Picking Basil, Planting Peppers, Loving Lettuce and More: Garden Update 5/21/12

Lots of beautiful basil from just two plants (I love these $10 take apart shears).

Want to see more of my garden? The new weekly Friday Farm Fix series on Farmgirl Fare usually includes lots of kitchen garden photos.

Realization of the Day:

Eating from the garden makes everything taste better, even if your harvest is just a sprinkling of chives or a handful of parsley.

There isn't a whole lot of bounty in the garden yet, but during the past week we enjoyed plenty of beautiful (and big!) salads, as well as chopped green onions on just about everything. If all goes well, it won't be long before I'm digging up the first new potatoes, harvesting the garlic, and picking my favorite Dragon Langerie (also called Dragon Tongue) beans. And the arugula and Parris Island cos lettuce are almost ready to start thinning and tossing into salads.

The weather has been crazy hot and way too dry (thanks to my super lightweight Water Right garden hoses I no longer dread watering the garden!), but we did finally get a little rain yesterday. Just about 4/10ths of an inch, but I'll take it. At least it settled all the dust.

Like what you see growing in my garden? The links included below can help you grow the same things in yours.

Into the kitchen during the past week:

Basil (my favorite basil pesto recipe is here; all my basil growing posts are here)

Chives (Learn how to grow chives here, plus my easy herbed yogurt cheese recipe.)

Green onions and spring onions (read about why I now grow onions from purchased plants here)

Italian flat leaf parsley (here's the best way to store fresh parsley)

Lettuce (I picked the entire 4'x8' bed of my favorite Rocky Top Lettuce Mix from Baker Creek before it all went bitter from the heat; learn how to grow your own gourmet lettuce from seed here).

Red Russian kale (from a couple of last spring's plants; photo below)

Swiss chard (amazingly heat and cold tolerant; learn how to grow Swiss chard from seed here)

Tuscan kale (also called Lacinato kale, dinosaur kale, and Nero di Toscana cabbage; one enormous plant direct seeded last fall)

And into the garden:

Four Golden California Wonder sweet pepper plants (purchased; tips for planting and growing peppers here)

Five Roma tomato plants (four purchased, one volunteer from last year I'd dug up and put into a small container)

Eight eggplant plants (purchased; the tag just says 'classic' which cracks me up)

I have several more varieties of tomato plants that still need to go into the ground (both purchased and started from seed), another four Golden California Wonder pepper plants (purchased), and a bunch of leggy little purple basil seedlings I grew from seed that desperately need to be transplanted into individual plugs (I think they're still too small to go straight into the garden, especially with this heat).

I'm also hoping to plant some more green bean seeds and am wondering if I should try direct seeding some cucumber seeds this time, since the soil is plenty warm and my first two attempts at starting them in flats (including 4 different varieties of all brand new seeds) yielded nothing for some reason. I don't think I've ever had trouble sprouting cucumber seeds before. The basil, calendula, and zinnia seeds didn't do squat either.

Twelve more garden photos below. . .

Garden Journal 5/4/11: Bad Luck with Basil and Some Basil Growing Tips

Love basil? You'll find links to all of my previous basil posts, as well as my favorite basil recipes, at the end of this post.

Things are looking pretty bad in the basil department.

Realization of the Day:

It's starting to feel like somebody up there doesn't want me making any pesto this year—which sounds better than saying I'm an idiot with a pathetic memory.

Bad things happen to good gardeners; that's just the nature of gardening. But this is starting to get annoying. Three basil strikes by the fourth of May—and basil is one of my few never fail crops. I mean never fail. Basil always does well in my garden. Until now.

More below. . .

Garden Journal 3/11/10: Growing Onions from Purchased Plants - Ordering and Planning

1015Y Texas SuperSweet onions harvested last June.

Realization of the Day:
Despite numerous failures and disappointments in the garden over the years, when it comes to buying seeds and plants I'm still a consummate optimist. I also have no self control. This can be a dangerous combination—and pricey, too.

Last spring was the first time I grew onions from purchased plants rather than onion sets, and despite the fact that many of them bloomed way too early (which means I ended up with some fairly small onions) I enjoyed some delicious success—and still ended up with bigger onions than I've ever grown from sets. (The flowering was most likely due to some wet and wacky spring weather, and I'm hoping to cover this problem in a future post). I wrote a little about last year's onion growing here and here.

For experiment's sake, in late February of 2009 I ordered a total of 10 bunches (approximately 60 plants per bunch) of 9 different varieties of onions (along with hundreds of leek plants—which was a whole other growing adventure I've been meaning to write about) from Dixondale Farms in Texas, the oldest and largest onion farm in the U.S.

I'm running a little later with my ordering and planting this year, but according to Dixondale's shipping schedule, March 9th was their suggested ship date for my area. I also ordered fewer plants and fewer varieties, sticking to the ones that did the best for me last year.

More below. . .

Garden Journal 5/21/09:It's the End of Bloomin' May Already!

Busy, Busy

How did that happen? Of course I'm always asking myself that question. But where does the time go? Weren't we just snowed in a couple of weeks ago?

Last week during an emergency trip to the vet for my 12-1/2 year old beagle, Robin (who is thankfully doing well), one of the women who works there asked how my garden was doing. "Everything that's actually been planted is doing great!" I said cheerfully, and then admitted that I still had at least 150 tomato, tomatillo, pepper, eggplant (many thanks to the 46 of you who shared your experiences and tips growing and eating eggplant!), herb, and other miscellaneous seedlings—not to mention the sweet potatoes sporting 2-foot-long sprouts—still sitting in the greenhouse and desperately wishing they'd been put in the ground several weeks ago. I did feel a little better about my slacking off when it dipped down to 40 degrees a couple of times last week since it would have been a pain to cover them all up from the cold. Or at least that's how I rationalized things.

