Harvest
I went to pick up the weekly bundle of vegetables from our CSA this week, only to hear sad words when I arrived. “Last week for tomatoes! Last week for eggplant and herbs.” With October comes frost, and with frost the end of the season. The squash and brussel sprouts and suchlike still have some time, but the veggies that always remind me of hot sun and long warm days are on their way out.
At home it was time to harvest my own little balcony garden. The chard and brussel sprouts and tomatoes are still out there (quite a few cherry tomatoes still hoping for a few more frost-free days), but I dug up the potatoes and picked the last few beans. The turnips yielded a few tubers, though I waited just a few days too long and their greens went all straggly before I could harvest them. The peppers did well, both hot and sweet types. There was even one huge cucumber tucked away in a corner. All in all, a tasty and satisfying yield that helped make our Mabon dinner special.
Still to do, picking the last of the beans I left out to dry, so that I can use them for seed next year. Also beheading the dead marigolds and calendula, likewise hoping for seed. And then it’ll be time to start planning next year’s garden. =)
Radishes!
We collected the first of our CSA produce this week, and lo, there were many greens. After a hot start to spring this year our weather turned cool and very, very wet. It’s rained almost every day for weeks! This has been great for the greens but not so great for the rest of the veggies. Nonetheless, I was very excited by our first CSA haul, which included spinach, some sort of leaf lettuce, chinese cabbage, a mystery green, chard, radishes, baby green onions (they’re like particularly chubby chives), and dill. My housemate also grabbed us a pint of luscious strawberries from the farm, which were almost gone 24 hours later.
Needless to say, that many greens means salad. Strawberries mean salad too — a handful of fruit really does perk up a bowlful of greens. I was also excited to discover that you can eat radish greens. Who knew? (Probably everybody but me. 
) They’re a little prickly to handle, but just fine torn up into salad. Apparently you can steam and sautee them like spinach too. To store them, this site suggests trimming them off the radishes, washing well, then storing them wrapped in paper towels or a plastic bag.
Last week I got to taste a Chinese dish that used pickled mustard greens. It was quite tasty, and today I discovered you can pickle radish greens too. You can also make a quick pickle of the radish bulbs, which I’m thinking might make a tasty sushi filling. I saw a comment online suggesting the pickles are great on pad thai. Mmmmmm. Though right now my new favourite thing to do with radishes is roast them. I got the idea from this site, and I’m forever grateful. Roasted radishes don’t have the fire of fresh radishes. In fact they turn out sort of like very juicy little white potatoes. I make mine in the toaster oven, which has become my favourite tool on hot days — I toss a single serving of asparagus or squash or fiddleheads or (now) radishes in to roast, and serve the results on salad. Makes for a yummy lunch.
But getting back to the radishes, I do mine almost the same way that Bloxham suggests. I cut a half dozen or so in half, toss or spritz them lightly with oil (garlic or spicy or sesame oil all work well), add a touch of salt and pepper, spread them out on a parchment paper covered pan, and roast for 25 minutes at 375F. Then I toss them again with a drizzle of sesame oil, another of tamari soy sauce, a coarsely chopped clove of garlic, two chopped green onions, and a couple sprinklings of raw sesame seeds. They go back into the toaster oven for five minutes, et voila, an unusual roast veg to liven things up.
One last radish-related tidbit: At the permaculture workshop I did this spring, the presenter explained that radishes are a great fast crop for gardens. You can use them to fill in empty spaces while you’re waiting for slower-growing veggies to fill out. Just sow the gaps with radish seeds, and pull them out when the bigger vegetables start needing the space. The radishes will grow quickly and keep weeds down, and give you something tasty to play with just a few weeks later.
A handful of yum
We’ve picked the first few strawberries from the balcony plants, and they are the Best Strawberries Ever. The first one I ate dribbled sweet red juice all down my arm. *bliss* There are only a few, but quality counts. And then tonight we discovered the nearby cherry trees are starting their run of almost as yummy fruit. Cherry trees remain a novelty to me — they didn’t grow where I grew up (too cold), so I can’t get enough of them.
In other news, today I picked up a paper bag full of red wiggler worms from a friend, and this evening my housemate and I spent a good hour setting up our first vermicomposter. Now our veggie scraps will get composted and turned into fresh soil for the balcony garden. One small step towards a closed system.
