Giant tomatoes

One of my favorite things to do in fall is to look at seed catalogs and dream of what I can plant next year. For most backyard gardeners planting space is finite while desire and ambition are infinite. Looking at these catalogues you can dream up all kinds of possibilities. One of my dreams is to grow Giant Tomatoes. I ordered a copy of this book and have been spending time reading it.

I also found a company that sells these seeds and ordered 2 giant tomato seeds: Delicious and Big Zac(hybrid). From this book, the Delicious variety has the potential to grow to 7 pounds and Big Zac has the potential to grow to 6 pounds. I look forward to the challenge of growing these giant tomatoes next summer. I can't wait!

Garden Bugs

This morning I went to pick up one of my tomatoes that had become ripe and had survived the squirrels because I had covered it with a mesh bag. Then I noticed this big tomato hornworm lying still.

I then went over to pick up some basil. My garden is overgrown with basil and there jumped out a praying mantis. Since I've grown vegetables organically, these bugs are a testament to the no insecticide policy.


Basil bed.

The end product, a Caspian pink tomato and basil for dinner.

Harvesting worm compost

This weekend I had some free time so I decided to harvest my worm compost bin. Although I read many methods about harvesting worm compost (not just worm castings), I tend to gravitate toward the simpler way. Here is what I did to harvest worm compost. I have a black plastic sheet, turned the bin on its side, put on a pair of rubber gloves and use a hoe to rake the compost down to the black plastic sheet. Any big stuff that had not decomposed was thrown into a second bin. The worms tend to burrow down to the bottom and when I flip the plastic sheet over, I can collect the worms and transfer them to another bin. This compost took nearly 4 months to age.

Hoe and black plastic bag.


What the inside of the compost bin looked like.


Stuff that did not get decompose the first time were thrown in this bin to get a second chance.


Here is what the second planting of tomato plants with proper soil preparation and compost from the worm bins looks like after about a month. The plants look very healthy don't they!

Giant Imperial Stocks

Every year, I can't wait until it is fall so I can plant one of my favorite winter flowers - giant stocks. I often used them as cut flowers. The fragance is so lovely that it reminds me of my garden.

A close-up picture


Under a tree


Seedlings started this year

Bay Leaf (laurel)

When I first planted my Bay leaf it had come in a 4-inch container from Home Depot. Its root growth was so vigorous that I had to move it to a container. Unfortunately I neglected it, i.e not watered it enough for a long period of time, so it became stunted but not dead.

I gave it some water and here is a picture of my bay laurel in a pot faraway from the house where you can see some new growth.


Bay leaf comes in handy to a viarety of dishes like stew and soup. I swear the secret to my spaghetti bolognaise and bison stew is that I usually throw in a handful of bay leaves when I make these dishes. With the abundance of bay leaves, I've recently expiremented with making my own ham. I went to Ralphs and saw Fresh Pork Shoulder Picnic Roast for 99cents/lb, something overcame me when I purchased the whole leg(10 lbs), a big piece of meat that I knew my family couldn't finish. But I have the same urge as any woman when she encounters something on sale, be it clothes or meat.

Here is a recipe I dug out from the Chez-Panisse Cookbook by Alice Waters. I made the following brine and refrigerated it for 2-3 days using the herbs from my garden: marjoram, thyme, bay leaves.

1/4 cup of salt
2 gallons warm water
coriander seeds
black peppercorns
juniper berries
bay leaves
fresh thyme
fresh marjoram

meat must be completely submerged


Here is the meat towel dried.


It was grilled at a very low temperature, cooked for 4-5 hours, and here is how it turned out. I could use the kitchen oven but I didn't want to heat up the house and then have to pay for air conditioning as well as the heat.


This big piece of ham will be used in a variety of dishes this week.

Garden Peas

Fall is in the air, it's time to start planting fall crops. But every year, I've always tried to hang on to the summer by planting some summer crops, like tomato plants, in late August. The only fall crop I never miss is garden peas but freshly picked garden peas are so delicious they rarely make it to the kitchen.


Here are Wando peas that I planted back in late August, picture taken early September.


Here are the Wando peas now(mid Sept), growing very slowly



A new bed for Super Sugar Snap Peas and little Marvel peas


I tend to thickly sow the peas and here is a picture taken before I cover them


Let's see what are going to come up.

