Fine Line

Yesterday afternoon, after much ruminating, I decided to go out and pick the peas.  It had been 2 days since I had checked them.  The last time I checked, there were a few peas ready for picking.  Yesterday, there was a giant mixing bowl full of peas.  I picked all the ones I thought were ready, and some that I thought were not plump enough, because I have noticed that in stir-fry dishes in restaurants, the sugar snap peas are more flat than plump, so I picked some flat ones to taste them.

I discovered 2 things.  First, there is a fine line between ripe and too ripe.  Second, peas ripen in a half a second.  Once that pod is on the vine...don't blink or they will be ripe.

As it turns out, the plump peas are overripe.  The pod is very sweet, but a bit chewy, and the peas have begun to turn bitter.  Not bad, but a bit tart.  There were 2 really big fat ones that I missed picking earlier this week.  The peas were pulpy and sour, and the pod was leathery.  The flatter peas are sweet and moist, and the pod is delicately sweet.  They are perfect for eating raw and for stir-fry or steaming.  If you plan to remove the peas and not eat the pod, then the slightly plumper pods are best.  Picking and tasting is the only way to decide how you like to eat them. 

My own personal preference with the sugar snap peas is to eat the whole thing.  Why grow sugar snaps if you aren't going to eat the pod?  It is just crunchy enough for good texture and deliciously, delicately sweet.  Just grow plain old pole peas if you just want the pea inside.

Every tomato plant in the garden has tomatoes.  They are still very green but they are there.  Since we have a super duper fence around the garden, I am sure they will make it fine until they ripen.  I have googled several recipes for fried green tomatoes.  I need to try that before they ripen.  I have never had one, but I have heard stories about the deliciousness of fried green tomatoes.  So that is my next experiment.  We are going to get lots of tomatoes, so I am going to try several recipes, and maybe try my own version.  I will report the results when I am done.  If anyone has any recipes or ideas, please leave a post and let me know.

Until next time...

Karen

Sweet Sweet Peas

I got my first sugar snap pea yesterday.  It was the most delicious, crunchy, sweet mouthful of goodness I have tasted in a long time.  Of course I am not biased, but I do believe that the one special package of seeds with extra flavor found their way into my garden.  MMMMMMMMMM....so fantastic.  I am sure that all the LUV and effort that went into those peas has found its way into the pods.  Never mind that the peas are leaning at a 45 degree angle to the ground.  Never mind that I have to turn upside down to pick them.  When that pea pod bursts open in my mouth...I forget all about the toil and sweat.

For all you guys out there, this won't make any sense, but right now, this whole gardening and harvesting thing is feeling a lot like giving birth (god, I am so sappy).  We just forget about the hard work, and the pain the minute that little bundle of pulchritude pops into our lives.  I might be exaggerating a little bit, but the harvesting of that pea was something else.

I am still waiting to feel at one with the earth.  Not happening yet.  I still don't like the bugs and the weeds, but maybe........when the food is done growing, and I have a full pantry, I will begin to feel a kinship with nature.  Maybe when I have more experience, and the process of planting and sowing is more natural to me, I will have time to actually focus on what is happening in the moment and not worry about the outcome.  Hmmmmmm...this sounds suspiciously like some life lesson.  OH NO!!!!!  Not another growth opportunity!!!  I don't know if I can take it.

The hanging basket of tomatoes on the front deck is not doing well since the raccoons have eaten the fruit and are now starting on the flowers.  Next year I will decorate the deck with all the flowers that the deer and raccoons don't touch. 

 The potatoes are doing fantastic.  The plants are flowering..  I hope that is good.    The straw is still in place and hopefully there will be lots of taters.  I have ONE pumpkin plant.  It looks big and beautiful and bushy, but only one of the 5 seeds I put in the mound germinated.  I hope that I get more than one pumpkin.  

