Fried Green Tomatoes & Trellises

A few years ago I had the pleasure of trying Fried Green Tomatoes for my first time in a little town in Kentucky, they were wonderful but anything dipped in a batter and fried is usually pretty yummy, how can you go wrong? These are my Heirloom Sweet Horizon tomatoes that are such the luscious green right now, I am so tempted to pick them now and try this recipe from Simply Recipes, once these ripen they will be a deep persimmon-orange, like the color of sunshine. Should I wait?



Every year in the past I have used the cheap wire cages to house my tomatoes, they never worked well for me, often leaving my tomatoes flopping over in the dirt with the stalks bending and just out of control. So this year, I planted 5 tomatoes in the ground when they were young, once they started getting some height I used wooden stakes to build a teepee like structure around them. These tomatoes have really been nurtured, every time they grow a little taller, I use plant tape to attach each individual stalk to a stake of the teepee. So far it has worked great and they are growing super tall and have the strength to hold the weight of all the tomatoes. Two of our tomato plants are about 7 feet tall right now! It looks much nicer then the wire cages and it was completely economical, a few long stakes of wood, fishing wire and a little planters tape. Not sure how well you can see in the images but here are some of our "tomato teepee's".

Eight Ball Squash & a Field of Corn

It seemed only a week ago the flowers just started blooming on our squash and now all of sudden there is squash! This is known as Eight Ball Squash, there are three eight-balls right now with more on the way. Hoping to come up with a great recipe and stuff these this week. I am tempted to also pick some of the flowers and stuff them as well, yum! Another surprise this week was what I call our field of corn, there is now corn ! I wasn't expecting anything until at least late July...not sure which variety we have but now thinking maybe they are the "early" corn. They are not quite ready for harvesting but I am thinking in about a week as long as I can get to them before the squirrels realize they are ready for chomping.

French Baby Carrots

Today, we went to thin our carrots and were pleased to find some quite large ones ready to eat. This is a variety of seeds we planted of yellow and orange Babette carrots back in April over any area of about 3' x 4'. There is something really yummy about the smell of a carrot still covered with dirt, cant get fresher then that - we will have these with dinner tonight and many more to come!

Our Baby Romaine lettuce is in full bloom and after carrot thinning, we decided to harvest some for dinner. Dante had the fantastic idea of using his dump truck to carry the lettuce as he picked it so it could easily be transported from farm to kitchen. After picking the lettuce, he used his toy garbage truck to carry weeds away. Such a good helper!

Where did May go?

Believe it or not May was quite a busy month on the farm and nothing was neglected except my blog! We spent much of the time watering, staking and installing a brand new drip system to take care of our edibles while we went on vacation. Hoping it will also save some water by dripping the plants efficiently this summer since we are again in a drought. I also claimed some new dirt along the side of the fence that now houses 3 tomato plants, 2 basil plants and some sunflowers in between. Dante is always helping on the farm and so proud to do a walk thru for visitors, he now has converted our old office in to a playroom for himself. The room has a very old window that actually opens up on to the farm...his new spot to look and see whats growing.

Everything is blooming mostly green and yellow flowers, there are blossoms on the "eight ball" zucchini, green tomatoes on most of the tomato plants, pumpkin and cantaloupe flowers, yellow tomatillo flowers, corn, lots of new basil seedlings and lots of lettuce. The strawberries are just starting to fruit and we now have a handful of Purple Peruvian Peppers...I hope to try those in a salsa soon. We are looking forward to everything being edible soon and blogging again soon ;-)

Our New $10 Fence

In our little plot of land, I have been juggling the last few months putting up temporary fences around newly planted seeds to deter our lovely dog Diego from interfering with the dirt and seeds. It has been an obstacle course and I am constantly tripping over one of the little fences or the hose is getting stuck in one of them. Recently I found an old picket fence gate we had and a couple of extra pickets, so I thought it would be a great idea to build a proper gate fence. My husband had just returned from a two week long business trip, so on Saturday morning I gave him his first project on my "honey to do" list...to build the gate and fence. Fortunately we had extra wood, all I needed to buy was 4 extra pickets and gate hardware. Here is a shot of our new gate, much thanks to hubbie! Just painted it white a few days ago and officially put our homemade sign on the gate. All of the temporary fences have come down, no more Diego in the farm (poor Diego, this was initially going to be his dog run), lots more space to plant new crops now and I cant wait to get started.

