Garden Updates, Feb 27, 2012

It's been quite a while since I've posted a Garden Update! I apologize for not keeping up on this site. We had a near fiasco with our neighbor BEHIND us sanding down the trim of their house to the bare wood. To make things worse, it was a VERY windy day when the Painter decided to work. We live in a fairly old neighborhood that was built in the late 1950's and I was frantic that the paint dust that was whirling around us and potentially spreading lead all over our veggie beds!!!  I posted what was happening on the RIPE forum and got some suggestions and sympathy. It's great to have support from like-minded folk! So, after worrying about it and having Tim vacuum the first inch of the top soil off (he even bought a brand new shop vac for this). We tested the soil for lead and it was NEGATIVE!!! Praise God! Whew! What a relief!!! I'm still not thrilled about the particles of acrylic paint, but you can only do so much to control your environment in such a confined area such as a city. Oh, how I yearn to have more open land...

So...besides the paint fiasco it is...

HAILING!

In Southern California!

We were blessed with a good amount of rain today.

We'll get a break on Tues and it's supposed to rain some more on Wed.

 And I was just about to announce that spring is here. I took very spring-like pictures below!

 The "Goldmine" nectarine graft has taken!!!

 "Pilgrim" peach also looks just about ready to bloom! Yay!

The others are iffy. Not too sure if they have taken. I think it had to do with how thin I stretched the parafilm to cover the grafts. I didn't have much parafilm since I just bought a strip from the grafting teacher.  The film ended up cracking and therefore the graft became desiccated and withered. :(

 Day Lilies are showing signs of spring.

Did you know they are edible?

 Loquats starting to fatten up. This year, I didn't have the time to thin the fruits, so they probably won't be as large. We did a severe pruning on the tree, so we didn't get as much fruit as the previous years.

 Kumquat just about ready!

 Alstroemeria in the front and Clivia in the back

 Primroses in a pot

Cilantro in a pot in the foreground and Calendula in the background 

 Here I focused on the Calendula and the Valencia oranges in the back. (yes, that's a compost bin hiding behind the orange tree)

 Valencia oranges is about to bloom :)

 A quick snapshot of the late winter garden. The Fig tree looks bare from this pic, but it's already starting to bud! We couldn't believe that it was budding fruits too, this tree is amazing!

 I'm not sure what these flowers are called... but cute, white and whispering, "spring is here"

 Sorry, this is not angled correctly. Nappa cabbage blooming!

Harvest Updates, Feb 27, 2012

Hi everyone! It's been a while and we've been busy! Here are some harvests we managed to take a pic of. Not everything gets photographed lately, as I juggle homeschooling, gardening and freelance work (sometimes all-nighters!)

Here's some lovely Calendula and Lettuce greens

 Below are some nice sized Spinach greens in a large bowl. (Note: the tile size is 6")

 More lettuces being dried after washing.

 Our very first Haas Avocado!!! Nestled among gifted grapefruits and mandarins from the neighbor.

 More Spinach

 Now this is New Zealand Spinach below.

 Spinach, again...

 and the very last harvest of Mikans for the season. We plan to wash them and freeze them (whole) for a summer treat)

 Bok Choy greens

 A myriad of greens. Upper left, small bowl: Amaranth sprouts, upper left, small bowl, NZ spinach sprouts and 2 strawberries, lower right, small bowl with Shiso sprouts. In between the bowls are green onion sprig, edible iceplant, and Shungiku. The larger collander contains broccoli florets and greens.

Harvest Updates, Feb 7, 2012

Sorry for all the delayed post. I haven't solved the problem completely, but for now I am by-passing Picasa and uploading the photos directly to Blogger. It's working for now, until I get the time & courage to tackle the steps 1916home has instructed me!

Currently, we are nearing the end of the broccolis, at the end of mandarin season and have pretty much picked the oranges clean. (Yes, sold many and gave many away!)

 Breakfast oranges

 Lettuce

 Madarins(mikan) and Navel Oranges. This batch, we bartered for 16 oz of Local Olive Oil, 16 oz of Organic Papua New Guinea Coffee, 1 packet of Strawberry Spinach seeds, and 12 oz of Local Organic, unheated honey. Not bad, eh?

