Cruel, Cruel Summer

Well, my work part-time gardening is only paying off....medium.


So far, my straight up late start on some things plus an incredibly cool, wet and rainy summer plus my very shady backyard = not a whole lotta action.

So far we've harvested one cucumber, one eggplant, a handful of (sickly) roma tomatoes, onions, garlic, a bunch of tiny bitter carrots, a few peas and plenty of lettuce, nappa cabbage, arugula and herbs.    So greens = happy (except for my cabbage that has been eaten by ....something),   roots and fruiting plants = not very happy.
Right now my garden makes me think of mid-July, not early august:   squash and cukes are just flowering, we're just getting the first ripe tomatoes, tiny peppers forming, beans flowering, etc.

But today at least is hot and sunny...we'll see if things are able to take off.


The biggest pest I have right now is something, probably a rabbit, that ate my carrot tops and half of one of my cabbages.   I'm used to dealing with tiny pest problems (like bugs and slugs).  I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the big nibblers.  They've been in our neighborhood for quite some time, but I was hoping the cats would keep them away.

I have managed to make at least one *amazing* stir-fry dinner so far:

From our garden:  
garlic
onion
eggplant
nappa cabbage

From Boston Organic:
Mango
more onion
green pepper
ginger (amazing!  so juicy!)

From Trader Joe's:
Basmati rice
"Thai Curry Simmer Sauce"
chicken.


I grilled the chicken, cooked the rice, fried the eggplant, garlic and ginger in peanut oil in a big wok.   (cooked eggplant for over 1/2 hour a la Mark Bittman...it became creamy and delicious!) Threw in onions.   Peppers.  Cabbage.   red pepper.   Fresh mango.  Cut up chicken and stirred it in.   poured simmer sauce on top.  Delicious!   (also, I am very proud to now be able to grill a chicken breast *while* stir frying on the stovetop inside.  I am magical.)

Still raining...

Well, in the spirit of "it's always fun to read these things next year," I'll give the most obvious update: It's cold and rainy, and has been for days.    Like, low 50's cold.   Like, cold enough in June to put a cloche over my eggplants (i.e. a fairly large pot.   To keep them warm at night).   Of course this is my first year trying real (i.e. non-asian) eggplants, and of course it gets wicked cold right after I plant them.  

My tomatoes look cold, my peppers are shivering, etc. etc.  The drama of a spring garden.   Maybe early June is the season for whining.   (Example: I think the only time its been warm and sunny was for the long weekend when we went outta town and all the seeds I'd planted withered up from lack of water.  Wah).   

Updates:  I've been forcing myself to eat garden lettuce, knowing that even though it might grow bigger, I've often waited and had lettuce bolt or get bitter before getting to eat it.   So I harvest one plant or two plants per salad (one plant at this stage seems to equal two small servings).  The upside of this is that, since I planted the lettuce in the cucumber plot, the faster we eat the lettuce, the faster we'll be able to plant the cucumbers, if it ever gets warm again.    My arugula looks great, and I use it to supplement my (but not Dawn's) salads.   We also are eating radishes, green onions and herbs.   I planted my hot peppers and I'm avidly reading salsa recipes, excited to eventually use them - the older I've gotten, the more I like just a small amount of spice in my food.  And I did my annual carrot re-plant - you know, the one where my first, carefully curated, two-seeds-every-two-inches, hours-on-my-knees, carefully-dusted-with-fresh sawdust-and-watered-every-day planting yields about fifteen carrot sprouts after weeks of careful spa treatment.  And weeds, it yields lots and lots of weeds.  especially since my compost is "cold" instead of "hot" - which means that any composted seeds aren't killed over the winter.   So for the second planting I'm ripping up all the "volunteer" tomatoes, squash, crabgrass, purslaine and other randomness around my fifteen tiny carrot seedlings, painstakingly trying to preserve them agains the much heartier weeds.     Then I basically dig some lines in the dirt in the empty spots, pour out an ass-ton of carrot seeds, swirl them around a little and say, "good luck!"
  The beets are doing their usual thing of barely coming up and growing slowly.   Well, if they don't shape up, they are going to be bush beans before they know what hit them!  :)

Also, the teensy little potted apple tree I got a few years ago has its very first apples growing...so, so cool!

pictures to come!

Quick pickles...or what to do with all those beans.

Veggies cut up to make Achar Segar - and Indonesian quick pickle

So....I love beans, and I harvest a lot of them - especially the purple-spotted dragon beans I love.   I also have a bean teepee that's in full effect right now.   But the problem with beans is that you need to pick them almost every day - they are best when they are just a few inches long - in just a few days they can grow to 7" monsters that while still might be crunchy and sweet, can also be a little tough.

So what to do with all these beans?   Well...rinse them, cut off the tips and tails, and throw them out for hungry dinner guests while waiting for the rest of the food to finish.   Or steam them for 3-4 minutes and cover them with a little salt and butter.

Preserving beans?   Well, I've tried just throwing them into a plastic freezer bag and into the chest freezer - and the result is ok - defrost, saute and serve - but still a little squishy.

Crudite season

It has been so ridiculously hot the last couple of days that even though some veggies are ready, I have been on strike from any recipe containing the words fry, boil, steam, grill or even cook.

Plus, with helping take care of Dawn (who broke her collarbone) I'm too lazy to even prepare a salad (and the lettuce is mostly done anyway).

Instead, I'm just eating raw veggies.  So far we've got tender new dragon beans (purple and yellow beans above), fresh-pulled purple carrots and a farmer's market cucumber.   Just add  Spicy Trader Joe's Hummus, tabouli, a loaf of olive bread from the Brookline farmer's market to make the meal seem more, well, meal-like.    There is plenty of time for slaving over the stove in September and October...now I'm going hunter-gatherer style until the thermometer goes back down below 90.

Carrot harvest

The Harvest begins....

June - and Companion planting

So....for me, the art of urban gardening is doing a lot with a little space.    Or rather, cramming in lots, and lots and lots of vegetables (often too many, really) into my backyard.  (and my front yard). There's a part of me that loves the engineering challenge of how to squeeze everything in, and get a full season's harvest out of a very small plot.  One way to "double up" your space is to think seasonally - many plants that love the cold can share space with warmer-weather plants.  Here are some of my tips n' hints for packin' it in in the transition-season of June.   (PS: check out the June 1 post to see how each of these plots looked when I started them in May - its pretty cool how lush they look now compared).                                               

Spinach, with eggplant and onions around the side.