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Garden Update – Into the Wild

Well, my garden is coming along very well.

the garden

It’s grown so much!  These hot days are perfect for growing the kinds of things I’m growing.  My tomatoes, for one, are growing wide and tall and finally fruiting.  Clockwise from upper left:  Silver Fir, Amish Paste, and Pruden’s Purple.

july tomato collage

Can’t wait to taste them!

My ground cherries have a number of fruit on them, plus the foliage is quite robust.

ground cherry

The fruit inside the husk is still small, but it will get bigger.  I love ground cherries and am eager to taste these.

And I’m finally getting some lemon cucumbers!  This one is nice and yellow and almost ready to pick.

lemon cucumber

There’s another lemon cucumber hanging around, but it’s still unripe as far as color goes.   The cucumber patch itself has really grown!  It’s taken over its part of the garden and its tendrils threaten the leaves of my Silver Fir tomato plant.

lemon cucumber plants

lemon cucumber leaf and vine

Earlier this week I discovered some volunteers – I think they are summer squash of some kind, but only time will tell. I’d love it if this were the case!

mystery plants

Finally, the fig tree that is hanging over part of the garden is full of figs. I’m going to claim as many as I can, and I hope the birds don’t eat them all.

figs

More pictures can be seen in my flickr gardening set, too.

I keep telling myself that the 90+ degrees days are good for the plants, even if they aren’t so good for me!

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Garden Update – Happy Growth

Happy Summer Solstice! Hope you are enjoying the first day of summer. Summer is my favorite time of year!

garden overview

Well, we’ve had more hot days, which means great growing environment for my plants, even though it might be uncomfortable for me (however, I’m in a large air conditioned office building M-F).  I’ve spent time watering, aerating soil, and feeding the plants with compost when necessary.  They are looking great!

First, tomatoes.

june tomato collage

I’m growing 7 tomato plants total.  From the top left image, clockwise:

Amish Paste, Pruden’s Purple, Yellow Pear, Amish Paste, detail of Silver Fir, Silver Fir, mystery volunteer, Pruden’s Purple flower.

Both the small paste tomato and the Yellow Pear looked just awful Saturday afternoon – droopy and flaccid, and just not in good shape.  I sturdied up their dirt, added compost, and plenty of water.  On Sunday they looked great!  I think they are on the mend.

I’m particularly impressed with the Pruden’s Purple flower – it doesn’t look like any tomato flower I’ve ever seen, and it’s a gorgeous shape.  I’m looking forward to seeing it in bloom.

Cucumbers – my lemon cucumber isn’t fruiting yet, and I found a volunteer cucumber plant across the yard!  That was a very fun discovery.

june cucumber collage

The lemon cucumber is in the top left corner photo, and the rest are of the volunteer.  Looks like the volunteer will produce a more classic shaped cucumber.  I’m happy with this discovery and can’t wait to see what happens with it.

Ground cherries and tomatillos continue to increase in size, and I’ve even seen one or two flowers.

ground cherry

vibrant tomatillos

I’m going to have to stake the tomatillos, or perhaps get a tomato cage for them.  Tomatillos are very sprawling plants and need support early on.  I’ve inserted a bamboo post for right now, which is helping  with support.  I can’t wait for tomatillos!  I plan to make lots of salsa verde.

There’s plenty of wild stuff in the garden, too.

wild june

Although they are a bit of a pest, these morning glories sure are pretty.  I’ve seen a number of ladybugs in the garden, which makes me happy.  Saw a bunch of yellowjackets, too, and honey bees!

Thyme is slow growing but steady, and tatsoi is steady and fast growing! It makes for a delicious salad, simply dressed in lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, and salt and pepper. I like it a lot – it’s like a gentle arugula as far as the peppery taste goes.  It’s delicious.

thyme update

abundant tatsoi

I spent time weeding on Saturday and there were far less weeds than a couple weeks ago.  This is a good sign.  Hoping that my weeding efforts here in June will make for a mostly weed-less summer.

Happy for all this growth!

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Garden Update – My, How You’ve Grown!

Thanks to all this recent heat, my garden is coming along – the tomatoes especially are enjoying the hot weather  they are sporting nice healthy greenery and thicker stems.   I was able to get out early on Sunday and do some weeding, which makes a world of difference!

garden long shot

My tomatoes have started to take off!  From top to bottom – Amish Paste, Prudens Purple, Silver Fir.

