Lacto-fermented Pickles

I was so excited to make lacto-fermented pickle slices with cucumbers from my garden this year.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, and I don't even know how to describe what I got.  Effervescent pickles?  The pickles have a certain fizziness that triggers my "don't eat that" reflex.  That's usually how you tell if something's gone bad, right? 

I'm trying to eat them.  We'll see...

Home Sweet Home

We just got back from vacation on Saturday -- 2 weeks of eating fried chicken, french fries, greasy sandwiches and very few vegetables.  I couldn't wait to get back into the kitchen!  I hit up the farmer's market yesterday morning to pick up good eggs, milk, beef and veggies.  J made tomato sauce with the San Marzano tomatoes from our garden.  I used the milk to make 2 quarts of yogurt.  (I have a new and improved yogurt method that I will post about soon.)  I also sliced up one of our pickling cucumbers to try out Nourishing Traditions' lacto-fermented pickles.  They are currently fermenting on the counter, and I have to wait until tomorrow to try them.

Unfortunately our garden suffered a bit while we were gone even though Mama K came over to water regularly.  The sugar snap pea plants are completely done, as in dried out and brown.  I'm afraid we may have completely missed bean season, although I'm holding out hope that another batch will appear.  Our herbs were huge and mostly gone to seed.  Note for next year -- don't go on vacation during peak produce season!  Luckily our tomatoes have been loving the hot weather.  The Green Zebra is literally breaking under the weight of all the tomatoes.  Mama K picked a few ripe tomatoes while we were gone and put them in the fridge for us.  We sliced up the most amazing tomato last night.  I think it was a Brandywine.

I almost forgot...we came back from vacation with 10 lbs of frozen sour cherries!  Take a look at the tasty pie I made.

Garden Update

Our little garden is cruising right along.  We've had two good harvests of sugar snap peas, and we will probably do one more tonight.  The plants don't seem to be re-generating peas as quickly and some of the leaves are turning yellowish brown, so we may be near then end of the season for sugar snap peas. 

Next up to eat are the peppers.  We plan to use our banana peppers to make stuffed peppers tomorrow night, and the green peppers should be great in chicken fajitas on Tuesday.   

We've just started to see the first reddening of our tomatoes and should have a good crop in a few weeks.  A few cucumbers have appeared and the largest is probably 3 inches long.  Our herbs are growing like crazy, and we have a batch of dill drying in the basement.

Garden: Before and After

Wow, the garden has grown in the last few weeks.  Our sugar snap peas have outgrown their trellis and are taking over the cucumber supports.  We have tiny green tomatoes on most of the tomato plants.  A few peppers have even made an appearance.  While the dill is quite hearty, we are still waiting for the rest of the herbs to take off. 

Here are some photos taken on June 5:

Just 6 days later:

And 8 days after that:

How does your garden grow?

In the few weeks since I last posted, our garden has grown like crazy!  The sugar snap peas are almost to the top of the trellis we built (about 3 feet or so).  The tomato and pepper plants look very hardy and have little blossoms starting to open.  The pole beans and cucumbers are several inches tall and, after a slow start, our herbs have gotten going.  The only issue we have had is with the bush beans.  We soaked all the bean seeds (pole and bush) for 15 minutes or so prior to planting.  The pole beans all shot up in no time.  After waiting and waiting, one bush bean sprout (out of four seeds planted) shot out of the ground.  It seriously went from zero to 2 inches over night.  Since then it's been poking along.  The other 3 seeds never made an appearance, and it didn't help that someone stepped in that part of the bed.  A few days ago I decided to try again.  I put the seeds in water and promptly forgot about them, so they got soaked for at least an hour and a half.  No sign of any new sprouts yet, and I'm a little worried that the rapidly growing pole bean plants might be providing too much shade.

I should have some fantastic pictures to post soon because we just got a fancy new camera.  I waiting for the card reader to arrive in the mail, so I can transfer the photos to the computer.

Plants are in the ground

Since we are pretty sure that there will not be any more frosts, we decided to go ahead and put all of our plants in the garden beds.  I used the Gardner's Supply Company's garden planning tool to lay-out the garden ahead of time.  I wish I could figure out how to post my diagram.  Each 6x2 bed contains 12 square foot plots.  In the first bed, we have 2 peas (planted a few weeks ago and growing well!), 2 cucumbers, a pole bean and a bush bean on one end, and 6 tomatoes on the other end.  The second bed contains two more tomatoes and 4 peppers on one end, and a mix of herbs -- basil (2), cilantro (2), dill, green onion -- on the other end.  All of the herbs, as well as the beans and cucumbers, we planted from seed.  We obtained the tomato and pepper plants from a local nursery.  This is all a big experiment for us, so we are excited to see the results.  Crossing my fingers that everything grows :-)

On another note, I need to post about my ongoing craft projects.  I just started knitting a shawl this morning, and I'm still working on my sweater.  I also have started sewing an easy skirt, but I need to swing by Mama K's to get additional instructions.

