Going Off Da Grid, Janice

Gorgeous Sunset

2012-01-24T18:28:00.000-08:00

Have a lovely evening!

Selling our produce, a Journey

2012-01-24T01:17:00.000-08:00

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)

2012-01-19T14:59:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-17T21:39:00.000-08:00

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

Garden Updates: January 17, 2012

2012-01-17T21:21:00.000-08:00

Spring is just around the corner and we have a NEW raised bed!!! This is the 5th bed that has been completed in the expanded 20x20 area. We're thinking of growing some Burdock here since the soil is very soft because it was double dug.

Here I planted some Peas and Pole Beans. The reason why we did both: Mom thought that since the weather is so erratic, we should try to do both types in one bed, one that is heat tolerant (pole beans) and one that is cold tolerant (Peas). Then, if the weather leans to one way or another, we'd have something growing instead of nothing (in case of a crop failure from either too hot or too cold). I said, "What the heck, let's give it a try". We're always experimenting with things, to learn what works and doesn't work. Last week was hot, now this week has been cold and we had a bit of rain.

Mitsuba grown from last year's seed. It's self sown, see the larger Mitsuba on the left side (the pot is barely in the pic) That's the parent plant and it dropped it's seeds on the pot centered here.

Daikon Radish on the side of the Broccoli plants are starting to mature

Found a chrysalis on the broccoli leaf! I snagged the leaf and took it indoors and placed it in an aerated jar, as a Biology instructional tool for homeschool!

Loquat blossoms, it's really early this year

Kumquats just about ready

The "Chard that won't quit", Daikon Radishes and some Spanish Black Radish in the pots

Annual Scion Exchange at the California Rare Fruit Growers Mtg!

2012-01-16T18:33:00.000-08:00

I was very excited to go to the Annual Scion Exchange at the California Rare Fruit Growers meeting at the Arboretum. My Mom and I learned the basics of grafting. We also got a LOT of new types of scion cuttings! For peaches, we got Pilgrim, Eva's Pride, Stark Saturn, Red Baron and also a Goldmine Nectarine. We got a Mutsu apple scion, and for persimmon, we got the Fuyu, as our tree is a Jiro(although the tag said Fuyu!) We also got some Chaya and Dragon Fruit cuttings along with a pink Amaryllis bulb. I also got a Cuban Oregano, which I've tried growing before, but it was killed by frost. Perhaps, I'll try to keep them alive like the Basil, keep them in a vase of water until the frost is over.

Chaya and Dragon Fruit cuttings along with a pink Amaryllis.
Chaya has some beneficial properties, but it must be cooked for at least 20 min to break the glucoside which can release the cyanide.

wikipedia: "Chaya is a good source of protein, vitamins, calcium, and iron; and is also a rich source of antioxidants.^[8] However, raw chaya leaves are toxic as they contain a glucoside that can release toxic cyanide. Cooking is essential prior to consumption to inactivate the toxic components; in this chaya is similar tocassava, which also contains toxic hydrocyanic glycosides and must be cooked before being eaten."

Fortunately, I had a spare peach tree we had grown from seed, sitting in the back against the house, so I took it as an opportunity to practice this new-found knowledge! I grafted 8 branches with 4 varieties, 2 scions of each: Pilgrim, Eva's Pride, Stark Saturn(white fleshed, donut type), and Goldmine Nectarine. I'll do the Red Baron tomorrow. I hope at least some of them take! The peach tree we grew from seed is a mystery tree, it hasn't borne fruit yet as it is just turning 3 years this spring. In Japanese proverbs, they say, "Peach, Chestnut 3 years, Persimmon 8 years" 「桃栗３年柿8年」 So, we're hoping to get some blossoms this year from both peaches, this one and Alauria, the front yard peach, which we didn't touch for this grafting.

They showed us by using Medical Parafilm and wrapping that on the young scion-wood first (this keeps the scion from drying out), then cutting a wedge on the end of the scion, and making a cut on the parent plant and splitting the cut and shoving the wedge in and making sure the green live parts are matching, and taping it some more with the Parafilm. Once that's done, they told us to use a rubber band the split parent wood so that the joining tissues are tight. The tip they gave us about the Parafilm: "Don't cut holes out for the new buds when the graft takes! It will dessicate the scion and kill it! The new growth will push out without any help and by then the graft will be well established. The rubber band will fall apart on it's own about the same time as when the branch growth would need more expansion."

I'd like to hear your grafting tips, what works great for you and what doesn't. :-)

This is an OUTRAGE! Government punishing productive Hobby Farmer

2012-01-10T20:24:00.000-08:00

Government punishing productive Hobby Farmer

"His crime is growing too many crops for the property’s zoning in Clarkston, GA."

Say WHAT????

"Miller is not an illegal alien, isn’t growing anything illegal, isn’t asking for government hand-outs or bail-outs, works with his own hands and skills on his own land to provide food for himself and others… so yeah, punishing the productive is the bullying government’s narrow path of action."

Everyone of you just trying to be good stewards out there, WE ARE IN DANGER of the same crime imposed on us!
We need to find a way to help him and fight this madness. If you are trying to grow more food for health, or for the earth's health or both, he is one of us.

2012-01-10T19:06:00.000-08:00

So here it is! The hole for the grape vine!

After planting, and proud daddy.

Here's the opposite angle

Now for some backyard news: We decided to keep the Russets as they seemed to tolerate that nasty frost-kill much better and look how they've recoverd! I'm planning on planting another row of Russets and it'll be ready a bit later than these.

Mom cut half of the Feijoa Guava tree, since it's always blocking one of the beds and it's not a great fruiter. Or that the fruit will not be very tasty. It can produce as a compact bush, so we shall see this year.

The Guava tree is the same size as the fence now, on the ground you can see the cut branches

The bed closest to us is now a little more sunny. The middle front bed is growing Garlic and some Carrot seedlings. I just planted some lettuces as well. The far left front bed is growing Bulb Onions and Carrots. The back left bed has Spinach, Beets and Chard, although the latter 2 are still very small seedlings. The middle back bed has Bulb Onions that we started last year and some Lettuces. The right back bed has Daikon Radishes, one Chard plant that survived all torture, and Spanish Black Radish seedlings in pots waiting to be planted (not shown)

Lori found something in the orange tree, and was curious enough to climb a rock to take a closer look. Maybe it's a butterfly... I couldn't see it from the angle I was in, from the inside the house. I thought it was interesting that the shadow on her face looks like a swallowtail butterfly with an extra long tail.

Indoor plants. These are the plants in our dining room window sill. The far left plant (it has a tiny 2" pot) is a Vanilla Orchid climbing on top of the flowering Christmas Cactus. I really have to repot that thing, but I've heard that orchids flower better under stress. Do you know anything about orchids? Next to the Cactus is a white Phalaenopsis.

We've decided to try the lazy way of preserving heat loving plants, taking the cuttings and keeping in them water, indoors. The Blue Basil responded wonderfully with tons of new roots and is blossoming(it had small buds when I picked them)! The Sweet Potato was just started this week, so we'll see if they'll root. The far much has a leek and chinese celery bought from the store. I'm trying to see if they'll root so I can grow them and harvest seeds. These are the lazy ways of acquiring seeds or starting new plants. It WORKS! Raising Basil this way is by far the easiest. Instead of fiddling with tiny seeds that have a low germination rate, rooting the cuttings is almost a sure fire way. Plus, it's pretty in the window. :-) These are sitting on the ledge of our front window. Lazy farming is the way to go when you have so many other chores to do around the house!

New Year's Plans, Goals & Dreams

2012-01-09T03:27:00.000-08:00

Tim was able to dig and plant the Kyohou Grape vine in the front garden this weekend! (pics to come) Yaaaaay!!! This has been a long awaited event and I'm so glad he did so this weekend as the weather has been EXTREMELY HOT this past week, and I'm afraid if this keeps up, the trees will break dormancy. Now we can breath a short sigh of relief as this grape can grow to it's potential this year and hopefully produce a decent crop. (And maybe we can make grape juice or.....even wine! Wine-making...sheesh...another project in itself!)

I've been pondering about what I want to accomplish this year in 2012.
In keeping with the self-reliance train of thought, I've always wanted to learn more about solar panels.
So, this year, I'd like to do just that: Learn how solar panels work and even make some.
They may be crude, but if it works, I can make them for a LOT less than if I were to purchase them from a vendor.
It'll also make for an excellent Science Project for my son's on-going homeschooling.
Plus, it's just RAD(ha! who uses that word anymore, right?) to know you have the "power", yes...cheesy pun intended.
So, hopefully by the end of the year, we'll figure out how to convert Photons into Electrons with charge!

Another goal I'd like to pursue, is to learn the ropes on selling some excess fruits from our garden at our local Farmer's Market. I've never been business oriented, but we have plenty of fruit and if it helps our income, that would be AWESOME!

We're also planning on raising rabbits. You may be wondering, what for? As pets?
Well...we're trying to figure that one too. We are all city-slickers. We've never been raised on a farm (including my mom). So raising animals for meat does make us somewhat queasy. So, we're going to raise them initially, then decide if we have the "guts" (oh no, another pun) to do the dirty work.
Meanwhile, they do make excellent manures that can be used almost immediately in the gardens, since they are not as "hot" as poultry or cow manures. If we feed them to the worms, it would make the richest soil EVER as well.

If push comes to shove on food becoming scarce, we have a backup plan for a protein source.

Animal Antics

2012-01-07T00:31:00.000-08:00

Harvest Updates: Jan 4th, 2012

2012-01-04T19:43:00.000-08:00

Here's some Mitsuba about to be thrown into the hotpot full of veggies and thinly sliced pork, right before we eat!

Chayotes and a Valencia Orange

Baby Broccoli and the last eggplant

our first ever Luffa (not for eatin'!) for scrubbing dishes with. :-)

Avocados were gifted by Tim's brother, from his dwarf Haas tree. Thanks!

Another gift, apples from a home garden

Our lettuce greens

Our seasonal fruits: Guava, Orange and a bit of Strawberries. The Strawberries are a treat, since they don't produce much at all this time of year.

Now for some root crops: This one is a harvest of Sunchokes

Sweet Potatoes of variety

Below are some very tiny baby potatoes, we decided that the red potatoes were beyond saving after the frost kill. The long tubers are Gobo, or Burdock.