Tomato Collage

I found two tomato volunteers while weeding!  One is bigger and healthier than the other, but I hope some daily TLC will help the straggler along.

volunteer tomato

volunteer tomato 2

I’m really looking forward to seeing how these little guys will grow up.

My cucumbers have flowers!!

cucumber flowers

These four plants are coming along.

4 lemon cukes

I got to plant something new this weekend, too – a beautiful little spicy basil plant, compliments of my friend Harlan.

spicy basil in the ground

My containers are doing well, too.  Clockwise from top left: lavender flower, more spicy basil, thyme sprouts, tastoi.

container collage

Because of the hot weather, my arugula sent up flowers for about a week; if I had let it continue, it would have gone to seed.  I harvested the remaining leaves and turned under the roots and stems (thanks to fellow gardener Jen for the inspiration).  I’ll plant lettuce or braising mix in its place this weekend.

arugula on its way out

Finally, there is a very cool decrepit outbuilding on the property – I love how the ivy is growing up it.

ivy

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Gardening: I Grow It In the Ground

As I’ve written before, I am very fortunate to have a garden plot in the backyard behind my apartment.  I’m not growing a wide variety of things, mostly tomatoes of varying sorts, and cucumbers.  Speaking of cucumbers here is one of my lemon cukes:

lemon cucumber plant

I’ve got four plants in the ground right now.

I’m also growing tomatillos:

tomatillos

These have really taken to the soil and are quite large now compared to when I put them in the ground.  Tomatillos are crazy growers and two plants should supply me with plenty of fruit this summer.

I’m growing ground cherries:

ground cherry

There are about four plants in there, and when they get a little bigger, I’ll separate them.

I’m growing tomatoes, too.  Two of the varieties are Prudens Purple and Silver Fir.  Thanks to the urban gardener meetup a few months ago for the Silver Fir seeds!

prudens purple

silver fir

I’m also growing an Amish paste tomato, and I attempted to grow a yellow pear.  The yellow pear especially is not thriving – I think it’s because of the location in the plot.  Unfortunately, this space doesn’t get as much sun as I would like.   I may put one of the remaining pear tomatoes in a container on the deck.

And finally, another gratuitous tree shot:

through the trees

Hooray for the warm weather growing season!

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Friday Bits

This week was an unusual one – I had a bunch of evening meetups, so there wasn’t much cooking going on at my house.  I won’t deny it – I love going out to restaurants – but I also love cooking at home.  Next week looks busy too, but I hope I can get more cooking in, despite.

Probably my favorite dish I made this past week was a gluten-free tabbouleh.  I tested this recipe for the upcoming cookbook by Shauna and Danny Ahern last July; I loved it then, and it’s just as good now.  I did make some adjustments – upped the amount of a few things, primarily, to match my personal tastes.  It was great with some greek yoghurt on the side.   I can’t give you any more details until the book comes out (maybe in October?  I can’t remember exactly), but when it does, I’ll post the recipe.

As for my garden, the little plants in the ground are slowly growing up.  The tomatoes, cucumbers, and tomatillos have loved the recent hot, humid days, and I hope for more hot (though not necessarily humid) days to encourage growth.  I see tomato plants from nurseries, and experience a little bit of “size envy”, but I have to remember that those plants were probably grown quickly in a hot house and not from seed in paper pots in someone’s backyard.

I’ve added a couple of things to the site itself – at the top of the right sidebar is a line of icons leading you to the Harmonious Belly twitter feed, Facebook page, RSS feed, and a new contact form.  The contact form is the best way to get in touch with me with questions, comments, or suggestions.  That and formspring.

Finally, I made the decision to eliminate sugar from my diet again.  Even the little bit I’ve been eating seems like too much right now, so I’m going to go back to just abstaining.  My plan is for doing this for two weeks, and at that point I’ll see where I am.  I think it will only be a positive adjustment, especially with respect to my running and general feeling of well-being. Perhaps this will usher in a new era of kombucha brewing!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend, everyone!

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Garden Update

My garden now exists fully in two spaces – upstairs on the deck outside the dining room, and downstairs in the yard, in a corner plot.  Being able to plant in the ground is a huge deal here in NYC, so I am really grateful to have this space.  For now, though, I’ll focus on what is growing up on the deck.

