Entries Tagged 'Independence Days' ↓
June 6th, 2010 — Independence Days
Surprisingly enough, I have less time to write about gardening when I actually am
gardening – who would have guessed? Digging up parts of my lawn, planting, and training Sundrop Jewelry employees has been taking up all my time recently, so please forgive the recent hiatus and note that I didn’t plant all this in one week. 
Our first cherry harvest!
- Plant something: tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, beans, melons, winter squash, summer squash, radishes, chevril, borage, anise hyssop, tarragon, basil, sage, catnip, cilantro, celery, carrots, turnips, beets, amaranth, corn, popcorn, lettuce, mustard, nasturtiums
- Harvest something: cherries (first year of production!), chives, mint, strawberries, a few leaves at a time of various greens: kale, lettuce, chard, green onions, green garlic, sorrel, celery
- Preserve something: dried mint, froze leftovers for lunches
- Waste not: managed to use up everything we made and bought (over-bought) for Shaun’s work party before any of it went bad
- Want not: received my big flour delivery, stocked up on bacon and a chicken at the farmer’s market
- Community food systems: nope
- Eat the food: fresh green salads, three bean salad from last year’s pickled green beans and summer squash, salmon… I’m sure there’s more, but I can’t remember 2.5 weeks of meals
May 19th, 2010 — Independence Days, Recipes
Tomatoes transplanted along the North fence
- Plant something: transplanted lots of tomatoes into the ground, and planted some scarlet runner beans
- Harvest something: a couple handfuls each of sorrel and spinach
- Preserve something: froze leftovers for lunches
- Waste not: we grilled a couple nights ago, and used some of the last of the quarter cow we bought a year and a half ago. Unfortunately, they were labeled ‘Ribs for Boiling’ for a reason – the guys worked their way (slowly) through their portions, and I threw the others in a stockpot. I’ll be making barbecue-flavored soup at some point – maybe BBQ French Onion Soup?
- Want not: cooked up a ton of chickpeas for making hummuses for a party this weekend – I highly recommend the cilantro jalapeno hummus.
- Community food systems: eating with housemates.
- Eat the food: barbecue beef ribs, pizza with homemade pesto, feta cheese and homegrown and canned banana peppers
May 12th, 2010 — Independence Days, Recipes
- Plant something: We had some nights get just below freezing a couple days ago, so I’ve put off planting the tomatoes just yet.
- Harvest something: chives, basil
- Preserve something: bottled our most recent beer, Oktoberfest Lager
- Waste not: the usual reusing, recycling and composting.
- Want not: I finally got to the asian grocery and got a bunch of stuff for pad thai. I also stocked up on white flour and wheat berries for the pantry, but our fridge is currently quite empty – I need to get to the co-op.
- Community food systems: sent Shaun to work with a bucket of lime cookies – not exactly healthy, but quite a hit.
- Eat the food: roasted asparagus and chickpeas, and the pure pantry dining of pasta puttanesca.
May 4th, 2010 — Independence Days, Recipes
Seedlings hardening off on my front stoop, where they are shaded and relatively protected.
- Plant something: transplanted and started hardening off all my tomato seedlings, using whatever containers I could find.
- Harvest something: a couple handfuls each of sorrel, chives and some spinach that self-sowed from last year
- Preserve something: nope
- Waste not: soup from chicken carcass
- Want not: not in any way food related, but I stocked up on glass for Sundrops – the stained glass store was having a sale
- Community food systems: supported a friend’s unexplored interest in canning by giving them some home-canned jalapeno jelly.
- Eat the food: jalapeno-roasted chicken for the last day of my mother-in-law’s visit (using jalapeno mush leftover from making jalapeno jelly last fall), salad made using the greens harvested (I cut the sorrel into little ribbons, since it has a pretty strong flavor), and Laotian Turkey Soup from the chicken carcass – just the thing for my week of sniffles and coughing.
April 26th, 2010 — Independence Days
- Plant something: so, the eggcartons don’t really give enough room for plants to grow big enough to transplant outside. I found this out the hard way, when most of my tiny kale transplants died. So, this week I transplanted broccoli, cabbage, chard and some tomatoes up to bigger containers.
- Harvest something: marjoram, and I tasted sorrel for the first time – last year it was tiny and I was afraid to pick any for fear of killing it, but this year I have two plants coming back all by themselves. Sorrel has an interesting, lemony/vinegary flavor.
