October 18th, raised beds

I'll actually try to keep up with the photos this season. Really! The first bed has peas, leeks, and broccoli and collard seedlings. The second will have radishes, carrots, parsnips, and mangels as soon as they come up.

Photos, as promised

A couple of pictures of the Biointensive bed right before I ripped everything out, plus the many many potatoes.

Moving ahead

Never underestimate potatoes - I dug up about 12 pounds (maybe more) of Yukon Golds today, after I thought there was nothing else in there! I had to use the shovel and dig down about a foot so all of that end of the bed is mixed up now. I'm going to let things rest and start putting in the clover during the week, a little at a time. The Biointensive bed is now completely torn out - it took about two hours this weekend plus another hour for the potatoes. There is one tiny little peapod on the pea plants and it's very very cute. I did get the broccoli and collards in the ground on Thursdays, and the radishes are coming up but nothing else yet.
Photos coming soon...

Winter garden

I finally moved ahead with the winter garden today. I started broccoli and collards about 2 weeks ago (I think, maybe 3) and they are coming along nicely in their little pots on the windowsill. Today I finally ripped out the tomato plants from the raised bed and put a fence around it in a futile attempt to keep the squirrels out. I planted mangels, parsnips, carrots, and radishes (all seeds) in that bed and there are some volunteer sweet basil plants already sprouting. I picked the last 2 zucchini two days ago and ripped out the last plant today. There are still 4 leeks left hanging on from the spring and the peas are coming along nicely in that bed. The broccoli and collards will go in hopefully by the end of the week. The chard is still there and I want to put in some spinach and maybe another type of green (lacinato kale?). That's the raised beds. The Biointensive bed is pretty much done for, although I got two squash this week. Next weekend I will really try to get everything ripped out (including the weeds) and if I really get with it I'll get the crimson clover cover crop in too.
Unfortunately I was too late to get into the Ecology Action 3-day workshop in November, so I've taken the dubious step of signing up for NEXT November's workshop since the March workshop is right in the middle of Certificate of Merit and right before Friday Harbor...yeah, not gonna happen. I really wanted to go but I think I've learned more from just getting out there and getting things done. I'll probably need the workshop for the 'next phase': i.e., when I've got more land and can triple or quadruple what I did this year...oh boy!

Harvest 2008

Just some examples of things I've harvested in the past month or so. The potatoes were from a while back, the tomatoes and basil were probably early August, the melon was last week and the corn/squash/tomatoes are from tonight. Potatoes:Yukon Gold, squash: Yellow Straightneck, tomatoes: Green Zebra, Roma, Brandywine, Rutgers, and Better Boy (I think), basil: Genovese, corn: Golden Bantam, and the melon, 'Arizona', is an heirloom variety of canteloupe that doesn't seem to be too well known. It is SO sweet and flavorful...everything was great! This is my first year of serious gardening and I am definitely hooked...

Palak Panir

Palak Panir
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Last one for the night! Angeline made this while I worked on the other things. This is basic palak panir, except we used niter kibbeh for the sauteeing part. We had a bit for dinner after we finished cooking, with some leftovers and a well-earned bottle of Samuel Smith's apple cider. Mmmmmm....

Miser Allecha

Miser Allecha
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

This is basically just spiced lentils and onion. Also from Papa Tofu.

I bought some injera at the ethiopian market to serve with these things. I'm really looking forward to it!

Gomen

Gomen
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Gomen, pretty much just as it is in Papa Tofu except I used the beet greens and kale that I had available rather than buying collards for it. We're having a 4th of July shindig tomorrow and Angeline suggested ethiopian food, so I took it as a challenge.

This and the next two dishes use generous amounts of niter kibbeh (spiced margarine), also from Papa Tofu. No photo of that but you can take my word for it.

Mei quin choy, shiitake mushrooms, young onions

Mei quin choy, shiitake mushrooms, young onions
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

This was inspired by a recipe in veganomicon, baby bok choy with sauteed shallots and sesame seeds. Except, I used none of those things. I used mei quin choy (there's still a bunch left...), shiitake mushrooms, and chopped "young onions," which are somewhat shallot-like in taste. Oh, and a ton of ginger. Sauteed everything but the mei quin choy for a while first, then added the MQC, a bit of soy sauce, and some apple juice. Covered to steam for a bit and then served with, you guessed it, wasabi mashed potatoes!

