Grandma's Big Tomato

Grandma writes us often, and we got a new letter from her yesterday with the picture above. The scale shows more than 2 pounds (for just one organic tomato grown in a container garden). The same tomatoe's different poses below.
Yes, we are swimming in tomato right now ;)

underwater gardens

2 weeks in Hawaii and 2 weeks of recovery and we are back in blogging ;)

snorkeling was so amazing... the photos don't do any justice...

I will upload some of our trip photos pretty soon...

And since we came back we are eating tomatoes from our garden if we can get them before the hungry birds! Tomato plants are just humongous!

Horseradish

Introducing our horseradish plant. We use the roots to make hot sauces and just found out that the leaves are edible too... this plant has some huge leaves and it is a perennial... and I just dream of this NPR Cranberry Relish and we do have some cranberries in the fridge!

Mexican Grass

This Mexican grass amazingly made it over the winter and seeding right now. Michael is so excited about it! We pet the grass coming in and out of our garden, hence it resides right at our garden entrance...

dill seeds & beet greens

The yellow little flowers will become the dill seeds, in the background lettuce and mint (which grows like weed)... I hope to dry lots of mint for winter... Have you had "chocolate mint"? It has a darker color and it smells like after eight chocolates, good to use in desserts... hmmm....

These are the beet greens... pretty handsome plant, we chop some in with salad...
It has been pretty hot (upper eighties), and no rain, so I have been watering the garden every night after work & yoga... Last weekend our friend JL put hose wheels for the community garden hoses, wow, what a difference that made! no more dragging that long hose... yeahhh

green tomatoes

Some shots from last night. Tomatoes are doing well. We have 36 tomato plants (thanks Grandma ;) , so many kinds, I will try to list the names soon... and a general shot of the garden below... heavy rains lately made everything grow like crazy... I need to start tying the tomato plants that become so heavy... we put out the lemon and mandarin trees that were in my office back in the garden... we are getting some lemons, yeah... Michael planted the two persimmon trees in the back, I wonder if we will get any persimmons, that would be fantastic... and we planted the beans and black-eyed-peas...

ps: do you see the garlic plant that escaped outside of the fence on the left, so cute!

edible flowers: nasturtiums

Grandma has 3 pots next to her door... green, white and orange... they are all planted with nasturtiums... and I eat a leaf or a flower when I visit her... Nasturtiums are so tasty, bitter like arugula... we planted some in our garden also... some are short, some are climbers, some are speckled, and in many colors: yellow, orange, red, burgundy, etc...

a kale seed story

When you look at this image carefully you can see the process of seed production in nature from flowers to seed pockets... those purple spikes dry up and open up later with dozens of tiny seeds inside of them... Kale seed anyone?

Lemon Verbena

We planted Lemon Verbena in the garden.... great as a tea, lemony... you can mix in some mint leaves also... or to garnish fruit salads maybe...

tiny baby rabbits

Fresh green chickpeas from the pod are wonderfully tasty and sweet... have you ever tried them?... and you can't find them easily... they remind me of my primary school days when farmers would sell them outside of our school yard in little bouquets.... so I planted chickpeas last year... plenty... they grew nicely... and one day they all disappeared... who ate my chickpeas?... and then I saw a rabbit in the garden... so I had mixed feelings for rabbits since then... until yesterday... when I saw these little guys in our community garden... not on our plot but another plot that I planted chickpeas last year also for donation... I counted 5 baby rabbits... they are really tiny (~3 inches)... and super cute... their eyes are closed... they push each other and jump once in a while... too cute... now I like rabbits again... but I won't plant chickpeas for myself this year... might plant some for them though!
ps: I think I know who ate most of our pea seeds this year!

addition: landscaped business cards anyone?

ostrich fern & fiddleheads

this fern is just sooo green and big, you just want to dive into it, at least I do...
well well, interestingly the young shoots are edible and called fiddleheads (cute name), who would know? and the fiddlehead capital of the world is, are you ready, Tide Head in New Brunswick in Canada... I thought for a while that we could go there easily, but it is far far away, 13 hours driving... so I better find some fiddleheads to make this Marinated Fiddlehead Salad...
(coincidentally Apartment Therapy Kitchen section also talks about fiddleheads today!)

rain is coming

Now that our garden is half planted, we look forward for a good rain.... Michael took this picture from his client's roof in Manhattan... amazing contrast!

(that building cuts like a knife ;)

Red Russian Kale

I love KALE.... so fantastic... here are the sweet babies, soon they will become huge leaves and I am gonna eat them as SALAD:

Cut the kale leaves to half an inch slices, then massage with some sea salt for 20 sec., then add dressing: olive oil, lemon juice and just a little agave nectar (or honey), and you can add whatever else you like: avocado, carrots, sprouts, red onions, etc. yum yum ;)

last year's leeks

Leeks are great, these ones we planted last year but they weren't big enough by fall so we just left them in the garden over the winter... but they seem to be ready now, I think I will pick them tonight and make a Turkish leek dish we love. (update: I made the dish, but instead of rice I used Quinoa, which turned out to be more delicious and nutritious!)

cold frame (before/after)

So we have this cold frame Grandma bought Michael for his birthday one year... we use it for winter growing. There are two pieces of plastic to cover the top. End of April, we forgot to open the covers in a very hot day and some things got almost cooked in there, ops! Here is the picture to prove the unhappy plants from April 22nd.

And look how they are right now below, 2 weeks later, we don't cover the top anymore as it doesn't go freezing during the nights. The picture is from May 6th. Arugula already seeded with flowers. They all seem to be doing fine, many kinds of lettuce, some radish, green onions, mint, etc.

tulips & cats

Pretty two color tulip! One of the things we are very happy about the community garden is to meet many cool people. We were visiting one of them last weekend at her home, and these tulips got my attention, but actually her cat wanted my attention (you are looking down at him!)

BIG MAMA!

M. was turning our compost and look what turned up! Okay, left is a big garden fork, but look at the lady on the right, of course I uncovered the soil and here is a nude picture of her below! We felt like we found a treasure when we saw this humongous worm, I would say it was half an inch thick, and maybe 10 inches long... anyways it was a beauty, M. calls her "Big Mama" ;)

We then covered her with soil again and left more yummy compost nearby, hope she is happy... It is really amazing how our soil has changed since we got the garden. At first the soil was dead, just small rocks, thousands of them, as they used our area for the highway construction... right now the soil is alive again... and so many treasures are hidden!

lilac in bloom

Outside of our community garden there are some beautiful plants, here are the two which are in full bloom right now... and smells wonderful!
The red flowers are the Flowering Quince.

printing garden

Last saturday I just kept silkscreening this image! dozens of times, on bags, tshirts, paper... couldn't get enough, this is a beautiful old image I found in an old gardening catalog from 1974.
When I am not in the garden I am still planting I guess ;)

lemon tree mosaic

There is a cool site called Image Mosaic Generator! to generate your own mosaic pictures for free in a very short time, try it, it is fun! Click on the picture above to see the details...