Saturday, May 26, 2012

Should I bother with pepper seeds?

When I first started gardening, I was obsessed with starting everything from seed, just for the thrill of it, to watch a tiny seedling emerge from a tiny seed and grow into a huge plant and produce fruit.  Then I realized that as fascinating as seed starting is, depending on the kind of plant, it can be very time consuming, annoying, and can end in failure.  And if it does end in failure, and I go out and buy the plant AFTER spending the money on the seed packet and the bit of soil or seed starter pod, then I have wasted both time and money. 

I like starting many plants from seed.  Tomatoes are pretty easy to start from seed, as are lettuce and basil.  I direct sow cucumbers, squash, radishes, carrots, green beans, peas, arugula, cilantro, melons, and many annual flowers.  And, if it doesn't work out entirely, I will supplement with some garden center plants. 

Peppers are annoying to start from seed, mostly because they take a while to germinate and are very slow growing at first.  I have to remember to check on them and water them daily for a very long time, giving me plenty of chances to screw up and forget about them.  I also always want to plant them out then too early, before they are quite old enough and before the ground has warmed up enough. 

I think next year I may just buy my peppers at the garden center (and possibly from Burpee, if I can't get my ancho ones locally).  I long gave up on broccoli and cabbage.  Parsley and spanich are supposed to be easy, but I consistently fail on them, so I take advantage of my local garden center for them too. 

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Harvesting Herbs

I harvested a cup each of parsley, basil, and cilantro, and blended it up with oils, salt and pepper, and dried herbs to make a delicious herb rub..  I use the recipe from George Stella's book Eating Stella Style.  I doubled the recipe and divided it into 4 small plastic containers, labeled them, and put them in the freezer. 

The herb rub is delicious, especially on chicken.  I like to put chicken thighs in the slow cooker, spread the herb rub on top, cook on high for about 4 hours.  I'll put the rest of the rub on some peppers and onions and broil them for a few minutes right before serving.  Add a little whole wheat cous cous, some yogurt, hummus, and/or chutney, and it becomes a delicious and very easy meal that even my picky children enjoy.  

I change the herb rub up, depending on what I have available.  The original recipe calls for parsley, cilantro, and basil, which is a delicious combination.  However, when I don't have those herbs available, I have successfully substituted arugula, spinach, oregano, sage, rosemary, and thyme, in various amounts.  It always turns out well. 

It's hard to remember to harvest herbs in time and to remember to make successive plantings all spring.  I went out tonight, and noticed that the 2 cilantro plants that I had bought at the garden center were just about to bolt!  I was not happy.  I picked a lot of leaves from those plants.  I do still have 3 or 4 cilantro plants that I grew from seed to pick from.  They are pretty far from harvest.  Unfortunately, when the days start to get hot, cilantro bolts quickly.

Basil does much better in the heat, but it needs to be picked aggressively, or it, too, will flower before I've got a chance to get a good use out of it.  I need to plant another row or so of it.  Tonight, I also planted a new variety of basil that I bought at the garden center, a variety called "basil boxwood" that looks like it will keep from bolting for a while. 

I have tons of parsely this year.  For some reason, I don't ever seem to be able to grow it well from seed, so I have given up and buy it at the garden center.  It's a lot cheaper than buying it at the grocery store, and it's easy to grow once it's stuck in the ground!  In my compost-rich raised beds, I don't bother adding additional fertilizer when I plant herbs. 

Hopefully, this weekend I can make up and freeze some pesto.  I think I'll try and alternate once a week between making pesto and herb rub and try and make a chimi churri as often as I can!

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Honeysuckle



I remember how beautiful and rare I thought honeysuckle was, when I was a girl growing up in West Texas.  When I moved to Virginia, it was one the plants I knew, and I wanted some in my yard.  However, I had trouble finding any to buy.  I also learned that here in Virginia, as well as many other parts of the country, it's not exactly something people seek out.  Rather, it's sort of an invasive weed.

It's beautiful, and it smells heavenly.  I feel a little drunk, actually, everytime I smell it.  Here, our honeysuckly grows huge and vigorous, and it's omnipresent.  In fact, I didn't have to do anything or spend any money to get some honeysuckle of my own.  I didn't even have to take cuttings.  It found me, and is taking over our back fence.  I must say that I don't mind a bit. 

