Gardening: 2016 (midyear)

[KennethT]

@TereUnbelievable...  I'm usually not a jealous person, but I admit that I am more than a bit envious of your garden!  Keep the photos coming!

[Tere]

I'm still a bit shell shocked that I planted the flowers and veggies from seed about 6 weeks ago. Amazing to see how quickly things grow.

[Toliver]

Thanks to everyone who weighed in on (pun intended) the "lbs vs cups" question I had about the Plum Sauce recipe!

[Deryn]

Tere, did you and your husband build all those raised beds yourselves? Wow ... what a magnificent garden!

[Tere]

No, I will confess we had "people" to do it. Our excellent and very patient landscape gardeners who are building our ornamental garden at the moment battled serious conditions in the autumn (6 weeks work and it rained every day bar two, and the base soil is clay and as full of rubble as you can see Phase 2 soil is) to get it done. We decided it was worth the expense. I'm really pleased with it. We had been thinking of redeveloping the back, but an acre of veggie plot is way more than we need, and this way we can do a relaxed Piet Oudulf style prairie planted garden which will be much less maintenance.

[HungryChris]

Deb's garden pets. That's Clay, the terra cotta turtle in the background and Sandy, the cement turtle in the foreground.

HC

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I'm not a warm weather person by any means, though assuredly there are some treats of summer:  after an evening bowl of ice cream I went outside to have my fill of strawberries...

 

Whereupon I spied my first blueberry of the season!

 

 

I ran back inside for my iPad to take the picture.  That done, I watched as a catbird landed on the railing.  The blueberry is now gone and I was not the one to get it.

 

For the most part they leave my strawberries alone but not so the blueberries.  I'm fortunate to harvest one or two blueberries all season.

 

[KennethT]

A Tale of Two Coriander (Book II):

[djyee100]

5 hours ago, KennethT said:

A Tale of Two Coriander (Book II)...

 

What are you planning to cook with the sawtooth coriander? I thought about growing it this year. I've used it in Thai cooking.

[KennethT]

I love sawtooth coriander.  Every time I have seen it used in Thailand or Vietnam, it has been served raw... in Saigon, it was one of the many herbs on the table to accompany pho, or is wrapped up in rice paper wraps... in Thailand, it usually accompanies fried fish and seafood, and is eaten raw in between bites of fried stuff.  I love the scent and flavor of it...

 

BTW, it is a REALLY slow germinator from seed.  It took 5-6 weeks!  I was getting ready to throw it out and give up...

[Wayne]

 

This season is turning out very well for me. Very cooperative weather and no pest or disease problems so far.

 

Tomatoes are looking good. Lots of flowers and all the plants have visible fruit.

 

 

Lots of greens: chard, collards and kale as well as mixed romaine (none of the lettuces have bolted yet). Note the empty bed to the left which was the smaller, appr. 30%, of my garlic which I harvested this morning.

 

 

 

And the first hot peppers are popping out (sorry for the focus). This year I have Cherry Bomb, Jalapeno, Scotch Bonnet, Portugal Hot, Fish and Aji Limon.

 

 

 

 

 

[Shelby]

Oh my, everyone's plants look SO good!  

 

KAY!  Lovely tomatoes.  I can almost taste them.  Sigh.  I'm so jealous.  

On June 22, 2016 at 11:07 AM, HungryChris said:

Shelby, I think anyone who has spent time in the garden can share your pain. It's not how hard you fall, but how well you recover. Wishing you a spectacular recovery!

HC

Thank you Chris!!!

 

We had another downpour yesterday--thankfully no hail.  A bit of wind but I think everything survived.  I don't want to say it out loud, but *the garden is looking a tiny bit better*<----------said in a whisper.  Some of the corn is upright.  The ones that aren't seem to still be growing ....will they still make ears?  I dunno.  The tomatoes have some new....tiny...but still...leaves on them as do the eggplants.  I have new zucchini showing ( yeah, I'll get some in like October lol)  The peppers....eh....they aren't dead.  The okra is trying super hard.  The garden looks like it should be April lol.  

