The Good Life

I'm growing strawberries this year.  Here's the entire crop thus far. 

BAM!   I used one for a pie and made jam out of the other.  Don't be jealous.

What it lacks in fruit, the garden has been making up for in terms of greens:  kale, spinach, chard, beet tops, lettuce and arugula.  I've been picking them and making this stunningly simple dish a few times a week:  saute your greens in olive oil and/or butter, then use the corner of your spatula to make two or three "nests".  Crack an egg into each nest and cook until set.  Salt and pepper, some toasted bread.  Ten minutes to awesomeness. It's my new favorite lunch, which I have given the temporary name of "Daffodils Peeking Through Winter's Melting Snows."  I am open to other suggestions.

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So that was the spring lineup.  Now we're cruising into summer and I can tell it's going to be a unique year because I got TWO crops of peas.  AND I was here to eat both of them!  Usually I have massive garden-depression because the peapods are at their peak right around the week when we are down at the Jersey Shore, and my neighbors end up eating them for me.  But this year's sullen, late spring and her persistent chilliness paid off in my favor.  The evening of the day we got back, I was out in the garden with a colander, pulling pods hand over fist.  Jeeps and I shelled them over the sink (eating every third or fourth one) until we each had a green thumbnail.  Blanched and served up as part of a Cobb Salad, it was the perfect summer kickoff meal.  The next night I picked another colander full of pods, which I blanched and served with some candy-striped pasta that Panda had picked out at the store, along with a mongrel pesto I made from basil, argula and parsley.  I didn't have a good amount of spinach, otherwise I would have made Amy's Pesto Pea Salad.

Then I made a blueberry pie, because I felt like it.

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I was particularly proud of the Cobb salad because everything was local.  The lettuce and peas were mine; the tomatoes, eggs, chicken and bacon all came from Harvest Moon Farm and Orchard in North Salem.  I joined their CSA this year, both to support local business and to take the edge off my crops being not always reliable.  Plus the program goes into October; my garden tends to die a sudden death in August and my late-sown crops never seem to take off.

Anyway, our first CSA pickup is tomorrow and we've already gotten advanced notice of what'll be in the bushel basket:

• Red beets
• Baby carrots
• Kale
• 2 heads of lettuce
• Fresh garlic
• Spring onions
• Swiss Chard
• EGGS!  (Their emphasis because eggs are not usually included in the CSA shares, but apparently this year their hens are out of control.  Goody for us!)

I'm so excited and I've already devised mental menus through the weekend using all this booty and supplemented by my own garden beds.

Naturally with the eggs, kale and chard one can make Daffodils Peeking Through Winter's Melting Snows.  One can also pick up the supplemental ingredients and repeat the Cobb salad with lettuce and spring onions.

I confess I've never made a frittata, but I bet you anything a very nice one could be made from eggs, garlic and chard.  Or with eggs, kale and onions.  I'll let you know how it goes.

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Carrots and beets:  endless possibilities.  You can grate them both raw, and toss with parsley and vinaigrette for a crunchy and colorful slaw.  Or if raw isn't your thing, you can toss them with lemon thyme sprigs, olive oil, salt and pepper, then slow-roast them - together or separately - in the oven, wrapped in foil.  Serve as a side dish or in greens as a roasted beet salad.

Of course there's roasted beets and fava beans, but I'm a little anxious about my favas - they all set flowers, but I don't see any pods developing yet.  Of course, this is my first time growing them so maybe I just don't know what I'm looking for.

Needless to say, knowing that all this produce is going to be available on a weekly basis makes food shopping a lot easier.  It was nice to walk out of the grocery store for once with just four bags, and those containing just dry goods and pantry items.  And I like the idea of letting vegetables dictate what's going to be for dinner.  It shall be the summer of eating seasonally!

(Ish)

Spring Flings

A great weekend of friends, family, fun, gardening and candy. Daffodils and muscari are thriving. The tulips are starting to bloom. Bleeding hearts are bleeding their little hearts out. The crows are molting.

The seedlings are doing well. All the tomatoes have been moved into 4" pots and I set out the broccoli this afternoon. To help keep the cutworms away, I read about this trick of cutting paper towel rolls into rings and putting them around the seedlings.

Behind the veggie garden was always this eyesore of weeds, rocks, burning bush seedlings and whatever cuttings and crap I would lob over the fence. I got sick of looking at it so last weekend I thought up, cut in, planted, mulched, and now it's one of my favorite places. It's also the home of Redman's little pine tree. His teacher owns a Christmas tree farm and she gave each kid in the class one to take home and plant. And name, if they so wished. Redman named his Gasol. As in Pau Gasol.

Over on the other side of the yard, Jeeps has started to move the stone wall to create the new triangle bed under the living room windows. I don't know what happened but my weeping cherry tree standard totally croaked over the winter, such a bummer (for me, that is; Jeeps always hated that thing). But the Andromeda looks terrific. I love Andromeda...when I was little I called it a "popcorn bush" and would strip off all the little white blossoms into a bowl to serve my stuffed animals.

Saturday was our annual Egg Hunt. Last year it poured rain but this year it was picture-perfect gorgeous. Jeeps broke out the bunny suit and cavorted with our neighbor Elizabeth, who not only owns a chicken suit, but dons it and crosses the road. I always wanted the kids to wear hats or butterfly wings, and I always put it on the invite, but it never happened. However, my friend Brandy stepped up and brought the baby in his bear suit, to which she stapled some long ears and added a pom-pom tail. Too bad he can't eat chocolate yet, I would've totally given him a Cadbury egg.

And then it was Easter Sunday. We got up and had candy for breakfast. I worked outside, the boys watched the Knick game. Panda was...somewhere, I don't know where she was but she came back for dinner which was roasted turkey breast with potatoes, carrots, red onions, brussels sprouts, and green beans. Followed by more candy.

Happy Easter and Passover to all.

Even MORE Plants That Look Good Together and Bloom at the Same Time!

After the whites, pinks and pastel purples of spring, the gardens are now hot with summer color, leading to bouquets such as this:

I've had a long love affair with Echinacea, and my new flower crush is definitely Hot Papaya, a double coneflower in the most unbelievably vibrant orange you've ever seen. These pictures don't do them a lick of justice. The flowers last a long time: these have been in the garden 2 weeks with the same blooms that came home from nursery. They are a fantastic player.

I have a stand of them right outside my dining room windows, next to a clump of not-yet-bloomed Black-Eyed Susans, and a mess of Drumstick alliums.  These alliums bloom much later in the season than their spring counterparts, in a vivid red-purple. 

At the base of the Echinacea is some Mirabilis, or Four O'Clocks (so called because the flowers don't open until mid-afternoon). This kind is called "Limelight"—it has chartreuse leaves and bright magenta flowers. I grew them from seed two years ago and they have re-populated themselves like crazy. Every year seedlings show up and I just move them wherever I want that hit of lime-green foliage.

Hot Papaya is dynamite with any purple spiky flower, like salvia or, pictured here, Veronica.

The orange pompoms are also fantastic with any silver-foliage plant. I'm a big fan of eryngium, or sea holly. I grow Eryngium Giganticum, "Miss Wilmott's Ghost," which is a true silver that looks superb next to any orange or yellow flower. It's a little hard to obtain and establish, but once you have it going, it will reseed every year.

This clump of coneflowers grows with Monarda "Raspberry Wine".

Below is Echinacea "Mango Meadowbrite" at the foreground, and "Big Sky Sundown" at the rear Clumps of Nepeta (catmint) grow at the base of them, but it's been sheared down recently. It's resting.