wrapping up for now

dearest blog followers...we've moved! it's true, we spent the latter half of the summer stalking redfin and breezing through open houses. we found a great place and are beginning to settle in. thus explains my horrid posting record throughout the summer. also, we took a trip up to denali national park in alaska (highly recommend it).

anyway, the good news is that we managed to transplant/transport a number of vegetables, fruits, and flowers over to our new place, which has ample space for a garden.

visit our house blog, where we will attempt to be more frequent in our updates (but, hey, cut us some slack, we did just move and are renovating much of the house :)

sustaining the schwartzes will be back on track once we're a bit more settled in to the new place. we're excited to break ground on a new garden. in the meantime, please enjoy a few photos of the old and new as they merge in the late growing season. thanks for following!

mmm. royal chantennay and purple haze carrots. lovely.

we had a lot of fun growing potatoes.
we managed to store a bunch and plan on definitely plan on doing potatoes again.

tomatoes hanging out in the new kitchen
(ok, it's a pretty old kitchen, but soon we will have our way with it)

the new yard has four mature plum trees.
my mom came over and picked them all, so i made some tarts.

mmm. garlic, among other things.

tonight we harvested and hung to dry 21 heads of garlic. three different varieties, with plenty of heads yet to pull from the garlic bed. exciting. and now the shed smells spicy (in a good way).

to the die hard fans of this blog, you may recall last summer when we purchased much of this garlic on lopez island. we also "borrowed" some from the leavens' family homestead in darby, montana. planted last fall, most of it has matured beautifully.


it took nearly nine months. quite the gestation period, but well worth the wait for each clove to develop into a full head that we'll now dry, store, and be able to use for the next several months.

in addition to the bounty of garlic, we've also been harvesting a good amount of baby zucchinis, squash blossoms, peas, shallots, and onions. by the by, onions, shallots, and garlic are all considered alliums (the onion genus). wikipedia tells me that with about 1250 species, allium is one of the largest plant genera on the planet. also, did you know that china is the world's largest producer of garlic at 23 billion pounds/year (or 77% of the world's output). india, south korea, russia, and the u.s. (1.4%) follow...leaving the schwartzes in a very distant 7th place. i suppose we'll take it.

stir fry garden

sitting down to dinner on monday, i couldn't help but smile. we put together a veg stir fry, where everything (less the rice and tofu) was sourced from the backyard. ok, technically, the soy and rooster sauces weren't home grown either, but that's besides the point.

this wasn't a celery, water chestnut, bamboo shoot, baby corn stir fry. i mean, really, what is baby corn? i'm talking kale, chard, snap pea, broccoli, carrot, onion, and baby zucchini. we pulled 7 different types of vegetables together. seven. it's amazing the type of diversity you can accommodate with a home garden.

the bounty of vegetables

our first attempt at broccoli paid off really well

two varieties of carrots
(purple haze and parisian market)

it was awesome and i really believe that i slowed down and enjoyed the meal that much more because it was made from ingredients that we planted, watered, and nurtured. plants that we picked just minutes before washing and sauteing them.

end product - a satisfying meal

the tastes of late spring

strawberries and rhubarb. arugula blooms. broccoli, zucchini, carrots, and more. couldn't be happier with the tastes of late spring.

a salad made of rainbow chard, dinosaur kale, sorrel, arugula (and arugula blossoms!), green onions, and lettuces (yes, a lot of greens!) meshed well with blue cheese, dried apricots, and almonds. paired with grilled asparagus and grilled bread - clean, fresh flavors.

strawberries and rhubarb pulled from the garden made a refreshing tart. i cobbled together a couple different recipes to create it. and now i realize i didn't even get a picture of the finished tart...we ate it right up after this ridiculously large pan of paella. and by we i mean at least 14 people.


besides these lovely meals, we've been discovering new growth in the gargen. the first carrot, baby zucchini and delicate blossoms, sugar snap peas, and broccoli. we let one broccoli plant go to seed, but will see what to do with the stalks.

ate this little guy a few moments later. crisp. sweet. yum.

speaking of sweet and crisp...snap peas are coming along!

if you followed any of last season's zucchini posts, you might recall some of our squash getting to the size of a small child. we'll work on that this time around.

a lot going on for a little bud of broccoli. i'm guessing it will be worth it in flavor.

shed a little light

fellow james taylor fans, please note the blog title - it isn't entirely random, given excessive sun exposure over the weekend, and major...MAJOR (yeah, all caps there) progress on the shed.

kudos to brian the builder for getting up just about all of the siding in a couple days - it looks great! next up...chicken coop? hmm.

anyway, sunshine led to a lot of productivity over the long holiday weekend. we worked in just about every part of the yard - from shed building to weeding unpleasant rockery, creating new planting beds, harvesting tons of greens, and more.