The yellow crook neck squash is prolific.  I am excited about that because it is my favorite kind of squash.  I planted the pumpkin and the crook neck squash in the same size mound and treated them both the same.  I have written down what I did...so I can repeat it next year.

The popcorn and bunching onions aren't doing a thing.  The yellow onions are thriving.  I am wondering if I got a batch of bad bunching onion seeds because of course it wouldn't be because of a mistake I made if it didn't grow. 

I have a plan for the fall when it gets too cold to garden.  I am going to create a salad garden in the green house.  That blanket over the top of the greenhouse seems to keep it warm in the cold, and somewhat cool in the heat, at least the kind of heat we get in the northwest.  I am going to plant a variety of lettuce in a huge, round, planter pot.  I also plan to try to grow some more green onions, and some radishes and cucumbers.  I would love to have fresh lettuce all year.  I am a little reluctant to do that because when I taste the produce that is grown in a "hot house"  that is in the supermarket, it has no flavor and does not taste good at all.  So I don't know how it is grown, and if the hot house is a green house, but I intend to bite the bullet and find out.

Until next time,

Karen

Design Flaw

For those of you who don't know what "Galloping Girdy" was, there used to be a bridge across the Tacoma Narrows, which is a narrow area of water that flows between the city of Tacoma, and the Key/Longbranch Peninsula.  The water flows fast and hard, and the wind whips through the narrows at breakneck speed during a storm.  Well, my uncle was one of the engineers who designed the original bridge that was called Galloping Girdy.  All the engineers on the project did not take into account the uplift of the wind whipping under the bridge.  One stormy day the wind was blowing hard, and the cement roadway running across the bridge couldn't take the stress and the whole bridge collapsed.  The new bridge had vents between the lanes so that would never happen again.  How is this related to me you ask?  I think I must have inherited some of those engineering genes.

I have been anxiously awaiting for my sugar snap peas to ripen.  There are lots of small peas out there on the vine, and I have been checking them every day.  Well when I went out there, there they were.....the stakes and string toppled over and the peas lying on the ground.  We had a galloping girdy force wind here yesterday, and I guess I didn't calculate the weight of the peas and the potential force of the wind properly.  We are going to go out today and put up bigger stakes and wire instead of twine.  Live and learn.  And by the way...I am going to pick the peas today after the support is fixed.  A lot of them are ready..but I can't get to them when they are all tangled up on the ground.

The green tops of the potatoes look great!  I just can't see underground to know if we will get potatoes or not.  The lettuce of the salad bowl variety is fabulous, and the head lettuce...not so much.  The popcorn has not grown a stitch since it shot up about 4 inches in the first couple of weeks after I planted the seeds.  The peppers are thriving-it just figures since I don't like peppers.  I have no more tomatoes on the hanging tomato plant that the raccoons ravaged.  There are lots of flowers so I am holding out hope.  There are some tomatoes on the cherry tomato plants out back in the garden.  WOO HOO!!!!!

It has been so cold here the last couple of months.  We have had a couple of days of good weather, but things are slow growing because it has been so cold and rainy.  I am not complaining, mind you.  I feel incredibly fortunate to be here when I look at the heat wave the rest of the country is experiencing.  I only wish we could share some of the moisture with everyone.  I would happily give away some of this water that is pooling everywhere if we could figure out how to do it.

I have learned 2 things my first year of planting.  First, I am NEVER EVER  going to start anything from seed again.  All the thriving plants are the ones that I began in the greenhouse, and planted the starts outside.  Second, the books are only a vague, general guideline.  When I first started researching this whole gardening thing, I took copious notes, read about each crop I wanted to plant, and became more and more confused about how to garden.  There are as many opinions as there are books.  The best way to do it is to just do it, and see what happens.  The books were invaluable in helping me decide what would grow well in this area, but that's it.  The rest of it I learned from hit and miss.

