Tag Archives: Kitchen Cupboard Thursday

A Hot Harvest Monday, November 5, 2012

Posted on November 6, 2012 | 10 Comments

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Dang global warming anyway. It got up into the upper 80s here today, maybe 90. This is not supposed to be happening in November in coastal southern California. It has been hot ever since, um, August I think. Normally the weather cools off by mid September, which marks when we can start our fall planting here. I gave up and planted anyway on Friday last week, installing 6 Dividend broccoli plants, 6 savoy cabbages, 6 Candid Charm cauliflower plants, 3 parsley plants, and a clump of chives. I also planted over 40 garlic cloves. I kind of lost track.

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Here is my overly enthusiastic order of garlic: Early Italian, California Early, Sonoran, and Ajo Rojo. The Ajo Rojo was gorgeous, with red streaked giant cloves. The cloves of the Sonoran separated easily. I planted cloves from one bulb from each of these bags, which will grow into over 40 bulbs, which is probably more than I need, and am still left with 11 bulbs of garlic. ACK. Now what? I got 15 bulbs for about $57 from Burpee, so they’re too expensive to eat. Visit Dave’s blog at Our Happy Acres–see right panel for a link–to see his suggestions for garlic. I’m thinking that if he planted 70 sq ft of garlic (more than double the size of my front garden bed, BTW) that I can probably plant some more. But if anyone in HB wants to buy some of these pricey garlic bulbs, let me know. I plan to put more into my community garden plot.

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The tomato crop is definitely winding down. These two will probably go into guacamole along with a couple of my avocados and some green onions from pots along the driveway. I make every spare inch of my yard (and driveway) produce! Below are some of my green onions and a planter of strawberries. In the driveway!

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I am still getting bell peppers, and it has been so hot that the darn things are still setting fruit. Not that I’m complaining. I even have a few tomatoes left on my Box Car Willie, Mortgage Lifter, Early Girl, and one of the oxheart tomatoes.

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This was my breakfast this morning, all from the garden and henhouse. Miss Hillary is still the only hen laying. Henrietta is too old to lay, Chicken Little is slacking off, and the two Barred Rock pullets that I raised from baby chicks, Peep and Cheep, are still too young. Their voices are changing though. It is so cute to hear them peep and then croak. They are about three and a half months old now, and are still adorable. For chickens.

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The back beds are slowly giving up their summer crops, and are nearing readiness for fall planting. At least the middle bed is ready to plant. The other two still have tomatoes and bell peppers and an eggplant, all of which are bearing very late fall crops. Global weirding.

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Here is what the back looks like here in early November. On a 90 degree day!Image

I have more crops nearing harvest time. Like some small Fuji apples, about three dozen limes, and over 30 Navel oranges.

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And here is my pride and joy right now, our first 21st Century Asian Pear!!!

The first Asian pear that my 21st Century Asian pear has set.

I am hoping that it will get ripe. It set fruit really late in the season, and is the first Asian pear from this tree. Our Shinseiki Asian pear chose not to set any fruit again this year. But eventually we hope to have fruit from both Asian pears, three varieties of apples (Granny Smith, Fuji, and Gala), two varieties of oranges (Navel and Valencia), two varieties of nectarines (Snow Queen and Panamint), four kinds of peaches (Garden Gold, Babcock Improved, Florida Prince and August Pride), two kinds of lemons (Eureka and Meyer), plus Bearrs limes, Littlecado avocado, a Santa Rosa plum tree and a Fuyu persimmon tree. That is my little mini-orchard. In addition I have Red Flame seedless grapes that set fruit but didn’t produce any grapes, some struggling blueberry bushes, a thornless blackberry that never gives me much of anything, and two planters of Sequoia strawberries, with two more planters waiting to be planted with Chandler strawberries. Um, unless I bought Quinault strawberries. Can’t remember.

Our Littlecado semi-dwarf avocado tree has been giving us fruit all year, with about nine avocados left on the tree.

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Last week I cooked a pork tenderloin in the solar oven along with a butternut squash, apple, red onion, ginger, orange juice, red wine, and raisins. It was so good that I did it again this week, using maple syrup in stead of the brown sugar. The butternut, ginger, and apple were from my garden.

