Back to corn.

From the start the corn was destined to fail.  I planted it late, it barely reached the “knee high by 4th of July” rule, it rained in early August causing many of the stalks to fall over and then the squirrels got to it.  One afternoon my son was in the garden and said, “mom, there’s a piece of corn on the path.”  Sure enough, the squirrels had pulled an ear of corn off, shucked it and ate it.  They also started digging in the middle of the corn patch.  It was a mess.  However, the glimpse of the piece the squirrels had gotten gave me hope.

Yesterday, curiosity got the better of me and I pulled an ear off and peeled back the husk.  Inside were yellow kernels of yummy.  My son was almost more excited than I was.  I grew corn!  Despite everything that had gone wrong, I grew real live ears of corn.  We picked about 7 ears and ate them for dinner last night.  There are about 100 ears all together (I planted a little too close) and I’m letting them go a little longer to fully fill in.  The silks are brown so that indicates that they are ready, but I want to wait a little longer.

Now that I’ve done it will I grow corn again?  Sure.  It was fun and the stalks make for great Fall decorations.  I’ll do things a little differently next year and I might try a different variety.  In the end I’m very excited about this little accomplishment.

There are so many different techniques to get heirloom tomatoes to produce ripe fruit in the Northwest.  One is to de-sucker the plants.  This means removing all of the side shoots that emerge from branching leaves.  The only problem with this is you have to stand there and work at it all. day. long.  The plants grow so fast that if you blink they will have grown 20 suckers.  I was fairly diligent about my de-suckering prior to leaving for China, but I did not leave instructions with my husband and the task was overlooked.  Consequently, once again my vines have turned into monsters.

Another technique is covering the ground with black plastic to radiate the heat.  I don’t personally use this method because I feel it robs the plants of water.  If there were a soaker system under the plastic that is one thing, but our irrigation system is not set up like that so I forgo the plastic.

In cooler years, like this one, I do make a point to go out and trim back the plants.  Heirlooms are indeterminate so they keep on growing and producing more fruit.  I want the fruit that is already on the vine to ripen rather than produce more fruit so I cut back the plants and remove most of the flower clusters that have no fruit showing.

Last year there was not trimming involved in my tomato garden, suckers or otherwise.  This year I’m hoping to get at least one case of tomato sauce out of all of this.  It has been a terrible year for tomatoes to say the least.  I’m thankful for the greenhouse start I was able to give my plants earlier this spring.

How is it working out for you?  Better of worse than years past and what are you doing right or wrong?

Oh… where have I been?  You may think I’ve been overtaken by the pumpkin vines in my garden, but I assure you I have not.  From the 4th of July holiday until the end of July I was preparing for and going on a very large trip.  I spent the last two weeks of July in various parts of China.  I escorted a group of teenagers on a trip to Beijing, Xi’an and Nanchang.  When I arrived home I had the aforementioned pumpkin vines (and other various garden chores) to tend to.

How is the Sprouting Off garden growing?  Like crazy!  I, of course, over planted a few things and it makes navigating the paths a little treacherous.  The pumpkins are spilling out into the street.  The summer squash is feeding us and 200 of our closest friends and I hope to never see a green bean again.  Cabbage and broccoli were abundant.  Lettuce finally bolted in the heat and I’m waiting just a bit for the weather to cool down to plant the fall crop.

Speaking of fall crops, my son and I put in the overwintering carrots, broccoli and cabbage a few weeks ago.  They are sprouting and hopefully will come in nicely.  I have kale, fava beans and winter beets yet to plant.

This season has out done our wildest expectations.  It is always dicey when you decide to plant your garden in straight Tagro mix.  Would I do it again?  Probably not.  We found that cauliflower refused to grow.  The spring and summer rains made the mix too heavy for the tiny roots, but all things considered the garden has performed remarkably.

The Autumn and next Spring we will amend the Tagro with vegetable matter compost to lighten it up.  Hopefully that will reduce a little bit of the smother factor.  The good thing about this season and our grass removal technique is that we had little issue with weeds.  Of course it could be from the plants being so tightly packed together.  That’s what a garden is supposed to look like, right?

So tell me, how has your garden grown this season?  What worked and what didn’t?

This year the 4th of July falls on a Sunday so that means many places give employees the Monday afterwards a day off for observance.  Really, bankers just want an added day off in the year.  It just so happens that my husband also has Monday off so I convinced him to take Friday off and make it an extra long weekend… so we can do projects.

