Garden Goings On

Sun gold cherry tomatoes, purple islander bell peppers, and a sweet carmen.

The garden is back at it, which is always a nice way to encourage me to get in the kitchen and cook. Of course, there have been many other reasons to get in the kitchen and cook. Lately, I've been baking goodies for family and friends.

Despite the warming temperatures outside, I've been doing a lot by way of baking in the kitchen. From salted caramel brownies to lemon poppyseed cake, chocolate sheet cake to cherry cobbler, the sugar has been pouring. I have been inspired to turn to my cookbooks recently, namely the Joy of Cooking, for some old-fashioned inspiration. The fact that the cookbooks have a beautiful new home in our refreshed kitchen is, of course, icing on the cake!

When a friend comes over to help, bake him cherry cobbler.

A very special lemon-poppyseed bundt cake.

Another very special baked good: Texas sheet cake, made for my Dad.

As we wait for the cucumbers and beans to start producing (I saw one on the vine this morning) and the tomatoes to turn red, we've enjoyed at least one batch of fried green tomatoes with homemade less-mayo pimento cheese.

Fried green tomatoes.

The zucchini and squash are off to a strong start, and most of them have been very simply prepared. A quick sauté in butter with some onions is really all it takes to enjoy these summer staples.

The zucchini are starting out small and delicious.

As temperatures near 100 degrees, I'm anxious to pick up a few Texas-grown watermelons this weekend, and get started on the summer's popsicle recipes. What are you up to this summer?

Early Summer Garden Tour

It is definitely spring, and the garden is loving the weather! Last weekend we were able to clean up the backyard, and my wonderful hubcap even fixed our garden shed (which was falling down). I love when "spring cleaning" finds its way outdoors. The grass is green, and the plants are all budding. 

The summer garden is taking off!

I stuck to the plan for the most part, but we decided to add more okra rather than grow any eggplants. The okra and corn plants are tiny right now (it's still a little chilly for them), but everything else is off to a strong start. 

Pictured, you'll see squash and zucchini blossoms (I tried to start these from seed, but the cold snap we got a few weeks ago wrecked that attempt). Next up, tiny figs on the tree — followed by little peaches. We're hoping to have a respectable crop of fruit on our trees this summer!

Keep scrolling, and you'll see the pepper plants, which are six different varieties from Johnson Backyard Garden. They range from hot to sweet, and I can't wait to taste the rainbow of peppers we'll have!

The strawberry patch is doing well, and tiny berries are beginning to redden on the vine. Sadly, though, the local fauna (cats and birds) have been getting to them before I can. 

Tiny cherry tomatoes are already on the vine, nice and green for now. I'm looking forward to sumptuous salads comprised only of these sweet bite-sized morsels. 

The beans and cucumbers are beginning to start their journeys up the trellises. I planted French climbing beans and two varieties of cucumber this year, Diva (which I had great success with last year) and the National Pickling variety. Both promise wonderful yields, so I'm hoping for the best. 

What's growing in your garden?

Currently Kitchenless

What a month it's been! Here is the last thing I cooked in our kitchen, about two weeks ago, which corresponded nicely with the very last of the winter garden harvest:

Sauteed kale, black beans, and peppers on multigrain tortillas, topped with cheese, Greek yogurt, and Cholula.

Kale and black bean tacos. Though they were nothing fancy, they were delicious and filling and healthy and wonderful. Oh, how I miss my kitchen. And the winter garden.

But fear not. 

The spring garden is almost planted—though a hard freeze the other night meant that we lost a couple of tomatoes and one pepper plant. My tent city in the backyard (Hubcap approved, mind you) meant that most of the tender vegetation emerged from the late freeze unscathed.

The trellises came in handy to shield peppers and okra from the cold.

As for the kitchen, we've spent the last few weeks preparing for this to happen:

Phase one: remove upper cabinets, remove countertop. Make a mess, basically.

Remember when it looked like this? I am so excited to share the official "after" photos once it's all said and done, and hopefully that won't be too long from now. We are getting new quartz countertops, and they've already taken out one set of cabinets and demolished the bar.

Oh, and there was one minor problem: a vital pipe extended above the countertop level—meaning we'll have to raise the countertops an inch and a half. For two tall cooks, there could have been no better problem to have! (Hubcap and I are excited that we'll have more prep room—meaning more opportunity to cook together.)

Patched ceiling, and the leveled countertop. Now we'll have a peninsula to work on, and floating shelves...

