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.