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. . .

The New Friday Farm (and Garden) Fix on Farmgirl Fare

Growing in the garden now, left to right: Dwarf Siberan kale direct seeded last fall (and mostly flowering now), one gorgeous lone dinosaur (lacinato) kale plant direct seeded last fall (and on tonight's dinner menu), and several varieties of Swiss chard (I was using up a bunch of old seed packets) direct seeded in late March. (Swiss chard is wonderful stuff and easy to grow from seed. The white on the kale leaves is food grade diatomaceous earth; you read about the many ways we use this amazing stuff here.)

Hello and happy spring! How does your garden grow? Mine is doing pretty well despite two months of seriously crazy weather. On April 23rd, eight days after our 'official' last frost date, the six tomato plants I already had in the ground froze to death during a hard frost despite being covered with buckets (that's what I get for sneaking in some impulse-purchased hybrids), and this Friday it's supposed to be 93 degrees. Welcome to Missouri!

Although I'm already feeling (and falling) behind, I have more vegetables and herbs growing in the garden right now than I have during the past several springs, which makes me very happy. Obviously I've been spending more time gardening than garden blogging.

I have, however, been documenting some of what's been happening each week in the garden in my new weekly series on Farmgirl Fare called the Friday Farm Fix.

In each Friday Farm Fix post, I share a random sampling of what's been happening around the farm during the past week, and a lot of kitchen garden photos have been showing up alongside the cute baby animals, colorful scenery, and ever present farm dogs. I often been including a photo taken inside the greenhouse too. Right now it's a Swiss chard jungle in there.

My original plan was to do a similar type of weekly photo journal post here on In My Kitchen Garden, but for now it's all happening over on Farmgirl Fare. Maybe instead I'll just do a little Friday Farm Fix announcement here each week, along with a list of what we've eating from the garden during the past seven days (lettuce! lettuce! lettuce!). Either way, for a current glimpse of what's going on in my garden, come check out the Friday Farm Fix. I hope to see you there!

In the meantime, feel like catching up?

Friday Farm Fix #1

Friday Farm Fix #2

Friday Farm Fix #3

Friday Farm Fix #4

Friday Farm Fix #5

Friday Farm Fix #6

Friday Farm Fix #7

© FarmgirlFare.com, seeding, sprouting, growing, weeding, harvesting, watering, and eating—and not necessarily in that order. Actually, eating should probably be listed in there twice.

In the Greenhouse on the First Day of Spring: Garden Journal 3/20/12

Things are greening up in the greenhouse!

Realization of the Day:

As much as I love lemon balm, it's probably time to stop its greenhouse spread (it's the stuff taking over the whole front left side).

I'm never one to discourage plants that actually want to grow (and usually embrace anything described as invasive because there's a chance it might actually do well here), but it's starting to take up valuable real estate. You can read more about lemon balm in this post: Lemon Balm: Growing It, Drying It, Using It.

Happy first day of spring! I never used to show you the entire inside of my greenhouse because it's usually kind of a mess. Thankfully I'm over that now. In fact, a while back I started taking pictures of this same view of the greenhouse interior on a regular basis (messes and all), so I could show you what goes on in there throughout the year.

More below. . .

Sorting Through My Seed Stash, Beet Growing Tips, and Planting by the Moon: Garden Journal 2/25/12

Beautiful, nutritious beet greens, all sprouted from one little beet seed (which is actually a dried fruit containing a cluster of 2 to 6 seeds).

You'll find more about growing beets in my previous post, How To Grow Beets from Seed and Why You Should. And Caramelized Beets with Garlic is my favorite beet recipe.

Realization of the Day:

I currently have 13 unopened packets of heirloom beet seeds in my posession—the newest from 2009. I may need a repeat of that 2007 massive seed packet purge.

Organized gardeners probably sort through their old seeds before placing their new seed orders. I finally placed my first seed order for 2012 last Thursday, and then decided to dig out all of my various (actually somewhat organized!) containers of seeds.

Thankfully I hadn't ordered any beet seeds.

More below. . .

Easy How To: Grow Asian Greens Like Bok Choy, Pak Choy, Tatsoi, and Mizuna by Direct Seeding in the Garden

Gorgeous gourmet Asian greens: not available in most stores.

There are many things to consider when deciding what to plant in your vegetable garden: available space and time, soil conditions, time of year, cost of growing vs. buying (or is buying even an option?), how much you love to eat it, past performance, etc. And, perhaps most importantly, does it do well in your location?

When I moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to rural Missouri back in 1994, I was surprised to discover that while nearly everyone around here planted a vegetable garden each spring, many people grew nothing but beans, corn, tomatoes, and potatoes.