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Peel, core and dice one apple. This one is a Granny Smith from our tree. Grate the zest from one orange with a microplane grater and add it to the apple in the pan that you will use in the solar oven.Image

Brown the pork loin in a skillet and transfer to the pot for the solar oven. Peel, seed and cube the butternut squash and add to the pork. Slice the red onion (I used 1/2 onion because it was big) and add on top of the pork. Squeeze the orange and add the juice to the pot. Grate about 1-2 tsp fresh ginger with a microplane grater and add to the pot. Soak 1/2 C raisins in 1/2C red wine plus 2 T maple syrup for about half and hour, and add to the pot. Be sure to have some of the wine while you’re cooking. Oh, wait, we have to start early in the day with solar cooking. Might be a bit early for wine. ;-) You can get potted later.

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Cover the pot and cook in a solar oven (I use a Sun Oven brand oven and LOVE it.) I started preheating the solar oven about 11 am, and put the pork dish in around noon. It was done by 4 pm.

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I made cornbread to go with the pork dish. My husband served it up, separating the pork and the squash for a more attractive presentation. We polished off the bottle of red wine with dinner. YUM.

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As you can see, I’m combining Kitchen Cupboard Thursday with Harvest Monday. We had some homemade bread-and-butter pickles on tuna sandwiches this week. The fruit is a peeled Fuyu persimmon from a friend’s tree. I can hardly wait until I have persimmons from my own tree. These are crisp, sweet fruits from Japan, without the astringency of the wild persimmons from the American Midwest.

HARVEST

FRUIT

6 oz Lemon, Meyer

VEGETABLES

6 oz bell peppers

1 oz Ginger

2 oz Green Onion

TOTAL 15 oz produce plus 4 eggs

Hey, don’t laugh. My garden is small and it’s late in the season.

If you had a harvest, or to see what others are harvesting, visit Daphne’s Dandelions. Or if you used something stored from your garden, visit Robin at the Gardener of Eden. See panel at right for links.

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Harvest to date, end of Sept 2012

Posted on September 28, 2012 | Leave a comment

Our summer garden season is winding down, but it is still too hot to plant the winter garden. It’s supposed to be safe to plant cool season veggies by mid-September, but not this year. Not with global climate change. We have temps predicted for the mid 80s on the coast next week. Too hot for here for this time of year.

The conical pepper at the left is a Giant Szegedi, a Hungarian sweet bell pepper. First time I’ve grown that variety. These are the ingredients for a breakfast, all from our yard, even the eggs.

The Hale cantaloupe is from my community garden plot, and the bread is pumpkin bread made with one of my own pumpkins, along with a red bell pepper frittata.

I added up my harvests to date, and am up to 270 lbs. I know you Midwesterners and New Englanders with your big yards are going to scoff at that, but for my tiny southern California yard, that ain’t bad. But that is also counting my 14 ft x 20 ft at the community garden. Well, I didn’t get it planted until mid July, so I missed half a year. I really couldn’t have handled more produce than what I got anyway. I  will not likely hit my goal of 350 lbs of produce for the year. Maybe I should have set a goal of 300 lbs. That seems more achievable. Next year.

This basket contains two Granny Smith apples from my tree in back, two Buttercup squash, a Sugar Baby watermelon, three Ping-tung long eggplants, a Crimson Sweet watermelon and the last patty pan of the season.

All five butternut squash and the same two Buttercup squash.

I removed the seeds from this butternut, peeled it and sliced it into 1/3 inch slices, fried them in half butter, half olive oil, and marinated them in 1/2 C cider vinegar, 1/4 C basalmic vinegar, 1T brown sugar, (Boil down this marinade by half, then add:) 2 T olive oil, 2 T slivered basil and 1/2 C walnuts. Served chilled. Yummy.

My entire harvest of pumpkins, three little Rouge VIF d’Tampes. Also, my entire harvest of blue potatoes.

The blue potatoes and some wax beans went into this dish: 1 lb potatoes cut into pieces and simmered in water until done, 1 C pasta such as penne cooked in water until done, a few handfuls of green beans (I used wax beans because that’s what I had), steamed until done. Mix these three ingredients and add a pesto sauce. I used 1/2 C olive oil, 1/4 C pine nuts, 1/3 C grated Parmesan cheese, 1/4 C fresh basil leaves. Serve either hot or cold. The watermelon is one of my Crimson Sweets.

