hello fall

yesterday was technically the last day of summer. hello fall. i feel like you made your entrance a while back. don't get me wrong, i'm not complaining about the weather. i'm just saying that we've had so many ups and downs degree-wise over the past several months that many of our edibles weren't quite sure how to react.

the plum count was way down. squash most definitely did not proliferate as they have in the past. i noticed a random strawberry the other day. and tomatoes, well, just read the last two posts.

despite this, some of my red friends have prevailed. and they are so welcome.

sweet cherry tomatoes - peacevine and matt's wild

black krim - an excellent heirloom variety.

so, we'll continue poking through the tomato plants on the hunt for red, or even orange ones. we've been able to make some wonderfully simple pastas with them.

linguini with roasted tomatoes. and tons of grated parm.

penne with zucchini, cherry tomatoes, pecorino,

and yes a fried egg on top.

anyway, fall, you've started out with sunshine and red tomatoes. keep em coming.

two point five tomatoes

it's been quite hot here in the pacific northwest. though, the weather folks tell us it's going to drop nearly thirty degrees in the next few days. we're hoping that doesn't have a devastating effect on the garden.

back to the heat wave though. yesterday the last thing we wanted to do was turn the stove on. so, we pulled together an excellent salad of garden goods - yellow, green, and purple beans, lettuce, red onions (which i quick pickled in cider vinegar and sugar), and i'd say approximately 2.5 tomatoes. seriously, one of them was so small, i can only count it as half. we also had some sweet corn on hand from the farmers market. fresh raw sweet corn is the best.

we added some excellent blue cheese, dressed it with a home made honey mustard, and toasted some bread up. delish.

ok, confession. after we ate this lovely salad, we headed out on a walk. destination frozen custard. but at least we walked, right?

beans and broccoli, among other (green) things

earlier this week, i noticed that the pole beans are producing quite well. so i sauteed some up with a head of romanesco broccoli - that's the kind that looks like a pale green triceratops head if you needed a helpful description in addition to the visual. wikipedia tells me that it's a "variant form of cauliflower" and that its "shape could be described as a fractal; each bud is a series of smaller buds, all arranged in yet another logarithmic spiral." wow. apparently, it's a beaming example of mathematical wonderment. i was just going to say that it looks really neat and tastes good. the stalk also had a surprisingly sweet flavor.

green and purple pole beans

romanesco broc

and the lovely meal that ensued

(roasted potatoes, golden beets, and salmon)

among other things, the garden is exploding with greenery. tons of green tomatoes, actually. we're hoping they all ripen. or at least most of them, because who doesn't like a good fried green tomato? but really, we can't wait for the hypothetical abundance of tomatoes. recall that we planted ten different varieties.

here's a black krim.

this one will get a nice and deep purply-red...hopefully.

and then there are the pumpkins. in our first attempt at growing them, we've opted for the sugar pie variety, with the hopes of turning many into delightful pies. the experiment's going well to date.

especially if one were to gauge success by the degree to which the pumpkin vines have escaped the beds. right. we'll keep you posted on that.

baby carrots and the first tomato

yesterday, while watering the jungle that is the tomato bed, i noticed a little ball of red. could it be, the first tomato of the season? why yes it could. we haven't eaten it just yet. it's a wee peacevine cherry tomato.

and tonight i pulled some carrots out of curiosity and in a show of extreme late season thinning. a few months back, we planted a ton of heirloom carrots of all sorts of colors and for whatever reason, neglected to thin them out so each would have ample room to grow. i'm guessing this will result in a hefty supply of cute multi-colored baby carrots.

summer in the city and pizza dough two ways

last week we sweated it out in new york city. our quaint (at least that's one way to put it) hotel in union square was just a few blocks from an excellent farmers market that runs four days a week. the famed union square greenmarket is the city's biggest market. tons of people were out in the heat to fill up on the bounty of hudson valley, long island, and upstate farms. it was the perfect blend of urban and rural; a real testament to the relevance of agriculture in modern day. we grabbed some cherries and found a shady spot in the park to enjoy some classic people watching.

tender raspberries

serious carrot stackage

microgreens - like a baby salad bar

and then we came home to a heat wave in seattle, and an explosion of goods in the garden. so what better thing to do than fire up the bbq and cook a meal outside. i decided it would be a good idea to grill pizza, because vegetarians can have fun with charcoal, too.

the backyard spread

let's just call this rustic

finished product with fresh-picked arugula

and a pear cider on the side

we had one more pizza dough and a ton of kale and other veggies to use up, and a bunch of cheeses, so we threw together a calzone tonight. it was also a good excuse to use our pizza stone, you know, the one we just had to have.

kale, front yard broccoli, and summer squash

from the madrona farmers market.