I will plant the cold crops earlier next year, because I have figured out that "warm" soil means it isn't frozen and isn't likely to freeze again.  Geez.  I will start everything in the greenhouse, even the lettuce.  I will start the popcorn in February so it is "knee high by the 4th of July"...a cute little saying I heard from someone recently.  I will not grow as many peppers.  I will put at least 3 seeds in each peat pot so that each pot will have a sprout.  All of these things I learned this year.  I didn't read it in any book.  So books are good guidance, but there ain't nothin like good ole experience.

This next tidbit I am going to share may make me look like a real dummy, but I planted basil and corriander in the greenhouse about a month ago.  It is doing fabulously well.  Both of the crops are growing nicely and I have lots of it.  Guess what I discovered after my partner asked me about corriander and cilantro?  Cilantro is the leaf part of the corriander seed.  Who knew???  Probably almost everyone out there except me.  I went out to examine the corriander, and there are cilantro leaves sticking out of the pot.  This is going to work very well because now I can make fresh salsa when all the tomatoes and onions come on.....and I love cilantro in my salsa.  It is going to be a good year!!!

Karen

The War is On

This is war.  The raccoons have declared war on me.  I accept the challenge.  Yesterday when I got home, all that was left of my 7 beautiful, lush, bright red geraniums, were 7 pots full of green leaves and stems.  They were up on the picnic table, that is pushed back from the end of the deck, so the deer could not reach it.  We have a deck spanning the width of the house.  It runs across the front of the house, and we have a view of Puget Sound, and we spend lots of evenings out on the deck watching the birds and the water.  It is beautiful.  Its beauty was enhanced by the pots of flowers, including the bright red geraniums.  My ONE AND ONLY  tomato is now gone too.  Those dastardly bandits came up on MY FRONT PORCH and stole my lone tomato.  I am out for blood now.  We feed our leftover popcorn, and bread heels to those damn raccoons, plus they have 2 acres of forest to forage.  And they have the nerve to come up on my front porch and eat MY food and plants.  We don't ever feed them in the front of the house either.  Any food we give them, we take out back.  Our back yard is not very deep, and it borders on the edge of the woods, so we throw the food into the woods.  I am wondering how painful a death I can inflict on them.  I could torture them first.  Pour tons of popcorn and rice down their throats, followed by lots of water so their stomachs would explode.   Of course I will do nothing, but sit and stew and dream about the torture until I am done being mad. 

I do realize that I am on their territory.  It really is I who am infringing on their habitat, but dang it, my mouth was watering, waiting for that tomato.  I am really mad about this.

 I am now ruminating over some type of barrier that I can put across the front of the deck.  It has to be low, so it won't block the view.  It also has to be tough enough to discourage the raccoons from coming up on the deck.  I am thinking a short electric fence.  I will teach those little bandits.  I think that the practical answer will be to grow flowers they don't find tasty.  They didn't touch the petunias or the impatiens.  They too are beautiful flowers and I could live with a deck full of their bright colors and wandering vines, but right now I am busy plotting my revenge.

I went and stood next to my peas this morning.  It was one of those cool, clean crisp mornings we have in the northwest.  It rained a bit during the night and everything was alive and fresh and clean smelling.  For those of you who have never experienced it, the air and the ground have a distinct fragrance after rain.  It smells clean and crisp with the promise of a beautiful, fresh day to come.  Anyway....blah blah blah.....I was standing next to the peas and they are now as tall as I am!!!   When did that happen????   It made me feel a lot like I used to as my kids got taller...when did that happen?  What was I doing when these peas sprouted up and started developing flowers and pods.  I have been so distracted with all the company, that I saw them, but it didn't hit me how tall they are and that we will really have peas soon!!!  We really will have peas soon.  Imagine.

I have had two salads using some of the salad bowl lettuce from the garden.  I have never had lettuce straight from a garden.  I used to think lettuce didn't have any flavor.  Wrong again!  It has a sweet delicious flavor.  I have heard that arugula has a peppery flavor.  I think I may have to plant some.  This is going to be fun...getting familiar with the way food tastes straight out of the ground.  There is something very comforting and primal about growing your own food.  Not to mention the unbelievable taste that you can't get in the grocery store produce.  Enough musings...back to the day, and my revenge.

