Tomato Season

Picked my first tomatoes this week. 4 Sungolds and 3 Black Plums!


The Black Plums were a little bland, but their texture was good: smooth and moist but not overly drippy. The Sungold was strikingly flavorful. It was tart but not too acidic...more sweet than sour.

It will be awhile yet before any other varieties ripen, but I should get a few more Plums and Sungolds in the next week or so.

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Zucchini Bread

I went out to the garden this afternoon to find these:



My only thought was to make some Zucchini bread. My memory of zucchini bread is the recipe from the L.A. Times California Cookbook, but since I haven't got a copy and couldn't find on online, this recipe will have to do.

Peas!

The peas have gone crazy this past week. I harvested some snap peas as a breakfast snack, and there are loads of snow peas on the vines. I'm so glad they are doing so well, since I am beginning to think about how I will have to pull them soon to make room for summer beans. I was worried they were a waste of time and effort for only a couple handfuls of peas. But if they keep producing like this for another week or two, I'll feel like I'm definitely getting my time's worth out though.


Tonight's plan is to make some sort of meat w/ snow peas asian dish to use up some of those snow peas before they get too big and I have to use them as shelling peas.

Beet and Chard Flatbread Pizza

Yesterday I pulled two beautiful beets out of the ground. This got me looking for something interesting to do with them. So today I made a DELICIOUS beet and chard pizza.



Instead of a traditional pizza sauce like pesto or marinara I made a sauce by blending chard, some oil, and some garlic.

The dough recipe I got from this website. If I'm honest, I'm not sure I'll use it again. The dough was very elastic and it took forever to stretch it thin. I had to stretch it and let it rest and stretch it again about 4 times. I even was letting the dough rest stretched over an upside-bowl to try to get gravity to work in my favor.

I roasted the beets yesterday. An hour in foil in a 350 degree oven and they were seriously the tastiest beets I've ever had. It was all I could do to not eat them right then.

Chioggia Beet (sadly, they lost their pink/white stripes in the cooking)

Slices of beets, a few slices of mozzarella, and topped with a little thyme, and then into the oven. I already had a pan preheating (not as good as a pizza stone but oh well!), so I slid it onto the pan and baked it at 450 for 10 mins. The last minute I switched it to broil to brown the cheese a little.

Changes for next time: better quality cheese, different crust recipe, and cook it a little longer to brown the crust more.
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Chard Recipes to Try

I'm looking for chard recipes that would be good for summer dinners. So far I've found this flatbread pizza that makes a sort of chard puree sauce. I think it would be delicious with a little turkey sausage (which happened to be on sale at Ralphs this week!) in place of the fake bacon. I also found these very pretty chard wraps with polenta, gorgonzola, walnuts, and raisins. Since I'm not really a raisin fan, I might try that second recipe with apricots or craisins. The recipe also calls for pancetta, but I could easily make it without to serve a vegetarian dish. Perhaps I'll try these out as a potential entree for the BBQ I'm holding in a couple weeks.

Blog Update!

I finally figured out how to post photos from my iPhone WITHOUT having them look like crap when you look at them on a computer. From now on you shouldn't have to click on the photos to get an in-focus version. Yay!

Aquaponic Update

Last weekend Elliott helped me clean out the bed of the aquaponics system again and we did an almost complete water change. The old water went out into the garden and the new water came from our Discus tank and the hose. I think weekly cleanings may be mandatory until we strike the right balance of fish, food, and plants.

The styrofoam plant float has been deteriorating since my (suspected) raccoon visit last week, and now has several breaks in it. We've decided we'll try to make a new float out of plywood instead. Hopefully we can get that cut during the evenings this week and put it out in the garden next weekend.

The plants, on the other hand, are doing FANTASTIC. Without the algae to compete with, many of them are doing extremely well. I've had several basils double their size in the last week, and the roots on many of the plants are downright huge! I think once we get a float that works well and get the algae under control, it's going to be very successful. Sadly, many of the plants I originally planted didn't survive the competition with algae and/or the raccoon attack, so I will be replanting lots of pots over the next few days. It looks like the hydroton rocks are going to be the preferred medium because they don't accumulate algae as quickly and they are much more reusable. The basil, however, seems to prefer the rock wool so I want try perlite to see if that provides a good middle ground.

The tilapia seem to be doing quite well. They have good appetites and seem to be growing. We have lost two fingerlings and the smaller of the two tilapia that were still hanging on from last year. This leaves me with 53 fingerlings and one large fish, along with 3 crawdads, 2 guppies, and a pleco in the aquaponics pond.

Assorted Update

Lots of things have happened in the last couple days. Here's the breakdown.

Tomato Bed:
The Hawaiian Currant made the transition back into dirt well and is beginning to put on some height. Given how miserable it looked when I picked it up, broken and wilted, off the ground a few weeks ago, I am shocked that it made such a recovery.

Hawaiian Currant looking good!

Green Zebra is still looking a little sad. I hacked it pretty good to remove a bunch of wilting leaves. The good news is that the brown wilt seems to be gone. The bad news is that there is only one growing tip left (until it grows a few suckers) and its leaves are somewhat curled, as if to protect itself or reserve water. I think it will be fine eventually, but it's not recovering easily.