I haven’t been very good at keeping up with Harvest Monday at Daphne’s Dandelions or Kitchen Cupboard Thursday’s at Robin’s. Too busy with work, grandkids, trips, photography, gardening and canning. It’s a great life. Next week, I’m off to Yellowstone and the Tetons for a photo workshop, leaving my hubby behind to care for the chicks, hens, and garden.

Our Barred Rock chicks are two months old. I guess they are pullets at this stage. I just put them in the coop with the big hens yesterday, with nooks for them to hide if they’re chased. So far, all is well. They should feed together nicely without fighting within a week or two.

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Thar be DRAGONS!

Posted on June 29, 2012 | 10 Comments

A red dragonfly in my garden.

And a blue damselfly on a squash leaf.

Well, I’m learning my camera and computer. I managed to rename my photo file as I uploaded it from camera to computer, managed to find the file and process the photos in iPhoto, and even managed to find the photos from WordPress, but I can’t find the processed photo files. Oh well, more to learn. We’ll just go with what we have because I’m pressed for time today.

Blue damselfly after processing

There. I managed to find my processed files. I’ll probably never be able to duplicate this feat.

It’s Kitchen Cupboard Thursday, and my husband finished off the last of a jar of lemon-ginger marmalade. There is plenty more of that on the shelf though. However, we’re down to our last jar of bread and butter pickles, and I’m wondering if the inch-long cucumbers will be ripe in time to make more pickles before the jar is empty. I planted a LOT of cucumbers this year, so I hope they bear fruit.

I have a lot of yellow squash these days, and the green onions are growing as fast as I pick them.

The squash and green onion went into a really easy side dish. Saute the squash and green onion and some garlic in olive oil until lightly browned, splash on some good vinegar like basaltic, and top with Parmesan cheese. Serve with pasta. This marinara sauce is from our home-canned stores.

These are the ingredients for squash blossom scramble. Pick male squash blossoms (no tiny green squash at the base of the blossom). Wash off the bugs, and there will be bugs! Chop the blossoms including the base, and the green onions. Saute the blossom and green onions until the blossoms are wilted and the onions turn bright green (I use bacon grease in the skillet). Add the eggs and stir quickly until eggs are nearly done. Add some diced cubes of cream cheese, about 2 T and stir in. Heavenly!

This is squash blossom scramble. Serve with toast and whatever fruit is in your garden.

I’ve begun to harvest my blue potatoes.

This is one of the squash that grew on my “mystery pumpkins” that sprouted from the compost pile. It’s just a zuke.

I made lunch with the blue potatoes, a yellow squash, the zucchini, an onion, and some garlic. Sauteed them in bacon grease until done, then added some grated Mexican cheese at the end and let it melt. Still not done, see next photo.

I sliced a ripe avocado onto each plate and squeezed lemon juice on top. It was a strange dish, but filling and delicious. The avocado and lemon were both from my garden.

I’m not going to have any photos to show on harvest Monday. Here is one day’s fruit harvest, with the last August Pride peach and some of the Babcock peaches, the first Santa Rosa plum at the bottom, one strawberry and 7 blueberries. Don’t laugh.

Most of the fruit goes onto cereal for breakfast or ice cream for dessert. The Babcock peaches are translucent with a greenish tint with an unbelievable floral scent that is out of this world.

I am out of time. Gotta run. If you want to see how others are using their harvests, visit Robin at the Gardener of Eden.

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Kitchen Cupboard Thursday on Sunday June 3, 2012

Posted on June 4, 2012 | 6 Comments

As usual, I’m running behind. I didn’t make a post for Kitchen Cupboard Thursday, where people visit Robin at The Gardener of Eden to report how they used their harvests and stored produce. Hey, better late than never.

Bok Choy went into some Ramen noodles along with some leftover grilled Hungarian sausage. YUM!

Lettuce from my garden and spinach from the grocery store went into a salad with hot vinegar-bacon dressing, topped with a sliced boiled egg from our hens.

