Harvest Season!

So it's been two weeks....and all of the sudden, I have a full blown zucchini that we'll eat with dinner tonight, and four more blossoms popped open overnight! This is one fast-growing veggie. (On a related note, if this rate keeps up I'm going to need recipe ideas...)

We had some weather roller coaster-ing the past week or so - it got cold and rainy for a while, then temps shot back up, and I had some worries about system shock for the Deck Farm. But all plants seem unfazed. Zucchini, as noted, is happy as can be, and the tomato plants are popping out all over the place. I've been pruning aggressively but they're still extremely bushy. We now have actual tomatoes on both plants, though, so exciting news there - I was worried with the crowded pots there wouldn't be enough nutrients, but apparently that's a non-issue. The corn continues to shoot skyward, as well - this morning I realized it was up to my shoulders!

Another new leaf

I talked yesterday about the revolting winter we had. Now, by God, I'm having spring. I have to believe it will eventually be something other than gloomy/chilly, and to that end I started my first round of seeds inside. 

This year I have probably the largest amount of gardening real estate I've had - and with good sun angles to boot - and am determined to maximize it. Our home, while lacking in legit yard space, has a startlingly large deck, which is both on the southwestern side and elevated away from most critters. The squirrels are an occasional issue but nothing like the deer and rabbits my mother contends with. While we do have our CSA membership for the summer, I want to be able to supplement with things that I know we like, and in a perfect world go to the grocery produce section for only specialty items and certain staples. 

The plan for the deck is ambitious but not, I hope, overly so. For produce, I'll do two kinds of tomatoes, zucchini, and container corn, which I have zero experience with but am intrigued by. Also, a pot of strawberries. I've got lavender and rosemary going inside and will relocate them when things warm up, and have two pots which will hold spearmint and thyme...I think. I'm considering doing two pots of mint, as I use it quite a bit in iced tea during the summer and thyme is such a pain in the neck to grow - and takes so much to get enough to use in a recipe. Maybe, though. I normally grow basil, but I have one of those odd hydroponic basil plants in the kitchen - purchased mid-winter because it was the exact same price as buying a clipped bundle, and I figured I'd see what happened. Much to my surprise, it's growing just fine. It's not visually interesting, or all that attractive, really, but it's there so I may as well let it be for as long as it survives. 

So back to the point. Last Monday, I started my seeds. I use the peat cups so as to not actually have to transplant them, and I generally start twice as many seeds as I want plants. This usually results in about a 70% sprouting rate, and then a few die off and I end up with the right number of actual plants. This year I am hoping for 2, at most 3, plants of each variety of tomato - I'm doing Sweet Cherries and Black Krims - so started five seeds. And all but one Sweet Cherry has sprouted! This is both exciting and daunting. If all the sprouts survive I will have too many starts, and everyone I know around here who gardens grows tomatoes themselves so will have no need for my extras. 

I was puzzling over this yesterday and remembered last summer at the food bank we occasionally had plants to give away. For the most part it was herb plants - basil and the like - but every now and then something else would be there. These plants all were WILDLY popular - gone in minutes. So if my plants are too numerous, perhaps there's a food bank here that may want them -- and on that same note, I'm now thinking maybe I ought to go ahead and plant the remaining seeds too. What do you think, readers? Do any of you have any experience with donating extra plants? 

Sprung!

I'm typing from the inside of a sunbeam. A sunbeam! This is so exciting - not just because it's Seattle and it rains a lot. No, this is more because it's Seattle...and we're kind of far north. For a long stretch in the winter, the sun - when it happens to come out in the middle of the day to begin with - never makes it high enough in the sky to make it into the interior courtyard of my building, which my apartment faces. I know it's over there...but it never shows itself. But now! Now my patio is awash in sun, my desk is a warm and happy place, and my cat is writhing in ecstasy in a sun patch in the next room. 