More lettuce

Dandelion Greens

Tree Collard

And a load of Navel Oranges we gave away.

Sunset Avenue does really have GREAT Sunsets

2011-12-29T21:11:00.000-08:00

We live off of Sunset Avenue. Not "THE Sunset Ave" in Hollywood. It's not as glitzy here and I like it better. The people who named the street really knew what they were doing, because here's tonight's sunset! Enjoy!

The clouds look like flames behind the palm trees.

Interesting bands of clouds

We lost our Potato crop :-(

2011-12-23T14:19:00.000-08:00

Sooooo SAD today!!
Last night I tucked the Taters and the Peppers and Tomatoes under plastic covers and made sure to light the tea lights. I even added an extra tea light at 2am. Unfortunately, Tim had to go to work early and he is the one that takes the covers off in the morning. Normally he takes them off around 8am. This morning, he took them off around 6:45am. I asked him if the plants had frozen within the plastic, but he said he was rushed and didn't check to see if the plants were frozen inside the plastic. I would think that it's noticeable to see frozen leaves so my guess is that the plants froze AFTER he took them off. Further investigation lends to my assumption, as there are smaller plants that remained in the green house shelter and were fine. Tim told me he didn't want me to be upset that he didn't take the plants' covers off before he left. I told him just to tell me that he hadn't done it yet so I can remove it before the sun gets too hot. I wished he had done so instead of suffering such a loss. Plants become like children. Making sure their warm every night, going out in freezing temps to add a new tea light in...

This is the *BEFORE* picture taken a few days ago. the most foreground plant is the eggplant

Here are the potatoes today

Closer inspection. See the terra cotta pot? That's where we place the tea light

A different angle... :'-( waaaaaaah

Eggplant shriveled up too. The peppers are limp too. Heavy sigh...

Harvest Updates, Wednesday Dec 22, 2011

2011-12-21T23:52:00.000-08:00

Wow, I just realized I haven't done a Harvest Update in a month!
Enjoy!
Avocados and lemons from the neighbors! The Mandarins are our harvest

Some of the Sweet Potato harvest

New Zealand Spinach and Chayotes. There's a quarter in the lower right to compare size

Purple Leaf Lettuce for our Salad

little Fuji Apples...crrrrunch!

Purple Leaf Lettuce, carrots and 4 Season Lettuce

1 orange and 2 Mandarins for our snacks

Guavas, Valencia Orange and one Strawberry

More Mandarins

Eggplants (some were from the swap) being soaked to take the bitters out. Garlic chives in front bowl about to be chopped up for dinner

Lots of Mandarins, Chayotes and some Garlic Chives.

Another Amazing Sunset! And Garden Updates

2011-12-16T03:19:00.000-08:00

Thank you everyone for your kind concerns about the wind. :-) Thankfully, we are fine and hardly suffered any damage in our area.
Here is another lovely sunset to share, I did NOT touch this to enhance it except to rotate it so as to straighten the lampost. Aint it spectacular? Below are the Garden Updates.

Our very first harvest of Oxalis Tuberosum (Oca). The larges is about an inch long (2.5cm) so it's not impressive. I think it had to do with the plants being in pots. I decided to plant them in pots because I didn't really have good info on their cultivation requirements in our region. From this year's experience, it appears that they REALLY like cooler/cold temps just above freezing. Go figure, as they were originally domesticated and cultivated in the Andean mountains.

Here we have some Peppers, one Eggplant(actually fruiting!) and 2 tomatoes. Behind them are the Potatoes. All these need to be protected during the cold night so the potted plants go into the "green house" and the potatoes get a row covering each night and sometimes a tea light in a ceramic pot, to help warm the inside of the cover when the temps get below 32F.

Here are the Taters with the row cover at sunset.

G'd ol' boy, Happy. Sunbathing by some mulch.

Now THAT's a bounty!

Backyard tree is now ready for harvest.

This little Meyer Lemon is becoming a strong producer!

Not too shabby with the Navel Oranges either:

Poor baby Fig tree :-( It grew here from seed. Let's see if it can survive this winter.

The older fig tree has suffered the frost and is now losing it's leaves. There's still a lot of fruit on it, but without the leaves to feed them, they will dry out and drop. Oh wells...

Some frost damage on the Chayote vine.

The Passion Fruit vine seems unaffected by the temps still.

The Garnet and Purple Sweet Potato greens were killed with the frost, so out came the tubers. Now we'll let this bed rest since it hardly gets any sun this time of year.

Daikon Radishes hidden in the shade of the Mikan tree. I planted them the same as the other bed with the Broccoli and the light exposure has shown quite a difference in growth.

Tree Kale/Collard happily growing between the Mikan and Pineapple Guava trees.

Can you believe this? Strawberries have blossoms and even fruit!

Roses blooming even as the baby fig was damaged a few feet from these.

Lavender and Sweet William

Aloe flowers

Meyer Lemon Blossoms

Burdock: I've learn that they really like it cool and have flourished in this autumn/winter climate. Now if the snails would stop eating the leaves...

This bed had edible yam leaves growing, A few tubers were harvested, but we ate the greens mostly. Since I yanked them, I have the yanked vines under the Fig tree so it an decompose. The bed has been planted with Spinach now.

Homegrown Meals, Dec. 16th 2011

2011-12-16T00:19:00.000-08:00

Food!!! These are steamed sweet potatoes. We grew 2 kinds, the normal looking one with the orange inside and a purple one with gorgeous purple skin and inside! This photo doesn't do it justice.

Bibimpap with homegrown(hg)carrots, hg chayote, hg new zealand spinach

Gluten free pie crusts

Gluten-free, Egg-free, Dairy-free Punkin' Pie! It was pretty good. I'd put a bit more gelatin next year to stiffen it up more to compensate for the lack of egg.

homemade gravy mmmmm

not homegrown but homemade organic (though store bought) cranberry sauce in the making. Doesn't this look so amazing?

Homegrown Salad with locally fished Trout. (lemon for the trout not pictured but also from neighbor)

Steamed Kabocha pumpkins for snacking on

Gluten, Dairy and Egg free Lasagna. We are using Daiya coconut milk cheese!

Chayote, Cucumber and Wakame (seaweed) Vinegar salad on the left, and more Kabocha Pumpkin for an evening meal.

Homegrown Chayote, Green Tomatoes, Eggplant, Oregano and Basil in them thar 'psghetti sauce!

Chayote and Collard Green Stir fry seasoned with Garlic and gluten free Soysauce

our homegrown black beans soaking to be cooked for Chili

Homegrown Collard Greens, Carrots & Chayote in this stir fry

Okonomiyaki with HG Chayote mixed in there. Our son is not fond of Chayote (yet) so I have to disguise it in stronger flavors for him to eat it.

Crazy Winds!!

2011-12-01T17:24:00.000-08:00

We drove to Whole Foods near Pasadena, and this is what we found!
The winds ripped off the façade on the roof!

Fallen limbs of trees larger than the poles that carry the Walk/Don't walk sign! Note the home in the background, their vinyl trellis is twisted as well.

We couldn't believe the crazy way the electric pole was just snapped! Looks like a giant took it with it's hands and bent it till it cracked. Needless to say, many homes are without power.

Half of the tree gone! The other half quite bowed

Someone's Tent/tarp temporary car port strewn on the lawn like chicken wire

Telephone pole 1 snapped in the middle and 1 bent, causing the live wires to touch the street. Somehow, the signals are still functioning.

More pictures on my son's blog

Garden Update, Nov 21, 2011

2011-11-21T18:11:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've done a Garden Update! Here's a pre-holiday splash of color! :-) Red & White for some Christmas cheer (although we haven't had Thanks Giving yet)

We've had a few good rains these past few weeks and another rain coming on Turkey Day.
We're thankful for the rain, yet worried about the radiation fall out from Fukushima. There really isn't much we CAN do about it besides stop growing food all together.

The Mandarins in the backyard are starting to blush too

Broccoli (the larger leaves), Red Leaf Lettuces and Daikon Radishes

The Swiss Chard that doesn't quit; I chopped all the Chard during mid-summer when it started getting invaded by aphids. This one decided it wanted to stick around even though I butchered it! Go Chard! Baby Daikon radishes in the back, cotton on the right side.

Lettuce among the bulb onions

Can you find the sneaky Chayotes?

Must clean up. Tomato that needs to be taken down.

Elephant Head Amaranth on the left, Eggplant in the middle and New Zealand Spinach in the back. All about 2' away from the Valencia Orange

Here's the NZ Spinach right under the Orange Tree

Navel Orange Tree starting to ripen

Raindrops sparkling on the Lemon Grass

Gardenias

Rain accumulating in the pockets of the relief

I like the color contrast of the Red Leaf Lettuce and gravel in the background

Rain-drenched Morning Glories

Hawk!!

Our Pineapple Sage brings lots of humming birds

Here you can see his ruby red throat, sorry it's a bit blurry, they move so stinkin' fast!

This time I somehow captured his ultra-fast wings!

Strange bug on a green tomato.
The bright glare is from the stainless steel bowl

Reddish Mums!

White Mums :-)

Our goldfish...that live in 35 gallon trashbins.

Yes, ghetto and yes the water is quite green, but they seem happy.

Even more ghetto perhaps, is that they eat our slugs and small grasshoppers.

Hey, they are an important part of the cycle.

We use the some of the water from their tank on the lawn to feed it every-so-often,

then the lawn is cut and becomes compost or mulch.

This was on a sunny day, shot from our front window.

Can you believe we have Plumerias growing in November?

Harvest Updates, Nov 21, 2011

2011-11-21T15:56:00.000-08:00

It's Mikan (mandarin) time!!!

Tree Kale(collard)

Chayotes, Yam greens, Akane apples, and our one and ONLY persimmon.

It's the first persimmon from this tree!

more Tree Kale(collard)

More Chayotes, the Last of the Cucumbers and a Zucchini

More Mikan :-)

Chayotes galore....when you get this much you just have to start giving them away! The red thing is a mini pomegranate. It's not very sweet, but sure is pretty!

These are White Guavas!

It does look a lot like the Chayotes,

but the taste and aroma are a world apart!