This is the last of our navel oranges for this year. We have lots of baby oranges on the tree, so we should start harvesting again in early January. The green onions and basil went into scrambled eggs from our own hens, along with an avocado from our tree.

This avocado is just a tad past prime. They don’t ripen on the tree, so I pick them, let them sit in a bowl on the counter, and have to judge the perfect time to eat them. That would have been two days earlier. This one went into scrambled eggs. I have about nine avocados left on the tree from this year’s crop, but I can find only one avocado that has set for next year. This was a lousy year for apple-set too, at least in my garden.

Sage leaves went into sage-buttered corn on the cob.

Chop 1-2 sage leaves per ear of corn. Mix with 1-2 T butter per ear, add salt (I used Himalayan pink salt), and spread on ears of corn. Wrap in foil and grill for about 10 minutes, turning once. Whoops, we ate all of the corn before photographing the finished product. Sorry. It was delicious!

I loved this bok choy and water chestnut dish, but my husband didn’t. The ginger and garlic are from my garden too.

Boy Choy and Water Chestnuts with ginger and garlic (serves 2)

6 oz bok choy, washed and sliced

1 -6 oz can water chestnuts, rinsed and drained

1 T grated fresh ginger

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tsp sesame oil

1 T olive oil

2 T mirin (Japanese rice wine that is sweetened)

Saute the bok choy and garlic in the two oils until wilted. Add the ginger and water chestnuts and saute briefly. Add mirin, stir thoroughly, and serve hot.

Miss Hillary, on the right, is being broody. She has quite laying eggs and wants to do nothing but incubate. Even if there are no eggs under her. Chicken Little, on the left, is “working.” Right now, she is my only hen that is laying. Henrietta is four years old and isn’t laying much any more. I need Miss Hillary, my youngest hen, back in production.

This fierce creature is just a baby possum. It makes #10 caught and relocated this year. I neglected to set my trap for a few weeks, and possums got all the rest of my peach crop, plus half of my plum crop. I only had four plums on the tree, and possums knocked two of them off, bit into them, and left them on the ground because they aren’t ripe yet. Darn possums.

I took a bunch of photos of my garden today, but if I post them now I won’t have anything to post tomorrow for Harvest Monday. As it is, I already posted pictures of my harvested produce. Oh well. Go visit Robin to see what others used from their garden this week.

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Kitchen Cupboard Thursday and making Lemon Marmalade

Posted on May 18, 2012 | 6 Comments

Since I started the 2012 canning season with pickled beets in February and a batch of lemon-ginger marmalade last week, I thought I’d take stock of my cupboard of remaining home-canned foods.

Ingredients for Lemon-Ginger Marmalade: 4 Meyer lemons, one navel orange and fresh ginger the size of a walnut. All of these are organic and from my garden.

I have remaining:

2 pints, Beets, Pickled

5- 8 oz jars, Green Beans, Dilly

3- 8 oz jars, Jam, Guava Spice

3- 8 oz jars, Jam, Strawberry

4- 16 oz jars Marinara Sauce

7- 8oz jars, Marmalade, Meyer Lemon-Ginger

1- 8 oz jar, Pickles, Bread and Butter

1- gallon jar, Pickles, Dill Spears

6 – 8 oz jars, Pickles, Watermelon

3- 12 oz jars, Pickles, Watermelon

1- 16 oz jar, Soup, Tomato

That’s 35 jars of canned stuff, not counting the gallon of dill pickles in the refrigerator. My freezer inventory is less precise but includes some mashed pumpkin, at least 3- 16 oz packages, maybe as many as 5, and 2 packages of snow peas.

I also have nearly two dozen eggs frozen in two-egg packets. I lightly mix the eggs, add a bit of salt, and freeze them in small ZipLoc baggies, 2 eggs to a baggie. Since I know that my hens stop laying in winter, I now have some eggs put by to tide me over November-January until they begin laying again.

My latest batch of Meyer Lemon-Ginger Marmalade was fabulous, but I’ll never be able to duplicate it. Here is what I did. This is certainly not a “how-to” because of, well, you’ll see.

Peel the brown outer skin off a walnut-sized piece of fresh ginger, and grate with a microplane grater.

