A Great Year for Sweet Peas

Julia Child

New rose for my garden

Cinco de Mayo

and the rose of that name

Mazus reptans

Cornus florida from Judy's garden

Cymbidiums in bloom on the porch

I'm in the garden

Love Apple Farm
Ben Lomond, California

Last weekend, Rick rode is his bike down to Santa Cruz and I was the designated picker-upper. Actually, we met at our favorite beach on the San Mateo coast. On my way down to Santa Cruz/the beach, I stopped in at Love Apple Farm to buy some tomato starts.

Usually I just bust open a couple of sacks of Bumper Crop and spread it around. I have some old but still-standing raised beds that we put in when we bought the house. Our native soil is heavy clay. I didn't know what I was doing then and I don't know much more now but hope springs eternal. The soil in the raised beds has a lovely texture but I suspect that it is quite infertile.

Linda told me about Cynthia Sandberg, an amazing grower in Ben Lomond, in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Her Love Apple Farm is the kitchen garden for Manresa, the Michelin-starred creation of chef David Kinch. This year she grew over 150 varieties of tomatoes, mostly heirlooms. She offers them for sale through the end of the month.



After strolling around the farm, checking out her pig and her chickens, I made the pilgrimage to Mountain Feed and Farm in downtown Ben Lomond. I have been fascinated with Cynthia's ideas for bed preparation and tomato planting. Mountain Feed usually has most of the ingredients necessary for the Love Apple protocols. Alas, I was too late get everything I needed. Next time I will call before making the trek. I did get some of the things on my list and resolved to try to secure the most daunting item for the almighty tomato hole: fish heads.

My test run was yesterday. Cynthia's method requires a deep hole. This is not because of the size of the tomato start, but because of the fish head. I was able to find salmon heads. Four of those babies weighed 10 lbs. I dug an 18" hole and threw in 1/2 a fish head per hole. Don't ask. Actually, that was the worst part. Next, she recommends bone meal, two aspirins, 2-4 eggshells, humic acid, earthworm castings, and an organic fertilizer. Am I the last person on earth to know about earthworm castings? That was the best part. This morning I couldn't wait to get up to see if the two tomato plants had been ravaged by marauding raccoons. So far, they don't know about the fish heads. I planted 6 more tomatoes and now I will take a nap. Je suis fatigue...

Bread and Roses

I'm pretty excited about my latest baking efforts. I've been using a combination of recipes and refining my techniques. This is the latest sourdough loaf using a wild starter that Linda grew last autumn. I've noticed that it has continued to change (less sticky) and get stronger. Lately it has been doubling in about 2-1/2 hours. I still haven't tried baking a "pure" wild yeast loaf but I will one of these days.

Oh, and if you don't prune your roses in January like you should, you could have roses in March. Amazing! This is a lovely, fragrant old garden rose, 'Barbara Worl.'

Fall Planting

I finally planted my onion starts (a yellow and a red) and my 9 varieties of garlic. I ordered the garlic last May and it was shipped in August. Alice and Linda and I split two gourmet sampler assortments for warm winter areas which included Creole Red, Ajo Rojo, Burgundy, Native Creole, Kettle River, Inchelium Red, Susanville, Shilla, and Korean Red. I think the Korean Red was rotten. Oh well.

I love these Atlas garden gloves for planting. I discovered that if I double glove with a pair of disposable surgical gloves, my hands stay dry and warmer. Of course with the temperature at 38 degrees today, ski mittens would really have been a better choice. I hope the garlic has long underwear.

Seasonal Content

More inspiration from the market.

My friends and those who know me from my guild have heard me say that I am great at starting projects but not so great at finishing. I heard AS Byatt speak on Monday night at City Arts and Lectures in San Francisco. When asked if she shared her manuscripts with her sister (Margaret Drabble), she commented that she shows nothing to anyone until it goes to her publisher. I find that if I show a work in progress I'm discouraged if it doesn't receive positive reviews but I also can resist finishing something if it receives "raves" (fear of failing to live up to expectations?).

I am working on two ancient projects and making good progress. Perhaps a sneak preview in a few days?