Surprise eggplant from the plant near our Valencia orange tree.

Another Chayote, Zuke Eggplant Guava, Mikan day

The Mikans we shared with our neighbor

turned into a TROUT!!!!

I wanted to share this trout with you even though we didn't grow it or harvest it, that swapping with your neighbors is an important way to diversify your diet!

(They fish at a local stocked private lake, but they don't eat fish!)

More Yam Greens, Mikans and Chayotes

Even MORE Chayote....argggghhh... we stir fry, we boil in soups, we bake them, we chop them up into fried rice, we put them in our salads yet they keep coming!!!

The difference between a Chayote and a White Guava.

Green Onions and a hefty Eggplant

Lots of Guava! Share some with the neighbors and our Gardener

Size comparison of a quarter with some of our larger Mikan

Garden Updates: Oct 31, 2011

2011-10-31T23:02:00.000-07:00

Here are some front garden photos

I just had to share this GORGEOUS sunset! (taken from our front yard)

WARNING TO FASHION POLICE! YOU WILL SEE ONE OF THE ULTIMATE "No-no"s of fashion rules below! Proceed with caution!
I will "buffer" with a photo of my brother's camera on top of the roof, he has it on a automatic timed setting to get a sequencial shot.

OK, hope there was enough "buffering"!

Before that sunset was taken, my brother (who's a photographer) mumbled,"Awesome sunset", so I rushed out with my camera, not really considering my feet! Don't you just love the socks and sandals combo "LittleFoot"? Our neighbor's black kitty has 3 extra toes on each of his front paws, hence his name. He's a sweet, friendly kitty. Unfortunately, I'm highly allergic to cats!

the shutter clicking is annoying him, seconds later he takes off!

OK, something pretty to offset the hideous sandal/socks combo!

Cosmos!

The ONE & ONLY persimmon on our Fuyu tree

Second crop of Fuji apples

Our trusty Kumamoto Mandarin tree in the front has a good crop. You probably won't see too many pics of them in our Harvest Updates. They get picked and eaten immediately.

Here, you can see my brother's camera on the roof on upper left of the pic too.

Backyard view from our kitchen window. The pineapple sage brings the humming birds.

Titmouse eating something off the Rose of Sharon tree.

Homegrown Meals

2011-10-12T14:38:00.000-07:00

Here we have a veggie sauté with HG Carrots, HG Chayote Greens, HG Peppers and organic ground turkey.

Here it is on a dinner plate with rice

I made Green Bean Casserole with HG Green Beans. Now, you may think, oh that's easy cookin' just throw in some Cream of Mushroom soup from Campbell's with some green beans, throw it in the oven and pop open a can of French's french fried onions when it's baked and you're set! WRONG! We're dairy and gluten free, so we don't have that luxury. I make my cream of mushroom soup from scratch with either soy or coconut milk and sorghum in place of wheat flour.

I fry my own onions with gluten free batter.

And there you have it: Dairy/Gluten free Southern comfort food with a side of corn on the cob!

Here I'm making Mabo Nasu (Eggplant). It has peppers, garlic chives and zucchini as well.

All home grown. I add ground turkey, organic miso, potato starch for making it a thicker sauce and a bit of toasted sesame oil. Yum!

Here's another shot

And finally, on the plate

Afternoon snack of White Guava and strawberry

Corn to munch on

Another stir-fry dish, this one with HG Zucchini, Carrots, Garlic Chives, and ground turkey, seasoned with garlic, gluten free soy-sauce and bit of agave.

Kung Pao Chicken without peanuts (we have peanut allergies). HG Carrots and Zucchini. Farmer's Market Celery and Brown Onion. Organic Chicken breast dice and seasoned with gluten free soy-sauce, rice vinegar, garlic and red pepper flakes.

Veggie soup in organic home-made chicken broth. HG Collard Greens, HG Carrots, HG Zucchini, FM Red Onion and Celery. Seasoned with organic coriander powder, sea salt and organic pepper.

This is the Shiso Seed Tsukudani in preparation. I season it with a generous amount of soy-sauce and a bit of agave, then sauté until all the liquid evaporates. Let it cool, then store it away in the fridge. It'll keep for at least a year. You eat it as a condiment on rice. yum!

Here is the Shiso seed all finished and ready to put away in the fridge.

Harvest Updates: Oct 11, 2011

2011-10-11T23:12:00.000-07:00

The first Chayote of the season!

Chayote Greens (aka Dragon Whiskers)

Peppers, Zuke, Eggplant, and the first White Guava of the season!

Corn, Fuji Apple, Strawberries, Burdock root, Tomatoes, Peppers, Beans and a Carrot.

Shiso's young seeds. We are going to cook them for a Japanese delicacy; Tsukudani. I'll go into more detail later.

New Zealand Spinach in the back and on the right, Dandelion on the left

Zucchini, Corn, Fig, Peppers and Carrots.

Peppers, Beans, Tomatoes, Corn, Eggplant, Fig, Strawberry, Okra and a mini Pomegranate

Strawberries in October? Yes, although not as much as during the summer.

Pineapple Guava, we got 3 this year. There's a few more on the tree, but I don't know if they'll develop in the winter.

Corn, Figs, Beans, Peppers, Apple, Eggplant, Strawberries, Tomatoes, Okra.

Garden Updates, Backyard; Oct 10th

2011-10-10T22:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a long while since I've posted some garden updates! To appease you for my lack of continuity, I offer you some photos of flowers from my fall garden.

The fiery orange is the Canna Edulis, It's grown to be about 9' tall and is reaching for the skies. On it's right are Plumeria blossoms with their sweet scent.

Seeds forming on the Shiso(perilla) and below are pink Mums

The left side are more mums and pelargoniums under the Mango and Rhubarb. The bright yellow blossom is the Luffa clinging to our rugged fence.

Now, onto some business! Here I'm prepping the bed to be planted with Broccoli and Daikon radishes

I'm starting our fall crops and some are sprouting, while others are still needing seeds to be planted. I've got Bulb Onion, Broccoli, Beans, Chard, Lettuce here.

Silly Janice, Peppers are for summer! I know, I know...OK, I'm going try to over-winter them in our make-shift green house. I hope it works, then we can get peppers earlier, come next spring.

Chayote are finally plumping up. Lots of eating to do soon! Might try to pickle some too. We've been enjoying the vigorous shoots as a sauté.

Just planted Garlic, yes a little late but hoping it will still be enough time. In the middle are Chinese yard long beans. Don't know if they will survive the coming frosts, but what the heck.

Bulb onions, somewhat growing some bulbs.

Cotton plants, I'm not making good use of this bed, it's a bit too shady for most crops. Maybe I can do Wild Strawberry, they don't mind shade...

Zucchini in the same bed as the cotton

Lettuce tucked in among the Bulb onions in different growth stages, you can see a tiny one above it.

Burdock, Garlic Chives and Yam tucked in rather haphazardly...

Same stuff another angle:

The herb bed

The neglected side: Blackberry has taken over! In front of it is the White Sapote grown from seed

This had tomatoes growing in it, I'm planning on growing Carrots/Bulb Onions next.

The lonely Luffa

Tree Collard going strong now! I like the flavor, it's not bitter.

These pics below were taken after a good rain storm, the first of the season that gave us 4" of rain. Perilla seeds being weighed down by rain drops

rain-soaked ground

See the rain drops on the Alstroemeria? I just love those drops, they look like jewels

Here are the Okra seed pods growing, I put my hand in the second pic just for size comparison

Harvest Updates, Friday Sept 23rd

2011-09-23T09:12:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry I've been absent for a while. It's been a very busy few weeks. I've been taking more trips locally for homeschooling. Field-trips are fun! I'll try to post the garden updates soon.

Feeling tribal!

Aim for the apple!

sorry this is a bad pic. It's a box full of New Zealand Spinach.

Lots of Dragon Whiskers (Chayote greens), Oranges, apples, figs, baby apples and strawberries

The large shiny things are not eggplant! They're Avocados! Although they are not grown at home, I wanted to include them because I swapped them with a friend for strawberry jam and marmalade.

It's Tiki time!

Harvest Updates, Sept 10

2011-09-10T20:39:00.000-07:00

Our first Fuji Apple of the season! It's BIG, very big! It weighed in at 12.5 oz (354 g) It was a bit under-ripe though. Still, it was juicy, even though it was slightly tart it was pleasantly sweet. Don't worry, we didn't let him eat the whole thing by himself! (although he would have preferred that) He's just pretending to take a bite out of it.

And a Mango!

Here it is ripened, such a pretty red!

There were more produce we picked, I just didn't feel like taking a photo of the ugly carrots, nor the over-excessive New Zealand Spinach.

In the middle you see some brown roots, that's burdock.

Can't wait to make Kinpira Gobo(きんぴらごぼう)!

Oh? hmm... Well, it CAN look like...(starts LOL)

2011-09-06T23:41:00.000-07:00

I've seen a persimmon be suggestive, and now this fig.

Is it considered one fig or three?

Perhaps I should have left it covered with a "fig leaf"

Front Yard Grape Trellis

2011-09-06T14:36:00.000-07:00

Here's the Trellis! Well, it still needs staining on the top. But it's up!

Here's the view of it from the other side

Closeup on the detail

The detail is supposed to match our house's old fashioned decor. (Window Trim)

I think it turned out nice!

Exciting Things

2011-09-05T20:32:00.000-07:00

Well, I don't have a picture of either, but the first exciting thing is that it rained some last night! Come Autumn rains! We need you so badly! It was just a spit in the bucket, but better than nothing.

The second exciting thing is that Tim finally finished the Grape Vine Trellis in the front garden! He finished tonight, and it was a bit too dark for me to take a pic of. So, first thing tomorrow, I'll snap a shot or two to show it off. :-)

Now, the next step would be to start digging to prep the soil for the Kyohou grape vine. Also, we'll need to strip the lawn under the trellis and place the cobble stones in! Then, we'll need to re-upholster the yard-sale purchased table set. Oh, I love it when projects start coming together!

2011-09-04T12:45:00.000-07:00

These cukes didn't last long. Having a struggle with aphids and mildew. Most of the lower leaves had to be removed because of those issues.