Of course all these as yet homeless seedlings didn't stop me from picking up two six-packs of locally grown basil plants at the local natural foods store yesterday. At $2.00 each I couldn't resist, especially since I (once again) haven't started any basil seeds myself yet, and I've been dreaming about big batches of pesto lately, probably because my supply in the freezer has been depleted. I bought a dozen purple basil plants a couple of weeks ago, too, since I've discovered it makes even better pesto than the green kind. Now I can't wait to make the first Savory Tomato Pesto Pie of the summer.

You'd think I would have had lots of time to catch up in the garden during our recent eight day power outage, and though I did manage to get some long overdue tasks finally completed (like clearing out the small mountain of sheets and blankets used for winter protection in the greenhouse, turning two compost piles and starting a new one, weeding another raised bed in preparation for planting), at this time of year there's simply too much to be done.

Meanwhile, once again I'm surprised by how many things are already blooming (or finished blooming!) by mid May. The irises are out, and the wonderfully low maintenance Kerria japonica Pleniflora (also called bachelor's buttons—but not to be confused with the popular pink, white, and purple easy-to-grow annual flowers called bachelor's buttons) pictured above has already been flowering for weeks and will continue to do so into autumn. That's my kind of perennial.


Comfrey is Useful, Beautiful, and Will Withstand Being Munched by Sheep

The comfrey (a fabulous, easy to grow medicinal herb I really need to write more about one of these days) is sporting its trademark purple flowers, as is my several-year-old mystery potted perennial that is not only pretty, but will put up with anything so who cares if I don't know what it is.

The lawn is dappled with those little white flowers that always make me think of fairies, and one section of the greenhouse has been taken over by three-foot-tall blooming arugula. Some of the nine varieties of onions I'm growing this year are sending up flower shoots, but I keep pinching them off so they'll be forced to spend their energy on bulb production.

The very first spiderwort flower popped out this morning, and dozens more will continue to do so for weeks. As I've mentioned before, I love spiderwort and think that every garden should have at least a clump or two growing in it. The butterflies go crazy for it.

And maybe best of all, there are various pockets around the farm that are heavy with the deliriously rich scent of wild multiflora roses.

Joe's sister, who is a professional gardener and landscaper in Ohio, told us the other day that she calls this time of year May Madness because all of her clients want their yards planted right now. I immediately glommed onto the phrase. There's so much to do and too much to do—but what's in the ground is doing well, we always eat well, and nearly everywhere you look there are flowers!

So what's blooming in your May Madness garden?

© Copyright 2009 FarmgirlFare.com, the flower infested foodie farm blog where when it comes to gardening, we're constantly behind but always optimistic—and have already started making big plans for not only this fall garden but next spring's as well. Enjoy the present but definitely plan for the future!

How To Grow Your Own Swiss Chard From Seed & Why You Should

Fordhook Giant Swiss Chard in the homemade greenhouse last November.

Looking for Swiss chard recipes? Here are some of my favorites:
What To Do With Swiss Chard—Hot Swiss Chard Artichoke Dip Recipe & Other Ways To Cook & Enjoy My Favorite Leafy Green
Healthy Swiss Chard Tuna Salad with Scallions & Kalamata Olives
Swiss Chard Cabbage Salad with Garbanzo Beans & Cottage Cheese
Swiss Chard and Artichoke Soup
Swiss Chard and Artichoke 'White' Pizza

The year I turned 30, I had two friends who turned 60, and I took full advantage of the situation. "Save me some trouble," I said, "and tell me the most valuable thing you've learned in the last 30 years."

The first one offered up a piece of advice I've tried to abide by ever since. He said, "Be happy, not resentful or envious, when good things happen to other people." But it was seven words of wisdom from the second friend that truly changed my life: "Always plant Swiss chard in the garden."

What Is Spring Green Garlic? Growing It, Cooking with It, Loving It, and a Recipe for Easy Green Garlic Fettuccine

Young volunteer garlic: surprise gourmet food right under my hoes.

2013 Update: Love garlic? It's easy to grow, even in containers. Learn How To Grow Your Own Garlic here.

Last week I received an email from Catherine at Albion Cooks saying that she had just made another batch of my Savory Cheese & Scallion Scones, but this time she substituted cheddar and green garlic for the feta cheese and scallions.

Green garlic? A quick pop over to her site revealed a lovely photo of the item in question, a delicious looking batch of scones, and the nagging feeling that I'd just read about green garlic somewhere else. But where? Oh, wait. Everywhere.

There were green garlic growing instructions from Veggie Gardening Tips. Then the little bit of green garlic history and a great photo, along with a recipe for Catalan-Style White Bean and Green Garlic Tortilla at In Praise Of Sardines.

Mariquita Farm had another beautiful photo of green garlic, along with numerous tips on ways to use green garlic, plus several green garlic recipes, including green garlic mayonnaise, green garlic soup, and step-by-step photos of how to make green garlic pesto.

This stuff really is everywhere. And those are just the ones I remembered.

So what is green garlic, and how had I lived this long without knowing about it? Green garlic, also known as spring garlic, young garlic, baby garlic, and garlic shoots, is, claims Catherine, "a culinary secret." It is "immature garlic that hasn't yet developed its garlic bulb and has a much milder flavor than the mature bulbs, yet still has that distinct garlic flavor."

What do you do with green garlic? "It can be used in any recipe in place of regular garlic or leeks, and can be used raw or cooked." And, obviously, it can take the place of scallions, too.

Green garlic is also a market gardener and small farmer's (and backyard gardener's!) dream crop, as you can grow it in what would otherwise be unused space.

More below. . .