- Preserve something: still kind of early for this.
- Waste not: standard composting, recycling, etc.
- Want not: flour to tide me over until the big delivery (two 50-lb bags) in a couple weeks.
- Community food systems: well, someone apparently stole the six bags of composted manure a friend had kindly delivered to me. It was probably someone in the community – maybe they’ll grow food with it. I’m kind of pissed about it, though.
- Eat the food: marjoram was used in garlicky asparagus (or green beans).
April 19th, 2010 — Independence Days
- Plant something: peas along the fence, swiss chard, spinach and bok choy in a rather shady planter box out front – we’ll see how they do. A bit more spinach, mesclun lettuce and mustards. I got a late start this week for a couple peppers I traded seeds for. Transplanted kale and cabbage outside – a couple haven’t survived, but I’ve replaced them with some extra seedlings I started. Moved gooseberries, blackberries and sage to their permanent locations.
- Harvest something: Nope
- Preserve something: Also nope
- Waste not: coffee grounds on the newly planted peas – I hear it’s good for them, but have never done it before.
- Want not: a friend delivered some composted manure, which I really needed to amend the new beds I’m digging this year – my soil is practically pure sand
- Community food systems: Not really
- Eat the food: finally used up the butternut squash in a ‘pumpkin’ orzo
April 12th, 2010 — Independence Days
- Plant something: started inside – bok choy, basil, anise hyssop, tarragon. Dug new beds (ow!) and replanted all my raspberries and strawberries, and moved the bush cherries to their permanent place.
- Harvest something: indoor basil for pizza, and chives – they’re coming up! I love perennials; they come back all on their own.
- Preserve something: not really
- Waste not: swapped extra seeds for different varieties
- Want not: fixed my bike rack, replaced smoke detector battery, finally found an asian grocery and stocked up on soy sauce – a grocery store bottle is only enough for two big wok-fulls of stir fry.
- Community food systems: North Minneapolis Transition seed swap and gardening discussion
- Eat the food: found a really good new Pad Thai recipe, although not much that comes from stored food. I need to go back to the asian grocery and stock up on rice noodles and fish sauce now. (I thought I hated fish sauce, but it was great in this recipe, even though Shaun accidentally used tablespoons when it called for teaspoons. It must be something else in Japanese food I can’t stand.)
April 5th, 2010 — Independence Days
- Plant something: Tomatoes and peppers galore! Temporarily planted blackberry, gooseberry and bush cherry bushes, while preparing permanent beds.
- Harvest something: small handfuls of marjoram and basil – I am amazed my basil plant is still (half) alive from last summer!
- Preserve something: drying marjoram and basil
- Waste not: started seeds in egg cartons & foam mushroom baskets.
- Want not: stocked up on some thrift store pants for Shaun. (Isn’t it funny how different people’s clothes consistently fail in different ways? I always blow out the left knee of my pants and the armpit seam of shirts, while Shaun’s clothes fail in completely different ways.)
- Community food systems: does trading seeds for berry bushes count?
- Eat the food: stretched not-enough-spaghetti-sauce with mushrooms, invented a stir fry / fried rice flavored with not-enough-for-a-meal green gumbo
March 29th, 2010 — Independence Days
- Plant something: alfalfa for green manure in a couple spots that I plan to plant later this summer
- Harvest something: no
- Preserve something: not this week
- Waste not: finished taking down the old fence in the back yard and reused the pieces to make a nice big compost bin
- Want not: filled the new compost bin with dead leaves – I’ll need as much compost as I can get this year
- Community food systems: nope.
- Eat the food: old frozen leftovers – Shaun’s working crazy hours this week and I didn’t feel like cooking just for myself.
March 22nd, 2010 — Independence Days
- Plant something: started in egg cartons and peat pots: hardy kiwi, broccoli and tomatoes; started in AeroGarden: eggplant, swiss chard, sweet peppers, hot pepper.
- Harvest something: nada
- Preserve something: froze leftovers and chicken stock
- Waste not: made lemon soup with a lemon that was about to go bad, and invented a curry to use up the extra peanut sauce from satay beef the night before, composted cardboard and egg cartons
- Want not: um… nothing
- Community food systems: attended a Transition Twin Cities meeting, and visited a new community garden one of the members is starting this year
- Eat the food: salsa, kale, beans, yogurt, beef – we’re near the end of the quarter cow we bought with our housemates a year and a half ago