Some Amish Paste Tomatoes, hanging in there after I got rid of the bed next to them that were covered in spider mites. I've been spraying with Neem oil, EACH LEAF at a time!

This one below, is the Russian Black Plum Paste Tom, which is the one behind the fig tree, has been doing great! Still producing a ton of tomatoes. These seeds are a keeper for sure!

Yay! Bitter melon is actually fruiting in time. We didn't think we'd have enough warmth, but so far next week is supposed to be in the high 90's again. I think we're in for a HOT Indian Summer here.

The eggplants are looking a little tired. The leaves don't seem to grow much even with manure.

The peppers are growing taller for sure...

However, upon closer inspection, you see the disease creeping in. Does anyone know what's wrong with these leaves? Wrinkly and never seems to open up all the way.

Sunchokes are growing up, we'll see if they will produce enough tubers though. We planted them out so late.

Pretty Garlic Chives with Blue Basil accenting them.

Okra is starting to look a bit worn out.

Guess what this is! It looks a little like baby Okra leaves, but it's Cotton! I'm trying to see if we can grow some cotton balls to replace TP, if needed. Cotton balls are always useful no matter what. I like that you can get cotton AND collect more seeds for the future. I wonder if I could make cotton seed oil if I had enough...(just dreaming)

Corn among the Burdock and Garlic Chives

The Edible Canna has really sprung, it's about 6'+ right now.

Time for some new Thyme! I'm trying to root the old branches by burying part of it and holding it down with a rock. The old stock is looking pretty shabby.

Mango, Rhubarb and pelargoniums

Kumamoto Mandarins starting to get fatter

Navel Oranges, so far the navel end is not as bad as last year. We get white mealy bugs in the belly buttons of these oranges and they are edible but, not gift-able.

Here are the garden beds in the back portion. Lemon grass is obscuring the Okra and Sweet Potato bed, but you can see the onion and carrot bed.

The Luffa is growing, but the female blossoms are turning yellow, can you see the little yellow thing in the center of this pic? It's among mums so the leaves don't look like Luffa.

Our White Guava is not a heavy producer this year due to the harsh pruning we gave it last winter. There's enough for the family, but not much to share. Normally, we have Guava coming out of our ears!

Today, I'll be putting in a little more cucumbers as the other cucumbers are already starting to fade due to aphids and mildew. Here are the melons actually,

These are the Japanese cucumbers

These are the "Double Yield" variety

I plan on transplanting them here where the kidney-beans are growing and now starting to fade

Flowers are a respit to the soul. I just wanted to share this cute pelargonium. My mom is a pelargonium clepto. She'll find one that she doesn't have and snags them during her walks around the neighborhood.

Homegrown Meals, Sept 3rd. 2011

2011-09-04T11:48:00.000-07:00

I didn't get much time to take pic of the foods I make almost daily. Here's what I have...

This one is like a Bibimbap. It has HG(Home Grown) Green Beans, HG Carrots, farmer's market brown onion, ground turkey and sweetened with fig jam. All piled on steaming organic rice. I'm sorry my photos are a bit out of focus.

Hiyashi Chuka (冷し中華) with homegrown Cucumbers, Carrots and Myoga. The other items are organic eggs from the farmer's market (the eggs are really supposed to be fried really thin, then julienned, but we were hungry!), mung-bean sprouts, organic turkey bacon, Tapioca verimicelli noodles, with home-made sauce: (organic gluten free soy-sauce, toasted sesame seed oil, organic rice vinegar, organic raw agave nectar & water) .

Cucumber Kimchee in the making: HG Cucumbers, HG mashed Figs, HG Orange(juiced), HG Garlic Chives, Salted Grunion Roe (from when we went Grunion hunting). Other ingredients include organic paprika, sea salt, and shaved bonito flakes. We let the fruits ferment for a day on the counter, then refrigerate.

Homemade lasagna. The sauce is a combination of HG and canned tomato sauce. HG Peppers and HG Zucchinis are hiding under the organic soy cream cheese, and "Tinkyada" gluten free lasagna noodles.

Harvest Updates, Sept 3rd

2011-09-03T21:19:00.000-07:00

This face looks like a Muppet! Can't wait for the Movie to come out! I hope they don't ruin Jim Henson's legacy... We are drowning in figs as you can see!

NZ Spinach. We have SOOOO much!

Kabocha pumpkins curing in the morning sun.

We're still harvesting Strawberries, TONS of figs, Cucumbers, Peppers, Beans, Eggplants, Apples and a bit of Okra

Shiso ready to be salted and "massaged" (Shiomomi 塩揉み).

More yummy peaches from our neighbor! :-D (We take them figs, they bring us peaches, sweet deal!)

We are inundated with FIGS!

More of the same...just another day...oh there's Kidney Beans in this one though..

Garlic Chives(にら) just cut from the garden, washed and ready to be cut, to put into the Cucumber Kimchee.

Strawberry delight

Dragon Whiskers on top, Figs, Cukes, Okra, Beans, and strawberries

yes, more New Zealand Spinach... Maybe I'll try to do a souffle...naaah, too much work...

Garden Updates, Aug 27th, 2011

2011-08-29T23:59:00.000-07:00

I checked my blog this morning and realized the photos were not uploaded correctly, I'm sorry for the technical errors!

It's been INCREDIBLY HOT these past few days! Temps hovering in the low 100's! Going outside has been a daunting task. August...It's always been tough month for the plants. Bugs take over usually this month and it's hard to gain back your ground.

On a positive note, the tiny little Mango Tree has fruit almost ready! Here's the tree next to 2 compost bins.

Behind the tree is an over-grown white Rhubarb enjoying the rich compost from the bins. The Rhubarb has been around a while, it was given as a gift to my Mom from one of her friends. Being asian, we just never had much experience with this plant, and don't know what to use it for. I know the leaves are not edible and the stalks are. The red-stalked varity is used for strawberry-rhubarb pies, but this one's not a fun color like red.

Does anyone have any good recipes for Rhubarb out there?

Yay, Mango!

We had to clear the Tomatoes, it was just too far gone. I've tried planting tomatoes in the next bed where the cucumbers have grown, but since we didn't grow a nitrogen fixer before the tomatoes, we'll see how they do with just the horse manure compost I got at a local produce exchange.

White Guava tree and under it grow Myoga. It's myoga season right now, where the flower buds form a bulby structure very close to the ground. You have to keep a look-out for them before they get tall. The aroma is unique, the texture is somewhat like a raw bulb onion.

Oca is surviving, but not thriving... The only one that seems promising is in the "Pond" herb bed. There the roots are kept cool under the rosemary bush. It's my first year growing these, so I can't say I know what I'm doing! It appears they don't really like our hot, dry climate.

This area is crammed with all kinds of edibles Valencia Orange tree, New Zealand Spinach, Garlic Chives, Green Onion, Bush Bean, Eggplant and Amaranth!

Here is a view of the "Pond" bed, near the back. Garlic Chives line the row, then the burdock. The burdock seem to despise our heat and are really thriving under the palm branches. I've planted some Corn inbetween the Burdock in the area where they are not thriving, hoping to use up the space.

More peppers. This photo is a bit old, the production rate of the peppers has dropped this past week due to the heat. That and me not having time to give them more nitrogen. The leaves are looking a little anemic now.

Garden Updates, August 23rd

2011-08-24T22:27:00.000-07:00

As you can see from our harvests, our little fig tree is an amazing producer

Here's a view of the little fig tree" that can" It's about 7' tall and about as wide. It's an unbelievably small tree for the amount of fruit it supports

Here's our Zucchini bush that keeps going. It grew out and is now resting on a path.

Here is a sweet potatoes and corn bed. Trying this companion planting to see if it works. The concern is, corn is a very nitrogen hungry plant, yams are not. Yams supposedly don't produce well in their tubers if you supply too much nitrogen. All you get is leaves. So, currently we are only giving compost to the corn's "feet" and not the sweet potatoes. Let's see how it turns out!

Cucumbers, which I train the vines almost daily

A view from one angle. There's Kabocha pumpkin in the bottom left, carrots and onion bed in the middle, okra on the left side mid area,

Okra

Peppers

Lettuce hiding in the shade

Burdock and Amaranth

Onto the front garden: This is the divide between our neighbor and us. Asparagus was planted earlier. Now we have Corn, Bush Beans, Dill and Cosmos growing there.

These Fuji's are looking mighty fine!

Satsuma Mikan (mandarines)

"Alauria" the peach tree gifted from our neighbor is growing pretty well. We've had a few problems at first, peach tree borers which lay eggs on the branch tips and the larvae bore their way into the new branches. I just kept pruning off the infested parts and boiling them before throwing them in the compost. We'd also had white mildew but we stopped watering so much and the problem went away. Under the peach tree, I have a rare purple sweet potato growing.

This is the Haas Avocado. Under it I've planted some Royal Purple and Green Lake Bush Beans, Blue Basil, Purple Orach and some Cosmos. Two voluntary vines of sweet potato have also sprouted, since we had planted them there last year. We're not sure if we have enough time for the Sweet Potatoes to properly grow tubers, but we're just letting it grow. Maybe there's a streak of purple in me. Most of these plants have purple tones!

Here's one of the Akane Apples, we just have a few this year. I think 7 was the total. Last year we had 3.

Harvest Updates

2011-08-24T00:30:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted, I apologize. There are many things in my life I'm trying to juggle, one being the gardening, the other being a wife and mom, also trying to find freelance work to bring some income in, and now I'm a newly minted homeschool mom! You could say I took a leap towards self-sufficiency in that realm!

Here are our current harvests, enjoy!

Zucchini, Eggplants, Basil, Peppers, Tomatoes, Green Beans, Strawberries, Figs and the long skinny tendrils towards the bottom are "Dragon Whiskers"-Chayote greens

Carrots, Peppers, Figs, Eggplants, Tomatoes, Green Beans!

I was feeling artsy...

Peaches!!! Num num...These were given as a gift from our neighbors since gifted them with figs!

We have okra and blackberries too (although the berries are TART!)

Starting to harvest some kidney beans

Basil

Akane apples with worms in them. We cut off the bad parts and the rest was good! Akane has a very spicy aroma to it, which I like. A good balance of sweet and tangy.