You’ll end up with about 1.5 tsp of grated ginger.

Using a citrus zester or parer like this one, pare the peel off the 4 lemons and 1 orange. Dice the peel and add to the ginger. Using a paring knife, peel off the white part of the rind and discard. That is the bitter part, and eliminating it makes the marmalade less bitter. Dice the peeled lemon and orange and add to the ginger and zest along with water and sugar. See below.

Now here is where I screwed up. I was supposed to either soak the seeds and/or the entire diced lemons in water overnight. I think that is where the pectin comes from. You need pectin to gel the marmalade. Because I didn’t do that, I decided to modify the recipe and use packaged pectin. But if you use packaged pectin, you add less water and more sugar. So here is what I did. The juice etc. added up to a little over 3 cups. I added water to make 4 cups, then added another cup of water. I cooked the juice etc for an hour, then added 6 cups of sugar, which is more than what my original recipe (without added pectin) called for. I also added a packet of pectin. However, it was 15 years old, and I’m not sure it was any good. The marmalade was supposed to gel within two minutes, but it took another hour of boiling for it to gel. The final product was wonderful, with perfect taste and consistency. Too bad I’ll never be able to do this again exactly the same way.

Cook the marmalade until it sheets off a spoon in one sheet rather than in two separate drops. Put in hot, sterile canning jars, seal and process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. Place on a cloth towel to cool. Label and store.

So that was my adventure in making marmalade. To see how others are using their harvests or stored produce visit Robin at The Gardener of Eden.

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200th Blog Post–Harvest Monday and Kitchen Cupboard Thursday

Posted on May 11, 2012 | 2 Comments

Phew, I am really running behind this week. I didn’t get my Harvest Monday post done this week, even though I had a nice harvest to report. But I did get a new raised bed constructed and planted. See my last post. At this point, I’m hoping to get my Thursday “what I used from my garden and preserved harvest” post done before midnight. And… this marks my 200th blog post.

First, a feast for the eyes, a lovely orchid cactus in bloom.

So, before I go on to my harvest and use thereof, let me direct your attention to the World Map at the right. This app keeps track of where my visitors live. My blog has been visited by people from every state in the US, and people from 182 other countries. Since I don’t think that there are even that many countries in existence, that is quite remarkable. And since my blog is in English, it makes me wonder what brings all those people here. I would guess photos. Or maybe they get here by mistake. Who knows. I just hope they find something useful or that makes them happy.

This is the largest cabbage that I’ve ever grown. It weighed 3 lbs. It split, but I cleverly didn’t show you that side of the cabbage. I have another one, the last one, ready to pick this week.

I have potatoes growing in the fabric Gro-pot at the lower right, and yams in the other two pots. I’m about to plant my third and last pot of yams from slips growing on the kitchen windowsill. This is the largest that my potato plants have ever gotten, so I am hoping for a good harvest soon.

After not producing avocados for 15 years, my Littlecado tree finally did itself proud this year. I am harvesting two a week, which is the rate at which we consume them. They don’t ripen until picked. I have maybe 9-10 left on the tree, so the harvest isn’t over yet.

Whoopee, my first harvest of the year of Florida Prince peaches. They are pathetically small because I just didn’t thin them enough. Now I am faced with tiny fruits that are mostly seed. But boy are they tasty! Sweet and succulent, dripping with juice. I had some for breakfast this morning with granola.

First, my harvest for the week.

Harvest for week ending May 6, 2012.

FRUITS

14 oz Avocados

12 oz Orange, Navel

1 lb 6 oz Peaches, Florida Prince

Subtotal 3 lbs

VEGETABLES

12 oz Artichokes

3 lbs Cabbage, Red

1 oz Lettuce, Deer Tongue

Subtotal 3 lbs 13 oz

TOTAL PRODUCE 6 lbs 13 oz plus 10 eggs

If you had a harvest, or to see what others around the world are harvesting, visit Daphne’s Dandelions. See hot links at right.

On to what I made with my harvest. I made a batch of Meyer lemon-ginger marmalade, but I’ll post the recipe for that on another post because I’m running out of time and energy. I still want to bake a peach pie tonight with some of my Florida Prince peaches.