I quickly learned that with our extremely fickle climate and growing conditions, these are the crops most likely to reward you with a decent harvest, but even they're not guaranteed. Plus people just aren't into stuff like basil and Swiss chard and arugula—which thankfully also do well here.

I've also had good luck growing all sorts of Asian (Oriental) greens, which you can't find for sale in this area. There are numerous types of Asian green seeds available, and it's fun to experiment with different varieties. Large leaf ton ho or wong bok cabbage, anyone? Fast growing mizuna is one of my favorites. It's often stir-fried (I'm crazy about my Lodge cast iron wok), but I love it best in salads.

More below. . .

Garden Journal 1/12/12: Crazy Winter Weather

Southern half of the raised bed kitchen garden, as seen this afternoon from the second floor of the new house!

Yesterday it was sunny and in the 50s. I ditched my massive indoor afternoon To Do list in favor of digging chicken manure into a couple of garden beds and working on a compost pile—in January.

Today it's blustery, snowing, and, at last check, 22 degrees. When I looked at the online weather page this morning it said it was 18 degrees but felt like four. Tonight we'll probably see single digit temps, and on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday it's supposed to be 50.

Welcome to winter in Missouri!

So is it snowing or growing in your January garden? Any big planting plans for this year?

© FarmgirlFare.com, where it's definitely time to cozy up under a vintage quilt and finish the rest of that seed order. Weather ups and downs or not, planting time will be here all too soon.

Take-Apart Shears: The Perfect $10 Stocking Stuffer for Gardeners and Cooks

Harvesting basil in the June kitchen garden with my new favorite scissors.

Realization of the Day:

A few months ago, I wrote a long post about pesto and my 2011 banner basil crop, put a bunch of photos together, and then never got around to actually publishing it all. Here's the short version: That bad luck with basil I had in May? It eventually turned out to be really good. Like well over 5 pounds of basil from 10 plants good. Yes! (You'll find all my basil growing posts here.)

Realization #2:

There's nothing like a little early December snowstorm to remind you of just how much you took all that fresh basil for granted.

When I was getting ready to post my Holiday Gift Ideas for Bakers and Cooks: 16 Favorite Kitchen Essentials (Most Under $25) this year, Joe asked me if I had added anything new to the list. I said no, I'm still loving and using all the same great stuff. But I was wrong. I'd forgotten about my new scissors (and my awesome Oxo food mill).

I bought these Fiskars Take-Apart Softgrip Garden Shears ($10.15) back in early spring, and hardly a day goes by when I don't use them at least once in the kitchen or garden.

They're called herb & veggie garden shears on the package, but Fiskars also makes identical, general use take-apart shears without the softgrip, and that link is full of glowing reviews from people who use theirs to cut up everything from plastic blister packages and fabric to the fins off fish (some of them for over 20 years).

I probably have a dozen pairs of cheap scissors scattered around the farm that I've used for pretty much anything you can think of over the years (I love scissors!), but now these are the the ones I always want to reach for.

The stainless-steel, serrated blades are heavy duty and sharp, but of course what's best about them is that they quickly come apart for easy and thorough cleaning. How cool is that? You can even put them in the dishwasher.

If there are gardeners and cooks on your holiday list, these dandy $10 take-apart shears are sure to be a useful, long lasting, and much appreciated gift. If you're buying them for yourself and you don't live alone, you might want to order an extra pair. In fact, I think this is just what my hunky farmguy needs in his stocking this year—maybe with his name written on them.

© FarmgirlFare.com, where it's never too early to start planning (and dreaming about) next year's bumper basil crop.

Wondering What To Do with Swiss Chard? Favorite Recipes and Ways to Use My Favorite Garden Vegetable

Swiss Chard & Artichoke White Pizza (recipe here)

Realization of the Day:

It's time to start putting those seed orders together!

My Pinetree Garden Seeds catalog arrived last week, and I've already marked everything I want to order. I showed extreme self control, if I do say so myself. Of course this is just the first catalog of the season.

Since tomatoes are technically a fruit, that means Swiss chard is my number one vegetable in the kitchen garden. I've said it before and will no doubt say it again: If could only grow two things, they would be tomatoes and Swiss chard.

Swiss chard is extremely heat tolerant and cold tolerant, incredibly versatile (it can do everything spinach does and more), and easy to grow from seed. You can sow chard seeds directly in the garden or start them indoors, and it does exceptionally well when grown in containers.

I grow Swiss chard year round in my unheated greenhouse, which gets as cold as 2°F in winter and heats up to 128° in summer. When it gets below freezing, I cover the plants with floating row cover and old bedsheets and blankets.

More below. . .