i snuck some frozen corn in there too.

don't knock it til you try it.

a little sauce

healthy dose of cheese

crimp those edges

and voila, calzone

at the end of the day though, i secretly enjoyed the grilled pizza more. something about the flavor that charcoal imparts, and the crispness of the dough. we'll be doing that again. that said, we did get our fair share of vegetables tonight, so we can feel good about that.

a rugula

so, a rugula walks into a bar... wait, that's not how it goes. i'm not sure where i was headed with that. i just think that arugula is a funny word, but a very tasty green. and we've got plenty of it growing in the yard, among other things.

merlot lettuce, onions, and arugula

i'm loving the deep color of the heirloom merlot lettuce. i picked the seeds up at madison market (the selection of seed packs is always a tempting distraction from my grocery list. i mean, technically, they help me make my own groceries. am i right? let's mull on that). anyway, they're from uprising seeds out of bellingham. and if i recall, i purchased the arugula seeds last year at the lopez island farmers market. we're headed back up there this weekend, so i'm hoping to grab some more.

in addition to the merlot, we've got about five other types of lettuces going, along with sugar snap peas, broccoli, corn, tomatoes, pac choi, onions, corn, cucumbers, squash, garlic, potatoes, yada yada yada.

sugar snap peas emerge!

oh broccoli, you've been a long time coming.

pac choi (this is a garden first)

is it wrong that whenever i think of pac choi, i think of the chili's "i want my baby back, baby back..." song? note - when you say "back" with a long "a," and you add "choi" to the end, this reference makes total sense.

an overview of the large beds

potatoes are up.

we're testing out the bin method this year.

and to top it all off, we just ate our first strawberry this evening. yeah, that's right, i said berry. we cut it in half. it was good.

game on

(prepare yourself for a lengthy post - it's been a while, after all)

after nearly six months in the new abode, and many indoor house projects later...we've gotten down to business in the yard. we started out by pulling up the lawn in the front yard and replacing it (over time) with tons of perennials, some edibles, and a gravel path. in the fall, we planted tulip and daffodil bulbs that provided some cheery spring color. i will say that people picked most of the tulips before we had a chance to enjoy them. we're still bitter.

before

way too many shovels worth of sod later

after

we also upgraded the planting strip by yoinking the grass and putting in some salvaged bricks, perennials (heather, euphorbia, hebes, thyme, rosemary, lavendar), and ruby red chard.

before

after

blueberries, huckleberries, mixed greens, snap peas, and broccoli have made their home up front. chard seeds are sprouting, and squash starts (we started several varieties from seed) are settling in. we hesitate to put too many edibles up front, given that we've witnessed multiple neighborhood pets do their business in our yard. yes, it's unfortunate. but, once we get a fence up...

brian put together a re-bar trellis

and the peas are on their way up

mmm, mixed greens

a hop vine, herbs, and some container-grown lettuce and micro greens are nestled around the front porch.

did you know that hop vines grow up to 25 feet a year?

wow.

now, on to the backyard. first off, it was a jungle. literally. blackberry brambles and piles of junk right smack in the middle of the level part of the yard (the rest of it is a bit sloped). dozens of yard waste bags later, and we could start envisioning a clearer path.

before - the pile of junk

during (yes, we considered renting goats)

after-ish

this past weekend, we made some serious progress. we leveled out the area as best we could. then, proceeded to make some really interesting decisions. after about half an hour of discussing layout, we decided to go with three 4x12 foot raised beds and a smaller 4x4 footer to maximize the space. of course, we needed wood to build these giant raised beds, so we headed to lowe's, rented their truck, and grabbed supplies.

we also needed compost, and lots of it. for the past couple months, we debated the merits of getting some delivered. but, we never moved on that idea. given the pleasant weather on sunday, it was clear that our only option was to use the truck to load a ton of bags of compost (totally rational, right?). 100 bags and one fun unloading adventure later, and we were on our way to a new backyard garden.

it appears that we were so on task that we didn't take a ton of during photos. oops. the actual bed-building didn't take too much effort. it was the gravel bag hauling and the compost bag opening that wore use out.

now we're on to planning out what will occupy those roomy beds. this weekend is the seattle tilth edible plant sale, where i hope to pick up several types of tomatoes, some artichokes, an eggplant, herbs, and a few other things to fill in the beds.

luckily, we've got a ton of starts in the coldframe that brian built (after i conceived the awesome idea). kale, onions, leeks, melon, pumpkins, several types of cucumbers and squash, brussels sprouts, and cabbage are coming along quite well.

strawberries are going strong, as are garlic and several types of lettuces. we've also got raspberries, grapes, and a couple semi-dwarf apple trees going.

that's it for now. looking forward to getting our hands dirty and having fun with another growing season. game on.