Mango, heirloom tomato, and fresh herb salad

Mango, heirloom tomato, and fresh herb salad
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Pretty much as it says. The herbs were just basil and mint.

Grated beet and zucchini salad

Grated beet and zucchini salad
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

With a bit of soy sauce, and served atop leftover wasabi mashed potatoes. The beets were from our CSA box and the zucchini was from the garden!

Wasabi mashed potatoes, mei quin choy stuff

Wasabi mashed potatoes, bok choy-like stuff
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

The stuff on the left is mashed potatoes with some wasabi powder. More subtle than you'd think... Inspired by Veganomicon.

The stuff on the right is finely sliced onions, fennel, and mei quin choy sauteed with some soy sauce. Very flavorful!

Raw cashew & lemon cookies

Raw cashew & lemon cookies
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Sorry for the late post, I actually made these last weekend. I soaked raw cashews overnight, let them dry, and then pureed them with fresh-squeezed meyer lemon juice. I formed them into "cookies" and dehydrated them for about 12 hours at 105 degrees. They were really nice, and I will make them again, but they didn't keep as well as I would have liked.

Grilled tofu and zucchini

Grilled tofu and zucchini
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Actually, the tofu's not grilled, because there wasn't room in the grill pan with two halved zucchinis filling it. The zucchini was fresh from the garden and the tofu was fresh from San Jose Tofu, pressed to drain a bit and with light slatherings of a maple syrup/soy sauce glaze on the cooked sides. More subtle than I expected, but nice.

Corn

I lived in Illinois for four years and I am fairly certain that the closest I got to an actual corn plant was helping to set up the 'Children of the Corn' room in the theatre department's annual haunted house one year. I remember driving to work every day in the summer of 1995 past acre after acre of corn and you could practically watch it growing if you were stopped at a stoplight. There's a lot in the news about corn right now and most of it isn't very optimistic.

I think it's pretty.

June 22nd, Biointensive bed

It's been hot all week, the Internet says up to 97 but I'm pretty sure it was over 100 for a couple of days. So, this bed has pretty much doubled in size. The potatoes are starting to fall over and I'm going to try to stake them up tonight. The corn is...huge. The squash is about to flower and the canteloupe keeps wandering into the onions and carrots. The beans, cucumbers, and tomatoes are all doing beautifully as long as they're restrained.

When I first planned this garden, back in January or so, I thought it was far too big and I kept telling myself that if I only got half of it done then that would be plenty. Well...I did it! Our bedroom window looks out on the backyard and that's the first thing I look at when I get up in the morning, making sure everything's alright and just enjoying the transformation from bare dirt with occasional weeds to food, food, and more food. Almost there...

June 22nd, raised beds

We've had 6 zucchini from the garden so far: 4 grilled, one given away, and one made into zucchini bread. There will be more zucchini, probably, oh, tomorrow. Maybe Tuesday. There is one little Green Zebra tomato in progress - I'm keeping a close eye on it because I had so much trouble with the tomatoes last year. I'm trying to water only the base of the plants and only when they look like they need it and so far the blossoms are hanging on...we'll see if all the plants set fruit. The bell peppers are now next to the tomatoes because, when they were between the corn and the potatoes, they got about 2 hours of sun a day. Hopefully this is the last time I'll have to move them! I need to cut the parsley and mint back and use some of it. I made pesto with the basil this week and used most of 4 plants in the process. The basil seedlings (in pots) are doing okay despite being dug up by something one night this week, but the cilantro and parsley aren't sprouting at all. The chard and arugula are coming back and I'll try to use the leaves when they're smaller this time.

Squash slaw

Squash slaw
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Well, the latest batch of beer bread came out poorly. So, here's some "squash slaw" to make up for it. Two summer squash, two other unidentified green squashed, and two carrots grated into a bowl, with the juice of a meyer lemon and a bit of olive oil stirred in.

It's really good but needs something else. Raisins, maybe?

Vegan quiche closeup

Vegan quiche closeup
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

This is more or less the same recipe as last time, but I used whole wheat flour instead of chickpea, garden-fresh zucchini rather than broccoli, and the crust contains sunflower seeds, cashews, and pine nuts. I also baked this in the regular oven, since I'd already preheated it to cook the crust and I wanted to be able to have some of this for lunch. To atone for the non-solarity, I made some beer bread again in the solar cooker, which I had already preheated anyway. I will post about that when it's done.