Garden Journal 10/29/11: Twenty-Five Degrees this Morning

Cold kale in the kitchen garden

Realization of the Day:

Sometimes it's better to wait until the sun hits the garden before venturing out to see how your plants survived the cold.

Last week it dropped down to 24 degrees, and this morning it was 25. Everything was icy, but it's amazing how quickly the cold hardy plants recover as soon as they defrost in the sun. A few hours after snapping this photo, you couldn't even tell the kale had been totally frozen.

Our official frost date here in Missouri is October 15th, but this year we had our first light frost nearly two weeks before that. Since we're located down in a little valley, we often have earlier fall frosts and later spring frosts than predicted. On clear nights, it also gets colder down here than 'up top' during the fall and winter, which means if the forecast says low 30s, we figure on low 20s. Now if only that were true in summer, too.

The weather has gone up and down this month, and we've had everything from sunny days in the 80s and rainy nights in the 50s to days in the 50s and plenty more frost. In other words, it's been a typical October.

Despite a dry September, the autumn color has been beautiful around the farm this year, thanks, in part, to an unusually wet August; you can see some of it here.

Summer is definitely over, but there's still a fair amount going on in the garden:

More below. . .

Will Green Tomatoes Ripen Indoors? Yes!

Not to worry—you can pick green tomatoes and ripen them indoors, off the vine.

How was your tomato season? Ours was pretty disappointing, and while I'm already making plans for a bigger and better tomato crop next year (build sturdier cages, get plants in the ground earlier, pray for a cooler June!), I haven't written this one off completely yet.

My six late planted Roma tomato plants are finally loaded with fat green fruit, and the fresh tomato-crazed gardener in me refuses to give up.

October is often fairly mild here in southern Missouri, so I'm going to hold out for a while in the hopes that some of them will ripen on the vine—or at least until I get tired of covering them (as well as my other 15 tomato plants and all of the basil) with floating row cover and old bed sheets each night to protect them from the cold. (Why is it only windy on autumn nights, not summer nights when you're drenched in sweat, wishing for even a hint of breeze?)

If you're ready to call it tomato quits for the season, don't despair over all those green ones still out on the vine. My most popular post this time of year is How To Ripen Green Tomatoes Indoors the Really Easy Way—and it really is easy.

© FarmgirlFare.com, loving autumn on the farm and thrilled to be picking tomatoes, no matter what the color.

Garden Journal 8/28/11: BLT Season Has Finally Begun! (and a Classic Sandwich Bread Recipe for the Occasion)

Does anything taste better than a BLT made with homegrown tomatoes on homemade bread?

Realization of the Day:
It's the little things often turn into the biggest celebrations here on the farm.

Traditional holidays usually pass us by with little or no fanfare. That's partly because it's just the two of us, and both our families live in other states. But it's also because living on 240 acres with 100+ critters makes it nearly impossible to make and keep any sort of plans.

Just getting dinner on the table at a specific time is usually a challenge. An entire roast turkey dinner in a space presentable enough for guests? Forget it. We don't even have a dining table, let alone a dining room—in the new house (which we're sort of moved into!) or The Shack.

People often ask us why we never go camping. It's because living miles from the nearest neighbor in middle of nowhere is a lot like camping, complete with wild animals, beautiful scenery, and bathroom issues. Right now we're actually using a Luggable Loo. See? Camping.

We really don't mind, though, and the whole lifestyle suits us. We whoop it up when we feel like it and create holidays for the silliest of reasons (Pop the cork, it's Champagne Thursday!).

The opening night of BLT season each summer is always cause for celebration, and what's nice is that we get to decide when it takes place. This year it was last Friday night. Yum.

More below. . .

Garden Journal 8/1/11: Attack! Using Organic Diatomaceous Earth on Blister Beetles and Other Pests in the Garden and Around the House and Farm

This was supposed to be a short post about the blister beetles, but once I get started talking about diatomaceous earth it's hard for me to stop because it has so many great uses. Even if you're lucky enough to not know what a blister beetle is, you may still want to read on.

A blister beetle sighting in the garden is always distressing.

Realization of the Day:

We've reached that point in the growing season where the fact that I (once again) didn't get around to planting everything I wanted to in the spring has actually turned into a good thing.

As in, it's a good thing all these raised beds aren't full, or I'd be spending a lot more time standing out here in the blazing sun watering (although I am loving my new 150 feet of super lightweight Water Right garden hoses—and wish I'd bought these awesome brass quick connectors 17 years ago).

Or, it's a good thing there isn't more stuff out there for the blister beetles to eat.

It's a twisted way of looking at the bright side that usually works for me.

