strawberry net

I built this net structure to keep birds away from our strawberries, which have been beginning to ripen. I think a rigid chicken-wire cage would be easier to work with--the net gets caught on everything and you have to pull it taught so it doesn't sag down in the middle.

We'll see how this strawberry thing goes--we might cut back on the area next time. It takes up a lot of space in our limited 100 sf.

balls! spinach balls!

We had a ball themed supper recently with friends. Everyone made and ate ball shaped food. It was a ball. (hah) One of our friends made spinach balls that were so good we had to recreate them for dinner. The basic idea is to mix together cooked spinach & onions, bread crumbs, feta cheese, eggs, and spices. Then you roll the mixture into balls and bake. The end.

broccoli rabe

What is broccoli rabe anyway? It's certainly not broccoli... It's more like kale or mustard greens. I suppose you eat it when you want to sound interesting or when you're eating so many greens that even a change in name sounds appealing...

Well, who cares, it was delicious. I followed a recipe in Veganomicon entitled "spicy tempeh and broccoli rabe with rotelle (pasta)." I would do it again. The tempeh flavoring was stellar. If you want the recipe, you should go to the library!

arugula pesto

Yikes! We harvested a ton of arugula! We have been eating it on sandwiches and in salads. We have been giving it away to friends. Now we are condensing it into arugula pesto (arugula, walnuts, parmesan, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt) and freezing it for convenient use at a later date... I like to make life easy for future me. =)

jardin esplodin

Our garden has been exploding in the past week. I've harvested two bunches of arugula and one of oak leaf lettuce, which is so delicious!

But the thing that looks the most monstrous in the garden is our radishes ("Chinese Rose Winter")--on the left in the photo. I'm a little disappointed that even though the leaves are at least twice the size of the regular "Early Scarlet Globe Radishes" (on the right), the roots are the same size or smaller. I know, the greens are edible, but not as enjoyable. Next year, I think I'll skip the Chinese Rose Winter radishes.

Left: Chinese Rose Winter; Right: Early Scarlet Globe

drip irrigation

We got drip irrigation system in, just in time for days and days of rain! We're using branches of drip-a-long (6" spaced holes) coming off of a 1/2" diameter main line. For our 100 sf, we spent under $100, including timer, pressure regulator, brass splitter, connections, and tubing (some I found in a freepile!). These compression fittings are pretty nice compared with the barb and hose-clamp type.

By the way, watch out for Gilmour brass splitters. I was about to buy one because it was the only one that was all-metal including the valves, but then read on the package that it contains lead--and to wash your hands after handling--yikes. So I went with an almost-all-metal one instead.

Also, we harvested our first radish....yesssss!

the porch

Our friend had this great idea to start a restaurant, except on a really small scale. Think custom menu for two people on his apartment's porch and open just once a week. Brilliant!

Eric and I were the first customers. We agreed in advance on Mexican food but wanted the details to be a surprise. When we showed up for our meal, we were greeted with margaritas, chips, salsa, guacamole and of course hugs, smiles, and a warm kitchen.


After plenty of chatting and relaxing, we ate our main course - vegetable enchiladas with a homemade enchilada sauce. So good! And for dessert we ate arroz con leche (mexican rice pudding). Delicious! Thank you friends!

open-faced spinach melts

When I went to the farmer's market on Wednesday, it was raining and turn out was low. The devotion of the people who showed up to sell in the rain made me more compelled than usual to buy produced goods like these locally made chips and salsa which we enjoyed last night for dinner with friends.

Guess what else we had for dinner! Let me give you a clue. For our first dinner with friends we had spinach soup, for the second we had wildrice and spinach casserole, and now for the third we had... that's right, something with spinach. It actually turned out to be really delicious open-faced spinach melts (homemade kalamata olive bread, garlicy local spinach, local mushrooms, carmelized onions, and gouda cheese).




And for dessert, we ate vegan vanilla-lemon-orange poundcake. We used the recipe in Veganomicon. I couldn't get my hands on any rhubarb to make a sauce for the poundcake. Maybe this weekend I will be able to...

garden update

Well, it's been 5 weeks since we planted. The bush peas and radishes have been doing the best. Spinach and chard were slower to start, but are coming up now. We'll have to take germination time and percentage into account in the future. Experience!

Speaking of experience, we've been helping get a shared garden plot going at our UU church. We roto-tilled and planted last weekend. It is interesting getting exposed to different styles of gardening: traditional rows vs. densely packed "biointensive" at our plot, roto-tilling vs. double-dig at our plot, wisdom of experienced gardeners vs. reading books for our plot.

Well, the rain's been coming all at once for over 24 hours now--hopefully we get a break soon!

straw bale transport

I split a straw bale with a friend...just another bike trailer glamor shot.