sugarsnap peas from the garden

I had planted them late August in a small pot (a square foot) and crossed my fingers. I knew that peas grew best in cooler temps, in the last 2 weeks it really came into bloom and I haven’t even been watering it much since the start of October. While the bottom looks like some shriveled leaves and vines, the top is lush. I was so excited when I spotted a pod from my window, I rushed out to take a picture.

And my rosemary plant is huge.

-Lina

slow month

Here’s a pic of my peak tomato harvest a little while back. It has trailed off since, there are still a lot of green ones and I’m not sure whether to pick or not. The temps are still in the high 50s at night.

September is almost over now, but hopefully we’ll get in a few food posts. I’ve been occupied with some work and Chelle was in the midst of a hurricane. Luckily she’s unscathed and promised to post more food soon.

-Lina

Tomato salad from the garden

This year I decided to grow tomatoes (to save money, organic tomatoes are like luxury items), but I didn’t get around to it till late June. After some research on the web, I got an early variety; ‘First Lady’ that only takes 66 days to yield fruit. I bought 4 plants, and place 2 in the ‘Tomato Success Kit’ and the other 2 in a window box type planter. The ones in the Tomato Success Kit grew huge. I didn’t expect much from the other planter but it grew pretty large (but less than half the size of the other ones) with many tomatoes.

Some finally ripened early last week when the temps came down from the 90s. My first batch was about a pound and a half. I sliced them up with some basil from the garden, olive oil, black pepper and fleur de sel. It’s my favorite thing to do with these tomatoes. I made salsa a few days later with new tomatoes, which was very tasty but it can’t beat the basil-olive oil-pepper-fleur de sel experience.

Next year I’m going to grow red bell peppers. At $6.99/lb for organic at Whole Foods, I haven’t had any red bell peppers in over a year.

-Lina

April showers bring May… herbs

Micro greens.

Every year, my herb aspirations grow. I don’t have the greenest thumbs but I keep trying. This year I am growing cilantro again which I haven’t tried in years. I always screw up and they go straight to seed. Last year I had pretty good luck with basil, rosemary, oregano and micro greens (which were zero effort). The rosemary and oregano had survived the winter and started to grow on their own since March, and some thyme that didn’t really do so well are also making a comeback. I sowed the seeds for basil, cilantro, dill and micro greens a few weeks ago and everything is sprouting. I’ll give the micro greens another week or so before I start trimming.

 

These are wet pots, they are terra cotta inside glass which you fill with water and it’ll stay moist for 2 weeks. Basil for indoors.

This is the big outdoor pot of basil.

This is mint and chives I left in a box over winter. They never really got very tall.

I have 3 pots for cilantro, fingers crossed.

Oregano, the other half of the box held a rosemary plant which has been transplanted to a larger pot. I added some more oregano seeds to the empty side, hopefully the oregano will also start to expand on it’s own.

The rosemary was very reddish, it’s slowly getting greener. I hope it will grow into a small bush.

Don’t know how the thyme will fare this year. I had to transfer boxes so it’s kind of a mess.

And http://www.terracycle.net/main_plant_food.htm for organic fertilizers made from worm poo.

 -L