Broccoli Flowers

We waited a little too long to eat our broccoli... It started to flower!

Harvest: Broccoli and Cauliflower

Tearing up your grass in California just got smarter

We found this on reddit.com.  (link) I have never liked mowing the lawn and thought is was kind of fruitless (both literally and figuratively) and wasteful.  Since the never-ending drought cycle in California is only going to get worse with shifting climate patterns, it is amazing more people didn't think of this sooner.  Saves water, less yard work, and if you do it right, it can make your lawn look like it belongs where you live instead of some sort of idilic suburban dream from an old tv show dropped down in the middle of the desert

 

Houseplants

The top 10 plants for removing indoor toxins

Wild Flowers

One of the really nice things about having a garden is all the wild stuff that grows unexpectedly. Here are some photos of flowers blooming in our garden right now. Every couple of weeks there's something new.

Lettuce flowers?

So we had 3 lettuce plants and 2 of them grew up to be large, delicious heads of lettuce (kind of like butter lettuce)  but the third one stayed small and didn't develop into a nice head.*  It stayed like a little shrub. 

 Eventually it began to grow taller and a little bit pointy.  

As it grew taller we noticed that small flower buds were developing and a whole stalk like structure was under the little shrub-like leaves.  

We had long ago realized that this lettuce was not developing into  something we would want to eat.  Instead maybe we can gather its seeds and plant our own lettuce next spring using our big window as a greenhouse. 

According to wikipedia, lettuce flowers are good for seed saving beginners-- that's us!  (Learn about it here.)  We will have updates to show what a lettuce flower looks like.

 *It should be noted that this lettuce plant was kept indoors for 3-4 weeks longer than the other 2 because it seemed to be thriving inside. 

Wild Plants

Our yard is very big and we only used a small portion of it to plant our food. In the rest of the yard, we let things grow as they may. We got a lot of grass, a lot of flowers, a some questionable edibles. Above are photos of what we think is a blackberry bush. It grows very fast and it likes to spread out and try to take over the yard. Below are photos of what we think are wild grapevines. They also grow fast and try to take over, but they're much easier to handle. Unlike the blackberry plant, they don't have thorns. In addition, they have a velcro-like quality so they stick to each other.

Bottled Water Is Dumb

I stopped drinking bottled water years ago when I learned that it's just BOTTLED TAP WATER. The last time I drank bottled water it tasted like plastic and I was pretty grossed out. Don't waste your money, and stop ruining the environment shipping tap water all over the place and creating plastic bottle waste. Seriously, this is a no-brainer. If you live in a developed country, you have fresh water everywhere you go. There's no excuse. Want to bring water with you somewhere? Buy a reusable glass or stainless steal bottle, fill it with water at your home tap, and there you go. You'll have it forever, and you won't be contributing to this monstrosity: Continent-size toxic stew of plastic trash fouling swath of Pacific Ocean.

Five Reasons Not To Drink Bottled Water

The Slow Food Movement

"Peter Hoffman, chef of Savoy and Back Forty, joins us for Part II of our Food in the City series. He’ll be explaining how to create meals from what you buy at the farmer’s market and how to talk to farmers and choose the best produce." Listen to the WNYC podcast here. 

Check out the rest of WNYC's Food in the City series here.

Learn about America's Slow Food Movement here.

First Bell Pepper

Our first bell pepper has appeared. (In Dutch, groene paprika)

Cabbage Update

We started with three broccoli plants but only one thrived and we're still not sure why. It looks great though and it will be ready to eat soon.

Below is one of the two that failed.

We have one cauliflower plant and it's doing great.

And it's fractal.

The Underground Fruit Economy

From Kim Severson in the NYTimes:

"A year and a half ago, Ms. Wadud, who studied urban sociology in college and bartended at Chez Panisse, began organizing a little neighborhood fruit exchange called Forage Oakland. She did it as much to build neighborhood relations as to get her hands on some of that fruit.

It works simply. A woman with a yard full of lemon trees, say, can share her bounty in exchange for a paper bag full of someone else’s persimmons when they come into season. So far, 200 people have signed up."

This sounds like a great idea (hmm, neighbor with the cherry tree...?)

Read the article here.

Good News for Chestnut Lovers

Reviving American chestnuts may mitigate climate change

Learn about Chestnuts (In Dutch, Kastanjes).

Learn how to roast chestnuts here.

New Plants

We purchased three new plants this weekend from our farmers' market. Pictured from left to right: Brussel Sprouts, Red Cabbage, and Beets (In Dutch, spruitjes, rode kool, and bieten). As soon as it stops raining, we'll put them in the garden.

Snow Pea Harvest

The fatter they get, the sweeter they taste.

String Beans

Last week we planted a second kind of beans: String Beans (In Dutch, Chinees Boontje). Over the weekend, after a few days of rain, they sprouted. We planted a handful of seeds in the garden (below) and a few inside (bottom four photos).

If you're a gardening beginner, try starting with beans. They're easy. And they're great for window boxes if you don't have a garden (I'm talking to you, my city friends). Beans grow fast. Don't believe me? The four photos below were taken over a 24 hour period. Pretty cool, huh?

The Queen has joined the "grow your own" revolution after creating a vegetable plot at Buckingham Palace.

Growing your own food is good enough for the queen of England and Obama...  It's not just for subsistence farmers and hippies.

Check it out here.  

Our First Meal with Our Homegrown Zucchinis

I've been promising Matt for years that I would make him zucchini parm, so when our plants finally made two big zucchinis this week, it was the perfect opportunity. 

Before getting started, I made a pot of homemade tomato sauce. If you've never tried making your own tomato sauce, I highly recommend you try it. It's easy, cheap, and always turns out better than store-bought sauce. I make it a little differently each time, but the basic recipe is this: Saute some onions in olive oil until soft and a little golden, then put a few chopped tomatoes and garlic and your choice of spices (usually basil, sage, thyme, and a little salt and pepper). If it's not tomato season, a can of peeled whole tomatoes works great too. Let that simmer until the tomatoes are soft. You can also add a little bit of red wine. And a pinch of sugar (sometimes I put OJ or some other fruit juice). And that's it. It's very easy, it's very delicious.  

Now back to making the zucchini parm. First you'll need breadcrumbs, also a very easy thing to make yourself: Put a few slices of bread in the oven at 160C (about 300F) for 10-15 minutes, until the bread is completely dried out but not browned. Let cool. Crumble bread. That's it. Add some spices if you want. Really easy. Doesn't it make you mad how much you spend on store-bought breadcrumbs now? Don't do it, make your own. 

Next step, slice and bread the zucchini. Everyone has their own method of doing this, but this is my favorite: First dip in flour, then soak in egg for a few seconds, then dip in breadcrumbs. The reason for dipping in flour first is that it gives the egg something to stick to, and the better the egg coverage, the better the breadcrumb coverage. Next, we fry the zucchini. 

Fry on each side until browned. Use a vegetable oil. Then let cool, the best place for that is a rack. I like to cut the zucchinis into little circles so that I can stack them (the way my grandmother made zucchini parm) instead of layering them like a casserole. This is my stacking method: cover bottom of pan with a thin layer of sauce. Place zucchini circles on bottom of pan, put a small slice of mozzarella on each slice of zucchini, then a spoonful of tomato sauce. Repeat until you've stacked them to the top of the pan (or until you run out of zucchini). Put some Mozzarella and sauce on top of each stack, then bake at 210C (about 400F) until the mozzarella starts to brown (about 30 minutes). 

I can't describe to you how delicious this is, you just have to try it.

Finally, serve to a sweetie of your choice.