LOTS of figs, and some oranges too

Bugs & Insects, good and bad

2011-08-08T00:54:00.001-07:00

OK, for those of you who are squeamish about bugs, I suggest you skip this post! I used to be squeamish too, but I had to get over it! When you farm, you are surrounded by nature doing it's thing! Insects claim the most species on Earth so might as well accept that they will be around! ;-)

I saw one of these the other day! It's a Robber Fly. It eats other bugs voraciously! Although they probably eat honey bees too if they catch them. This photo is not my own.

Pic of dead June beetles. Why are they dead and such large numbers you ask? I drowned them in a bucket of water... Just plain water. They can't fly out of water since they seem to need to kick off in order to fly or be falling off a branch/leaf to fly. They are very attracted to the over-ripe figs we have and I grab them with gloves, since the june bugs have sharp exoskeletons that hurt! Then put them in the bucket. Once they die, I spill the bucket under the fig tree. Then let the ants scavenge the remains. The exoskeletons will stick around for a while, so you'd have to crush them to help aid decomposition. We don't have chickens to eat these bugs. Though I don't know if they'll eat these, they're kinda big; they are at least 1.25" (3.175 cm) long.

Here's a good bug! A honey bee! She is pollinating the cucumbers

We are having problems with Flea Beetles nibbling on our Eggplant, see the tiny holes?

Next 3 pics are of the spider mites that have taken over our Tomatoes. While I was gone for the Alaska Trip, they took over. Not enough moisture encourages these buggas. Not enough deep water will bring them over. I spray my tomatoes with water each morning, but my Mom didn't while I was gone.
I used my son's microscope to see if the Neem/Tea Tree/Orange oil concoction had worked. It appears the adults have been killed, but as you can see there are LOTS of eggs! This was educational for my son too! I took the photo with my old Cannon PowerShot A20 through the microscope eyepiece.

More eggs, and in the bottom middle you can see a baby mite. It was moving. It appears to have just hatched. I guess I'd have to either keep spraying more of the concoction I made or rip out the tomatoes. So sad.

Here's more. They seemed dead. Not moving about at all.

©2001 Janice Kubo

Homegrown Meals

2011-08-06T21:12:00.000-07:00

Beef Veggie stew with HG swiss chard, HG carrots, HG zucchinis, HG tomatoesm HG green beans. Other ingredients include O grass-fed beef, FM(farmer's market) Onion, FM celery, O black pepper, sea salt.

HG swiss chard stems & HG amaranth leaves and stems sauteed with garlic and butter(Earth Balance).

Salad: HG lettuce, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes. The red stuff on the upper right is the chard and amaranth sauté from above. (O) rice and Coho Salmon were purchased.

Mabo Tofu with HG eggplant and HG peppers.

(O)tofu, (O)ground turkey, (O) garlic and (O)rice were purchased

(O)Natto with HG okra and HG green onion.

The natto, seaweed, shirasu and (O)rice were purchased

I made HG tomato sauce, with this, I made Chili and Spaghetti sauce.

Here's the HG Chili with LOTs of HG tomatoes sauce & HG peppers.
Other ingredients are: (O)Kidney beans, (O)black beans, FM round onions, (O)grass-fed stew beef, (O) chili powder and sea salt.

OK, this isn't HG, but I just wanted to add it: Homemade Moca Latte. I save $5~$11 a day by making it myself! Sometimes I have 2 to keep my energy level up. (I used organic coffee, organic coconut milk, organic vanilla extract and stevia drops, oh and a dash of organic cinnamon too!) Yummy :-)

Harvest Updates, Aug 6th

2011-08-06T14:25:00.000-07:00

Swiss Chard

Kabocha Pumpkin

Komatsuna greens

We have a lot of Figs, Eggplants and Peppers coming in now

This is Amaranth, we can steam, boil or sautee them

Heheee! I left my foot in there so I can show you my mean zori(slipper) tan! And size comparison of food. I wear a size 5.5 or 23cm

Now THIS is a bounty!

More Swiss Chard

Perilla leaves(shiso), Tomatoes, Figs, Okra, Blackberries and Strawberries

Some unshapely, but edible carrots

This is Yomogi for mochi about to be boiled

Can you find a monster or 2 in this pic?

More Perilla (shiso)

New Zealand Spinach

Corn "house"

Mom found this Fuji apple on the ground, it's still green. I used it to make Fig/Apple Jam, yum!

More Corn coming in! Candy from the garden for us!

Garden Updates

2011-07-26T15:00:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've done a Garden Update! Here's a new bed being prepped, still lots of garden trimmings being thrown in, and layered with soil and compost. The corn and bean bed is doing ok, the corn didn't get as tall as I had hoped, and they have already flowered.

Another angle on the same area, in the foreground are strawberry planted in pots, on the right of it are the corn and bean bed, behind the strawberries are the Kabocha pumpkins all sprawled out. Behind the pumpkins are the tomato bed with Amish Paste and Peacevine Red Cherry toms. To the right of the tomatoes are the cucumber/zuke bed that has been mostly turned over and I planted some more tomatoes.

Here are some Amish Paste tomatoes still green

Valencia oranges are ripening

A view of some of the rear raised beds

Okra blossoms

Chard is still happy because the Mikan (mandarin) tree gives them shade in the hottest times of the day.

The sweet potato and okra bed

Alma Paprikas

Cute little fiery orange flowers on the edible canna (canna edulis)

The "Salada Musume" gobo (burdock) had a rough start having their leaves constantly eaten by snails and night time caterpillars (don't know what those pests are called) Notice that the shady side of the bed has larger healthier leaves. Since they are Japanese plants in origin, I'm guessing that they don't like our SoCal scorching sun.

Mangoes, YES! I picked on small one off. It was about 4" long since it wasn't growing as fast as the others, brought it indoors and placed it on a ripening banana and lo and behold it ripened up enough for us to eat it! It was a bit tart, but my son and I loved it! Can't wait for the regular sized fruit when they are ready to pick!

Blackberry bramble. There's a small Sapote tree we grew from seed, on the bottom left side of the pic by the blue basil. Can you spot it? It's been growing really well this year with the extra nitrogen rich compost.

Blackberries ripening

Chaya Spinach tree (Cnidoscolus chayamansa) blossoming this year!

Herb Garden

Tree Collard/Kale

This bed had kabocha pumpkin, black radish going to seed, cilantro going to seed and Komatsuna greens. It's all done now, so I chopped up the dead dry branches from the black radish and cilantro and currently drying the remaining leaves from the komatsuna.

Taro root has established itself and is really taking off. Before it takes over the garden, my Mom wanted to plant the Bitter melon vine(the pale green plant). on the right of that are the Chinese Yams (dioscorea batatas)

Homegrown Meals

2011-07-25T01:33:00.000-07:00

Curry flavored Fried Rice with HG zukes, carrots, green beans, green onions and bell peppers. Other ingredients are organic (O) ground turkey, (O) bulb onion, (O) white rice, sea salt, black pepper and (O) curry powder.

Spagetti with meat sauce: HG tomatoes, HG zukes, HGbell peppers, HG oregano and HG basil. Other ingredients include (O) brown rice noodles, sea salt, mushrooms and (O) bulb onion

Veggie Soup: HG swiss chard, HG zukes, HG carrots, HG tomatoes and HG rakkyo(Allium chinense). Other ingredients include (O) bulb onion, (O) home-made chicken broth, sea salt, (O) coriander and pepper

Turkey hamburger steak, HG swiss chard greens and roasted (HG) carrots and (O) onions

I'll do a Garden Update soon, I promise!

Harvest Updates

2011-07-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! I'm back! My father-in-law generously gifted his clan with an all expense paid Alaskan cruise, so we were gone for a week! During that time, my mom looked after our garden, and she said she ate LOTS of produce and gave a lot away too, so no pictures of those.... :-( These harvest pics are from before the trip.

Smile for me!

Thinned carrots

Shiso, Eggplants, Orange and Pepper

Peppers and eggplant

We're starting to taper off on the strawberries as the plants are producing runners now

Below are the harvests AFTER we came back from the trip:

Currently we are harvesting: Kyohou Grapes

A day's bounty (OK the grapes got a shot in this one too, it's the same bunch)

cherry tomatoes, strawberries, thinned carrots, peppers, zucchini, green tomatoes, cucumbers, and one walking onion

New Zealand spinach

Shiso(perilla), kabocha pumpkin, figs, blackberries, strawberries, tomatoes, green beans, and zucchini

Eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, figs, strawberries and baby corn

Homegrown Meals

2011-07-05T00:45:00.000-07:00

Veggie Stir Fry with Turkey Bacon

Shimesaba (vinegared mackerel) locally caught at New Port Beach pier along with pickled Komatsuna (Tsukemono) on rice

A lovely exchange from an awesome friend. I gave her a jar of homegrown strawberry jam and she offered me a bag full of homegrown potatoes! Yum!

I make potato salad with the above potatoes; HG carrots, HG cucumbers & HG sunchokes in there as well. Num num!

Some potatoes made it to a 4th of July BBQ too! The BBQ'd veggies have some HG zucchini, HG tomatoes, and HG peppers too.

Diseased Tomatoes

2011-07-04T02:05:00.000-07:00

Of course, our garden isn't perfect. Especially the new raised beds, the soil there is new and there are still a lot of nutrients missing from it. These tomatoes are suffering from blossom end rot. It's a common disease and the only problem is the lack of calcium in the soil. I'll grind up some calcium supplements to amend the soil for now. Grinding up egg shells will take too long for the calcium to leach out at this point. Sea shells ground up will work too but it will also take time to leach into the soil. I use Calcium Lactate, it's much more soluble than Calcium Carbonate, and it's better for your own bones too.

Garden Updates, July 3rd, 2011

2011-07-03T23:48:00.000-07:00

It's been HOT! Summer has really kicked in! Happy 4th of July everyone!

Corn and Bush Bean bed is doing well, except for todays blazing temps. 97F!

Scorched bean leaf

Kyohou grapes turning color

Here you can see Swiss Chard(they are shaded half the day by the Kumamoto Mandarin tree and seem to love it that way), Carrots & Onion Bed, Sweet Potato and Okra bed (with Marigolds), Pepper Bed, and a corner of the Pumpkin & Corn bed. You can also see the Valencia Orange, Fig and Kumquat tree against the back wall.