Oh, and in the midst of all of this I've started a new job AND went on a self-imposed social media diet, hence the radio silence from yours truly. Once we get back into a good groove (hopefully that means fewer frozen waffles for breakfast), I can't wait to bring you some fresh new meals from our kitchen and show you how the spring garden is progressing.

Stay tuned!

Weekend in Review

Over the weekend, we welcomed a couple of days of rain, which meant that (other than sneaking in a little yard work Saturday morning) I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. 

But first, I picked these garden treasures. The broccoli is still putting off tender shoots, much to my delight. I finally harvested all the cabbages, which had been picked over pretty badly by cabbage-eating bugs. The winter garden is taking a cue and winding down, just in time for spring. 

We stopped by one of our local nurseries and picked up a few six-packs... of strawberries. They found a happy home in one of our small 4-by-4 beds; planting instructions be damned! They are in rows on the diagonal, which is so very appealing to the part of my brain that wants to be a designer.

After much reassuring that pursuing a fermented recipe would not make our house stink, I set about making a simple recipe for kimchi. I sort of combined elements of this recipe and a couple of tips from this one for an easy version, which to me seems like an easy refrigerator pickle. Not wanting to dirty up the processor, I mashed garlic, ginger, and red chiles together with a mortar and pestle.

I used our garden cabbage, local carrots and green onions from Johnson's Backyard Garden, and a few other organic ingredients. If it turns out tasty, I'll post the recipe. If not, we'll just call this a happy little weekend experiment. 

After an afternoon nap and a cup of tea, I found myself gathering ingredients for these unbelievably decadent salted caramel brownies from Smitten Kitchen. Shockingly, the recipe (which calls for you to make your own caramel candies and then make brownies from scratch) was very simple and I used only two dishes. It could not have been a more straightforward recipe. Which is all the more reason to go forth and make them.

And when they came out of the oven, well... These were, without a doubt, the most delicious thing I have ever baked in my life. Perfect. Fudgy and toothsome, with an impressive caramel flavor, a hint of salt, the bitterness of dark chocolate, and a rounded sweetness — these brownies are too good for ice cream but perfect with coffee.

The Good Morning Garden

A snap pea tendril reaches out to touch the full moon in the early morning hour—my favorite time in the garden.

Early morning in the garden takes me by surprise each and every day: fresh, bright, fragrant. Dew underfoot splashes as my bare feet make their way across the yard, and even as the sun rises a full moon hangs in sight.

Bright green parsley: I treat myself to a bite each time I walk by.

Drops of dew—or maybe it rained last night?—sit on every leaf, catching what little light cuts through the crisp air. I look for signs of visitors, my peaceful face chagrined only when I see the telltale of a cat nesting (or worse!) in my garden.

Cabbage and cauliflower grow in one bed, and peas climb trellises in the back.

I make my way from one corner to the next, leaning down to say good morning to all the plants. My fingers pluck at leaves, turning some over to assess any damage. Some plants appeal more to certain antennaed creatures, and they have feasted on the greenery. I notice small, perfectly round craters in some of the beds. I look up and see the answer; squirrels have been either foraging for or storing their treasures beneath the straw.

Lettuces begin to sprout.

 It is fall: let the harvest begin!

The First Harvest: Lettuce Be Glad

Even a tiny harvest such as this is still food enough to eat.

Lately I've been enjoying one of my favorite evening rituals: I grab my pair of red kitchen shears and my favorite colander, tell Finley it's time to "check the gardens," and the two of us head outside, swatting at mosquitoes, foraging for part of our dinner.

A simple dinner of salad, bread, and pesto.

Our lettuces are only a few inches tall, but combined with our fledgling arugula, I trimmed enough to make a small salad with Texas grapefruit, avocado, and olive oil. A bounty of basil meant a batch of fresh pesto, which I served atop toasted homemade bread—and voila! Dinner from the garden, despite the tiny harvest.

It's so simple and rewarding to add a few garden leaves to every meal. And today, a new development: one of the volunteer tomatoes has fruit on the vine! What a lovely thing, to have fresh tomatoes this time of year... let's hope the volunteers keep up the great work.

What's going on in your garden?

...My Grandpa Was a Farmer

This afternoon I called my grandmother and we got to talking about the vegetable beds. I told her our fall garden is starting to come up, and she said, "Well it's just about time for that, dear." And then I told her that I like to think my grandfather would be proud of me, now that I have a small farm in my backyard.

My sister and brother and I grew up on my grandparents' farm, our house nestled between fields of corn, cotton, and maize. My grandpa raised cattle and had a big garden in between our house and theirs. My mother inherited his green thumb, and now I have a feeling I got a little of it too.