This smoked salmon fritatta was made with eggs from my hens, avocado and green onion from my garden, sliced cheese, and some smoked salmon. Wish I had more of that salmon, because it was YUMMY. Wish I could spell frittata. Frittatta. Whatever.

I made a beef stew with cubed boneless chuck roast, diced potatoes, an onion, a bunch of carrots sliced, and a can of my homemade tomato soup. I put two bay leaves on top from our tiny potted bay laurel tree.

I cooked the stew in our Sun Oven solar oven. I just love that thing and have been using it 2-3 times a week, saving energy and fighting global warming. The stew was done and tender after 4 hours. I swear, food tastes better when it is cooked in a solar oven. The flavors blend and mingle and meats are so tender it is amazing. But now that I look at the photo, I can see that it is white and sweet potatoes that are baking in it. They were great too.

We had the stew with cornbread and orange-honey butter.

Orange-honey Butter

1 stick of butter softened in microwave for 10 seconds

1 T orange rind grated with microplane grater

2 t honey

Blend with a fork. Great on blueberry pancakes, biscuits, cornbread, English muffins, etc.

Did somebody say blueberry pancakes? That’s what we had for breakfast the other day, made with blueberries from the farmers market, topped with 100% pure maple syrup and orange-honey butter made with orange rind from my own oranges, and… orange wedges.

If you used something from your kitchen cupboard or to see recipes from others, visit Robin at The Gardener of Eden.

I am now debating whether or not I have enough energy left in the evening to bake a peach pie. Arg, I wouldn’t get it into the oven until 10 pm and it wouldn’t come out until 11. That is a “not happenin’ activity” for tonight. Manana, muchachos y muchachas.

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Harvest Monday and Kitchen Cupboard Thursday, April 23, 2012

Posted on April 24, 2012 | 20 Comments

Hoo boy, I got busy and never posted for last Thursday’s Kitchen Cupboard, hosted by Robin. That’s where gardeners blog about what they used from their stored produce or made with their fresh produce. Here’s what I used last week.

Yum, yum, a ham sandwich made with my homemade bread and butter pickles from last summer, and freshly picked Deer Tongue lettuce from my garden.

This is a ham sandwich on Russian Raisin Pecan bread from Schat’s Bakkery in Bishop, CA. The mustard is homemade (thanks, Robin, for the recipe), as are the bread and butter pickles from last summer’s cucumbers. Still have two jars left. The lettuce is freshly picked Deer Tongue lettuce from my garden. Deer Tongue, Black-seeded Simpson and Lollo Rosa are my three favorite letttuces. Oh, better add Red Oakleaf to that list just for the pretty shape and color.

We also had eggs from our hens for breakfast, and some eggs went into a homemade banana nut bread.

I didn’t photograph the rest of my harvest from last week, which was just two avocados. So I’m going to put in pics of the actual garden, which I prefer anyway. I like to see gardens growing. My harvests are generally so pathetically small, that I’d rather photograph the living plants anyway.

Some of the tomato seedlings that I bought developed damping off, a fungus. I cut the tops off above the infection and rooted the tomato tops in glasses of water on the windowsill. They're now ready to plant. I'm also rooting some yams. Note the blue Mason canning jar. That jar is from my Grandma Wilson, and about 80 years old by now.

I'm still excited about my Red Flame grapes making their first flowers this year. I have no idea if these are flower buds or grapes. I'm just watching them grow in fascination, looking forward to my first home-grown grapes.

The Florida Prince peaches are nearing harvest. But I didn't thin them enough and the fruits are pathetically small again this year. This picture makes them look big, but they're not. I'm thinking that they're going to be mainly skin and seed. Time will tell. They should be ready to pick in another few weeks.

Our dwarf Granny Smith apple tree has more blooms on it this year than ever. Our normal crop is 30 full-sized apples. We'll see what the 2012 fruit set is in another month or so.

Couldn't resist posting this pic of a rose. We had a really heavy fog this morning and everything was covered with dense dew. It was gorgeous out there.

This is the view of our backyard looking south. Herb garden is in the foreground, then the chicken coop and the roses, irises, grapes, apple trees, the plum tree, and the Florida Prince peach.