Green Zebra...not looking good

The other tomatoes all have yellow flowers, and several are working on making tomatoes. Black Plum and Sun Gold both have lots of little green fruits. I'm curious to see who ripens first. Considering how well Black Plum did last year on neglect, and how well it's doing again this year, I suspect it will cement its position as favorite tomato.

Sun Gold tomatoes


Black Plum tomatoes

I put about 1 lb of E.B. Stone’s All-Purpose Fertilizer into the tomato bed. I also sprayed the bed with Neem Oil and sprinkled some Sluggo in the area. The tomato plants don’t seem too bug infested, but my poor pepper plants are just getting munched (except the Dulcettas, which somehow seem immune), I suspect by slugs & snails.

I bought a replacement Cayenne pepper to replace the one that got munched. It came in a 4-pack, so the others will probably go in pots. I also bought an Anaheim pepper. The one in the garden got so munched that I’m not sure it’ll make it, so I thought it best to have a plant on reserve just in case.

Anaheim Pepper might recover if the slugs stay away


Dulcetta Pepper looking awesome


Shallots (and one shallot that is probably not a shallot)


Garlic (Borage in upper left corner)

Legumes:
The pea plants look great. It’s going to break my heart when I have to pull them out in a couple more weeks. I’ve harvested about a dozen peas and there’s at least that many left on the vine for a salad or stir fry this week.

Very tall Pea plants


Peas

The fava beans are also doing well. There are several pods growing, and lots of flowers that should lead to bean pods soon.

Fava plants


Fava Beans

Leafy Greens:
Chard has taken over the garden. I really need to eat more chard. Lettuce looks fantastic. I think I’ll try to nurse it to the end of June for a BBQ on the 26^th, and then I’ll pull it out to give more room to the melon and strawberry plants. The Asian greens have also outgrown their welcome. I think they will become Chinese Chicken Salad this week. Mmmmm.

Red Chard


Asian Greens

Fruit:
A few of the melons have finally taken hold and appear to be growing. The ones closer to the back get much less sun, so they will take longer to get going, but I’m not sure having a delay between the plants will be a bad thing later this summer.

Charentais Melon

I finally got the 4 Chandler strawberry plants in the ground. Two of them already have strawberries trying to grow. Hopefully the others will get going soon.

Chandler Strawberry

Squash:
The zucchini plants are GIANT. I will have to hack it back a bit to get the corn in, but I doubt the plants would even notice. There are a couple zukes on it that will have to get eaten soon before they get huge. The other squash plants are doing well too. There are acorn squashes forming on one plant and the other squashes seem to have finally sunk their roots in and started growing.

Zuchinni growing


Acorn Squash

Other:
Radish seeds have sprouted out in the garden. Hopefully they’ll also be ready for salad for my BBQ in 3 weeks.

Radish sprout

The sunflowers have also grown quickly. I don't think I've mentioned them much in earlier posts, but the tallest is now taller than me.

Sunflower corner

My corn seeds have sprouted (all but one) in their little newspaper pots. When they reach ~6 inches tall, I’ll move them out to the garden.

Corn sprouts

Assorted Update

More peas are growing, I've harvested about a dozen now. I'm saving some on the vines now for using in stir frys along with the asian greens. I will have to pull out the pea plants towards the end of June, and I'm sure it won't be easy. They will still have a lot of life in them, but they need to make way for summer vegs.

Fava beans are continuing to develop, I just hope they hurry it up before it gets too hot in July.

Tomato plants are coming along. The Hawaiian Currant made the transition well and is beginning to grow up. The Green Zebra plant still has not recovered from when I hacked away the yellowing leaves. Its leaves are somwhat wrapped up, as if it is trying to protect itself, and it hasn't been growing. Much of this is probably to do with the fact that I had to remove all but one growing tip. I am hoping some suckers grow soon so I can get a couple vines going. I would be surprised if the Green Zebra didn't make it through this, but it's a slow recovery. Most of the other plants have flowers and many have little green tomatoes. The Sun Gold and the Black Plum both are tied for best growing plants. I am curious to see which ripens first, though they both have plenty of green fruits and neither seems to show any interest in changing color yet. With Black Plum doing so well again this year, I suspect it will yet again be my favorite tomato.

I went to Armstrong Nursery again this past week and picked up a couple more herbs (Lemon Verbena, cinnamon basil, among others), a cucumber plant, an eggplant, a 15 lb bag of E.B. Stone all purpose fertilizer, Sluggo, and neem oil. I also picked up a packet of lime basil seeds, which I'd never seen before.

With my new supplies, I fertilized/Sluggoed/neemed the tomato bed. The neem oil has a snazzy hose nozzle attachment that dilutes as spray, so I got a little excited and neemed the other plant bed too. Hopefully the sluggo and neem will keep my poor little pepper plants from getting eaten. Almost all of them are getting munched, except for the Dulcettas. They seem to be immune.

I also planted marigolds and chandler strawberries in the other plant bed....this chore is LONG overdue.