Yummy Beetroot Salad

Our little farm still has some beets growing that we planted last Winter...Bulls Blood Beetroot is the type we used, very deep red with beautiful dark red and green leaves. Yesterday I harvested some baby Bib lettuce and one big beetroot from the garden. This turned in to last nights dinner, just baby lettuce, smaller red leaves from the beetroot, goat cheese and of course the main course the beet! Goat Cheese and beets are such a nice pair, if I only I could make my own cheese...time to get a goat?

Little Sprouts...

We have had some really baking hot weather here the last few days and lots of new seeds are sprouting…carrots, pumpkins, artichokes and of course our little lady bugs are sprouting around to find their new home in the garden – so fun to watch! Busy watering everything and putting new seeds for corn and melons. Over the weekend we prepped our soil for some new tomato plantings, this year I am really anxious to get some beautiful tomatoes so decided to follow some wonderful advice from Love Apple Farm which has the most delightful tomatoes I have ever seen. This is the farm I spent a few months volunteering and harvesting, hopefully I learned something! I was fortunate enough to pick up some tomato plants from Cynthia at the farm a couple of weeks ago. Over the weekend we planted a White Cherry, Rose and Sweet Horizon…cant wait to see the results!

Ladybug, ladybug please make a home...

Yesterday Dante and I went to the local nursery and picked up a container of ladybugs (1500 apparently) to put in our garden and hopefully keep away our unwanted pests. This was a fun project for him and he was quite excited to get the ladybugs at the store. I of course knew nothing about the process of releasing ladybugs until now. Since it was so windy yesterday we decided to wait to release them until tonight, I was worried they might have blown away yesterday? We put the container of ladybugs in the fridge for the night because when we bought them they were in a fridge so I figured they like to be cold at night? So here is what I learned:

1. Release the Ladybugs in the evening out of direct sunlight and after you have watered area


2. Ladybugs do not fly at night so they should have a chance to settle down and search for food and water


3. Release them in an area with some plants and leaves so hopefully they will find food


4. After a few days they should start laying clusters of eggs under leaves


5. The eggs will then hatch into larvae which look like little black alligators with orange spots (who knew?)


6. In about two weeks they should become adult ladybugs
   

Just before bedtime tonight, Dante and I went to perform our release...we both really hope they decide to stay in their new home.

Wind, Mildew & Aphids

Yesterday we had winds of up to 50 mph...our little farm did not like that at all. Today I discovered our artichoke plant had bent and blown over, the Pea Vines had blown so hard they were sadly hanging in their place looking miserable. Lots of sticks, debris and leaves everywhere - it was a clean up...today I was reminded of how Mother Nature helps our veggies grow but can also do damage. Must be tough being a real farmer! After cleaning up and trying to secure the artichoke and peas, I discovered some of the pea leaves had a sort of white dust on them thinking I must have some kind of pest. After researching and matching images online I realized it is mildew and most likely caused from planting the vines too close together which doesn't allow vines to dry properly when it rains. We still have peas and new flowers, just dusty looking leaves. After tending to the peas I moved on to what is left of our winter broccoli and discovered some uninvited guests all over the stalks - Cabbage Aphids! There is not much left of the broccoli except some of the flowering pods so I decided to clear out the pondering pests and open the veggie bed for something new. Lots of work to do!

Pickin' Peas & Plantin'

Our pea pods finally came in last week so we now are able to pick a few each day and have been sharing them with friends along with the bibb lettuce. Dante even took some to his school for his Teacher, he was so proud of his crops. Yesterday we planted some Green & Red Romaines next to a yellow pear tomato, hoping to dub that corner the "Caesar Salad Garden". We also just planted cantaloupe, pumpkin, and basil seeds. The carrot seeds have already germinated and we have a bed of little carrot top sprouts. Next week I will be picking up some wonderful heirloom tomato plants from a local farm...I cant' wait to try the special pink tomatoes this year. Lots to do in the garden - going to be a great season!

One More Parsley Recipe...

Not long ago I posted about the abundance of parsley we have and a pesto recipe... a few days ago we had our first real Spring dinner party and of course I wanted to incorporate anything that was ready from our garden in to the dinner. I decided to go after the parsley again and this time made a Chimchurri Sauce to go with our grilled rib eye. Found a fantastic recipe at Simply Recipes that allowed me to use fresh parsley and oregano from our garden, also happy to have found this site for future recipes! The sauce was fantastic and was simple to make and a yummy dipping sauce with the grilled steak and bread. The rest of our menu included some grilled sausages, grilled sweet corn, zucchini & eggplant salad, rice pilaf and salad of greens from our farm. Happy Spring!