A rambling mess

When I first moved into this house, the garden was still presentable. But those big tall trees prevented me from planning any vegetables in the back garden, I could only grow my vegetables in the side yard and grow flowers in the pots.

Before the trees were removed


When the trees were removed because they are fast growing trees, I finally get some sun in the backyard and I'm able to grow vegetables.

After the trees were removed


A close-up picture of the flowers


I'm trying to grow the melon plants up, since we don't have a lot of space. I would say I like the effect of overgrown here, or a rambling mess.


I've been spending my time cleaning up this rambling mess this past weekend so it can I can start planting fall vegetables. It's the least favorite of my garden activities, but someone got to do it.

Vegetables by 40 great French Chefs

I've checked out this book from the library to get inspiration as to what kinds of vegetables I should grow in the fall, and the coming year. I like that it's "a book about how vegetables should be grown, cooked, and eaten with passion". I don't know if I've found the exact variety of seed to match the book but here is what I have so far:

Samos Spinach - ✔
Kelvedon Wonder French Garden Pea - ✔
Spring Florence Fennel
Baltimore Cauliflower
Young Carrot - ✔
Chive Flower
Azur Star Kohlrabi - ✔
Musselburgh Leeks
Red Rhubarb - ✔
Beefheart Spring Cabbage
Swiss chard - ✔
Cherry Bell Radish
Butterhead Lettuce
Purple Baby Artichoke
Summer Sprouting Brocccoli
Coriander Flower
Dwarf Green Bean
Warty Ridge Cucumber
Long Red Beet
Taxi Zucchini
Green Zebra Tomato
Slim Jim Eggplant
Sweet Cherry Pepper
Cantaloupe Melon
Borage Flower - ✔
Purple Graffiti Cauliflower
Baby Broad Bean
Purple Onion
Sweet White Onion
Currant Tomato
Kind Edward Potato
Hokkaido Sweet Squash
Purple Top Turnip
Jesuralem Artichoke
Monarch Celery Root
Guernsey Parsnip - ✔

Okra

Okra is a gooey kind of vegetable and most people don't like the taste of it either. However, growing okra has been incredibly easy. On top of that okra has very good health benefits.
Last year, I had an amazing crop, I was able to pick about a pound a day, so bountiful that I did not dare repeat it. My family can only eat so much okra per day!

This year, I only grew a few plants just so I can use it as an excuse to barbecue some ribs to go with it.


Barbecue ribs with steamed okra and quick pickle cucumbers


Here is a simple, no brainer recipe:

Step 1: Start with raw meat or ribs


Step 2: Sprinkle generous amounts of salt,pepper,and paprika(for coloring) on both sides of each piece of meat


Step 3: Stack one on top of the other in an oven(or gas grill)with very low temperature around 225 degrees


Step 4: Every thirty minutes, open the lid and rotate the ribs, so the non-cooked part will be on top of the cooked part,this will keep the cooked meat moist, 2-3 hours later, when it looks done, it should be like this picture


Bon appetit!

Vermicomposting

I first started composting when the city that I lived in gave away free compost as well as made purchasing compost bin relatively inexpensive. I did hot composting at first but then switched over to vermicomposting, the difference between hot composting vs vermicomposting is that vermicomposting is less labor intense, which goes well with my style of gardening. However, I had less success harvesting compost with other worm bins until I purchased the bins from Home depot. I started with 2 bins but now I actually have 5 big bins under the shade tree. These bins have holes drilled near the right side for drainage. The vermi compost that I get is trully amazing, no wonder it's often called black gold.



I purchased my starter worms from a cheese selling guy at the local farmers market. He raises horses and the byproduct of these horses goes to feed the worms. However, I sometimes found there are tons of soil building worms in my yard.

Common red worms (Lumbricus rubellus) and other species plucked from compost bins or soil (or rescued after flooding rains) usually make well-behaved captives, and you can usually coax larger night crawlers (L. terrestris) to colonize any spot by piling on plenty of mulch.
.........
Indeed, when it comes to using earthworms to build soil fertility, Clive Edwards, Ohio State University entomologist and author of Earthworm Ecology — the academic bible on earthworms — thinks night crawlers deserve top priority. “The best thing is to obtain some L. terrestris and inoculate your garden with them. They are the most important species in promoting soil fertility,” he says.

Here is how to compost for more information.