 

The rabbits know that my husband has been out of town.   There were NINE sitting in the driveway and putzing around the garden.  NINE.  

 

 

Edited June 24, 2016 by Shelby (log)

[kayb]

14 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

I'm not a warm weather person by any means, though assuredly there are some treats of summer:  after an evening bowl of ice cream I went outside to have my fill of strawberries...

 

Whereupon I spied my first blueberry of the season!

 

I ran back inside for my iPad to take the picture.  That done, I watched as a catbird landed on the railing.  The blueberry is now gone and I was not the one to get it.

 

For the most part they leave my strawberries alone but not so the blueberries.  I'm fortunate to harvest one or two blueberries all season.

 

I believe I'd be acquiring myself a pellet rifle and taking to bird-hunting.

 

Birds and squirrels have, to date, left my tomatoes alone. Liquid Fence seems to be working on the green beans. Grass is overrunning the garden since I can't get out and work it. Squash continue to bear nicely; cucumbers are stubbornly slow.

 

[HungryChris]

The first of the sugar snaps. A welcome snack.

HC

 

 

[huiray]

On 6/24/2016 at 2:24 AM, djyee100 said:

 

What are you planning to cook with the sawtooth coriander? I thought about growing it this year. I've used it in Thai cooking.

 

On 6/24/2016 at 8:37 AM, KennethT said:

I love sawtooth coriander.  Every time I have seen it used in Thailand or Vietnam, it has been served raw... in Saigon, it was one of the many herbs on the table to accompany pho, or is wrapped up in rice paper wraps... in Thailand, it usually accompanies fried fish and seafood, and is eaten raw in between bites of fried stuff.  I love the scent and flavor of it...

 

BTW, it is a REALLY slow germinator from seed.  It took 5-6 weeks!  I was getting ready to throw it out and give up...

 

Culantro (a.k.a. sawtooth coriander) is readily available and cheap in Indy, so long as you know where to go. In Southern-style pho it might be thought of as a sign of "authenticity" in the USA if you get a plate of the herb fixings with this instead of (or in addition to) the more usual cilantro (normal coriander leaves). It is not native to SE Asia but, like so many things in the cross-cultural fertilization that occurs around the world over historical periods, after it was introduced it was absorbed into the Thai and Vietnamese cuisines and became part of them.

[djyee100]

1 hour ago, huiray said:

...It is not native to SE Asia but, like so many things in the cross-cultural fertilization that occurs around the world over historical periods, after it was introduced it was absorbed into the Thai and Vietnamese cuisines and became part of them.

 

Interesting. Sawtooth coriander is native to Central America. It's so widely grown and used in SE Asia, I thought it was native to that part of the world. I googled a bit to find out when this herb was introduced to SE Asia, but couldn't come up with anything, not even the right century.

[Deryn]

Culantro is an herb that was very new to me (and I still have only really tasted it once to my knowledge) till a few years back when I went to the nursery in the spring to pick up a few herb starters and spied one labelled Culantro. I thought it was a mislabelled Cilantro plant and asked about it. Apparently no one at the nursery had a clue and all ultimately also decided that that was probably what it was. I bought it and was very surprised when it soon did not look anything like what I know to be cilantro. What I later learned is that it is apparently very prevalent in Mexican cooking (at least these days - though I have never actually 'seen' it in a Mexican meal purchased locally since it must be 'cooked'. Around those parts - western NC - I don't think I have ever seen any fresh uncooked Mexican dishes or salads). Have never seen it accompanying pho either - but that strikes me as a great place to use it.