We broke down and hired a gardener to come and clean out the corner bed.  She did a marvelous job and they even spread the last bit of Tagro I had.  This means I have space to plant the growing pile of plants on my front patio.  My husband and I are 1/4 of the way finished with weeding another section of the garden so that means even more space to plant things.  So the weekend will consist of lots of weeding and runs to the landfill.  There are some irrigation system things that need to be wrapped up and possibly a fence that needs to be mended.  We won’t run out of projects that is for sure.

So what projects do you have planned for the weekend?  Any?  Or do you plan to sit around and enjoy your day off?

My neighbor went out of town for two weeks (please don’t rob his house).  Before he left he asked if I could collect his mail and recycle his papers.  I agreed since he is a nice guy.  If he were an asshole I might steal some of the plants in his yard and replace them with crappy ones.  Good thing he doesn’t have very many good plants and that he’s nice.  Anyway, he also asked if we could use some fresh produce.  Um, yes.  We can always use fresh produce (she says as she ignores the 3200 square feet of vegetable garden and that every other week box of organic produce that comes to her doorstep).  Why YES!  Bring it on.  He said that he gets a weekly CSA share from Zestful Gardens and that we are more than welcome to pick it up for the next two weeks.  He would let them know that it would be us picking it up and that we would collect it at a church in the North end.  The next day he arrives with a note about where to pick up the produce and other things.  The note says he gets a full farm share, a greens share and 2 dozen eggs… on Tuesdays.  As in every week.  We weren’t sure what we were in for and we went to pick up the share and then to the farmer’s market.

The Zestful truck parks in a church parking lot and like any other CSA they put out their wares and a board that says what that week’s share is.  You then go through and fill your bags.  We walked away with 2 giant bok choi, 2 head of endive, 1 bunch of radishes, 1 bunch of chard, 1 bunch of chives, 1/3 pound of snow peas, 1/2 pound of snap peas, 1/2 pound of salad greens, 1/2 pound of spinach (that was the farm share).  We also got a Chinese cabbage (the greens share) and 2 dozen eggs.  Needless to say we didn’t buy any vegetables at the farmer’s market.

To add to it we have bunches of spinach (leftover from his last week share and our garden), 3 bunches of radishes (leftover from his last week share and our vegetable box), mustard greens, salad mix (from our vegetable box and the gobs from our own garden), kale, spring onions, spring garlic and carrots.

The question is, what do I do with all of this?  I’m going to get another farm share next week and our vegetable box and I have stuff coming ready in my own garden.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, but I can only eat so many salads a day.  I may have to add a 3rd breakfast salad.

So give me your best suggestions.  Given everything in my fridge, give me your best recipes.  Help me out here.  What would you make with all of this stuff?

Last year my tomatoes grew to nearly 7′ tall and they snapped metal stakes.  I am taking no chances this year and went with the grand-daddy of all tomato supports.  No, it isn’t a Texas Tomato Cage.  I don’t think those would even work.  I’m a do-it-yourself kinda gal and used an idea I found at the Puyallup Fair last year.

Since I’m not taking any chances on a reduced yield because of the weather so I added 5 more plants to last year’s 10.  That is 15 tomato plants in all.  Only two are the same variety.

To create the supports I used 1×3 lumber and 2×2 lumber.  I used a 8′ piece and cut 18″ off.  I screwed the 18″ piece to the top of the the long piece and used a 12″ piece of 2×2 to make a diagonal support.  My husband then dug 12″ holes and attached the uprights to the raised beds.  I (my husband) attached eye bolts in the cross piece and ran a string to the bottom of the tomato plant.  I used bamboo stakes and zip ties to hold the string down and taught.  I then attached the tomato plant with tomato clips from Johnny’s Seed.

The tomato section of the garden looks rather strange, but I’m hoping it will work to keep the tomatoes upright.

Here are a few photos to illustrate.

This week the geraniums are some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.  They are in full bloom and ready for your containers.

Travis went hog wild with the perennial order and it gave me a chance to refresh the whole perennials section.  There is lavender (french, spanish and english), blooming penstemon, a ton of purple heucheras and other perennials in gallon containers.

Hanging baskets are still looking good and at $29.99 (get an additional 15% off if you buy two or more) why not pick up a few.

We also received planted containers for your deck or patio.  They range in size and price, but all of them are gorgeous.

Stop by and say hi and check out what is new in the nursery.

Greens come in a wide variety.  They can be “winter” or “spring.”  As a general rule of thumb the winter varieties are a little tougher in the leaf and can stand a cooking.  The spring types are often the tops of other greens (beets) or softer leafed varieties that are good eaten fresh.  Here is my personal guide to greens.  Feel free to add your own tips and tricks.

