Old Man Winter.

Pickled Cherry Peppers and Red Bell Pepper Sauce 2 Sep 2008 8:56 PM (16 years ago)

I picked these beautiful cherry peppers and set them up in a pickle using a recipe I found in Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Vegetables. Garlic and sweet bay from our garden combine with black peppercorns, fresh cilantro, and two kinds of vinegar to give them their flavor. I made only one small jarful as a tester and also because we don't yet have the pressure-canning equipment that is recommended for canning larger quantities of peppers safely. These cured for one week in the refrigerator where they'll keep for up to two months.

The verdict on taste? Hot, sweet, and sour all at once. The peppers are almost too spicy-hot for my liking, but just sweet and vinegary enough to keep me wanting to try more. Michael loves them. A hot pepper relish that accompanies the cold-cut subs at our favorite deli was my inspiration for this first foray into pepper pickling. We plan to use these peppers in a similar manner to fire up a few ordinary sandwiches.


Also on the subject of peppers, I am so happy to have bell peppers that are finally growing large and thick-walled enough to pass for the store-bought kind. I don't know if I can put my finger on an exact secret to this success; I've just been giving the plants periodic feedings of compost, regular watering, and full sun. I have so many peppers that are turning ripe now. I plan to freeze some, chopped and ready to use for cooking during the winter months. My mouth waters at the prospect of warming up to a bowlful of sweet bell pepper soup, made with our own peppers, in about February or so.


This weekend I used two of my fresh bells to make a red pepper butter sauce from the Moosewood Restaurant's Simple Suppers cookbook.


I started by sauteing the peppers in garlic and olive oil and then blended the mixture in a food processor with lemon, butter, and salt. Fan-tas-tic. This was a nice change from the usual tomato sauce, and it really was so simple to make. Unlike the cherry peppers that I pickled, these peppers were entirely sweet. I could drench my pasta in this sauce and still go happily for seconds without fear of taste-bud injury. Beautiful on the plate, it was food for the eyes, too.

Grilled pepper night 10 Aug 2008 3:15 PM (16 years ago)

It is immensely gratifying to go into the garden and pick a bowlful of peppers like this. I started these from seed in February, and now they're finally coming into form. Here we have purple and red bells, a sweet banana pepper, and a few poblanos ready to meet their fate on the grill.

Michael cooked them until their skins blackened and blistered, and then we peeled them, sliced out their seeds, and filled them with a mixture of grilled corn, diced red onion, Monterey Jack cheese, and cilantro. Then back on the grill they went for baking.

The poblano peppers were a lip-numbing hot, just the way hubby likes them; I picked out the sweet peppers in the bunch. We dined al fresco and soaked in all the satisfaction of our long-awaited peppers -- grown, grilled, good. And still more to come.

Do it for the crabs 30 Jul 2008 2:42 AM (16 years ago)

Today I received an invitation to join the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Gardeners for the Bay, and I signed on without hesitation. The population of Chesapeake Bay blue crabs -- the paragon of local food for us Marylanders -- has declined by an astonishing 70 percent since 1990. 70 percent! And that decline is attributed in part to pollution from farms, cities, roads - everything we do to the land that washes away down river.

As a Marylander, I cannot imagine a single summer going by without at least one opportunity to devour a pile of steamed Chesapeake Bay blue crabs; they're a delicacy. And eating blue crabs is really an experience. It's sitting down to table covered with a big sheet of butcher paper; sleeves rolled up; wooden mallet, roll of paper towels, and bucket by one's side. It's the sound of peeling into shell, the scent of sea meets spice, and the exceptional flavor of each sweet little morsel inside. For 10 minutes, its just you and that crab, your devotion punctuated with dips of vinegar and melted butter and gobs of Old Bay Seasoning accumulating on your finger tips. Add ice cold drinks and greasy-fried hush puppies on the side. This is summer in Maryland.


Shortly after we moved into our Maryland home almost a year ago, we learned about BayScaping. That's just a fancy term for landscaping set within the context of and for the benefit of the Chesapeake Bay. The concept is simple: plant native species that reduce the need for chemical pesticides and help prevent erosion, thereby keeping the bad stuff out of the Bay.

While I avoid the use of chemical pesticides and herbicides in my garden as it is, it's been a goal of mine to add more native plants. We do, in fact, have plans to tear out the entire front lawn and replace it with perennial flowers, shrubs, and native grasses. We're driven mainly by the desire to have less of a boring lawn to mow, but we also want to do our part for our beloved bay and our favorite crustaceans therein. Our yard is just one little corner of the world, but we can do our part with it, and what we do here does matter downstream. Everything is connected.

The Chesapeake Bay watershed includes portions of six states -- Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware -- and the District of Columbia. So, if you're gardening in one of those places, sign on to Gardeners for the Bay and make an effort to do something in your garden or yard to save this natural treasure. Do it for me. Do it for you. Do it for the crabs.

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Blue crabs -- How you can help
Chesapeake Club -- Learn how to "Save the Crabs, Then Eat 'Em"

How it grows on July 27, 2008 27 Jul 2008 5:23 PM (16 years ago)

This is how the garden looks today. We are right now at the pinnacle of the gardening year; the crops planted in the spring are bearing fruit, while the fall plants are just now emerging.