The rest of our backyard is occupied by more fruit trees and three raised beds for vegetables. This is bed #1. It has a few tomatoes, some Brussels sprouts that aren't making sprouts, some Lacinato kale that is at the end of its useful life in my garden, and a giant beet that I'm growing for the "Largest Beet" competition at the 2012 Orange County Fair. I grow mint and thyme outside this bed.

Bed 2 has tomatoes, leeks, Deer Tongue lettuce that is going to seed (it's an heirloom variety and I'll save the seeds), a Black Beauty eggplant that I planted back in 2010 that is still growing, and a row of Super Sugar Snap peas that has just sprouted along the right side of the bed. They'll grow up the metal trellis from Gardener's Supply Company, source of my beautiful raised bed frames.

Nasturtiums and narcissus are growing around the perimeter of the beds. I can hardly get through the tangle of foliage to walk around the beds, but I love the look. We have no lawn at all. Saves water.

Bed 3 with more tomatoes, a row of Blue Lake pole beans that just sprouted, strawberries, some bell pepper plants, a Black Beauty eggplant, and a couple of red cabbages that seem to be making heads. I haven't had a lot of luck with cabbage, so I'm looking forward to actually being able to eat a homegrown cabbage at long last.

I grow peas and beans up a metal pea fence by the deck. These are Mammoth Snow Peas, the second crop of the year to grow up the fence. When they're done, I'll plant pole beans.

I didn't plant this. It sprouted from my homemade compost. I figure it's a pumpkin or winter squash of some kind. I know that I should weed it out, but I just can't. I figure if it came from my compost pile, it must be something that I grew. But I had some mini winter squash that were hybrids, so it could be anything. Hybrids don't breed true. I'm afraid that my curiosity about what it might grow into may overrule my better judgement (OK, THEM. There are 8 of them sprouted.) Time will tell. What do you say, weed it out or transplant it and see what it grows into?

I bought some new orchids this year for the deck. Yep, they grow year-round outdoors in coastal southern California. I really like the three of them massed together.

That’s it for the backyard. Now let’s move on to the less glamorous front.

Our front yards are the showplaces of our properties, right? Sadly, not at our house. I have a vegetable garden right next to the sidewalk, and it never does very well. Consequently, or perhaps because, I neglect it. I call this my Garden of Infinite Neglect. It is so sad looking. I have plans to put in a raised bed here and see if that will improve growing conditions. It's going to rain here on Wednesday, so I am hoping to get that project done in the next two days. Or maybe I'll neglect to get "a round tuit."

I grow potatoes and yams in Gro-pots in our driveway. Here is a pot of potatoes that volunteered from little potatoes that didn't get harvested. I won't know if they're German butterballs or blue potatoes until harvest time. They could even be Russets. I've grown them all in these fabric grow-pots. I just add more fertilizer and reuse the potting soil and pots.

A pot of succulents in front of the Garden of Perpetual Responsibility has flowered. Nice flower.

I see artichokes on the menu for dinner tonight. They were almost ready to harvest on Friday when we left for the weekend, but I didn't want them to just sit in the refrigerator. This one is a bit past prime. But it will go great with some chicken or steak cooked on the BBQ.

My strawberry pot got a bit neglected last year, but the strawberry plants survived. I fertilized and watered them, and am hoping for at least a small crop of berries this year.

Our Fuyu persimmon tree has a half dozen flowers on it. It didn't produce any fruit last year. It might this year, but I STILL don't have it planted. It's in its original nursery pot. I think it would do a lot better if I actually put it into the ground. It's going into the Garden of Perpetual Responsibility, which is always loaded with weeds.

I got some free irises from someone a couple of years ago. They are supposed to be white with ruffled edges. This one is neither. But I like it anyway. This is the first year of bloom for it. The other irises from that source are still small and haven't bloomed yet. Maybe they're the white ruffled ones.

And that is the state of my home garden on April 23. I’ll blog about my community garden plot some other time. On to my itty bitty Harvest Monday.

Fruit

14.5 oz avocados

Vegetables

2 oz Deer Tongue lettuce

Total Produce 1 lb 0.5 oz plus 10 eggs

If you had a harvest, or you just want to see what others are harvesting, visit Daphne’s Dandelions.

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