Tomato Basil Salsa

When I feel like making a quick meal for my family, this is the type of thing I put together. A quick tomato basil salsa, a short version of the real Tomato Basil Salsa, but I skip the garlic, cumin, and sugar. I also substitute the hot pepper sauce with freshly chopped peppers and voila! I have a quick version of hot tomato basil salsa.

Here are the ingredients that I started with: fresh picked basil, heirloom tomatoes, and peppers.


Pan seared sea scallops, see how to marinate using this recipe
and how to pan sear the scallops . Then I topped the scallops with this hot salsa and served them with some wild rice and garden cucumbers.

Mesclun salad with Pinot Noir

On a recent outing to Santa Monica Pier we stopped by the Lobster restaurant for some steamed Maine lobster with asparagus(to wash away our summer-of-discontent). We felt like drinking Pinot Noir even though it was a seafood restaurant, so we asked the waiter to recommend one. That is how we came to discover Merry Edwards 2003 Pinot Noir 2003 WINDSOR GARDENS PINOT NOIR .

We liked our Pinot Noir so much that I attempted to repeat this experience at home with a cheaper version of Pinot Noir, 2008 Robert Mondavi Pinot Noir, bought at the local Safeway supermarket.

Mesclun salad with simple grilled T-bone New York Steak


Fresh picked mesclun salad in the back of the picture



See more reviews of the Lobster restaurant the Lobster restaurant

See simple recipe of griled T-bone Grilled-T-Bone-Steaks

Summer of discontent? Not as far as cucumbers go

I was reading the Wall Street Journal this morning, an article written by Joe Queenan on The Summer of Our Discontent and the following quote best describes my 09 summer "The summer of 2009 was the summer when nothing positive happened." and this one best describes my experience with regards to growing tomato and zuchini crops "If there is a less scintillating summer on record, it's hard to remember it.....The tomatoes were uneatable"

I had planted my zuchini plants in the wrong spot(the whole summer I only had 2-3 small zuchini at best). As for the tomato crop, I did have a lot of small tomatoes, the Stupice variety, but they were mostly been eaten by the small birds. For the big heirloom tomatoes, the squirels made off with most of all the big ones, until I found a way to deter them. But by then it was too late, the summer is nearly over.

However, the cucumber plants were prolific. I had on average 4-5 large cucumbers everyday. I had success with all types of cucumbers: European/English, Persian, Japanese, and American.

This is a picture of my earliest cucumber patch. I think I may have about 10 plants of different varieties here.


A close-up picture of the cucumber plants. I love cucumber plants, the leaves are attractive looking when they are young and growing.


This is what I have now, hopefully it will last until the end of September.


Fresh picked cucumbers today. Asian cucumbers on the left side, a Persian cucumber is on the far right, and the middle cucumbers are possibly the American type. They were 10-cent seed packages from Rite Aid.

My own berry patch

I had this idea of having my own berry patch after visiting Stanford. Students there grow berries and sell them to local restaurants. I found an area in my garden that is mostly sunny and planted 2 types of blackberries(both from Orchard Supply), one type brambles, and 2 types of raspberries.

Summer berries are a great treat, especially when it is accompanied with ice cream.
Here is a great photo of the large type of blackberries. The type that one often sees at Traders Joe's.


Here is a picture of fresh picked brambles(on the top left) and raspberries(on the right bottom half).


This year, growing strawberries has not been successful, but I did pick a few ripe ones and they were tasty. I will order more new plants this coming year and try again.


Here is a picture of the berry patch in early May, there are so many blossoms and the bees love it.


A blueberry plant growing in a half-wine barrel in early May. Some blueberries are huge(the size of a quarter) but they never made it into the kitchen. They went straight into my mouth!


Another picture of the berry patch in early May(I couldn't decide which picture looks better).


Recent picture of the berry patch. There are still berries there but I'm kind of bored picking them because I'm more interested in fall crops.

Fall vegetables - Lettuce and spinach

Pictures of lettuce and spinach that I grow under a tree. The shade of the tree makes it easier for these vegetables to withstand the heat, these vegetables are normall grown in the fall season. In the past, I have not been successful with sowing spinach. I've never seen any spinach leaves emerged from the spinach seeds after sowing them. Perhaps, the pill bugs eat them all. This year,I sow them in a pot and raised the pot higher to combat this problem.

Close up picture of the lettuce


Spinach seedlings emerging


Further out picture of the lettuce, see the small spinach seeds emerging on the lower left hand corner of the picture.


Picture of both containers under the tree.