We're enjoying a steady supply of crookneck squash, green and wax beans, peppers, and... the first TOMATOES! On Friday night, we rang in tomato season with a celebratory eating of tomato sandwiches: tomatoes with mozzarella and fresh garden basil, tomatoes on grilled cheese sandwiches, and tomatoes simply sliced and topped with a sprinkling of salt. I can't even put into words how satisfying they tasted.

Our tomatoes aren't perfect; most of them have cracks or holes or blemishes of some sort. But we cut the little imperfections away and enjoy what's on the inside: deeply colored, intensely flavored flesh matched with an unbeatable fragrance that eludes the supermarket counterparts.


Here are a few more scenes from my garden and table...

Beet Harvest 20 Jul 2008 2:08 PM (16 years ago)

Last weekend I pulled my spring crop of beets. There weren't many to speak of, but I did have a few good-sized ones in the bunch. The largest among them were about three inches in diameter.

I baked these in the oven, placing them in an aluminum foil packet with a little olive oil and water to steam them. I thought I would make a beet salad, but I ended up just eating them plain, cold, slipped straight from their skins. Incredibly sweet, they tasted like candy, which is precisely what I love about beets!

In past years, I've left my beets in the ground too long and they turned woody and bitter. This bunch turned out so well that was inspired to scale up my fall crop. I've planted about four times as many beets to harvest by season's end. In our Zone 7, now is the perfect time to sow their seeds.

Kale Tortilla 13 Jul 2008 8:49 PM (16 years ago)

I picked a bunch of my Red Russian kale today and sent it on a culinary excursion to Spain. Here's its transformation into a Kale and Potato Spanish Tortilla (following this recipe from Epicurious.com).

Imagine... a lazy Sunday afternoon with the smell of onions and potatoes cooking in olive oil in an iron skillet... homey-good cooking smells permeating all nooks and crannies of the house. Then add homegrown kale to the picture.


I substituted Egg Beaters for half the recommended 7 eggs, to cut down on the cholesterol. The most challenging part of making this dish was following the last instruction listed on the recipe: "Remove from heat and let stand, covered, for 15 minutes." The wait was agonizing. At the 10 minute mark, I wanted to cheat, lift the cover, and start poking at the tortilla's bubbly edges. It smells so good, can I just take a peak?

5 favorite things 8 Jul 2008 10:57 PM (16 years ago)

My five favorite things in the garden right now are:

#5 - The Foxglove plants delivered from my Mom and Dad, straight from their garden to mine. I planted them in my new shade garden under the Bradford pear tree out back.


#4 - Two Redbud tree seedlings from my aunt. I need to find a place of honor for them.


#3 - Gobs of tomatoes hanging heavy on the vine. (Hurry up and ripen already; I have a basil that's eager to mingle with you!) These are an heirloom variety I'm trying out this year, Black Krim.


#2 - Well, not exactly "in" the garden anymore, but these are the mustard seeds we harvested from the Red Giant mustard greens grown in our garden earlier this spring. And yes, in case you're wondering, we are planning to grind them into, well, mustard. Mustard powder, that is, which is a key ingredient in the spice rub Hubby makes for his rotisserie chicken done up on the grill.

AND...

#1 - Peppers! Peppers! We've got peppers!

The last one is another new-to-me heirloom that I'm testing this year: fish peppers, which are called such because they were typically used in fish cookery in the Chesapeake region years ago - or so I've read. Check out the very interesting variegated foliage. With white and green leaves, and even a spot of purple in parts, they're beautiful plants in and of themselves. And we haven't even tasted the peppers yet. Wheee!

Garlic Harvest 2008 25 Jun 2008 1:20 AM (16 years ago)

The squeak of the pantry door as I reach for the bowl. The rustle of nature-made paper surrendering to hungry hands. The sound of steel knife in a quick, crushing blow to clove on wood. Thwack! Another meal begins with garlic.

This past weekend we harvested the garlic we planted last fall. It's not the best crop of garlic we've grown -- not by any means -- but it's our own garlic. And it beats store-bought any day.

"Small is better than none at all" is turning out to be the theme of our gardening experience this year. Given that we really need to improve our soil, we're keeping our expectations in check. Puny little garlic heads they are, but they are better than none at all.

This fall, some of our first compost should be ready to put in, and we're planning to grow winter cover crops as well. That should help with the soil situation. Feed the soil and it will feed us loads more garlic - next year. For now, small is bliss. Garlic is one of my all-time favorite things to grow.

Pea-tiful 16 Jun 2008 10:55 PM (16 years ago)

Michael and I have been talking already about our next year's crop of peas. We want to grow more of them -- a lot more. Forget about "A few pods here, a token handful there." Sure, it's been nice to have small amounts of peas to taste and to feel the accomplishment of having grown our own, but now we want to scale it up.

I plan to devote one half to two-thirds of a garden bed just for peas next spring. They're good for the soil, we like to eat them, and they'll be out of the ground just in time for me to put in the summer and winter squash seeds.

This year's crop of peas (well, it's a stretch to call it a "crop" -- that's the extent of them in the photo above) was not so good. I left the pods on the plant too long. Worse, they suffered through the recent late spring heat wave. Code Red Days = No Pea Days. The peas got too big and starchy and we all but choked them down just to say we ate our own homegrown peas. Pitiful they were. Not even butter could save them.

Note to self: Never leave peas on the plant in that kind of heat. Never.

Better luck next year.