Growing green
A quick update on my little balcony garden. So far everything’s alive, and some plants are starting to bear fruit…literally!
The first beans are dangling beneath a canopy of green in one of my apple baskets. Today I discovered a wee pepper on my cayenne plant…and the number of flowers promise many more. My lettuce is downright forest-like — high time to thin the planter and make myself a salad of baby greens. And yep, those are strawberries almost ripe and ready to pick.
The other plants are doing well too. Almost too well, since I’d assumed there’d be some attrition and overplanted! But I’m not complaining. The only ones that aren’t thriving are the plants I started indoors in the coco coir. Those are all still alive, but not really taking off. (Well, except for the beans.) I may try direct-seeding another cherry tomato plant just to see if that makes a difference, but overall I’m not worried as I have two tomato plants that are definitely thriving. (Those are the ones I bought from Little City Farm a few weeks ago.)
And because he amuses me, here’s a pic of my garden guardian — my little axe-wielding gnome.
The soreness continues…
Busy, busy night. My screen door now works again (mostly). The bamboo table of wasp-y doom found a new location, so hopefully I’ll be able to use the balcony again during daylight hours. All of the pots I filled with ‘dirt’* yesterday now have plants in them, as does my second apple basket (which make great planters by the way — wish I had more!) and the new pots. Yes, there are more pots, since it was obvious I was running out. I dashed to the grocery store before it got too dark, found another three big terracotta pots, and somehow dragged them home (owwwww, my arms may never work again). Filled these, and did my second round of planting. Then I wandered the neighbourhood scavenging water bottles from peoples’ recycling bins, to use with my ‘Plant Nanny‘ watering stakes. Those are neat things, and I really hope they work. I have a set of four for starters, and I also have a set of PlantMinders to test (but already suspect the Nannies will prove more useful for an outdoor garden with full-sized plants, because the reservoirs are bigger).
Now I am sore. Or, to be honest, more sore, since I was sore after yesterday’s gardening too. Despite two entire evenings of gardening effort I still don’t have all my seedlings planted. Egad.
There won’t be time to finish over the weekend either. My dad’s incoming for a visit, along with the majority of my camping gear (which has been stowed in Montreal since our east coast trip last fall). When we arranged the trip it seemed only natural that we should jump in the car and go camping together while we had the chance, so I booked us a site at a conservation area we keep trying to visit. For the first time ever we managed to actually get a spot — usually it’s booked solid. Yay! Um…but I cheered too soon. As I was collecting granola and pudding cups and tins of dolmas and looking for other camping-friendly foods, the weather formed a vortex of nastiness on the time horizon: Sunny…sunny…sunny…RAIN…THUNDERSTORMS…RAIN…sunny. All that rain? Yeah, those’d be the three days we planned to be camping. *sigh* So much for veggie dogs roasted on a campfire, fire baked potatoes, or toasted apricots stuffed with vegan marshmallows. 
Oh well, at least I’ll get to show off my garden while he’s here.
* The dirt is actually a combination of 1/3 compost, 1/3 coco coir, and 1/3 vermiculite, the virtues of which are extolled by Mel Bartholomew of Square Foot Gardening. I’m hopeful that this combination will work better for container gardening than the regular potting soil I’ve used in the past, which [a] tended to compact too densely, and [b] dried out super fast.
Down and dirty
Oh. Ow. Gardening is hard work.
I’m partway through assembling my balcony garden. On the weekend my gf and I went to one last gardening workshop (bio-intensive gardening) and then made a run to Canadian Tire for supplies. I snagged all their remaining bags of aged compost (for a total of seven, since I already had one), two giganto-bricks of coco coir, and five bags of vermiculite. So far I believe I’ve used one and a half bags of compost, one brick of coco, and three and bit bags of the vermiculite. These have filled seven large pots, three long narrow planters, and one huuuuuuge apple basket (already planted with potatoes). I’d still be out there, but I ran out of coco. Good enough reason for taking a break — the other brick is rehydrating as I type this. The add-water-and-stir nature of Coco coir makes me laugh — instant garden!
It’s too bad I don’t dare plant any of my seedlings tonight, but we have a frost warning! What the hell? We’re only three days from June! Getting frost warnings now is just crazy.