My arugula is growing like crazy!

arugula

It seems to like the soil it’s in and its placement on the deck.  It’s constantly sprouting new growth, so I expect to have baby arugula all summer.  I like to eat it with a simple vinaigrette made with olive oil, fresh squeezed orange juice, salt and pepper.  For vinaigrettes containing citrus, I find it imperative to use freshly pressed/squeezed juice – it tastes fantastic, for one, and you bypass the whole pasteurization thing present in ready-made juice at the supermarket.

As an aside, have you heard about pasteurized eggs?  So strange.  I can’t imagine wanting to eat them.

There are two herbs growing in my planter that I did not plant myself.  One is cilantro – I found it growing one day and have cared for it ever since.  I love love love cilantro, so I’m especially happy about this.

cilantro

The other is lavender, which I originally thought was tarragon.

lavendar

It smells amazing – not sure what I’ll do with it, apart from simply enjoying it with my eyes and nose.  Perhaps honey lavender ice cream is in store for us this summer, or some sort of cocktail.  I’ll have to look into it.

I started a couple of things from seed this past week, and they are in the initial sprouting stage.  First, I planted thyme in a small pot – I did this so that I can transport it into the house when it gets cold in the fall.  Thyme is my favorite herb to pair with winter squash, so it will be nice to have some fresh thyme when the time (ha ha!) comes to start roasting squash again.

thyme sprouts

I also planted tatsoi next to the cilantro.  Tatsoi is a very tasty asian green, similar to bok choi, and is very high in calcium.   I love growing greens because they sprout so quickly!  I’m looking forward to eating the tatsoi, perhaps even mixed with baby arugula for a nice fresh salad.

new tatsoi sprouts

And finally, the fruit trees are full of abundant green leaves!  The apricot tree isn’t going to fruit this year, but I have spied a few plums.  Here’s one of the trees from today:

trees

I just love all this greenery these days!  Soon, I’ll write about what’s growing in the ground.

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Mish-Mash Friday

So, it’s been a crazy week – lots going on at work, and meetings in the evenings for community things I’m involved in. Celebrated my 4th anniversary with my guy this week, too, which was nice. We had dinner at a local Italian restaurant and had lots of delicious treats there, including some anisette at the end of dinner.  I’d never had anything like it before. I relax my eating practices a bit for celebrations like that. I feel the way I eat is really good right now, so a diversion doesn’t yield the physical wallop it used to.  This was one of my goals in changing my eating habits, so I celebrate my success.

In other news, you might have noticed the new “running” tab at the end of the nav bar above.  I am feeding in my little baby running tumblelog, which is a record of my success, goals, and observations as I get back into running.  I explain why I’m running on that page – take a gander and check back, as I hope to update it as often as I run, which is currently 4 days a week.

After WordPress, tumblr is my favorite blogging platform.  It is a lot of fun and I highly recommend it.  If you are currently on tumblr, feel free to follow my running tumblr from the convenience of your tumblr desktop.

arugula sprouts

Even though our celebratory dinner was delicious, my eating highlight of the week was a simple salad of baby arugula that I grew myself!  The picture above is when my arugula was even smaller, but you get the idea of their appearance.  They have grown so much since I took that shot!  Big enough to thin the sprouts and eat the ones I pulled out.  Let me tell you, this is the tastiest arugula I’ve ever had.  I dressed it with a combination of olive oil, orange juice, salt and pepper.  The orange juice ameliorates the spiciness in the arugula, but not enough to destroy it.  It balances it out, in other words, with its inherent orangey sweetness.  I loved it.  I plan to keep the arugula at baby stage because I don’t care for older, tougher leaves.  I look forward to eating more simple salads like this.

The cilantro and french tarragon that I mentioned earlier this week continue to do well!  It’s so cheery to see them through the window on the back deck.  I just hope the stray cats don’t screw with that planter.  This weekend is transplant weekend for me, now that the downstairs hose and leaky valve have been fixed.  The idea of carrying water up and down a long flight of stairs has kept me from moving forward with planting in the garden downstairs.  My tomatoes are also getting bigger and many of them are now good candidates for transplanting.

The other big news in my life is that CSA season is approaching!  In about a month I’ll start getting bags of delicious fruits, veggies and more.  My hope it to report on what I receive and how I use it.  Look for that!