Sunflower seeds are forming, it's amazing to think 1 sunflower seed can make hundreds!

Taro plant has taken root well and is sending up new leaves

Chinese Yam vine ( Cinammon Vine; Dioscorea Batatas) starting to climb the trellis, can't wait for the tiny "air" potatoes!

close up on the Pumpkin & Corn bed

Eggplants and Pepper Bed doing pretty good

We are always incredibly amazed at the prodigious productivity of this little fig tree!

The volunteer Tomato is also incredibly productive!

Here's a close up on the carrot + onion bed

Sweet Potato, Okra and Marigold bed

The Burdock are suffering from severe damage... :-( It seems this bed (the one in the former pond) is a difficult one to maintain. Always something wrong. We lost all the echinacea seeds, the carrots had root-knot nematodes (we sprayed organic wild sesame seed oil: Dragon-Fire SSP and that resolved the problem)

Adjacent to the Burdock bed is thriving! Here's the Edible Canna (Canna Edulis) I grew from seed. Behind it on the right is the Oca (Oxalis Tuberosa), on the right of that is a Kidney Bean plant, and behind it are Edible Chrysanthemum. To the left is a Pelagornium.

Mango! I think our *hope* is growing!

White Sapote we grew from seed. Behind it are the Thornless Blackberry

Garden Updates (Frontyard), June 30th, 2011

2011-07-03T23:29:00.000-07:00

The lovely Plumerias are starting to bloom

One little Avocado on our Haas tree!

Here's an Akane apple fattening up

Here's a Fuji apple!

One single Persimmon this year! :-)

An out of season Satsuma mandarin

Mums and Pansy under the Satsuma tree

front garden flowers

Harvest Updates, July 3rd, 2011

2011-07-03T10:16:00.000-07:00

It's summer-time! Strawberries, Green Beans, Grapes, Zucchini, Eggplants, Tomatoes, Cumbers are coming in!

First Blackberries of the season too~!

summer bliss <3

First Anaheim Pepper of the season! (oh and a baby Alma Paprika too)

We went on a Grunion Hunt! Only 3 fish though... There were only a few grunion coming up to spawn. I don't think if I can count this as homegrown food, but it was locally harvested (we live 45 miles from the ocean, that's local, right?)

Harvest Updates, Tues. May 29th

2011-06-29T00:11:00.000-07:00

Shungiku (edible chrysanthemums)

Green Grapes and Cherry Tomatoes

Basil for drying

Toms, Grn Beans, Strawberries, Cuke and the first Eggplant of the season!

We found an over-grown cuke while cleaning out the cucumber vines!

Here are 2 more over-grown cukes! Does anyone have recipes to used these kinds of cucumbers? Zukes, Green Beans and Strawberries too!

Harvested tons of Swiss Chard, the stems in the large bowl, the leaves piled high in another bowl. Harvested the Big Max pumpkin and a little Kabocha pumpkin too. :-)

Harvest Update: June 24, 2011

2011-06-25T16:04:00.000-07:00

As you can see, our harvests are dependent on the season. We're getting LOTS of Strawberries, Green Beans, Cucumbers and Zucchinis. The Tomatoes are coming in more frequently as well. We have green grapes coming in, but we have a "Giant, 7 yr old, black-haired mouse"(aka- our hungry boy) eating them straight off the vine and they aren't getting a chance at harvesting! We're freezing a lot of the strawberries for later use, and our son loves them as a cold, frozen summer treat. He exclaimed, "These frozen strawberries are like popsicles but better, because they've got no sugar in them!" I totally agree!

Here, we harvested one Valencia Orange to try out. The top, greener portion of the orange was significantly more tart than the bottom half of the orange. I guess we'll have to wait on them a little more!

Homegrown meals

2011-06-25T15:54:00.000-07:00

Strawberries in yogurt(coconut milk)

Stir-fry with HG Zukesm Carrots, Green Beans and store-bought organic bean sprouts and organic beef sausages cut into strips

Salad for dinner made from: HG Tomatoes, Cukes and Sunchokes and Farmer's Market Lettuce. Our Lettuces are still a bit too small to harvest.

Another stir-fry dish; HG Carrots, Garlic Chives, Green Beans, Zukes and Sunchokes. Store-bought organic bean sprouts and gluten-free soy sauce.

Making some Fig Jam w/ last year's frozen figs, to make room for this year's harvest. The 1st pic is of the frozen figs I thawed partially in water to peel off the skins, then cut them up in the pot. The 2nd pic is the jam in progress. Cooking it until the liquid evaporates enough to make a thick jam.

Garden Updates

2011-06-21T01:20:00.000-07:00

Pumpkin and Corn bed. The Corn are still very small plants.

Kabocha Pumpkins, Big one & a small one

Big Max Pumpkin & Japanese Cuke

Corn and Bush-bean bed

Yummy green grapes ripening in the warm sun

It's a mango!

4-Season Lettuce seedlings

OK, for a more artisitic view of the garden:

This piece is something I want to title: "Bite". The sunlight's glow is the focus of this pic.

Despite the damage received by insects, the sunlight shines through the hole and the Shiso plant displays beauty and hope.

This piece is called "Self Portrait". It's a photo of my world with myself in this photo. I like the multiple layers that resembles me.

Harvest Updates, June 21st

2011-06-21T00:50:00.000-07:00

Here we go again with our weekly harvest pics! So, we have Zukes, Cukes, Green Beans, Strawberries, Tomatoes, Garlic Chives, Chard, NZ Spinach, Yomogi, Parsley and some new additions to the harvest; Green Grapes and a Giant Fig!

Garlic Chives

Chard Stems

Chard Greens

NZ Spinach

Yomogi and Parsley

Here's the pic of the Giant Fig, this is a 9" dinner plate

The fig compared with a Quarter

Homegrown Meals

2011-06-14T00:53:00.000-07:00

Here's what I've managed to capture this week. I didn't get a chance to take a pic of the homemade pizza. Although I don't think the pizza counts much for being homegrown since the only thing home-grown was the Oregano and Basil that went into the sauce and the Rosemary that went into the altered gluten-free Focaccia recipe for the dough.

Cold Salad with HG Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Carrots and Sunchokes. It also includes Coho Salmon, Potato Starch Noodles, Vegenaise (our son is allergic to eggs, so no Mayonaise), and Organic Mustard

This is Hiyashi Chuka, HG ingredients are: Carrots, Green Beans, Cucumbers. Bought items are organic turkey bacon, organic chicken breast, organic bulb onions, and noodles. That and gluten-free soy sauce, organic rice vinegar, toasted sesame oil and organic agave nectar.

Harvest Updates, Monday June 13th

2011-06-14T00:41:00.000-07:00

Currently we're harvesting Zucchinis, Cucubmers, Green Beans, Strawberries, Amaranth, Garlic Chives, Shiso(perilla) and Tomatoes. We also picked the last of the Kumquats

Still with me? LOL...after so many similar pictures I wonder...

Here are 3 bouquets of flowers that were gifted to the teachers and principal. All home-grown and pesticide free!

Garden Updates, June 14th

2011-06-14T00:36:00.000-07:00

Early morning view from the Breakfast Table

The view from our kitchen sink

The newest bed had sprouted! Bush beans and corn!

Tim started the new bed next to it.

mushrooms growing from a lemon tree stump

Chinese Yams

Onion seedlings transplanted with carrots

The Mums are in full bloom!

Day Lilies, these are edible too!

Close-up on the Rose of Sharon

Blackberry blossoms

Dark burgundy Pelargoniums

More Pelargoniums, small ones

Periwinkle colored flowers (looks washed out here)

Flowers of June

2011-06-07T16:58:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how fast this year has flown by!!! Here we are already have done with this year, plants just keep growing and blooming. Here's our June flowers, enjoy!

Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus Syriacus)

Salmon colored Alstroemeria

Pink Calla Lily

2 kinds of purple: Geranium Clarkei "Kashmir purple" in the foreground and Spiderwort (Tradescantia) in the background

Airy, papery dancing dainties: Mexican Primrose.

I love these flowers, they're so hardy yet appear so delicate

Zucchini blossoms are so large and bright, they shout out: "Look at Me!!!"

Burgundy colored Pelargoniums

Camomile

Hairy Vetch (purple) and Cilantro

Dokudami flowers

Roses are red...

Violets are Blue

Sunflowers are happy

...and Feverfew

Mums

Amaranth

Garden Updates: June 7th

2011-06-07T09:49:00.000-07:00

We just had a nice rain on Sunday night. Rain just seems to make things grow so much more than our regular waterings. Here are pots with bulb onion starts. I plan to interplant them with the carrots.

Here's the volunteer Kabocha Pumpkin, it's the most vigorous and productive so far!

Unfortunately, Tim accidentally tipped the wheel barrow full of dirt right onto the pumpkin. It suffered quite a few broken leaves :-( Fortunately the fruits weren't damaged

This is the "new" 20x20 area now growing Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Zucchini, Lettuce, Shiso and Pumpkin. I just planted Corn and Kidney Beans in the newest bed.

We're moving the some of the Strawberries in pots to the concrete area surrounding the 20x20 area so we can better utilize this area to plant more food! We used to have a bed here, then had it removed because Mom wanted an area to process the leaves and branches after pruning, but I felt it was a waste of space. As you can see, our garden is always evolving. I planted the Chinese Yams near the wire trellis

Here they are close-up

Valencia Oranges are starting to ripen. They are usually best around July

The north wall with Eggplant, Amaranth, Green Onion, Camomile, and Garlic Chives. I also planted some Kidney Beans that will replace the Amaranth when we harvest the Amaranth soon

The Okra have sprouted among the Sweet Potatoes. Hoping they will grow fast enough before the Sweet Potatoes start their vigorous ivy-like growth.

Burdock seedlings have sprouted

Oca (Oxalis Tuberosa) is doing well in the "pond" area and also in the pots.

Here's a close-up on the potted Oca. They look like clovers but with furry leaves

Should I hope??? We have a few Mangoes clinging on. I don't know if they will stay

The giant hole has been filled!!!

Tim strung up the Blackberry stems to avoid damaging them while filling the hole.

