Dinner Showcase

Tonight's dinner featured several items from my garden...



Pesto with freshly picked basil tossed with Sun Gold tomatoes

 

 

The look other world-ly but they're just 'Hunger Gap' kale chips. My son's current favorite!

 

 

Flash fried 'Shishito' peppers sprinkled with kosher salt. Super tasty we almost gobbled them up before I remembered to take a picture.

 

I your summer garden is providing you with lots of yummy edible goodness! Bon apetit!

 

 

Morning Frost

I love seeing a frosty blanket in my garden on a winter morning.

 If I remember correctly, this is Red Chidori kale

 Frosty Apollo broccoli florets

Nodding viola flowers

That concludes my gardening for today. On to perusing seed catalogs...

Dino Kale

We've been lucky with our weather lately. Unusual for Memorial Day weekend in Seattle! It's been feeling like summer is almost here the last couple of days. With that came the urge to not cook dinner. And then I started to feel guilty.

I made up for it by gathering fresh dino kale from the garden to saute as a side dish to our BBQ. With a little olive oil, garlic and a sprinkle of kosher salt in the cast iron pan, it was super sweet. There wasn't a hint of mustard-y heat that it can get when it's about to bolt.

Though the leaves may be too bitter to eat, I am looking forward to my kale bolting soon. I'd like to saute the flower stalks just before they open. I'm ready to delve into my lettuces for salads. It will also free some space for more summer veggies. Tomatoes are waiting in the wings!

Seeds are in!!!

I wasted no time this year ordering seed, and have received my long-awaited back orders. FINALLY!

Every year around this time, I am anxious to start sowing seeds, getting the garden prepped for spring. I've been super impatient this year with the warm winter we've been having--thank you, El Nino!.

So far I have sown two--only two!--of my crops this year: Cardoon Rouge d'Alger and dwarf orange Allegro poppies.

The Rouge d'Alger cardoon supposedly has red-tinged petioles. I check my starts every day to see if they're starting to show signs of blush. So far, right at the soil level, some plants have a little hint of red.

I'm a HUGE fan of dino kale, or lacinato kale. It has great texture and great flavor, and is takes on an interesting shape in the garden. I've also heard it described as palm tree kale since the plants look like little palms has you harvest the leaves from the bottom. Well, Fedco Seeds came out with a Rainbow Lacinato kale when they crossed dino kale with Redbor. I'm not sure if it will be as colorful as Bright Lights Swiss chard, but one can hope!

Two eggplant varieties I'm looking forward to are 'Galine' and 'Applegreen' both from Fedco as well. I was sold on 'Galine' since it was described as dependable and not fussy. It's also supposed to mature in about 70 days. The 'Applegreen' is supposed to produce tiny little green eggplants. Also supposed to mature in 70 days. I'm a little concerned that the seed packet tells me to wait until June to transplant. June just seems so far away!

I'm going to give it a shot with melons this year with Charetais and Sakata's Sweet. Our local radio gardening show says not to bother with melons as they take too long to ripen. I love a challenge. With a little help from indoor starts and some black ground cloth, I like to think have enough heat to have at least a couple fruits. I love Charetais--so crisp and sweet. One of our Columbia City Farmers' Market vendors has carried this gem. Hopefully, I won't have to buy any this year since I'll be enjoying the ones I produced in my garden.

Another crop I'm super excited about is the Beer Friend soybean from Fedco. I like this purely for the fact that edamame and beer go hand in hand. I've never grown soybeans before so it should be fun to see how this one does.

The weather is getting warmer, light drizzles of rain here and there, lots of blooms on the trees all around town. It's beginning to look a lot like spring around here!