with sunshine, things just get way bigger. seeds that i just planted start sprouting almost immediately, including several varieties of beans - purple, yellow, green, and scarlet runners. over the course of just a couple days, i could actually observe the beans evolving. we concocted a trellis of sorts by re-purposing some japanese window screens we recently removed from the living room. on the other side, we planted cucumbers. underneath the trellis, we scattered baby greens seeds.

we also planted some beans and other edibles in the front yard. after day dreaming of how to overtake at least part of the front lawn, i decided to jump in. and with shovel in hand, proceeded to painstakingly remove sod. a pain in the ass project, but well worth it in the end.

let me take you through a pictoral journey (time lapse = two days):

in the new front yard bed, we put in a variety of grasses, coneflowers, lavender, rosemary, black-eyed susans, thyme, blueberries, and we moved the huckleberry from a relatively shady spot in the back yard. at the base of the tepees (that we fashioned out of bamboo from the yard), are snap peas and the beans.

in addition to accomplishing these projects, we've been able to start enjoying the fruits (er, vegetables) of our labor. lettuces, arugula, and a number of herbs are in full swing. end product? delish veg pizza, arugula pesto pasta, and just picked salads.

we're getting there

a sunny weekend brought about real progress in the garden. sunshine meant we were finally able to bring out all the goodies that have been taking refuge in the greenhouse. we planted...

tomatoes (11 varieties)

including "oregon spring"

red brussels sprouts

3 types of squash - black beauty,
yellow crookneck, and baby round

we also planted purple cauliflower (pronounced call-ee-flower - it's more fun that way) - you can see them at the top of the squash photo. here's what to expect come harvest time. and yes, those were brussels sprouts.

this weekend also brought about the emergence of potatoes - the green leaves are finally pushing through the soil. once they get a bit taller, we're supposed to cover the greens a bit and mound up a potato hill.

the strawberries are thriving - full of blossoms and some small green berries. getting excited about the sweet fruit we'll have in a few short weeks.


and lastly, the snap peas are coming along, huddled amongst some baby greens. brian pieced together a climb for them, by crisscrossing twine between the bamboo support structure.

it's supposed to rain tomorrow - a blessing in disguise - to replenish the rain barrels and give us a watering break. but hopefully the sun revisits us soon.

reds and greens

back from a beautiful trip to charleston, and the garden is coming along! we came back to ready-to-eat micro greens and radishes aching to be pulled.

french breakfast and cherry belle radishes
just picked and washed

apparently we got a good amount of rain over the weekend. and, as i sit here (and have sat here for the past few hours), it continues to rain with a moderate breeze. as a result, the garden beds and front yard are littered with cherry blossom petals.

the greens are flourishing, and reminding me to plant more lettuce so we'll have some to harvest in the coming months.

in this bed: broccoli, radicchio,
arugula, lettuce, and snap peas

more greens - almost ready to eat!

kale, broccoli, onions, garlic, shallots, snap peas, and carrots are all breaking solid ground. i would have taken more photos, but it really started to rain! rainbow chard is also coming up.

and strawberry plants are blooming!

earth day

happy earth day, everyone.
play in nature,
plant something,
visualize a clean planet...
then go forth and make it happen!

big sky courtesy of brian schwartz photography

are we there yet?

say hello to little gus! at least someone is enjoying a bit of springtime glee.

i mean really, are we there yet? it's nearly may. but perhaps i shouldn't be so dispirited. we did enjoy a couple glorious days of sunshine last week, and it looks like more may be on the way. i'll try not to be a weather skeptic and just enjoy each day as it comes.

because there are great things to celebrate. lettuce, arugula, carrots, kale, radishes, and rainbow chard are up!

arugula
(yes, it needs to be thinned out a bit)

green leaf lettuce

french breakfast and cherry belle radishes

coming out of last year's garden, we learned to sow successive plantings of certain vegetables. so, once one crop comes up, in goes another. already we have a couple patches of arugula, lettuces, and micro greens for a more continuous harvest once the growing season kicks into full swing.

spicy micro greens
they've got quite a bite

and some red cabbage starts
finally in the ground

aside from a myriad of greens and reds, also making an entrance into the veg foray this season are potatoes, onions, and shallots, all of which are easy to get in the ground. for the potatoes, just dig a hole or trench (we did the latter), set a potato in and cover it up. then, wait for greens to shoot up, and continue to mound soil up over it. apparently the potato becomes many potatoes. stay tuned.


and you may recall from a previous post that we planted snap peas last month. let's just say that i highly suspect a certain neighbor dog, and/or rogue deer, got into the peas. on multiple occasions. we have re-planted peas three times now. the nice thing is, i got some free seeds at the green festival a couple weekends back.


and to end on a sweet, or at least a tart note - the rhubarb is making major strides. witnessing its progress has been exciting - the way each leaf un-rumples (yes, un-rumples) - it's very accordion like. then the brilliant pink stalks shoots up. can't wait for strawberry-rhubarb pie!