The blister beetles—who seem to prefer hot, dry weather—have arrived, and they are hungry. So far I'm mostly seeing them in the pepper and tomato beds, and sometime while I wasn't paying attention during the last 48 hours, they managed to devour an entire small pepper plant and decimate several large tomato plants. And their disgusting black droppings are everywhere.

Unfortunately I'm not the only one being attacked; one of the most popular posts on In My Kitchen Garden over the past few weeks has been How To Deal with Blister Beetles in the Garden: Organic Pest Control Methods.

Lots more below. . .

Five Years Ago Today: A Little Scuffle in the Garden

Thai pink egg tomato patch after about three minutes with the scuffle hoe.

Back on June 30, 2006, a month and a half after declaring myself to be Baby Cary's mother, I declared my love for the scuffle hoe in this post: How To Use a Scuffle Hoe to Weed the Vegetable Garden - and Why I Love Mine So Much.

It was far from love at first sight for me and my scuffle hoe, but the hard won feelings of affection have endured, and after all these years, I'm still enamored with it.

This little old garden tool isn't put into service that often (mostly because the weeds in my garden seem to go from two inches high to two feet high in about an hour), but it always does its one job well.

Do you use a scuffle hoe? Any tips, techniques, or amusing stories to tell?

© FarmgirlFare.com, where we're very big on mulching but are still always needing to do some weeding.

Garden Journal 6/23/11: Growing Garlic, Harvesting Garlic, and Green Garlic

Love garlic? Learn How To Grow Your Own Garlic here (it's easy!). And you'll find links to my favorite recipes that call for garlic at the end of this post, along with links to other garlic growing posts.

Freshly harvested green garlic (on the  mature side) that's been cleaned, trimmed, and is ready for cooking.

Realization of the Day:
Garlic is a lot hardier than I thought.

Green garlic, also known as spring garlic, young garlic, baby garlic, and garlic shoots, is simply an immature garlic plant. It's milder and sweeter than mature garlic, with a wonderful flavor.

I discovered green garlic back in 2006 and wrote about it in this post: What Is Spring Green Garlic? Growing It, Cooking with It, Loving It, plus a Recipe for Easy Green Garlic Fettuccine.

The green garlic pictured above is on the mature side. I've never seen green garlic for sale here in rural Missouri, but in photos I've seen of green garlic, such as this one and this one, the bulbs haven't started forming, and it bears a closer resemblance to scallions or baby leeks. It's edible at any stage.

Green garlic season starts as early as February in places with mild winters, like the San Francisco Bay Area, and has come and gone here in Missouri, but green garlic must still be available in some places because my spring green garlic post is still showing up as one of the ten most popular posts on In My Kitchen Garden this week. (The weekly top ten posts are listed in the left sidebar of every In My Kitchen Garden page).

6/24/11 Update: Today's weekly e-mail newsletter from the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA) reports that the green garlic season is 'winding down' at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market.

Look for green garlic at farmers' markets, in your CSA subscription box, or try growing some yourself.

Like with onions, you can grow green garlic in zero extra garden space by double planting your garlic and then thinning it out by harvesting half of it when it's young.

I accidentally missed green garlic season this year. Early last fall, volunteer garlic plants began sprouting up in the bed where I'd harvested the 2010 garlic a few months earlier because I'd left some of it in the ground while digging. Sometimes it pays to be sloppy.

More info and photos below. . .

Garden Journal 5/22/11: Tips for Planting and Growing Sweet Red Peppers

No time to read, just need to get your peppers planted? Check out my previous post, How To Transplant Sweet Pepper Seedlings, the Extended Version. Then learn how easy it is to freeze your beautiful bounty (no special equipment or boiling required) here.

8 King Arthur red bell peppers, 3 Red Rubin purple basil plants, and 1 Tough Tortie Topaz

Realization of the Day:

The completion of a planting project feels even more rewarding when you finish up right before it starts to rain.

Any gardener who has ever flipped through a seed catalog knows that the best thing about growing vegetables and herbs from seed is that you have a much larger variety to choose from. Sometimes even too large, as any gardener who has ever suffered from Eyes Are Bigger than the Garden Syndrome can attest to.

Those of us who usually start our plants from seed quickly become spoiled, especially if we need to purchase pepper seedlings in a place where, as my Amish neighbor who moved here from Ohio a few years ago and sells his extra garden bounty once put it, "Nobody around here likes sweet red peppers; they only want green." Green peppers are one of the few foods I despise.

Of course any pepper plants are better than none, and so you do the best you can, plunk down nearly $4 per scrawny little specimen when you must (even if it almost kills you), feel grateful for what you are able to find, and vow to do more than just paw through your large stash of marvelous heirloom red, orange, and yellow sweet pepper seeds next year.

Lots more 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. . .