And then my grandmother said something interesting: "It sounds like everybody has a vegetable garden nowadays. I mean, that's sure what I've been hearing."

Hold the phone, what's that? Even my grandma knows that backyard farming is coming into the norm? And I'll just come out and say that she's not getting this information from all the hipster blogs she's reading. No, this comes from network television and what she reads in the newspaper.

This is totally encouraging. Friends and coworkers are telling me that they're venturing into gardening—one took the simple step of getting a galvanized metal trough, filling it with dirt, and picking up a packet of lettuce seeds. She and her husband are tired of second-guessing how clean grocery store lettuce is, so they're going to grow their own. Another friend is excited to move to a house so she can try her hand at square foot gardening. And good friends of ours have been sharing their amazing okra harvest with us (we like it tossed in olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt, and grilled until they're charred).

Are you jumping on this backyard gardening bandwagon? What questions do you have about getting your garden started or keeping it going?

Flecks of Green

Arugula sprouts up among pine straw.

This morning I woke up to water the seeds (over the weekend we planted kale, lettuce, carrots, Swiss chard, bok choi, dill, turnips, and kohlrabi) and marvel at what a difference a change in the seasons makes.

The air is cool and crisp. Dawn hasn't quite set in, so the sky is still purple with just a hint of light starting in the east. Grass under my feet feels alive. My heart lifts.

Our first seeds are starting to peek up through their compost and pine straw. The arugula I planted early last week enthusiastically bursts through to daylight. The shelling peas I planted two weeks ago are also emerging, bright green flecks in the browns and tans of the garden bed.

Now is the time I remind myself of the patience required to keep a garden. A few hours after planting the seeds, I told Ryan I was going out to see if they'd sprouted yet.

No, not quite. But the promise is there, waiting to be revealed.

Progress: A Composter and a Refreshed Garden

New Year and Spring always get all the "fresh start" glory. But for me, Fall feels so full of hope! There is so much to look forward to.

Over Labor Day weekend, Ryan and I buckled down and got to work. We mowed, edged, trimmed the hackberry trees at the fence line, and got all of the un-fun stuff out of the way. Then it was time to focus on the garden.

A few weeks ago, I began what I imagined would be a quick, simple, and adorable compost bin building project. (Rose-colored glasses, anyone?) It only took a few twists of his arm to convince Ryan into driving around the city and loading up a truck full of free pallets. Then I armed myself with a crowbar and hammer and was excited to get to work.

The lumber is ok. The labor is crazy difficult.

That's when I learned that taking apart wooden pallets is not for the faint of heart. Or arm strength.

Ryan patiently showed me the best way to approach the situation, but I whined my way through it. I even recruited our all-too-kind neighbor, who enjoyed the opportunity to sling a heavy hammer at something for a while.

Pinterest makes it look so easy. "Build THIS shelf out of pallets! How about this chair? Pallets! Free! Just take them apart and voila! Something awesome." Don't be fooled.

If you decide to take on a pallet project, lured by the free-ness of the wood and the promise of DIY furniture just around the bend; be warned. It's not easy. And also, not all of the wood is in the best shape. But it's free, and I have to say I was happy to put in a little extra elbow grease to get us an almost-free compost bin.

After a couple of weekends spent taking some of the pallets apart, and then learning to use the circular saw, I devised a plan to build a compost bin. (Note: this began as a three-bin composting system and quickly morphed into the much more do-able single bin.)

Final touch: paint on the saying, "A Rind is a Terrible Thing to Waste"

With about 10 feet of hardware mesh ($15) and a bunch of deck nails that I had on hand, I built a passable version of what I really wanted. I was inspired by this beautiful three-bin composter. The "door" on the front can be completely picked up and removed so that we can easily turn the compost with a pitchfork or shovel.

We moved the bin to its new home in the back of the garden, and left a little space next to it for tomato cages and the wheelbarrow. It's a little bit charming, don't you think?

Meanwhile, we had a lot of other preparation to do to ready the beds for fall planting. I took a solo trip Sunday morning out to the Natural Gardener to walk the labyrinth and get pine straw and turkey compost. There's something very meditative about shoveling hot turkey manure. Or maybe that was the labyrinth.

By Monday, we were up with the dawn and turning over the dirt in all the beds. We dressed them with fresh compost and topped them all with pine straw to keep the cats out. The garden began looking like herself again!

The beds are primed and ready (almost!) to plant. 