Until next time...good eating.

karen

Neglect

I had a throw down with the potatoes this week and I think I won, but I won't actually know until I can figure out when to harvest them.  I have been neglecting the garden for a couple of weeks, because we have had lots of company.  I decided this week it was time to weed and finish up with covering the potatoes, and letting them grow until they are ready to harvest.  Now, I read lots of info on potatoes.  I discovered there are as many ways to grow potatoes as there are instructions.  I think, although it is hard to tell, because most of the instructions are not real detailed, but I think I have adopted a combination of strategies.  I did not actually dig a trench like some suggested, but I planted the seed potatoes, and then as the green plants were coming up, I mounded dirt around them.  I am quite possibly incorrectly assuming that this mound is where the actual potatoes will grow.  So when the mound of dirt was about 6 inches high, I decided to go to the next step, and cover it all up with straw.  Clever me.  I already had the straw, and so I took it out to the garden and covered the whole damn works with straw.  Then I actually started "thinking" about what I was doing and decided that just wasn't right.  So I came back in the house and searched the Internet for potato instructions.  Come to find out, leave the green part sticking out so it can get sunlight.  I finally found a picture of what it looks like when the potatoes are covered in straw.  The straw is nestled up tightly against the stems, but not covering the leaves.  So I have to go back out and rescue the smothered leaves.   I now have little mini haystacks out in my garden and these huge beautiful green plants getting bigger and bigger.  Like I said, I think I won, but I won't know until I actually start to harvest the potatoes.

Everything I read about the potatoes said that they take 2-4 months to grow, and I can muck around in the dirt trying to locate these tubers when they are ready to harvest.  I still can't figure out when they are ready.  I guess I will wait a while, and dig one up and see what it looks like.

The slugs had a hay day with my lettuce when I wasn't looking.  I put slug bait down, and then more slug bait.  It looks like I got em!!

I am losing the battle with the grass.  I think I am just too damn lazy.  There are so many other more urgent things to be done, like writing this blog, and playing Nintendo, and reading my newest  book.  I have vowed to go out every day and spend an hour harvesting the grass that has taken over my garden.  I can get about 1/2 inch of the garden area done in an hour.  This grass out there is wicked stuff.  Like I have mentioned before, it will outlive the cockroaches in a nuclear holocaust.  So I will keep plugging away, and hope that the grass doesn't choke out my food. 

Shockingly, the peppers and the popcorn are doing amazingly well.  I am just so surprised.  I did not think it was warm enough here.

Another thing....Consumer Reports rated the hanging, upside-down tomato plants as not very good.  Well, guess what, Consumer Report guys...my hanging tomato plant is the only one of 7 plants that has any fruit on it.  The tomato plant that I put it the basket was the same as the plants I planted in the garden.  It was one of the starts we purchased...same size and same variety.I got a tomato hanging out on my front porch.  It is still green, but it is there.  Pretty exciting stuff.

I have decided to compost, even if I don't get much material.  It is a good way to dispose of the end of the celery, and the organic stuff that I would normally put in the garbage.  It just seems like the right thing to do.  I have also solved the problem of the brown material on top of the composted stuff.  I let the grass and weeds that I pull out of the garden sit in the weed bucket for a week or so, and it all dries out and becomes brown material.  WOO HOO!!! So a little garbage, a few dried up weeds, some soil, and voila!!! Compost!!!  I am pretty excited about that too.  I don't actually have any compost yet, but the worms need a little time.  I mean, since that compost material is basically worm poop, and seriously, how much could one worm poop, I realize it will take a lot of time.  I can be patient.

Things are slowing down around here as far as company goes, so I should have more time for musings.  Until next time...all of you out there enjoy!!!

Karen