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Kitchen and Garden Update

This weekend was hot – like summery hot, in the upper 80s.  I was totally loving it, but it was a little bit of a shock to have to all of the sudden adjust to hot weather practices, like not exerting too much in the middle of the day.  I’m used to more freedom of movement in the spring months, to be honest.  Everything worked out, though, and I got a lot accomplished.

My week of meal planning and being on a running schedule last week was a rousing success!  I have planned out this week, too, so we’ll see how it goes.  I expect I’ll learn new things, and that it will be a success, too.  I have planned to make one of my old standards for dinner one day this week, which is wonderfully flexible and open to improvisation, and I look forward to sharing about it here.

It’s a crazy week for me in the evenings, which means not much time to cook.  So, we made 2 pans of lasagna today for ready-to-eat meals, which came out fantastic – these lasagnas are some of the best we’ve ever made.

two lasagnas

meat cooked

veggie cooked

This was the first time I’d used fresh pasta sheets, and I’ll have a hard time ever going back to dried.  The sheets were made up the street by local pasta maker Cassinelli, the ricotta and mozzarella cheeses made just around the corner at a local salumeria.  In one of the lasagnas I used pesto, which I made last summer from CSA basil, that was frozen until today.  Overall the lasagna is almost creamy in texture, yet has substance.  I will enjoy eating this lasagna throughout the week.

I was also able to make my soaked granola this weekend, which I’ll have with raw yogurt and milk this week for some breakfasts.  This time I’m using cranberries and pepitas, along with apricots and hazelnuts, which should make for some interesting tastes.  This is my favorite cold cereal ever and will be a great option for this coming week of warm/hot weather when I don’t want to heat anything up.

oven granola

nuts and seeds

fruit

Over the past couple of weekends, I’ve been digging in the dirt.  I’ve added compost twice now to the garden plot, and really turned up the ground.  My friend Charlene came over to help out, too, which was a lot of fun.

compost

I am so fortunate to have this space in which to garden and grow my own food.   I also have a good sized planter on my deck, which originally was going to live elsewhere, but has found a home with me, which is filled with dirt and compost.  There is a volunteer cilantro plant growing in it, and the french tarragon that was in there last year has new growth.  I’ll sow some thyme seeds probably, or perhaps even some parsley.   Photos to come.

I’m also surrounded by lots of sort of ambient greenery, which makes a huge difference living in a big city like NYC.

greenery

That’s the view from my back deck.  So, so nice.

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Gardening Progress

I thought I’d show you some pictures of what I’m growing these days.  I’ve grown everything from seed, and some things are progressing faster than others.  Right now the plants are in containers but I’ll transplant some of them into the ground or into bigger containers.  I am so fortunate to have some garden space at my current home, plus a large deck on which to do some container gardening.  Living in NYC, it is awesome to have this open space right outside my door.

Almost all seeds came from the Hudson Valley Seed Library, of which I’m a member, except for the Silver Fir tomatoes, which were shared with me at an urban gardening gathering last month.

First, my arugula.  It’s coming along quite well!  I’ll be keeping it in this container and hope to eat it as baby arugula; I’m not fond of arugula that is tool big or old.  I actually tried one of the sprouts yesterday morning and it was delicious – very green with some peppery bitterness.  It tastes like the real deal!

arugula long shot

arugula sprouts

I’ll have to thin it, and will eat the thinned baby leaves, yum.

I’m also growing lemon cucumbers, which is an heirloom variety of cucumber.

lemon cucumbers

These guys live in my kitchen window right now, and are getting big enough to transplant soon.  I also have a pot outside with two lemon cucumber plants, but these in the window are growing faster.  Go figure.  I always think of my grandfather when I consider lemon cucumbers.  I think he’d be happy that I’m growing them.

I’m also growing ground cherries and tomatillos.  These guys are slow growers and are still in the baby sprout stage:

ground cherry sprouts

tomatillo sprouts

Finally, I have four kinds of tomatoes growing, all heirlooms – Yellow Pear, Amish Paste, Pruden’s Purple, and Silver Fir.  I’ve planted them in paper pots (made from newspaper), and am in love with using these pots.  When I put them into the ground or a container, I can simply cut out the bottom and plop the entire thing into the ground – the newspaper will compost right into the ground.

tomatoes

I have plans to plant thyme, parsley, basil, and some braising greens.  Also some flowers – cosmos and butterfly flowers.  I think it would be nice to attract butterflies!

