Category: Garden

First Spring Planting

After clearing out most of our winter crops (we still have one productive Kale plant and leaks that are finally starting to grow

In the past years, our sugar snap peas have yeilded very small crops.  both were from starters and were late to get into the ground.  this year, following Portland Edibles plan, we planted seeds.  Our experiment was to alternate the seeds between two verities that mature a couple weeks apart.  Just the fact that planting from seed is starting out with significantly more plants is exciting and the instructions say to not thin them as they like growing clusters.  

Blossom End Rot and Powdery Mildew

Thanks to our 2 years worth of experience growing squash in Oregon, we recognized and addressed the powdery mildew on our patty pan plants immediately!   Whew – that crisis averted!  Now there’s the blossom end rot nonsense to worry about..  It looks like we’ll basically lose all of the first fruit from our roma plant and some from the heirloom plant as a result.  Apparently it was caused by abnormally cool temps that hit right when the plant was starting to fruit and there’s really nothing to be done about it.  We have more, healthy fruit coming along – sad to see how much we would have had..

Orange Line Wines

Stopped into Orange Line Wines (http://www.orangelinewines.com/) for the first time – just opened this month – and met the owners.  They provided great suggestions for wines similar to what we’ll find in southern France next month.  We had the lovely rose with a dinner of grilled squash, potato/mushroom raclette bake, and an amazing fennel, arugula, citrus salad with an orange vinegarette..  I added shaved pecorino and marcona almonds to the salad.


http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/arugula-fennel-and-orange-salad.html

Fresh Produce

We’re harvesting vegetables almost every day.  We’ve grilled a batch of pedron peppers and both kinds of squash, the beans are producing like crazy – we’ll end up with two more pounds before they’re done – and I incorporated quite a few jalapenos into a new flavor of quiche – onion, corn, spinach, jalapeno with a blend of mexican cheeses.


The tomatoes on the deck are so close to ready!  We’ve started getting small amounts of the little marble-sized, orange flavor bombs..  The chocolate cherry and early girls are about to really kick into high gear!  We see lots of fruit on the roma and heirloom plants below, but they’re quite a ways behind.

Ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog..

Paul continued work on the basement and I made a batch of Morning Glory muffins – an old favorite that we haven’t had in quite a while.. http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/morning-glory-muffins-2

We finally broke down and bought an edging tool – nothing fancy, but it sure does get the job done!  The front walk looks much tidier and the dandelion population took a serious hit, thanks to my Hound Dog dandelion weeder!

Dinner was roasted brussels sprouts and pork loin..  http://blog.myfitnesspal.com/pork-tenderloin-with-roasted-brussels-sprouts/

Squash harvest

Having been away for a couple of weeks, I was happy to get back in the kitchen. I made a broccoli cheddar and onion quiche, a pot of vegetarian chili with beans, potatoes, and soyrizo, and lemon vinegarette.   We had enough patty pan squash to harvest so I also prepared that to go with dinner by tossing it with olive oil, salt, pepper, thyme, and roasting it.  Topped it with fresh parsley, also from the garden!  Score!

Let the harvest begin!

Well, continue in the case of lettuce..  We have LOTS of lettuce!  So much that we can pick a salad pretty much every day this week!!  Our first patty pan squash was ready, so now we just need a few more and that’ll be a great side dish.  The kousa are showin up, the beans are flowering, the pepper are all producing!  Another few weeks and we’ll be rolling in our own home-grown produce!

The tomatoes are coming!!

Lots of new growth on the tomato plants and we’re finally starting to see fruit!  It looks like we’ll have something to harvest in @ 4-5 weeks.  Yea!


John and Cynda are hosting a neighborhood get together on Friday night, so I decided to make cheese wafers.  So delicious – though not particularly diet friendly:  http://www.cooks.com/recipe/cc1cg9m2/cheese-wafers.html

We found a new favorite Rose – and it’s not a Pinot!!  The cab franc rose from Isenhower is light and crisp – and only $14!   http://www.isenhowercellars.com/