[djyee100]

Aha, sometimes one more search on Google does the trick.

https://books.google.com/books?id=T-Hh-ezDkVwC&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=when+was+sawtooth+coriander+introduced+to+se+asia&source=bl&ots=G3MIs5arTv&sig=xbRnVmhFJ5KAXECWKK8U633mOiA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwip76SD5MPNAhUByGMKHWn7ApUQ6AEIKTAC#v=onepage&q=when%20was%20sawtooth%20coriander%20introduced%20to%20se%20asia&f=false

 

This writer says sawtooth coriander has been grown in Europe since the 17th century and was brought to SE Asia by the Chinese. It must have been introduced to Europe during the Age of Discovery by Spanish colonizers. But this herb never took in Europe. Or at least, I haven't encountered it in European cooking. It then must have traveled east to China and SE Asia by trade on the Silk Road. The herb is also popular in Assam, the northeastern province of India that was also part of the Silk Road. These food peregrinations can be fascinating.

[Jacksoup]

Thanks all for the plum  ideas @djyee100 @Thanks for the Crepes, @heidih, @kayb, @JoNorvelleWalker.  And @Anna N that is the plum torte I mistakenly called plum cake.  We've been out of town all week and the heat in Northern Calif ripened the plums.  Picking, dehydrating and then freezing some until I have time to make jam/ chutney/something

[Smithy]

26 minutes ago, Jacksoup said:

Thanks all for the plum  ideas @djyee100 @Thanks for the Crepes, @heidih, @kayb, @JoNorvelleWalker.  And @Anna N that is the plum torte I mistakenly called plum cake.  We've been out of town all week and the heat in Northern Calif ripened the plums.  Picking, dehydrating and then freezing some until I have time to make jam/ chutney/something

 

You might consider making some ice cream, also.  This recipe (a family favorite) lends itself well to plums, nectarines, peaches or a blend. I have it happily associated, forever, with California summers. If you don't have time now to do the churning, you can do the puree and freeze for later.

[Tere]

Today was the first day I chucked out calories, but the best bet was to crop from the last of my broccoli raab, clear out all of the rocket marking the line of newly sown parsnips that had just germinated., and then see what was very leggy. It made a decent sautee but as a new gardener I hope I now subscribe to the process of thinning

[Shelby]

9 minutes ago, Tere said:

Today was the first day I chucked out calories, but the best bet was to crop from the last of my broccoli raab, clear out all of the rocket marking the line of newly sown parsnips that had just germinated., and then see what was very leggy. It made a decent sautee but as a new gardener I hope I now subscribe to the process of thinning

Oh I know....thinning is so hard to do.  I hate it but it really does make a difference...as you know.

 

It's like with my peony bushes.  I sucker bud all of them which means you pick off and discard all but the main bud.  It makes the flowers SO much bigger and beautiful...but it's hard to do it.  Learned this from my mom who used to work at a peony farm.  

[Tere]

7 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Oh I know....thinning is so hard to do.  I hate it but it really does make a difference...as you know.

 

It's like with my peony bushes.  I sucker bud all of them which means you pick off and discard all but the main bud.  It makes the flowers SO much bigger and beautiful...but it's hard to do it.  Learned this from my mom who used to work at a peony farm.  

 

I figure this is just a hump I need to go through. My non thinned cornflowers and nigella are suspiciously healthy. Just need to see what happens.

[djyee100]

5 hours ago, Jacksoup said:

Picking, dehydrating and then freezing some until I have time to make jam/ chutney/something

 

I've cooked this recipe for Plum Chutney from Carrie Brown's Jimtown Store Cookbook. It's very good. The recipe is here:

http://www.sunsetparkcsa.org/?p=191 

[Shelby]

Your well-wishes have really inspired my plants.  I can't believe the growth in just the short time that has happened.  I actually need to put supports around some of my tomatoes   I'm going to plant some more corn in the spots where it died this week.  The ones that lived look GOOD. Honestly everything looks amazing ( I mean...knowing that it was all hailed on ).

 

I just picked and smashed some squash bugs.  Little bastards.   Scraped their eggs off of two leaves also.