TicTac

This thread makes me happy. I can use that. Your gardens all look fantastic, I am certainly envious of some of the space you all have (shouldn't say that out loud as I am sure @KennethT will pipe in about space limitations! ) So perhaps this is because I started everything from seed this year, and while I have always cared for my plants, I seem to have quite the attachment this year! Over the past few days we have had some high winds, less than a week ago, a large gust came and one of my poor yellow zucchini babies split. Completely in half - down the stalk...unreal. So in my haze of a mini-freak out, I reached out to my uncle who is my gardening guru; he informed me that zucchini leaves are edible (who woulda thunk it with all those pokey spines!) - so off the leaves went from the half a plant, into the kitchen (they are delicious, btw); I took the mutant Frankenstein zucchini and began my surgery - cleaned all the leaves, and then prepared a new home of heavily soaked starting soil combined with some organic worm castings and planted the wound into the ground. Well; it's been 4 days now and both the amputee and amputated half are still alive and dare I say, sprouting new leaves! A have often split plants before to give to friends/family or plant elsewhere, but this gives a new meaning to the method! I need to adapt either the straw method or perhaps the newspaper/cardboard one next year - too much weeding!!!

Can you post a link to the recipe or a general guideline? Love pickley things!!!

Nice specimen! Though I am not sure one 'plucks' broccoli....perhaps slice, hack, chop, or snap; might be more suitable verbs

Haiga rice - sweet and sour eggplant; all sorts of stuff thrown in.

I enjoy the stuffed ricotta method (I will often add things like crispy pancetta to the ricotta) I also like to pan sear the flowers freshly washed on high heat with some garlic and onions, sometimes chili - de-glaze with white wine and butter at the end and serve on crusty bread.

@kayb - do you not eat your zucc flowers??

Scored more live soft shell garden salad w balsamic and evoo

No kidding eh....that hollowed out pineapple...come on now, show off! 😛

This is a patch of deer tongue and another patch with a couple other varieties (and some vagabond dill!). I have patches of lettuce all around the property ... easy to grow in between crops and plants and if you spread your seeding out you can get 2-3 crops a year

lol show me yours and I will show you mine! (btw - what are we showing each other!?) 😛

There are a few types of arugula you can grow. Annual and perennial varieties. I prefer the perennial due to the flavour profile but also the fact that they come back every year, but also they do not bolt nearly as quickly as the annual variety. Been having some fantastic salads from the garden over the last week (I grow 4 types of lettuce, my favourite being Deer's tongue), with at least a handful or two of arugula in each bowl!

Vietnamese food is one of my favourites. Bun Bo Hue...o my! Looking forward to seeing pics from your travels (of food, that is - everything else while enjoyable, takes second fiddle here!) 😉

I have used tomato seeds per my method above that have been stored for at least 4-5 years with success. 14' ceilings...nice, look forward to seeing the new digs. Living tropical plant wall...very cool. Sign me up for one.

Ken - should have kept some seeds! Anytime I have a tomato I really like I just toss a few of their seeds onto any piece of scrap paper, label it, and put it away - best storage method ever! I would try the milk I guess, but as Shelby said, dilute it a fair bit. I often will throw crushed egg shells on my roses and into the compost heap. Lastly, please - stay away from miracle grow, that shit is garbage and is pure chemical nonsense! Just get yourself some good compost or a bit of bone meal and mix that into your soil. You can also make a 'tea' which I did recently for various...planted items....did it a few times, once with leftovers from veg stock; the other time I went all out, filled a stocking with compost and organic worm castings, suspended it in a huge pale and chucked a aquarium pump into the bottom - along with some molasses - plants seemed to quite like the stinky concoction.

Thanks @rotuts No idea how you managed that. Certainly not feasible from my iphone! I used to be techy....then I had kids. lol. Garden doesn't look nearly as nice as kay or shelby's but I think I am late to the game (good old Canadian climate) but I will update with far nicer (and healthier) looking garden shots in the coming weeks.

I too am envious of Shelby’s massive garden! Love the raised beds. One day I will have a nice piece of land with some water source on it...but Until then...my slow but expanding (this years growth brings it to 14’ x 18’) frond yard - overtake the lawn/grass! - project. I apologize - I even tried to edit the orientation on this darn iPhone .... it just wouldn’t take in eg...give yer necks a stretch! 😝

My pleasure. The beauty is in it's simplicity. In a EVOO/Butter mix (equal parts) saute onions and a clove or two of garlic, thrown in towards the end. Once slightly golden (you can take it further but I really like the sour aspect of sorrel and too much caramelizing might counter that) add in roughly chopped sorrel. Cook till it starts to break down. From here you can choose to add a bit of white wine (I did not, tonight) or more butter or even cream (which I opted for in this instance, simply because I had some leftover from the curry). Season to taste. My family's preference is salmon (though lately I have much preferred ocean trout!) tataki slathered with sorrel sauce. My condolences about your mom @Kim Shook

I am curious whether the blanching / drying would help the butter issue I encountered. Though I would hazard a guess that if you did not salt the butter (and used unsalted) it would not be as much of an issue. Certainly if you froze it into portions, you are good to go. @Shelby - if we can figure out a way to get it cross border, I would happily send you a jar of crushed ramp oil (which is essentially fresh ramps bottle up in a jar of goodness!!!)

Paneer spinach curry. Sorrel sauce (I had to cook some and I would eat this stuff on shoe leather). Warm sake. Jasmine rice not pictured.

Lettuce supercropping summery outdoor dinner - house cured gravlax, fresh squid in young garlic oil-grilled, potato avocado salad and Korean carrot and celery slaw/pickley thing

A few thoughts on Ramps which I thought I might share... - Be cautious with ramp butter stored in the fridge, ramps tend to have a fair amount of water content and they will bleed their water into the butter dish and it will go off pretty fast if not watched/dealt with. - Stay away from your blender or any electric blades when it comes to ramps. The flavour profile you are able to achieve when using a mortar and pestle vs. a cutting edge (blade) is vastly superior. Try the leaves with some coarse sea salt, smashed up, with some either very good EVOO or butter added after said smashing. Big difference! - Ramp leaves change their flavour profile when cooked, ramp and new potato soup is fantastic stuff. Most of all, enjoy mother nature's spring treat!

Fantastic. I fondly remember my times in various parts of Italy (Firenze included!) Would love to see some pictures on your trips as well.

Spurred by @BKEats revelation that it was in fact soft shell crab season....I tracked down some live beauties yesterday...

I am so pooped, Ken - I'm not sure my thumb could gravitate to take the shot! Will post pics soon, once I recover 😛

Done! 5 hours later, all those little babies are in the ground. Still way behind @Shelby - but we will get there. Picked arugula for salad today and a bowl full of sorrel for sorrel sauce tonight (to go with grilled char and shrimp)