 These had mealy bug belly buttons, so we washed them clean and gave them to Tim's co-workers

 Romaine and Purple leaf Lettucs

 Broccoli greens and little florets. We had a LOT more, but we just didn't take pictures

 Oranges, our Last Guava and a bit of strawberries

 Carrots gifted by a good friend, we crop swap what we have. Thanks L!

 This is a 6 inch plate with a very large Edible Iceplant leaf. 

We were surprised that the leaf has a salty taste!

 Daikon Radishes

 Green Onions

Yes! We Sold Our Produce!

I told you earlier that we were hoping to sell some of our oranges at the private market. Well, we did! We did pretty well too! We sold some NZ Spinach and Broccoli Greens as well.

These are the good oranges that we sold. At the end of the day, we had about 6 left.

Here's the oranges that had mealy bugs on the navel, we washed those really well and gave them to friends. (Lori checking thigns out behind the gate.)

Apparently, I have reached the Maximum Photo Upload Space

Soooo, it's been a while since I've uploaded some Harvest updates! I wanted to, but Blogger and Picasa say I've reached my upload limit!!! They want me to pay for more storage space, yikes! What would you do? Start deleting old posts? Or pay up?

Gorgeous Sunset

Have a lovely evening!

Selling our produce, a Journey

I mentioned that one of my goals this year, was to find a way to sell some of our extra produce.

Well, this:

Eat Well Market in Altadena

just fell into my lap! This is so awesome!

Basically, they are allowing us to sell our produce, as long as there is no pesticides or herbicides on the crop.

I just wrote them an email so, we shall see how this goes. Unfortunately, it's held on a Sunday...and I attend church....hmmm. It is a once a month event.

Gluten and Egg free Gyoza (Potstickers)

Today was my Mom's birthday. She is also gluten free. So...that means we can't just "go to the store" and pick up the dumpling wrappers like everyone else, yes...we MUST make it from scratch!  So, with the help of my brother Paul, who flattened the dough balls into flat round wrappers using the Tortilla maker, I made these for our Mom's birthday. :-)
You can see some of the flours that go into the gluten free dough: Sorghum, Millet, Tapioca, Xanthan Gum, Brown Rice flour, etc.  If we could use egg, the gluten free dough would be MUCH more pliable, but our son is allergic to egg as well, so I used Ener-G brand Egg Replacer powder.  Here they are before cooking.

Here's a batch all done and crispy. Next time I'd like to make the skins a tiny bit thinner, to accomplish this, I may need to add another tsp of xanthan gum for pliability

I used homegrown Garlic Chives and some Broccoli stems chopped up in them too! Yummy with a dipping sauce made from gluten free soysauce, homegrown Lemon juice, and toasted sesame oil.

Front Garden Updates

The front Garden is starting to wake up from the winter slumber already
This area is the long strip that is planted with Asparagus (Jersey Knight). I planted some Peas and Fava Beans and they have started to sprout, but I noticed these mushrooms before the Pea sprouts, mushrooms are so cute. :-) Does anyone know what these are called? I wouldn't eat them, but I wish I knew what they were called.

Here you can see the Pea sprouts on the sides of the mushroom trio

Pansies grown from seed, they just sprout where the parent plant was, we'll move them sometimes so that they'll line up in a nice ring around the Persimmon tree.

Lupine seedling

Rose and Rock

Succulent Blossoms

"Alauria" our front garden peach tree

Pretty asparagus berries...the neighbor's wall looks almost like sky or snow, ha!

wildflowers on the east-side of the house

Wintering (Fuji) apple

Sleeping beauty, (Akane) apple

Avocado (Haas)

Avocado (Haas) blossoms

Plants growing under the Avocado tree are pretty much self-sown right now. Cosmos, Edible Ice Plant, Johnny Jump-ups, Royal Purple bush-beans and Purple Orach. Along with the Blue Basil pictured at the base of the tree in the full-tree picture above