Battening down the vegetable garden

This is NOT a good time to be leaving my vegetable beds for a couple of weeks, even if it'll be a glorious time to be visiting gardens in Toronto during the Garden Blogger's Fling.

The sugar snap peas have just started to produce (amazing for late May).  I've underplanted them with beans, which have emerged quite nicely, but they'll really need the gardener's hands to be trained up the trellises.  I've harvested all of the young perennial leeks of any size, leaving more than enough to spread around when I get back.

I'd like to sow squash seeds now, too, but am worried about enough moisture supporting them while we're gone....so I'm going to wait.  It's been so cool this spring, it hasn't really been good planting weather before now.  The tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant are in place and growing well, so that's good.

The tiny basil seedlings in flats that have just emerged... hmm, what was I thinking?  Time enough to sow another round when we return. They're on their own.

Yes, we have folks keeping tabs on the house and indoor plants, and a friend will water, too, when she's in town on market day,  but the swapping of cool season to warm season is not so easy.

I harvested all of the "outside" lettuce and kale leaves today, and all of the turnip greens, along with the sugar snap peas that have matured so far. The greens and peas were a lovely addition to our dinner this evening, eaten at home after a number of days eating out, with guests, programs, etc. and before a couple of weeks of the same ahead.

Welsh onions from a couple of years ago

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A warmer day (and vegetable musings)

Finally, the last bit of accumulated ice has melted and it was a "normal" temperature day, with highs ~ 58°F.

I'm itching to plant cool-season greens - I've missed having homegrown greens (kale, collards, mustard, etc.) over the last two winters, even though I've felt we've eaten nothing but homegrown greens in years past.

So, we're enjoying broccoli, collards, red cabbage, and kale from the grocery store -- cooked with garlic, red onions, and a bit of balsamic vinegar -- they're quite nice.

But a restaurant meal out at a local Mexican place yesterday evening was telling -- the "vegetables" were shredded carrots, broccoli bits, and some onions, clearly from a regional veggie warehouse somewhere, and delivered through the commercial food system.  They all tasted the same.

Geez, I sound like a total food snob, but homegrown veggies are really good. Vegetables from local markets, ditto.

Freshly-harvested vegetables, even if industrial, quickly frozen, are good, too, as are their organic equivalents.

I don't like to buy fruits and vegetables with a super long distance pedigree, so certainly "fresh" fruits and vegetables from the Southern Hemisphere this time of year are not normally in my cart  (berries, peaches and nectarines, grapes, asparagus, and the like).

The exception --bananas -- my hubbie's breakfast staple fruit. And coffee. And broccoli and lettuce from California, well, I suppose so, too...So I'm hardly a purist.

Hmm, soon it will be warm enough to sow at least a quick crop of cool-season greens, I hope.

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Contemplating fall

It's just the end of July, and I'm harvesting lots of tomatoes, and hoping for a few squash and more eggplants, but I'm thinking about fall, too.  The woodchuck has made inroads on the bean vines, so maybe I'll still get a few (from admittedly very late planted vines), before the end of warm weather, late here in the Carolinas.

I'm picking out a variety of arugula seeds to plant - from Rustica to MyWay to the wild type, as well as all of the other fall greens, too.  Some delicious arugula on the catered sandwiches during the Garden Bloggers Fling had me searching for that specific sort!  I think it was MyWay.

I don't really have space in the mountains to allocate to broccoli, brussel sprouts, or cauliflower (and the woodchuck would yum up all of the seedlings immediately!)

fall mustards coming along

But greens are good, and healthy, and I'll look forward to having them again, after a bit of a respite (weather vagaries in the winter meant their supply was way down last spring).

I liked revisiting previous blog posts for "greens."

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Vegan Dandelion Pesto

Okay Kids, what about those dandelions? They are beautiful...okay take a second look and really look at their beauty. Right you see it now! I was weeding the garden and looking at all of the dandelions that I was throwing away. I am sure that I can do something with all of this "waste". What about Pesto, ever heard about arugala pesto? Here is the low down... I was so surprised at how unbitter this pesto was, really it was so delicious that I just had to make it again... and again! So surprised!

Dandelion Pumpkin Seed Pesto

Makes Makes about 2 cups

Ingredients

• ¾ cup unsalted hulled (green) pumpkin seeds
• 4 garlic gloves
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 1 bunch dandelion greens (about 6 cups, loosely packed)
• 1 lemon juiced
• ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
• ⅛ cup water
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• Black pepper, to tasted

Directions

Place pumpkin seeds in a large skillet and roast over medium heat. Stir consistently until golden brown and you can hear they pop a little. Remove from the pan and allow to cool.
Pulse the garlic and pumpkin seeds together in the bowl of a food processor until very finely chopped.
Add nutritional yeast, dandelion greens, and lemon juice and process continuously until combined. Stop the processor every now and again to scrape down the sides of the bowl. The pesto will be very thick and difficult to process after awhile — that's ok.
With the blade running, slowly pour in the olive oil and process. Add the water a little bit at a time until the pesto is smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Here is a tip for you all, when using your Cuisinart, the most difficult thing about the Cuisinart is having to clean that silly lid. So a way I fix that is to wrap the lid is plastic wrap. Then when I am done I just unwrap the lid and viola!

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greens in flats

I've found that growing greens in flats is definitely rewarding.  They're often above the reach of woodchucks (like this flat on my potting bench) and they're easy to harvest, too, as baby greens, with a cut-and-cut-again approach, for several cycles.

mixed greens in a flat

It's been an unusual year for spring greens -- they're bolting now everywhere, if they were planted early, or overwintered. It's a bit early, perhaps, for bolting, but the cold-warm-cold weather patterns have encouraged flowering, I'm thinking.

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Bok Choy

This year I have a lot of Really fun greens that I will be planting. One unique green is Bok Choy, sometimes called Pak Choy. I am planting a Red and Green variety. They should be planted every 12" apart, and can be used as a cutting green or harvest all at once, like a one stop shop. Unfortunately they are also susceptible to the vial Flea Beetle. Me and the Flea Beetle are not very good friends, they have destroyed many an eggplant in my garden...Who knows maybe this year we will have better luck. Lets gross our fingers.

Red Bok Choy on Left and Green Bok Choy on Right.

Later on when I harvest, I will post another video on the total process  But here we go...the 1st video ever on this blog.

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