I have this terrible suspicion that I don’t have enough pots for all my seedlings. *le sigh* So far I have two large cherry tomato seedlings (yellow cherry), two sweet mini bell pepper plants, one cucumber plant (’salad bush’), a cayenne pepper, and an anaheim ’salsa pepper’. Oh, and a wee oregano plant. All those came from the seedling sale we went to on the weekend, and if those were all I had to plant, all would be well. But, um, there are also the seedlings I grew myself — two yellow bean plants (doing very well), brussel sprouts, chard, turnips, more cherry tomatoes (all very wee), and a bunch of herbs. So yes, Not Enough Pots.
In addition to the pots for planting, I now have two large-ish rectangular containers full of last year’s dirt. Coupled with the fact that I’m attending a vermiculture workshop on Friday, I’m having composty ideas for those.
On the indoor front, my spinach experiment has gone awry in the strangest way. After a good start, the wee plants sort of…faltered. They didn’t die, but they didn’t thrive either. The first set is now 5 1/2 weeks old, and here’s the thing — they’re only a couple inches high, and they only have a few teeny leaves each…but they’re flowering. That’s just so not right. Flowering, to me, suggests that a plant has found all the nutrients it needs, reached the peak of its growth, and is ready to reproduce. There’s no way these spindly seedlings look ready for that, and yet there they go. I can’t explain it. The mesclun mix in the same container is all bushy and leafy. Maybe a bit pale, but definitely not failing in the same way as the spinach. I’m stumped. Maybe it’s a light issue, or maybe it’s the soil (they’re planted in pure coco coir), or maybe it’s the seeds themselves. My plan is to plant some more outside, and perhaps set up a daylight lamp next to the existing indoor planter, and see if either does better. Hopefully I’ll figure out what’s going on, because I really would like to be able to grow greens indoors year ’round.
Okay, time to go finish rehydrating the coco coir. Ta!
Fertile ground
Last week C asked how my mini garden was doing. It’s doing quite well!
Let’s see…so far I have two* small planters (10×22″) filled with seeds and seedlings. There’s the spinach I started several weeks ago in one, along with a second round of spinach seeds and a mesclun mix. In the other planter I have seedling pots, which are also full of seeds — yellow beans, tomatoes, brussel sprouts, chard, turnips, coriander, chives, lemon balm, peppermint, and three kinds of basil. (Pretty ambitious given I only have a small balcony, hunh?)
The spinach are still quite wee given how long they’ve been growing — they’re just starting their first true leaves now. They seemed to stall last week, and I’m not sure why. They’re healthy-looking though.
The mesclun mix seems…eager. That third of the planter is dotted with a spray of different greens, mystery plants poking their way through to sunlight. The mystery element amuses me; I look forward to seeing what the mix actually contains.
As for the other planter, it’s also doing quite well. Both containers have clear covers, and every time I lift the one on the seedling plantery I’m hit with a wave of super-warm, moist, earthy-smelling air (which I love). The turnip and brussel sprout seeds went in last Friday, and they fairly leapt from the earth — they had seedlings up the very next day! The other seeds took a bit more time. The chard came up next, complete with glorious little red stems. The basil was next, and the opal basil seedlings are a 50-50 mixture of green and purple. Neat. =) Yesterday I saw the first hint of a bean seedling starting to emerge. Today the first tomato peeked back at me, and also the first lemon balm and coriander — a nice sight to start the day.
They’re all still tiny and young, but tending my little mini garden makes me happy each morning. They have three whole weeks to grow before it will (probably) be safe to plant them outside, so I expect to see a lot of growth in the next little while. Hmmmm…that means I’d better start sorting out permanent homes for them, doesn’t it? Otherwise they’ll have nowhere to grow three weeks from now. And I’ll be away for part of the month**. Eep!
* Of course there’s also the sprouter, which continues to produce weekly mini crops of salad sprouts. Does that count as part of the garden? And also my recently potted basil plant, and two pots of coriander and chive seeds that don’t seem to like the soil they’re in.
** Anyone know of good vegan restos in Boston?
Spring stripes
Our balcony contains exactly one piece of furniture — a well-worn bamboo table. This table is wasp nirvana. Every spring the stripy little buggers come from who-knows-where to gnaw on it. You can hear them chewing. Seriously! They land, feast, fly off, and repeat ad nauseum. Obviously they’re using it for nest-building material.