In a week or two, after the hot turkey compost has settled and the weather has cooled ever so slightly, it will be time to plant. Here's what we plan to start from seed (direct sow):

• Shelling peas
• Snap peas
• Swiss chard
• Arugula
• Spinach
• Kale
• Lettuce
• Dill
• Bok Choi (tatsoi)
• Carrots
• Turnips
• Kohlrabi 
• Parsnips

When it's time for transplants, we'll get broccoli and cabbage. It feels so good to be in the garden again! Are you ready to plant a fall/winter garden?

The Plan.

The fall/winter garden plan.

I've said before that the garden is quite a metaphor, and this summer I have felt the pangs of an unproductive garden rattle through me in a difficult way. I've been a mess, feeling much the same way my garden looks — disheveled, unkempt, hot, uninspired, unfruitful. I'm yearning to pull myself out of this summer slump, and feeling just a hint of crispness in the air gives me hope that fall is just around the corner.

Which means it's time for the plan.

My local nurseries aren't yet ready for the fall garden, but boy am I chomping at the bit. (In fact, I called; there are no broccoli transplants for me just yet, but soon. Very soon.)

In any case, here's what I have to look forward to. Leafy greens, broccoli, cabbage, sugar snap peas, and herbs. My favorite herbs, to be exact: cilantro, parsley, and rosemary. And carrots, turnips, parsnips, cauliflower, and (shh, don't tell the hubcap) a little Swiss chard.

Mostly, though, I have growth to look forward to. New life, nourishment, tiny plants that become so much more than simply leaves and stems.

This is the weekend to prepare the gardens. The cleaning out, redressing, nurturing the soil that will in turn nurture us ... This is what I need to refresh my own life. I am so looking forward to a change in the weather.

I feel better already.

Wordless Wednesday: What 109 Degrees Will Do to a Plant

Yesterday we broke a record in Texas. A high of 109 degrees was recorded in the middle of the city, only a couple of miles from where our garden grows. Or ceases to grow. In case you were wondering what the garden looks like (and why I'm totally ok with saying goodbye and waiting for fall...), this should answer some questions.

The gardens at 6:30 a.m., after a little watering. (Sorry it's blurry, I had peppers in one hand.)

The same gardens at 6:30 p.m., after a peak temperature of 109 degrees. Fahrenheit.

Peppers and tomatillos, 6:30 a.m.

After. Fin stopped to smell the roses, and show how hot it is.

Cucumber vines, 6:30 a.m.

Cucumber vines, 6:30 p.m.

Close-up of the cucumber vines at 6:30 p.m.

Something ate this cantaloupe. Regrettably, it wasn't me. 

Despite some ugly leaves and way-too-small cages, the tomatoes are still producing!

The giant sunflower (taller than the house! almost!) and the watermelon patch.

Fin and Ryan showing the enormity of our magnificent sunflower.

My tall hubcap can't even reach the top!

Even with all this vine borer damage, two of the zucchini plants continue to produce about two zukes each week.

Fruits from the Weekend

Here's a little taste of what I needed to know this weekend. The only thing not food-related was the ukulele search (it was unfruitful). The rest, as I'm sure you can tell, was very much so. In fact, we had a fruit-filled weekend.

After a couple of Googles, I decided there was indeed no time like the present to pick the muskmelon (cantaloupe) and one of our watermelons from the garden. The Internet told me that the cantaloupe would be more forgiving because it'll ripen on the counter for a day or two, but I had to be careful with the watermelon. There's no exact science to say when, precisely, to pick it. 

"When it ceases to grow any more."

"When thumped, it makes a hollow sound."

"When the ground spot is yellow or cream, but not green."

I should also mention that I could've sworn I planted Moon and Stars heirloom watermelons. But when they all grew into perfect little spheres, which are having a hard time making it past 5 pounds each, I got to wondering. I looked up a number of varieties. The Moon and Stars variety, which boasts spotted leaves and a dark rind with small yellow dots (and bigger "moons") can weigh in at nearly 30 pounds. And they're oblong. But Sugar Babies met the description of what I saw in our bed, so perhaps—perhaps!—that's what I planted. 

Watermelon and cantaloupe from the garden.

In any case, I picked the biggest one and hoped for the best. It weighed almost 5 pounds and when I cut into it, all was well with the world. Boy, was it perfect. We ate half of it plain, but I soaked the other half in tequila and sprinkled it with salt—impromptu watermelon margaritas. Thank you, Pinterest!

The muskmelon was even more delicious. Perfectly peach, super sweet, and deliciously fragrant. Our niece was standing next to me when I cut into it, and she exclaimed, "Wow. You can grow ANYTHING in your garden." Just another reason I love that kid.