This is the east side wall

On the same east wall, we have a surviving Blue Basil (the rest were killed off with the unusually cold winter) Yellow Day Lily, Rakkyo and White Sapote seedling. The Sapote seedling(lower center) is finally growing some nice leaves after I gave it lots of manure

Kyohou Grapes are fattening up

Green Grapes are starting to look plump. I tried one of the bigger fruits but it was SOUR!!!

The Corn and Kidney Bean bed, (boot looks silly, but we were keeping it dry from the rain)

Amish Paste Tomatoes (there's 3 here can you find them?)

The Big Max pumpkin didn't get too big. It's starting to turn orange already

Harvest Updates: Monday, June 6th

2011-06-06T14:55:00.000-07:00

Here's our harvest since Fri, 5/27/2011:
New Zealand Spinach, Strawberries, and Green Beans

Mom's Breakfast greens: Zuke flowers, Komatsuna, and Strawberry Geranium leaves

Cukes, Zuke, Toms and Strawberries

Yu Mai Tsai Lettuce

More of Mom's Breakfast greens: Zuke flowers, Komatsuna, Spearmint and Strawberry Geranium leaves

Strawberries, Green Beans & Cukes

Garlic Chives

Mom's been on a roll...Breakfast greens: Zuke flowers,
Komatsuna, and Strawberry Geranium leaves

Romaine Lettuce, Strawberries, Zuke, Cukes and Green Beans

Front Garden Strawberries and Green Beans

More of Mom's Breakfast greens: Zuke flowers, Komatsuna, Lettuce, Spearmint, Strawberry Geranium leaves and Strawberries. With a side of Turkey Bacon (organic)

Shungiku Greens

Toms and Cukes

Mom's been on a roll...Breakfast greens: Zuke flowers, Spearmint

and Strawberry Geranium leaves

Even more front garden Strawberries and Green Beans

Food fun!

There's a party going on! Rainbow Chard

Homegrown Meals, No Sugar Strawberry Jam

2011-06-06T12:40:00.000-07:00

Homegrown meals, this isn't everything we've eaten through the week, since mealtimes are the busiest times.

Here's a meal with homegrown Zukes, Komatsuna, Carrots and Shungiku. The fried smelt is in potato starch batter, that was store-bought.

Bibimbap without the seasoned ground turkey

(it wasn't finished in time for this pic and I was really hungry)

"Potato" Salad with HG Potatoes, Sun-chokes, Carrots, Cucumbers. Also, eggs from Farmer's Market, and store-bought mayo. The Sun-chokes aren't to obtrusive if eaten this way.

No Sugar Jam with Stevia and pectin

Harvest Updates, Friday June 2nd

2011-06-03T09:36:00.000-07:00

Here's our Harvests for the week:
Strawberries and Mitsuba

Lettuce

Colorful Swiss Chard

My Mom's Garden Breakfast: Shiso, Strawberry Geranium and Komatsuna leaves with a Zucchini blossom. (With a side of organic turkey bacon)

Cuke, Zuke Green Beans, Toms and Strawberries

More Cuke, Zuke Green Beans, Toms and Strawberries

Lots of Komatsuna

Kumquats

Green Beans, Strawberries and Cuke

New Zealand Spinach

We're nearing the end of Kumquat season

My Mom's Garden Breakfast: Strawberry Geranium and Lettuce leaves with a Zucchini blossom. (With a side of organic turkey bacon)

Garden Updates

2011-06-01T20:08:00.000-07:00

Tada!!! Finally, the new bed is finished. The peppers were *supposed* to go here, but we put those in the ground already where the potatoes were(had to dig the taters out early grrrr) .... So, I'm thinking Kidney Beans and Corn here!

Here's the Chard, Bush Beans and Lupini bean bed

Here's the Chard and the Royal Purple Bush Beans up close

The large tree is the Loquat tree. This is the "Before" pic.
I'm doing some major pruning to it right now.

Here it is in mid-progress. Why am I cutting it so severely? These trees grow extremely fast. When one branch grows, it extends about 2' and each year there are about 3 growth spurts. So, in one season, this tree can easily grow 6'!!!

The Tomato that never quits. This Tomato grew on it's own in the middle of winter and survived to produce hundreds of bite sized sweet tomatoes. Each fruit is about 2" long and a brownish color. Not pretty but very tasty.

Here's our Brown Turkey figs, I'm always amazed at this tree. It's only about 7' tall and it always grows 7 or 8 clusters of figs on each branch.

Little Kabocha Pumpkin from a volunteer plant

Navel oranges are the size of a golfball now

Kyohou grapes are fattening up!

We bought a Patio table and chair set at a yard sale for $65.
We just need to reupholster the seats and they'd be good as new!

Here are the chairs... we want to place the set under the Grape Trellis
in the front garden once we put the fence around our property.

Hi Lori!

Here's the back side area, the giant hole is still there by the Blackberry bramble waiting to be filled

Blackberries in progress... can't wait for dark, sweet, tartness

It's hard to tell, but I planted Sweet Potato slips where the Celery had been growing. Guess how I obtained these slips? It's kind of a gamble, but I purchased them at the Farmer's Market. They were selling them as greens to sautée

The left vine is Passion Fruit, The middle lower part is Chayote and Morning glory. I've got to move fast and plant the Ground Nuts and Chinese Yam (Nagaimo) as well!

This is under the Fig tree. Can you see the yellow 4 o'clock? Look in the foreground and you can see a stick with writing on it. That's where I direct seeded the Comfrey

Here is where the "Salada Musume" Burdock seeds were planted

Eggplants and Bell Peppers growing steadily

Tree Kale thinking happy thoughts

It's starting to look like a jungle! In the foreground are the

Zukes, Cukes, Pumpkin, Lettuce and Green Shiso

Garden Work/Seed Planting & Tips on rooting Basil from the Grocery Store

2011-05-30T23:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I planted "Salada Musume" Gobo (牛蒡 or ごぼう, burdock) seeds. They are a short variety and don't get as long as the normal burdock which can get as long as 4'! They were planted in the back area of the pond bed. That area was *supposed* to grow Echinacea, but all but one plant failed to grow! I never seem to have luck with Echinacea... We purchase supplements from our Nutritionist and thought how great it would be to grow our own, but alas we've failed once again. Sigh.... I'll keep trying though. Does anyone have any tips besides placing it in the fridge in moist potting soil for 4~6 weeks?

Today, I started trimming the Loquat tree. It's hard work to trim trees and I run out of steam quickly, so I'll be doing in over the next few days. We've decided to cut the branches far back so we can keep the tree small and the fruit accessible. I transplanted a few bulb onion seedlings to the carrot bed, I don't know how they'll do, I know Anne and Kathy commented that I should be starting my seeds in Dec, but I'm learning as I go. They *may* be ready to bulb next year. I also planted Four Seasons Lettuce in a few gallon sized pots and placed them on our seedling rack which has been moved to the shade for the hot summer months.

I also planted a few Comfrey seeds under the fig tree (yes, they can be invasive) but they are said to be excellent compost/mulch makers since they draw up minerals from deep within the soil. I want to use it as a slash and mulch plant. It's a vigorous grower from what I read and it can be slashed to be used as mulch and will grow back quickly where you can get 3 "harvests" of mulch in a season. Why under the Fig? Our fig, (we think it's a dwarf strain of Brown Turkey) has a very shallow root system, and we thought it can benefit from the deep rooted Comfrey's ability to draw up the minerals from beneath. The fig tree roots are so shallow, we can't plant anything there unless we seed it directly. Comfrey can be used medicinally, it's alternate name is "Knitbone" as it has potent ability to hasten wound healing, but there's a warning to those with liver problems to stay away from it.

We have some yellow 4 o'clocks planted there under the fig tree also (yes, they can be super invasive as well!) as they have very tap root systems. My Mom dreads that I have brought home the seeds from one of my walks around the neighborhood, because they are so prolific. 4 o'clocks bring back childhood memories of wild ones growing right by my house across the street in Japan. They were hot pink or yellow or streaky ones with with both hot pink and yellow. The young leaves can be boiled and eaten, but only in emergencies (It's just not yummy).

I planted Mexican Coriander (Culantro), Dill and Cumin. All these are part of the Carrot Family (Apiaceae). I plant seeds, yet sometimes I'm caught trying to figure out WHERE I'm going to grow these plants once the seedlings are large enough.

I planted 2 pots of Asparagus Pea just to try. Supposedly they grow fine in the heat. I've also planted Spilanthes which is a creeping ground cover that is supposed to have benefits to the immune system and is called the "Toothache plant". I seeded a few Purple Orach as well in small pots to start them, and will prick them out as they grow.

Tomorrow I will plant the Blue Basil cuttings since they have rooted only from letting the cuttings sit by a bright window sill in a cup of water. Try this next time with Sweet Basil too! If you don't have any Basil already, this is a FAST way to get a new plant going, and you'll get to use most of the basil leaves before you do it so you're getting food and a few plants!

1) Purchase some Organic Basil in the herb section of the fresh produce area inside)
2) For each sprig of Basil herb, take off the larger leaves and side shoots. You can use this for your culinary purposes. Leave only the top 3~4 leaves (they will be small; just be coming out of the tip) 3)Keep them in a clean glass of water by a bright window and in a week or 2 you'll have roots growing from them.
4)Once they have roots, you can transplant them into pots and harden them off for a few days and you're ready to plant them outside if it's warm enough.
This is a great way to multiply your plants quickly, as growing them from seed can be frustrating as they do take some time to grow and are susceptible to slugs.

Harvest Updates Friday, May 27th

2011-05-27T22:38:00.000-07:00

Green Shiso

Lettuce, Cuke and Strawberries

Garlic Chives

Broccoli Leaves and the rest of the Bok Choi

Parsley

More Strawberries!

Shungiku (edible chrysanthemum) and some Yu Choy

Swiss Chard, Ckues and more Shungiku

Oregano for drying

Here's our Drying Station, our "formal" dining table

Lettuce, Cukes, Zukes and Strawberries

Garden Updates, May 24th

2011-05-24T09:43:00.000-07:00

Here's the bed with Chard and Bush beans. I'm trialing the Lupini beans here too.

The taller "In-N-Out" palmtree (image link is not mine) looking things are mature Romaine lettuces we're collecting seeds from.

