Gnocci Craving

Having an odd craving for gnocci, so I thought I'd browse Google. I unexpectedly found this: Swiss Chard Gnocci Recipe. Sadly, I just yanked out all my swiss chard the other day (believe me, it was time....it was all old and gross and mildewy), but when the next batch gets going I will have to try this.

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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Tilapia Time!

This weekend I went to visit my brother down in San Diego. I picked over a pound of chard to bring to his girlfriend, but the chard is so prolific you can hardly tell out in the garden.

While we were down there I picked up my stock of tilapia for this summer. I paid for 50 fingerlings ($1.79 each) from San Diego Pet Supply who get their tilapia from Tilapia Mama. The store owner wasn't too big on counting them as he put them in the bag, so I ended up with about 75 of them. Unfortunately ~20 of them died on our way home. Turns out stopping for a couple hours for breakfast/lunch was a poor decision; I suspect they died from lack of oxygen. :( In any case, I was glad he gave us so many extras because I still had 55 fingerlings to put into my system when we got home. We bought a mesh laundry bag to contain them, which should make it easier for water changes and the like. I checked on them this morning and it looks like they survived their first night just fine.




The heater in the tank keeps the temperature hovering above 67 at night, while it typically gets up well above 70 during the day.

In other aquaponics news, Bailey has discovered that the Daphnia tank is a fun toy. I will need to adjust my plan to keep her out of that, since the screen has already been dog-stroyed. I'll replace the screen to keep the mosquitos out this summer, but it will need something more to protect agains dog attacks.

I also took a look at my little Hawaiian Currant tomato today, which appears to have officially been saved by aquaponics. I pulled it's pot out of the float today and it has long roots extending out of the pot. I think it may be time to transplant the little guy back to his home in the tomato bed. Perhaps I will have Hawaiian Currant tomatoes this year afterall :)

Leafy Greens, Ho!

Lettuce and Chard are in full production. On Tuesday I picked over half a pound of chard to bring to my Trainer and on Wednesday I picked not quite half a pound of lettuce for a delicious (and beautiful) salad. Unfortunately I wasn't home for dinner on Wednesday to enjoy it, but I had leftovers on Thursday along with some tuna and two pretty radishes (one red, one purple) that I picked that day. I can't believe the radishes are already a harvestable size! I will have to plant more radish seeds soon, since the radishes that are still out in the dirt won't be there for long...Mmmmmmm.

First harvest!

We had our first official harvest for the year today!




I snipped 101g of chard out of the garden and chopped it up to throw into a meal of fried rice. Unfortunately with all the spices and such, it was difficult to taste the chard alone, but it seemed to have a good texture and mild flavor. This chard was planted on April 2nd, making it 37 days from seed to harvest.

Also, I planted the Anaheim pepper today. It finally had it's second set of leaves and I didn't want to risk killing this seedling too, I think it's safer in the ground.

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Happy Day!

Today is turning out to be pretty fantastic, not only did I get into my first choice school for the fall (Yes, I agree that is completely unrelated, but I don't care. I'm excited!) but I also discovered as I tied up a few of my tomatoes today that I have a BABY TOMATO!



Baby Black Plum Tomatoes, Weeeeee!
Actually there are two, and to make it even better they are on my black plum plant, which means they will not only ripen faster since they are little grape tomatoes, but they are my favorite kind of tomato so they will probably be delicious. I am so excited.

Three of my tomato plants are now tall enough that they need some tying. The Yellow Submarine and Paul Robeson are lagging behind everyone else, especially the Yellow Submarine which seems to have some really odd leaf shapes and not only because it is a potato leaf.

The Blood Gulch, I am pleased to report, has made a full recovery and is catching up with all its might. It has surpassed the Paul Robeson in size already and is looking very robust.



Blood Gulch



Blood Gulch looks tiny next to its neighbor
The Hawaiian Currant is still alive, somehow, but is looking a little crisp around the edges due to the intense heat we've had the last few days. I've not given up all hope for it yet, but I am certainly not holding my breath for it either.


Hawaiian "I'm not dead yet!" Currant
I also tied up my fava beans today as they were starting to crowd the chard and the sweet peas are just not getting enough light. Hopefully this doesn't negatively affect my yield from the favas, though I think the benefit to the chard and sweet peas should more than make up for it.



Favas & Chard
The chard is looking amazing. Earlier this week I was thinking about pulling a few leaves to put on a sandwich, but now I think there's enough for a side dish of sauteed chard. I will definitely be eating chard with my dinner tomorrow. That'll be the first harvest of the season. How exciting!!!!