It’s been a lot of fun growing everything from seed.   It’s magical, the way they sprout up and then grow their second set of leaves.  It’s also the most economical way of acquiring plants and growing food.  I’m really looking forward to seeing them all continue to get bigger and then fruit.  And to eat it all!

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Tree Pruning and the Promise of Future Fruit

pruning workshop sign

A couple of weeks ago my guy and I attended a tree pruning workshop as part of the Bronx Green-Up.

There are a number of fruit trees in our backyard that are quite overgrown and scraggly right now. They are so overgrown and scraggly that they will not efficiently bear fruit, so we won’t get to enjoy much of a harvest as a result. So, I wanted to learn how to prune the trees to improve the situation. Sure, I could ask my landlord to do it, but I thought it would be more fun to learn to do it myself.

The workshop was held at the El Girasol Garden on 138th Street. A woman named Sara Katz led the workshop. She is a community horticulturalist with the NY Botanical Garden. She educated us on basic pruning techniques, as well as why you prune and when.

So, why should we prune? Well, there are four primary reasons: 1) to increase air flow throughout the tree to avoid fungal disease, which can lead to rotting fruit; 2) to increase access to the sun by the fruit, which improves the quality of the fruit as well a their color; 3) to removed dead, diseased, and damaged branches/wood; and 4) to encourage the tree to have good form, which both pleases the eye and helps the tree remain stable and accessible.

garden through the trees

One of the things that mystified me was how to decide when to prune. Turns out late winter (right now!) is the best time to prune. When you prune in the late winter after the most intense cold has passed, the tree is less likely to sustain injury, like frostbite. Additionally, it’s just easier to see the shape and construction of the tree in winter because the leaves are all gone.

Sara gave us guidelines as to how much of the tree to prune:  never prune more than 1/3 of the living wood in any season; and it’s better to under-prune than over-prune. That being said, some trees are more vigorous than others, and can be pruned with more intensity. Stone fruit, like apricots, peaches, and plums can be pruned more aggressively than apple trees, because apricot trees grow faster than apple trees.

There are two main kinds of pruning cuts: thinning out cuts and heading back cuts. The purpose of thinning out cuts is to remove crowding in the tree, by removing a whole branch. Heading back cuts involve shortening the length of a branch, and consist of larger cuts. If done properly, the result of thinning out cuts is no new growth where the cut was made, and the result of heading back cut is to encourage growth and later fruiting from the cut point.

As far as pruning technique, clean cuts are very important.  Cut cleanly to the branch, and the tree will respond positively.  Messy cuts can cause problems later down the line.  Also, use different tools for live wood vs. dead wood: loppers and pruners for live wood, saws for dead wood.

garden sculpture

As far as tools, loppers are the pruners with a cutting tip attached to long handles.  Pruners are smaller, and fit into the hand; you often see people pruning rosebushes with these.  There are also tools with very long handles for higher reach, like to prune way up at the tippy top of the tree.

Probably the most challenging aspect of the afternoon for me was figuring out what exactly to prune.  A basic list is as follows:

  • Suckers or watersprouts. They are called watersprouts if they grow off of branches, and suckers if they grow up from the ground around the base of the tree.  They grow straight up and are pretty easy to spot.  They are vigorous growers and drain nutrients that the tree needs for fruit production.
  • Downward growing branches. They do nothing for the tree and should be removed.
  • Broken branches or stubs. Usually the result of earlier damage, such a storms, improper pruning, or a break.  Disease and/or insects use such places as an opportunity to set up shop, so it’s best to remove them.
  • Shaded interior branches. Since they won’t get much sun, the fruit they bear – if any – will be of lower quality.  Remove them.
  • Rubbing branches. When branches rub together, it injures their bark, which is an open invitation to insects or disease.  Make a heading cut (shorten the length of the branch) or simply remove one of the two branches.
  • Narrow crotches. This happens when a branch grows upwards instead of outwards.  This is not conducive to good form for the tree; the ideal crotch angle is 45-55 degrees.  Remove.
  • Competing leader. This usually occurs near the top of the tree, when a branch is allowed to grow taller than the central leader.  Such competition will cause the tree to grow unevenly, which makes the tree unstable.  A heading cut is the solution to this problem.

We now feel well-armed with knowledge and practical skills in basic tree pruning as a result of attending this workshop.  Our teacher was excellent and taught us a lot.  We look forward to pruning our fruit trees, and having an improved harvest compared to last year, which from all accounts was a meager one at best.

Future fruity NOMs are ours!

bronx sky