Inspiration from the Garden

Alice and I went to the plant sale at the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek. It has been years since I saw it (and thought I wasn't interested in cactus and succulents). What an inspiration for making art.

September 18, 2009

A Big Tomato Sandwich

We still have lots of tomatoes in the garden so tonight we had this.

I used a recipe from Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America's Farmers' Markets by Deborah Madison. It is such an inspiration. Each picture just makes you want to try it.

I started with a 1 lb. loaf ciabatta. You want a crusty, strong-textured bread. In the book she shows a round loaf which looks lovely. I sliced off the top third of the loaf and pulled out the inside to make room for the filling. I "painted" the inside of the bottom of the loaf with an herb vinaigrette (1/4 c. basil leaves; 1 T. chopped oregano (she suggests marjoram but I had none in the garden); 1 T. chopped parsley; 1 small clove garlic, minced; 1/3 c. EVOO; 4 t. aged red wine vinegar; 1/4 t. Salt, and freshly ground pepper.)

I alternated layers of sliced tomatoes, roasted red peppers, and 4 oz. fresh sliced mozzarella, on the bottom 2/3 of the loaf. After adding each layer I "painted" the vinaigrette on and seasoned with S&P.

Delicious!

Pickled Green Beans

The July issue of Sunset magazine has a great feature on canning. Pictures of sparkling jars of preserved food always get to me. My friend Alice had a surfeit of green beans and she alerted me to their recipe for Pickled Green Beans with Dill, Tarragon, Garlic and Peppercorns. She also gifted me with about 3 pounds of beans. I modified their recipe slightly to make these.

I also liked this recipe at Downstairs Recipes.

I used Three Monks vinegar and more salt than the Sunset recipe. I made some of the jars with these jalapenos from our garden, omitting the tarragon in those jars.


It is all experimental. The bigger jars are 1-1/2 pt. which is a nice size for long beans. I processed the jars at 180-185 degrees for 30 minutes (rather than 5 minutes at boiling) because the Sunset recipe promised a crunchy bean. Of course I will have to wait about a month to check out my bean stash. Makes me think I should plant a crop of beans of my own

First Potato

Picked our first potato. We planted them late. Found some old ones in the pantry and figured they were ready for composting so, why not?

The weather has turned hot--it got up to 94 degrees today. I watered the things in pots but there remain lots of things to do in the garden. Best to wait until it cools off again.

Pool closed early this AM because of you-know-what...

And now the driveway is done...

Perhaps boring but quite exciting for us.

It took more than two weeks to complete. I was able to avoid most of the noise and the dust because I was in OHIO.


It is a wonderful, smooth ride up the hill.

Definitely worth it!

Planned Destruction

We share a long driveway with a neighbor. This is the view from our house looking down after we started the demolition in preparation for new paving.

Here's the pile of paving from the section from our house to the neighbor's house.

Troy gets to have all of the concrete in front of his garage.

And on his auxiliary parking pad. I hope the apple trees survive.

It was pretty noisey and exciting. We have our cars parked on the street as we will not be able to drive up or down for the duration.

It will take at least a week. Harrison is very excited (he's in grade 4). He was climbing all over the piles with his brother and his followers after the workers left.

Weird weather

We've been having unusual weather. It has been cool, cloudy, and rain has been predicted off and on. We've actually had some sprinkles--not enough to do any good but enough to get me to dash out to retrieve equipment that had been left out. We seldom get precipitation from May through September.

It seems as if it has been unseasonably cool. Since the beginning of June, we have recorded only 2 highs in the 70s (71 and 73). On several days it never got over 64. Our lows have consistently been in the mid-50s. The lettuce is doing fine. The tomatoes are growing.

I'm posting these pictures from April and May to remind myself that the garden went from an abundance of bloom to scraps. I need to work on that. A garden friend would always remark that Mother Nature makes the spring garden and we have to do the work for the rest of the year. I need to visit gardens after the spring flush. I need dahlias, sunflowers, and more lilies. I guess have been focusing on food crops of late.


What do you love that is in bloom in your garden now?