Have I mentioned I’m virtually phobic about bees, wasps, and stinging things in general? This is not a good combination. Normally this means I run inside a lot, but this year I decided to try something new. Lee Valley and Home Hardware sell this thing called a Waspinator. No, it’s not a Transformer, though a wasp-fighting robot would be kinda cool, if needlessly violent. This thing is basically a blow-up nest. The idea is that wasps are territorial*, so if you make it look like your area is already occupied, they’ll stay clear. Excellent, a solution that harms none of us.
Today I was outside planting some seeds. Sure enough, *gnawgnawgnaw*, there was one of my stripy friends on the table beside me, whittling it down as I watched. Aha, I thought, and reached inside for my as-yet-undeployed Waspinator. A few seconds later I returned and deployed The Solution.
The wasp gnawed away. I shuffled closer. The wasp continued gnawing. I shuffled a bit further. The wasp went for a buzzing flight, came at me…and veered off. Then it went back to its original spot and resumed its business, while I stood over it with my fake nest going “ahem…ahem.”
I can’t claim this is a good test of The Solution, but I did find it pretty darned amusing. Next step: find a way to secure el Waspinator someplace semi-permanent outside, and see if that starts having a more general effect.
* This is only supposed to work on ’social’ wasps, since those are the kind that build nests. ‘Solitary’ wasps need not apply.
Randomness
Today our nice local veggie people dropped off our nice local veggies. I’d ordered basil (mmmm, pesto!), but to my surprise I didn’t find a bunch of cut herbs — I found an entire plant! A nice, bushy little basil plant, complete with roots. It doesn’t get fresher than that. Given that just yesterday I bought seeds to grow my own, I have to admit I’m tempted to plant it and see what happens. It’s so fresh and healthy looking. I can go without pesto for a bit…
On another random note, today I realized just how much my eating patterns have shifted in the past four months. I was cleaning the fridge (*shudder*), and found no less than three unopened packages of tofu, plus another of veggie ground. Three of those were significantly past their best-before date. Apparently I’ve really moved away from eating fake meat and tofu. It’s not that I don’t enjoy them — I’ve just been eating more beans and nuts, and meals more centered around vegetables than meat substitutes. I miss my tofu though — tonight I’m making tofu quiche dammit. There’s still pie dough left over from a massive pie-making foray (veggie and curry pot pies, mmmmmm), so it shouldn’t be too difficult. The pies were supposed to stock the freezer, but there are only two left! I used this recipe for “no fail pie crust”, and it delivered as promised even with my substitution of 1/3 whole wheat flour. The best part was not having to roll the dough (except for the pie tops). Once upon a time I was pretty darned good at making and rolling pie crusts…but then I didn’t do it for years and now I’ve lost the knack.
The great spinach experiment
It’s 26C outside at the moment, sunny, with just a hint of a breeze. In other words, nigh perfect weather. I may need to skive off work an hour early and go enjoy it. There’s some vanilla frozen soy yogurt calling my name, and blueberries to go on top.
In the meantime, my garden is already enjoying the sun. There’s not much to see so far — just a single tray of ‘dirt’ on a trolley we can wheel outside when it’s nice like today. And actually it’s full of coco coir, not dirt. Coco coir is a planting medium made from coconut husks — a renewable resource, woohoo, without the environmentally nasty pricetag of more traditional peat moss. It’s also just plain nifty, because it comes in a small-ish block (6×4x4″), but puffs out to fill a 10×20″ tray when you add water. Poof! Instant garden!
So as I was saying, I have just one of these trays started so far, currently occupied by 150 pre-sprouted spinach seeds. My goal is to grow baby spinach, so these seeds are planted fairly close together. They take up the gridded area of the planter. In a couple weeks I’ll fill half of the remaining area, and the last third will go in two weeks after that. I suspect it won’t produce enough for our needs, but that’s okay, I’ll just start another tray.
We’ve decided that all our balcony and indoor gardening projects for this summer will be experiments, to see what we can and can’t grow in containers, to see what works for us as a composting system, and to see what we actually use. The nice thing about that approach is that it’s guaranteed to succeed, because what we’re after is information. Even if something doesn’t grow, we still learn something. Though I admit, I’d rather learn something and get tasty vegetables too — I’m just greedy that way.
That frozen soy yogurt is calling again. Time for some sun.