I also don't mind the clovers that grow in our lawn, nor the purple flowers, nor the yellow flowers, nor the pretty tiny white daisies that show themselves each year.  And I love dandilions.  As long as its pretty and not prickly, it's welcome in my lawn.  If the bunnies and squirrels eat it instead of my vegetables, all the better.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Peas, delicious peas

We've had a wonderful garden/shelling pea crop this year.  I have them growing up against my tomato cages.  In previous years we've just snacked on the peans outside.  I told my younger son that they were "pea candy."  When he was 2 and 3, he just loved picking them and eating the little peas.  He still does, and this year he's even better at picking out the ones that are fat enough to eat.  My older son likes them too.

This year, we had so many peas that younger son and I went out last evening and actually picked enough to sautee in butter and serve with our hot dogs!  I couldn't believe it.  Next year, I might even grow another bed of peas so that we can freeze some.  

The variety I used this year came from Burpee.  It is called Burpeeana, and it is the best pea I have tried.  I've also tried Maestro and Mr. Big, with less success, although they were good too.  The peas are very tasty, and the plants are vigorous and healthy.  I will definitely grow this one again. 

It's a bit tricky to grow peas here because it gets hot so fast--we don't have much of a spring, so any variety has got to be able to withstand heat.  Any time I tried to grow peas in the fall, the bunnies or squirrels ate them.

Hurray for peas!


Friday, May 11, 2012

Technorati Claim

ZTHQV8UF492K Just trying to claim my blog for Technorati! 

Using compost and cardboard as a weed barrier

We had 3 cubic yards of compost delivered today!  That's actually the smallest amount of compost I've ever had delivered.  I get organic mushroom compost, which is supplied by a local company.  Last year, I actually did not order compost, although I had some left over from the year before last.  But I do like to add quite a bit to my beds each year, so I am very happy to have it again. 

I completed my first project with the compost: as a topdressing and mulch for my front flower garden.  Now, this area is really terrible.  I did a good job of digging out the bermuda grass and weeds the year we moved in, but there were a couple of seasons where I didn't weed at all (hard to weed when your toddler keeps running away from you), and it just got awful again.  So, I surrounded my annual seedlings and perinneals with paper and cardboard and spread compost on top of that as a mulch.  This is extremely effective in my vegetable garden, and I think it will be in my garden as well.  It looks quite nice right now. 

The bermuda grass is making me so crazy that I may have to resort to a chemical solution, but for now I'm going to give this a go.  I may add a wood mulch next month, so I can repeat the process, adding an additional weed barrier.  I find that the paper/cardboard is far more effective against bermuda grass and other weeds than a weed fabric.  I'll update on how it goes.  I'm hoping for a pretty flower garden this year, which I haven't had for the past 2 seasons! 

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Pick Your Own Strawberries





It seems crazy, as much as I love fresh food, but yesterday was the first time I went to our nearby farm that offers strawberry picking every spring.  My older son and I went out and picked two pounds of delicious strawberries.  Today, I made freezer jam for the first time, using an instant fruit pectin.  I made 18 cups of strawberry freezer jam, to be exact.  Hope my boys like it!

If they do, I'll pick more strawberries and make enough to get us through the year.  I'm trying to buy more local.  I had an awful moment in Trader Joe's when I realized that their strawberries were from California, even though we have tons of strawberries growing right now here in Virginia.  It's ridiculous to have to buy fruit that's been shipped 3000 miles when we have the same fruit right here that would taste a whole lot better (and stay fresher) than the shipped berries.

I bought 2 wonderful bell peppers and a delicious cucumber at the same farm.  Now that my youngest child is a little older, I think it will be easier to go gathering produce at the different farm markets.  I refuse to eat flavorless produce anymore.  Life is too short.  I hope that someday, it will be easier to buy delicious, local produce in the grocery store.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

May tomatoes!

Here are my almost-ripe tomatoes:
They came from these plants, in my Earthboxes:





This has got to be the earlist I've harvested tomatoes before.  I bought them in late March at the local garden center.  They were already flowering a little.  I put them in the container on my front porch, which is the hottest place in my garden.  I wheeled them in on nights when there was danger of frost, and there were a couple of days where I just had to keep them inside all day.  I left them on my front ponch until about mid-April, when the afternoon sun got to be too much for them.  Then I wheeled them through the house into the back porch, where they get morning sun.  It's also nice back there because they get rain, so I have to water even less.

The tomatoes are a determinate variety called "Short 'n Sweet."  I haven't tasted them yet, but I'm optimistic that they'll be superior to our grocery store tomatoes.  I also have lots of larger indeterminate tomatoes growing out in my raised beds, but the first ones I planted (in late March) are just now starting to flower, so these will be all that we'll get for at least a month, I guess.

So happy that tomato season is back!  Depending on when our last frost is, we may have real homegrown tomatoes until Christmas!