How does my garden grow?

All dress up in my gardening clogs

Pretty good considering the up and down temps, rain and my late start. But I'm keeping my hopes up with little seedlings coming up my garden. Thinking of getting a couple more plant to put pots to round out the line up.

So far the weeds are doing the best. Tons of wild strawberries in the lawn. They are green so I leave them. The berries are much bigger than last year, maybe they will taste better. 

wild strawberries growing on the side of my veggie garden

To Pickle

UPDATE: I tasted it after day in the refrig. This so delicious. The brine is like a namasu (Japanese cucumber salad) with a little bit of the sea taste from the kombu. The beets are crispy and add a bit of the sweetness to the pickle. I'm thinking maybe a different slice and I can add it to to a sandwich. 

Yes, of course. Veggies for my garden and my local farmers markets, why would I say no. And add to that my latest obsession with beets of all colors and the perfect recipe, there's no stopping me.

Let me back up a bit. I was chopping up my veggies for another batch of pickled veggies slaw (I'm on my 3rd batch). And was wondering if I could add my beets to the slaw. I had a bunch in my frig and waiting for me to roast them up. I wasn't sure if I could pickle raw beets so I googled pickle raw beets and I first found a Martha recipe that looked good but then I saw it, Momofuku Beet Pickle recipe from Chow.com. The recipe has rice wine vinegar and kombu (dried seaweed) and that was all it took for me to dig out my cheap Japanese version of a mandoline to slice the beet thin.

Beets and Kombu stacked in the jar

The kombu I used. Hope to make some dashi with the rest.

All brined

This needs to sit for at least a day so I can't tell you what it taste like. I'm excited to taste it. I'm thinking it will have that umami taste to it with the kombu in it. Will post an update after I have a taste. Still need to make my pickled veggie slaw. Probably tomorrow. 

Saturday's Harvest

It's the end of July and my garden is not a bed of weeds! Hurrah!!!



Today I harvested:

• all of my manoa lettuce--8oz worth. Not bad for the weed whisperer
• 4oz of swiss chard--they are still going strong 
• 2oz of assorted herbs--flat leaf parsley, basil and mint
• pulled some carrot to test to see how they are doing. 

And I planted:

• row of manoa lettuce
• row of beet--one more try

In my kitchen, I'm rooting some thai basil from some cutting from the restaurant. I hope to pot them tomorrow. I'm trying to root some celery, doesn't look too great. 

Oh!I forgot I got 8oz. of tomatoes on Friday.

The Garden Grows

The seeds are in and the fence is up and now the seedling are coming and my flowers are blooming. Wanted to give an update on the progress. I'm excited and hopefully I'll get some veggies this year. The next step is thinning and I think I'm going to try this thinning method I found at garden.org. Here's the link to the article: http://www.garden.org/articles/articles.php?q=show&id=620

Here's a some pictures. Radish seedlings first to come up and the biggest

How does my garden grow?

Not very well at the moment. Remember that nice little garden my family help me put in last year. Well, it's currently grow a beautiful lush patch of weeds that the critters brought with them.

I even have a giant weed tree that refuse to die right next to my front door.

But now that I have the skilled gardening experts back at my house, I'm hoping to take advantage of their skill for a trade of jam and cake and maybe even some sweet potato doughnuts. 

Cooking up some savory goodies

Got these beautiful carrots [red, orange and yellow, I'm a sucker for these kinds of veggies] from the farmers market, with some red and orange beets,  swiss chard [my favorite)] and a delicata squash and decide to make up some savory goodies for my lunch this week.



Starting out roasting the some of the carrot and beets with olive oil, Herb de Provence, salt and pepper. 

I used only 1/3 of the bunch of carrots, so I decide to try making a carrot salad asian-style with the rest.

While the carrots and beets are roasting, I'm caramelizing onions for a zucchini and caramelized onion tart. Someone from work gave me a giant zucchini that I need to use and I found this recipe from One Perfect Bite. 

I found my way to One Perfect Bite while I was looking for instructions to make dried apricot jam in crock pot. I bought a big container of dried apricots a while back and I thought I better use it up soon. And loved the apricot jam made this summer. So that's also cooking away at the moment.

The onions are done now and I'm off to make some crust, making up 2 crust, one for the tart and one for an apple sour cream crumb pie from Martha Stewart. Yes, I got some apples from the farmers market. [my eyes are bigger than my stomach]


My kitchen smell amazing at the moment. I'll post some pics of the finish products later. 

I'm thinking of trying a stuffed delicata squash with swiss chard [and probably the leftovers of the giant zucchini] and cheese. But that's tomorrow's project. I have a ton of baking and cooking on my list for tomorrow. It's perfect weather for all this cooking. I'm taking advantage when I can. 

I know this all sound way too much for one person. But I have all of this great veggies and fruits from the farmers markets and friends that I need to use up. I guess I'll make someone happy when I surprise them with a sampling.