There really is nothing like early spring, amirite? That first warm day: bare feet and cropped pants, iced coffee, chirping birds, picnic-planning with EPB (who is now EPFiance, so I guess he needs a new acronym). Best of all, though, there are actual!fresh!delicious! things in the produce section. Lunches are suddenly much more interesting - today's was a big fresh salad, with fresh asparagus and chickpeas (okay, those aren't "fresh", but they were good) with a lemon vinaigrette and fresh pepper. You can't get springier. It was marvelous. I used to be afraid of asparagus. If you don't know how to cook them you can rapidly slide down a complicated path of blanching AND sauteing, or roasting them to death, or other complicated disasters. No more! Thanks, Alton Brown.

Welcome, spring! 

Simple and Delicious Vinaigrette

It's a personal thing, a homemade salad dressing. I like mine on the basic side. The general rule of thumb is 1 part acid to 2 parts oil, with seasonings if you want. Add your acids first, then the salt and other seasonings - they'll dissolve better before you add the oil. Then add your oil, whisk aggressively, and you're all set. My current go-to, in the order you should combine: 1 part balsamic, 1 part lemon juice (fresh if you have it), a generous pinch of salt, a pinch of dried whole thyme (crush it as if your hands were a mortar and pestle as you add it to the container), and a generous grinding of fresh pepper. Mix. Then add two parts good extra virgin olive oil - and if you have a lightly flavored oil, like a pepper-infused one i'm enjoying right now, make it 1 part that and 1 part unflavored oil. Mix, taste, adjust as needed. 

Easiest possible way to make asparagus

Via Alton Brown, Food Network

Ingredients

1/4 cup water

1 pound fresh asparagus, 1 to 1 1/2 inches cut off the bottom [*note from your blogger: don't get too technical here, just snap them - the stalk will break where it's supposed to*]

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Pour or spritz the water onto 4 paper towels. Spread out the paper towels and lay the asparagus on top of the dampened towels. Sprinkle with the salt. Roll up the asparagus in the dampened towels. Lay the bundle, seam side down, in the microwave. Microwave on high until the asparagus is just crisp tender, about 3 to 4 minutes. Remove from the microwave using tongs and carefully unwrap. Arrange on a serving platter and serve immediately.

Oh yeah, I'm planting things too

When I started this blog, I promised it would be for cooking and for gardening, and thus far (thanks to Seattle's weather) it's been all food, all the time. No more! We just had this bizarre stretch of nice weather (which is now MIA, but there's rumors it will return), and I promptly headed out to my patio, cleaning up the winter's mess and getting things going for the spring/summer. About a month ago, I started a few seeds in those little cups that break down in the larger pots - no replanting required - and am now, with a few exceptions, gradually moving them outside. I am 100% a container gardener - I have a patio of a decent size, and that's the end of it. Which is perfectly fine by me - no weeding! A few years back I tried to garden in a patch at the back of my parents' yard, and it was a disaster. Granted, it was the summer of May and June deluges, so the shallots and garlic drowned and rotted and things that lived were stunted at best, but on top of that I felt like there was a daily losing battle with the weeds. And this was when I was unemployed, so had plenty of time to be out there weeding every day - and I still couldn't keep up. So, containers are how I roll now.

It's still early in the season, so the only thing that's actually "grown" so far is my lavender. Lavender grows like crazy out here - I accidentally created a wild lavender offshoot in one of the apartment complex-maintained planters when nature sent some seeds/pollen floating over from my pot. My plant had gone dormant over the summer, and having never grown it before I wasn't sure what to expect. It lives in this cool ceramic pot that I like, but which doesn't slope out enough at the top for easy repotting. So, I left it be...then two weeks ago, looked out my window to see the thing had just about doubled in size!

                             

So, a good start out here, as with the mint plant that also refuses to die. Other struggling holdovers include rosemary and sage, both of which got a little more rain than I think they would have liked. But they're hanging in there, and I'm hopeful. Bring on the sunshine!