Arugula:  We eat arugula fresh.  Put it into salads or on top of pizza.  I grow a large stand of arugula all at once, but after I harvest this batch (that is currently starting to flower) I will sow 1/a row and then another 1/2 row about 3 weeks later.

Collards: As I mentioned, we don’t eat collards.  I tried them in a cornbread, but I was not impressed.  I bet that if I cooked them like I do kale I would be much happier.

Corn Salad: I’ve never purchased it, grown it or eaten it.  Any suggestions?

Cress: I also love cress.  I grew it last year, but ran out of seed for this year.  I put it into salads.

Mustard Greens: Mustard came in our vegetable box for the first time this year.  I had never had it, but I can say it makes a wonderful addition to salads.

Bok/Pac Choi:  I’ve never grown Bok Choi, but I have eaten it.  We will cut it up and throw it into stir-frys.  We’ve also had baby bok choi cut in half and sauteed with oil and garlic… oh so good.  Pac Choi is similar, but it also makes a great salad green.

Endive & Escarole: Never grown it, but is great in salads.

Kale: I could eat kale every day.  I love kale.  I don’t eat much red meat so I make up for the lack of iron with this dark green veg.  My favorite preparation is to saute the kale in a generous amount of oil (I use grapeseed) and garlic.  Salt well and cook until it is just wilted, but still has some crunch to it.  Baked kale is also a hit in this house.  I add it to a pasta dish from the Splendid Table cookbook.  I am currently growing a Russian Red Kale.

There are many more greens out there.  I didn’t cover any of the Raabs.  The category of greens is quite vast.  I’m enjoying getting to know this highly under used dinner option.

It threatened to rain, but the weather held the whole time we were there.  The face of the market is ever changing.  Now in its third year the 6th Avenue market is coming into its own.  They are rearranging things a bit and adding a little bit of diversity in the vendors.  There are a few more craft type vendors and a few new non-produce vendors.

We browsed our way down the market and purchased our way back.  I’m sad that I didn’t have the opportunity to catch the names of all of the booths I purchased from, but I did get some.  We purchased Asparagus and spring onions from the wonderful family that sits at the very back of the market.  I have been buying amazing produce from them for 4 years now and I still don’t know their names.  This year they have a new addition in the form of a 2 month old baby girl.  She is just as sweet as her mama and I can’t wait to watch her grow up.

I picked up smoked salmon from Rolf (always a must on a weekly basis) and was happy to hear that he’s on his way up to Alaska to catch more to sell “fresh” (it is flash frozen for transport).  Nothing better than fresh salmon on the grill in the summer.

Next we were pleased to see Vallhalla Coffee.  This is great because we love their coffee, but for some reason we forget to stop by their shop on 6th Ave to pick up beans.  What’s more is that I was tasked with buying good coffee for the nursery and I was going to get Stumptown at Satellite.  However, I did better than that.

We picked up dinner at Gateway to India (per our usual 1st day of the market tradition) and CJ greeted us with a giant smile.  The food was delicious as always.

I was happy to see that Tahoma Farms had a booth right in a prominent place.  This is good so that we can pick up the items offered in the Terra Organics boxes on the off weeks (or at least what Tahoma grows).

My husband is a huge local honey eater.  He has had peanut butter and honey toast nearly every morning for the past 7 years (maybe longer).  In the off season we purchase our honey at Tacoma Boys or H&L.  During the market season we purchase it from whomever is selling it at the time.  The last bottle we purchased was at the Proctor market the day before Mother’s Day.  It crystalized quickly and I wasn’t impressed.  My husband was running out so he was happy to see Sweet As Can Bee Honey at the 6th Ave market.  They had samples of all of their offerings and I love it when honey vendors do that.  We walked away with a bottle of vanilla honey and a jar of cinnamon creamed honey.  It was the only purchase we used our debit card on (typically we only spend $40 in cash at the market.  it is our way of not overspending).

Our last stop was at a small booth selling tomato plants and greens.  I am fully stocked on tomato plants and I am no longer allowed to even look at them, but greens… I could eat my weight in greens.  I have a crisper drawer full of braising mix and kale so I didn’t need that, but this little vendor had a little green which I’d never heard of.  I don’t know how to spell it, but is like a raab of some sort although not quite a raab.  It can be eaten raw or cooked and tastes delicious.

I was happy with the selection of the market on opening day.  I wish there were more people, but with the weather being so bad I’m not surprised.  I will continue to support the 6th Ave market as long as it is open.  I’ve missed you market season… it’s been a long winter.