Looking back through the archive, it seems that I never posted about the previous one, although I did take a photo of it. Nevermind, then, this one came out better anyway :) The recipe's from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook.

June 14th, Biointensive bed

Again, a fine example of my jerry-rigging skills: I made a trellis cage for the beans that'll probably fall down in the first strong wind, but so far it's doing its job. Everything is growing like crazy! I dug around at the base of one of the potato plants this week and knocked off a tiny little potato, so that's going well. I'm actually starting to wonder if there will be room for everything when it all starts producing...

June 14th, raised beds

Missed another two weeks...anyway, you can see that everything looks great. The giant squash turned out to be zucchini, with the delicata coming along nicely behind it (although you can't see it). I need to label everything when I plant it! As I type this, William is sauteing the first 2 zucchinis and 2 blossoms as well, for lunch. Hooray!
I've started various basil, cilantro, and parsley seeds in the pots that you can see in one of the photos. The cilantro is going to seed and I'll try to save some of it, although it's a quick-bolting variety. I harvested all the chard and arugula this week and we've used it in salads, along with the romaine lettuce from the CSA. The lettuce is doing well and the spinach is...not. All the herbs are fine and the tomatoes are flowering - I can't WAIT for the fresh tomatoes!

Angeline in her garden

Angeline in her garden
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

June 2nd, Biointensive bed

Here's where all the work's been done lately. On May 22nd, I transplanted the green onions and regular onions and some summer squash from the nursery. Then I built a fence (such as it is) to keep the rabbits out and re-seeded the carrots, which are starting to come up now. I also thinned everything since so many seeds came up and were doing well. I tried to move some healthy plants into spots left by plants that got chewed on, but I almost wish I'd left everything alone since the plants I moved almost didn't make it. Anyway, everything is going great. The potatoes are ready to be hilled and I'll try to get to that this week.

June 2nd, raised beds

Okay, I've missed a couple of weeks. Things are going well! This weekend we used cilantro in the spanish rice, made pesto with basil, and froze a WHOLE bunch of fresh oregano, which will keep us supplied with oregano for about a year. Next time I'll dry it. Not much else to report on the raised beds...I moved the peppers to the Biointensive bed since the delicata squash was blocking almost all the sunlight. There is zucchini on the other side of the squash but you can't see it! It was slow for a while but now it looks like it might actually pull through. I'm going to start basil, cilantro, and parsley seeds this week in pots and in the ground, just to see which way works out best. I also plan to start using the chard and arugula in salads, I've let them just sit there for too long since we get a lovely salad mix from our CSA.

Solar-baked stuffed peppers

Solar-baked stuffed peppers
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

And, the final assembly! Two green bell peppers stuffed with spanish rice and refried beans, topped with some colby uncheese, and cooked in the solar cooker for about 4 hours. See how the uncheese browned? Nice! I wish it had melted a bit, but you can't win them all.

Refried beans

Refried beans
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Pinto beans cooked twice in the pressure cooker, with a change of water in between, as recommended on Miss Vickie's website. After draining them, I sauteed an onion in the cooker, added back the beans, some pomi, salt, and bean water, and mashed it up. This is the best version of this that I've made yet.

Spanish rice

Spanish rice
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Brown rice, pomi chopped tomatoes, cilantro from the garden, and an onion. Toasted the rice, added the rest, and cooked it in the pressure cooker for about 20 minutes or so, I think. Nice rich flavor and creamy texture!

Colby "uncheese"

Colby "uncheese"
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Here's the colby "uncheese" from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. We didn't have roasted red peppers so I tried the paprika variation. It's good, but too paprika-y and a bit dry, probably due to powdered paprika versus juicy roasted peppers. If I do the paprika version again, maybe I should use less agar to make it softer?

Anyway, the taste is really nice. Very cheesy, if not a dead ringer for real colby cheese. Goes well with crackers, stuffed peppers, etc...

Golden Pasta and Cauliflower Salad

Golden Pasta and Cauliflower Salad
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

This is almost exactly as in The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook, except we didn't have bell peppers or water chestnuts, so I didn't put them in. They would have been nice for a bit of extra contrast but I enjoyed this as it was.

Sauteed Cauliflower Greens, Bok Choy, and Chard
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Angeline made the greens with contents from our CSA box, to go with the salad.

I also made the "Colby Cheez" from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook, which is currently chilling in the fridge. I'll post about that when it's done.