Tomato Plants

My main gardening goal for this year is to can tomatoes.  We go through a ridiculous amount of canned tomatoes throughout the year, and I would love to have a homemade stash on hand.  Lately, we've been buying canned San Marzano tomatoes because they are supposed to be the best for sauce (and that's what all the Food Network chefs use!).  Luckily, Grow Pittsburgh is offering San Marzano starts this year, so we took a trip to a nearby nursery yesterday to pick up a few.  They only had 5 plants, so we cleaned them out.  We also got an Italian Sweet, a Brandywine and a Green Zebra.  One the pepper side, we got two Bounty Sweet Banana Pepper plants and one each of New Ace and Gourmet Orange.  I had planned to grow heirloom peppers from seed, but it didn't work out for me.  The lack of direct sunlight coming into our house should help keep it cool this summer, but it's not good for growing things.  We are waiting until next weekend to plant them outside just to make sure we are really truly frost-free.

In other garden news, the pea seeds I recently planted in our garden box sprouted this week and are growing quickly.  Also, our lettuce is doing well, but I should have planted much more.  I'll have to expand for the fall crop of lettuce.

First Seeds in the Ground!

Today was a beautiful warm and sunny day.  When I came from the Urban Dare race, I found that J had erected the fence we were planning around our raised beds.  It's just made out of 4' metal stakes and some heavy duty chicken wire, but we think it will be enough to keep the wildlife out.  We get deer, rabbits and even turkeys wondering through our yard regularly.

We took (another) quick trip to Home Depot to pick up mulch for our flower bed and enough topsoil and manure to finish filling up our raised beds.  Once we got the raised beds ready to go, I planted our first seeds in the ground -- two squares (9 seeds each) of sugar snap peas.  For everything else, we will wait a few more weeks until the threat of frost is gone.  I am trying to start our peppers (both bell and banana) inside, but no sprouts yet.  I was worried that the pods weren't getting enough (or any?) sun in our office window, so I moved them downstairs.  Sadly, our house doesn't get much natural light because of trees and the proximity of our neighbors.

This year I ordered most of our seeds from PA Seed Savers.  There is apparently some restriction on the buying/selling of heirloom seeds in PA unless you are part of a club.  Consequently, $2 of the shipping fees we paid actually purchased our annual membership.  Kind of weird.  I'm very excited about the seeds though.  According to the website, PA Seed Savers serves to make more varieties of heirloom seeds legally available to PA residents, and heirloom varieties consistently grown here should adapt to our environment and become more fruitful.  

Flower Bed

During a trip to Home Depot this weekend, we got sucked in by all the pretty flowers on display.  We walked in planning to purchase a propane tank and walked out with a cartful of flowers (and the propane tank). 

We live in a rental with a large yard, but much of it is covered in overgrown shrubbery and scraggly trees.  However, there was a patch of dirt to the right of our front door where someone clearly had a garden at one point.  J did a great job clearing it out, pulling up old roots and turning up the soil.  Much of the patch only gets partial sun, so we had to be strategic in picking a variety of plants that would flourish in these conditions.

 
I'm most excited by the peony plant in the back right corner that was an Easter gift from my mother.  Once we get some mulch down and the plants establish themselves, I think the front of our house will look pretty respectable. 

Seedlings

I was so excited to see my first little sprouts poking up through the dirt this afternoon.  My lettuce is making an appearance.  See the little green specks?  I swear they are there! 
 

I'm getting a little antsy for the seeds I ordered to come in the mail.  I ordered them a week and a half ago.  I need to get my peas in the ground and my pepper seeds started inside.  Maybe they'll show up tomorrow...

It's Spring!

Look at my chives!  We just left the pot outside all winter and all of the sudden they were 5 inches tall.  I had no idea that chives were perennials.  Nice!

It's only April and I'm already behind on my gardening plan.  I'm trying to catch up though.  I ordered pea, bean and pepper seeds earlier this week.  Tonight I sowed left-over-from-last-year lettuce and arugula seeds in containers.  I also re-potted a houseplant that has miraculously survived a too small container and my black thumb for over a year now.

J built our beautiful  2' x 6' garden boxes and dug out space for them in the yard a few weeks ago.  Now we just need some more dirt and warmer weather. (Before the boxes were in place, we were worried the neighbors were going to think we had buried bodies in our yard!)