Just cleared the Celery from this bed. We're planning on planting Bulb Onions here. We use a LOT of bulb onions but haven't had much success growing them. We buy Short Day varieties but, they don't grow well. I think the soil may be lacking sulphur and phosphorus. According to other sites, onions need these to bulb well. Not sure how to acquire those elements though.

The bed that had the potatoes now has a new look: Peppers!

The not so great bed. This has 2 Kabocha pumpkin plants growing along with Komatsuna and Yu Choy. The Kabochas are not thriving at all. There's one that has one baby punkin growing but the other is turning yellow. We think it's a nutrient deficiency. Pumpkins require enormous amounts of compost. They prefer growing in nearly raw compost!

Royal Purple Bush Beans. We're letting them mature to collect the seeds.

Herb/flower Garden: Rosemary, Oregano, Thyme, Sage, Shungiku (edible Chrysanthemum), Dianthus, Lavender, Oca, Pelargonium, Alpine Strawberries, and Garlic Chives in the back left

We'ee in the process of moving our compost bins to under the Loquat tree. We have 3 bins all together. 2 have been placed. Just waiting for the 3rd bin's contents to finish composting, then it'll be moved.

Sleepy kitty lounging on the bench

Harvest Updates, Tues. May 24th

2011-05-24T09:21:00.000-07:00

It's been rather overcast and cold these few days, but the Garden is still producing well. It feels like a it's JUST becoming spring rather than the actual season this time of year, where summer should be just around the bend.

Here we have Rosemary & Camomile for drying, Zucchinis, Cucumbers,

Royal Purple Bush Beans, and Strawberries

We had to dig up the Potatoes early since the Bell Peppers just couldn't wait for the bed that Tim's been working on. Got a decent harvest but, a bit on the wanting side for 3/4 of a bed. I suppose it's not bad for 2 months in the soil, we planted the seed potatoes around March 16th. Here's a pic of the seed taters on March 14th. The larger ones we harvested, we'll NOT eat. We're going to dry them and put them in the fridge to let it "over winter" for a few weeks then plant them again. This is experimental, as I don't know if potatoes like our scorching hot summers.

Mom LOVES potatoes, got too excited about the potatoes and cooked them and ate quite a few before I got around to take pic of these little potatoes!

Some strawberries and an under-ripe lemon to compare in size

Cucumbers, Lettuce, Shiso (Perilla) and Strawberries

Celery, Bok Choy, Yu Choi, Green Onions (Wakegi type), Cilantro and Cukes

The line up: Strawberries, Zukes, Cukes, and the volunteer Tomatoes.

The Toms don't look pretty, they've got that dingy brown Brandywine color but, they are sweet and a nice bite size snack.

Mint, this type goes well with meats

Strawberries...Yummmm!

Homegrown Meals

2011-05-19T00:02:00.000-07:00

Made some Mochi

The inside has "An" made from Broad Beans we harvested.

Daikon radish leaves being pickled

All veggies here are homegrown: Carrots, Chard, Chives and Yu Choy

Today's Harvest

2011-05-18T21:36:00.000-07:00

The strawberries just keep comin' (no not complaining at all!) Front yard berries

Some berries from the backyard, the last of the Loquats , some Yu Choy, Komatsuna and a Japanese Cuke hiding behind the Komatsuna leaf

Daikon Radishes, Daikon leaves and LOTS of Bok Choy

Garden Updates, May 18th

2011-05-18T21:11:00.000-07:00

They say April showers bring May flowers but, we've been getting quite a bit of rain these past 2 days. We got a total of 2", which I think is rare for this time of year.

The Daikon radishes and most of the Bok Choy were pulled this morning.

You can see the holes where the fat Daikon roots were.

I've planted some carrots in between the Bok Choy and Daikon and many of them have sprouted.

The Spanish Black Radish and Cilantro have become monstrous and is caving into itself. Still flowering profusely and attracting a lot of honey bees and beneficial insects like the parasitic wasp.

The volunteer tomato agains the back wall is a very productive vine. I think it's crossed between a Roma Tomato and Cherry Tomato.

Big Max Pumpkin growing steadily.

Japanese Cucumbers are doing well.

Looks like it will be a sunny day tomorrow!

Homegrown Meals

2011-05-17T00:31:00.000-07:00

Hot Pot meal for a colder night: HG(home-grown) Carrots, Bok Choy, Shungiku, Green Onions and Zucchini. Bought items are the Coho Salmon, Ground Turkey, Organic (O) Ginger, (O) Garlic, Sea Salt & (O)Short-grain white rice.

Chinese Stir-fry with LOTS of HG Bok Choy and HG Carrots.

Bought items are Button Mushrooms, Garlic, (O) Chicken,

Sea Salt, Potato Starch for thickening the broth & (O)Short-grain white rice.

My Mom and I take turns cooking, and we don't always take pictures of what we make for dinner, but most of our meals includes at least one thing from the garden.

Garden Updates; May 16th

2011-05-17T00:11:00.000-07:00

Green Grapes coming along nicely, this vine is in a 15 gallon pot

Some of the Eggplants were planted where the Broad beans were growing.

Current garden; note the middle bed in the foreground has Yardlong beans growing but they have severe mosaic virus infestation. We will probably pull the plants up and boil them to kill the virus off, but we may have to solarize the soil in that bed too. We'll keep an eye on this bed.

Tomatoes growing strong and the cucumbers (next bed over) aren't being wimpy either.

Edible Canna lilies: Canna Edulis grown from seed

Just a view of the herb/flower garden

Harvest Updates, Monday May 16th

2011-05-16T23:47:00.000-07:00

Bok Choy, Seri and Loquats

Lettuce and Perilla

Strawberries, one for freezing, one for fresh eating and another for jam (by quality)

New Zealand Spinach, Bok Choy, Lettuce, Cucumber, Zucchini and Strawberries

Blue Basil for drying

I see a dancing pair of fat legs; lettuce and zucchinis

Strawberries, Swiss Chard, Yu Choy and Lettuce

Large bowl-full of Bok Choy....there's a quarter in the lower left for size comparison

Strawberries, Zucchini, Loquat, Shungiku and Lettuce

Drying Camomile for tea

More Blue Basil for drying

Flowers of May

2011-05-08T22:08:00.000-07:00

May is a lovely month here in Southern California or SoCal as we locals say. Though today was a bit off as we had some like sprinkling! And cold and windy too. The weather sure is erratic!

Beautiful Mexican Primrose. We keep these in the pot since they are extremely invasive

These roses were day-glow coral in the hazy sunlight. We like to dry these roses since they dry to a nice bright red and normal red roses dry to a dingy burgundy

Lavender-pink geraniums(pelargoniums)

Zucchini blossom says summer is near

Harvest Updates May 8th

2011-05-08T10:17:00.000-07:00

So, all these harvests are since the last update on May 5th. This is a LOT of food in just 3 days!!! Not including this morning's harvest yet either. As you can imagine our fridges are full! It's a good thing we have 2 fridges.
NZ Spinach and Shungiku

Cilantro and Strawberries

Bok Choi, Komatsuna and the remaining broad beans

Here my mom is helping me shell the broad beans

"V" for victory! hehe. Just finished harvesting the carrots. Happy Mother's Day Mom.

Here's the very blemished carrots, we'll use those up first

And here are the nice beautiful carrots all washed up. We use the wash water on the lawn and whatever else needs some water. We try our best to conserve the water since CA is a desert and we import water from CO. (If you want to learn more about that watch Blue Gold:World Water Wars

More NZ Spinach!

Celery, Cilantro, Green Beans and a bit of Strawberries

More Strawberries, some Cucumbers, a Zucchini and a little Bok Choi

Garden Updates, May 8th

2011-05-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother's Day to all Mom's out there! <3

Green baby grapes are growing rounder

Oca plants doing pretty good in pots. We have some in direct soil, so we'll see which performs better

The bed that had carrots. You can see the yard long bean seedlings in the center lane among the carrot leaf mulch. Some of them are exhibiting mosaic virus patches so that worries me

Bok Choi greens sheltering delicate Carrot seedlings while they germinate.

Daikon radish is starting to fatten up, I can't believe how fast these things grow! The seedling pics I took were dated March 31!

The Celery bed with the Eggplants in pots on the side. The Eggplants are ready for transplant

We just cleared the Broad Beans from the left side. (Potatoes on the right)

We're putting the Eggplants here

Mom decided to clear the edible weeds (Asiatic Dayflower) from behind the Valencia Orange. Those things grow so fast, we can't keep up with eating them because they are rather mucilaginous. She decided she'd rathe have more NZ Spinach there.

Volunteer mystery pumpkin thriving by the rock bucket near the new tomato bed

OK, here's a FAIL! Okra amongst Pumpkin and Cucumbers is a flop. The Okra grow too slowly for the pumpkins and never really got to grow. I'll have to find a different spot for the Okra now

What worked well as I presumed were the Lettuces under the Pumpkin leaves. Nice and shady

Chard filling in nicely...now if only the caterpillars stopped making holes in them... So far no slugs even though we mulched.

Amish Paste Toms really like the trellis since they are rather floppy plants

Rogue thornless blackberry plant

On the left are the Asparagus, they are so fine, it's hard to see them. The foreground one has flowers.

The right side is the peach tree our neighbor brought to us which she grew from seed. We hope it's a good peach. I named it Alauria

Trouble on the Fuji Apple tree leaves. APHIDS have attacked! So far no ladybugs to devour the little pests. I may have to transplant a few ladybug babies from the backyard. I put too much manure based compost under this tree since the Strawberry plants enjoy nitrogen rich soil. I guess it's too rich for Apple trees.

Harvest Updates

2011-05-05T00:17:00.000-07:00

First Zucchinis and Cucumbers of the season! And lots of celery

LOTS of Loquats, a few strawberries, some carrots and our first green beans

Strawberries, cleaned and ready for jam making

Broad beans/fava beans! The ones on the plate are going to be dried for next year's plants, the ones one the side will be eaten. We have much more, too!

Loquats, Yu Mai Tsai (chinese lettuce), Yomogi for mochi and Strawberry Saxifraga leaves for tea

Strawberries, Komatsuna, Carrots, smaller Broad beans and a couple of loquats