Red Chard



Yellow Chard
I also discovered a little strawberry flower bud yesterday afternoon that today was open and smiling. Only 10 of the 36 strawberry starts I planted ever grew anything, but perhaps I will still still get some strawberries this season :)



Hello there!

Elliott didn't kill any plants!

Last Wednesday I put my tomatoes, garlic, and shallots in in a hurry so that I could leave town for a visit with my mother. I was rather nervous about leaving my garden because many of the seeds I put in over the last few weeks are just now sprouting, others have been up for awhile but are still small and tender, and the process of transplanting tomatoes is pretty brutal for the poor guys and they're very fragile for the first week or two afterwards.

Well, I couldn't be happier to see my tomatoes are for the most part looking no worse than the day I put them in. Elliott reports that they were pretty wilted while I was gone, but they seem to look fine now. I put E.B. Stone Planting Compost on them today as a mulch because the ground is a bit cracked in some places. Hopefully a little mulch will hold the moisture in (and makes the bed look much prettier).

Several garlics have already broken through the surface. I suspect the others will all be up in the next week or so. No shallots or elephant garlic yet, but it has only been 5 days.

My fava beans look FANTASTIC! Many of the plants are 6+ inches tall now and growing second and third stalks. The peas (sweet, snap, and snow) are all popping up. They vary in height from 1/2"-3" right now and a few sweet peas have started growing tendrils.

More strawberry starts have grown leaves. Maybe 8 or 10 have a leaf or two on them now, and a couple of those already have multiple leaves. The larger of my two rhubarb starts also has a beautiful green leaf that grew while I was away.

Seeds are sprouting all over the strawberry/flower/vegetable bed. My sunflower seeds are up and working on their first true leaves. I have a nice row of chard developing and a number of other seeds that I don't yet recognize. Many of these seeds are probably weeds, but I won't really know until they've developed a little further. I won't pull anything for awhile for fear of pulling out something I planted on purpose.

My potted Roma tomato is looking suprisingly stocky. It is close to a foot tall now and has an impressively thick stem with dense branches. I suspect I will have a very productive plant....hopefully in contrast with my tomatoes from last year which ended up long and somewhat spindly.

Today I went to Armstrong Garden Center to spend one of my Groupons from a couple weeks back. I spent it on three bags of compost and a variety of herbs (trailing rosemary, English thyme, chocolate mint, stevia, Italian oregano), an Artichoke plant, and a half dozen seed packets. Most of these (except the seeds) will end up in pots on my porch or driveway window sill. I'm looking forward to getting those all in over the next few days!

More plants!

Finished double digging the north vegetable bed today! It was late in the day but I convinced myself I needed to get the peas in...and now I'm glad I did. There's a roughly 20 foot row of peas with 3" spacing, alternating one snap pea to every two snow peas. This is partly because there were more snow pea seeds in a packet and partly because the plants only grow half as tall so I figure I'll need more of them to get roughly equal yields. the peas should be up in no time. They were all sprouting roots and stems already (from being between wet paper towels for 5 days) and I didn't bury them very deep.

I also planted a dozen or more sunflower seeds and two rhubarb starts.

If I have time tomorrow I'm hoping to get tomatoes, scallions, garlic, and shallots in...or at least dig a bed for them and plant on Monday or Tuesday.

Almost all the Favas have sprouted and sweet peas are pushing through here and there. Three strawberry starts have green in them and the seeds I planted among the strawberries may be starting to germinate as well! They could just be weed seeds, but at least some of the look like beet or chard seedlings. Only time will tell.


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Plants in the Ground!

I spent several hours this afternoon finally putting plants in the ground instead of just digging the place up! Along the eastern wall of my garden there is now a row of ~27 fava beans (I forgot to count before some of them got buried) with 3-4 sweet pea seeds in between them.

Strawberry starts were placed in an intensive pattern with 12 inch spacing. On the south end of the bed there are 12 Ozark Beauty starts, on the north end are 12 Sequoia starts, and in between there are 12 Quinalt starts. Because these form a pretty diamond pattern due to their spacing I planted seeds between them. Inside each diamond there are now three beet seeds around two globe amaranth seeds with mesclun seeds sprinkled randomly throughout. In each front triangle along the wood partition there are lobelia seeds with poppy seeds at the top of each triangle. Towards the back, just in front of the fava/sweet pea row, there is a row of swiss chard planted between the strawberries sprinkled with dual colored caesar romaine and patches of three bachelor's button seeds just in front to fill out the triangle.

I expect to see favas and sweet peas pop up in only a few days since most of them were already sticking their little roots out and a few were working on their stems. It's so exciting to finally have something in the ground!