Outstanding in Our Field...

Last summer I learned about a wonderful opportunity to have dinner on a local organic farm on the "field" of the farm cooked by some great culinary chefs. A culinary adventure as they call it... Outstanding in the Field. Unfortunately all of the events in our area were sold out last year when I stumbled upon their site, you have to book early! They have just released their calendar for this year, it is a pricey dinner but I think would be a wonderful experience to celebrate outside with your local farmer and chef. I will be saving my seed money to hopefully attend one but also have taken the idea to incorporate in my own San Jose Urban Field, our backyard. We hope to have many enjoyable dinners with friends at our tiny field.

Our New Plot

A couple of weeks ago I was getting all set to build two 4x8 veggie beds and place over the asphalt area in the back. This was going to be a bit of labor because I would need to chip some holes in the asphalt for drainage and then schlep tons of wood to build the boxes (plus buy the wood). I kept looking for a new location of potential planting and then stumbled upon an area that is about 10x8 right outside our back door! It had landscaping fabric on it and there used to be wood chips on it we moved here. We pulled back the fabric and it was all dirt and good dirt! Dante and I began working the ground, added some compost and now we have a new addition to plant more veggies. So far we have put in 3 different carrot seeds; French Babette, Romeo (round baby) and a Sunshine mix (yellow & orange). Here is a picture of our new plot of land...the potted plants are temporary placed their to deter our puppy Diego out of the bed.

Pushing Sunflower Seeds in the Dirt

Today we planted some sunflower seeds, maybe a little early but we are hoping for lots of sunshine soon. Dante planted some in "his garden" by his tree house, not a very sunny area but he was determined! I decided to put a mixture of Chocolate Cherry, Cinnamon Sun and Valentine seeds along our side fence, all from Renee's Garden. There is about a 3 inch gap of dirt between the fence and the patio... we put three packets covering a length of about 24 feet so hope to have a fence of flowers in early summer.

Parsley Pesto Sauce

The sauce came out great from all of our extra parsley growing, quite yummy and since I don't have any basil growing yet - this will be a repeat recipe. Here is my version, I didn't actually measure ingredients so approximate, just taste!

1 big cup of Italian Parsley
3 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup of pecans
1/4 olive oil
1/2 cup of fresh Parmesan or any hard Italian Cheese
3/4 cup of cream or 1/2 and 1/2
Salt and Pepper to taste

Just put all ingredients in a electric chopper/blender and walla! You have a great pasta sauce or would also be good on chicken.

Today's Harvest

Here is some of our harvest for today that will now be dinner tonight...pasta with broccolini, salad using our spinach, baby butter lettuce and beet leaves. I am also going to attempt making a pesto style pasta sauce but using parsley as the main ingredient. We have an abundance of parsley right now, will post recipe tomorrow if successful!

Peas Please!

After some terrible wind and lots of rain, our pea vines survived and now have some little white flowers. Dante has been measuring himself against the pea vines since they started, he was quite excited when they were getting to be as tall as him - now they are taller then me. Soon we hope to have some yummy crunchy pea pods. As a child I used to pick them straight from my Grandmother's garden and eat them raw from the dirt. Stay tuned for our Spring Peas!

Preparing for our Earth Machine

We found a nice spot that for our new Earth Machine, it will get enough sun and is close enough to the house it will make it easier to drop scraps straight from the kitchen. Dante helped to prep the dirt and level it out with me.

Earth to Farm

At our last home my husband made a compost bin by purchasing a big trash can and drilling lots of holes in it, it wasn't pretty but did the job. For the last year, I have wanted again to make a compost bin...we have so many home projects on the "list" and this one hadn't happened yet. The other evening I was cutting some fresh broccoli and lettuce from our farm , it again occurred to me and daunted me - it made no sense for me to keep throwing vegetable scraps in the trash especially when it is so easy to create compost. It is a no-brainer and will at least cut down on our contribution to the landfills plus create some very happy compost for our veggies! So I went back online to the site I had seen months ago through the Santa Clara County Compost Program made an appointment this morning and picked up my new Earth Machine for $50 today! Very excited to start filling it with our scraps, coffee grinds, leaves and grass clippings and then put the finished product back in to our garden - full circle. I plan to set it up this weekend and will post again with a picture of it's new home.

Mixed Baby Salad Greens

Beautiful Beet Leaves for our salads

Broccoli is here...Dante's favorite veggie

The Beginning of the farm

Playing in the dirt....