Spring at the VA Garden

I have blogged about this place before (here and here for starts) but wanted to share these pics I took the other day during a trip to get some veggies for our garden. We got a total of 7 plants for $5 - pretty awesome...and found out they have a market open on Wednesdays at the VA near the cafeteria where they sell their latest produce. You can also buy it at the garden, but they carry odd hours - Some people there will tell you that someone is only there until 11:00 a.m. and one guy told us he is there until 2 p.m. but from experience you are safer going before 11...everyone we have ever met here has been awesome - our plants are amazing - the price is the best - the free help people are just excited to give is beyond books (a lot of volunteers there are studying botany at CSULB or city college) - I just can't say enough!  Plus Spring time here is pretty eye catching, no?

If they pick it...they will eat it...mostly...

We are very new to the whole gardening thing...i am not proclaiming to be any type of expert...my husband is probably laughing at me writing this post since he is the real person behind the success of everything grown. He has quite the green thumb and willing attitude, for which i am ever grateful because i love the idea of a garden and not so much all the work...although i do help out...just not as invested as my husband. Is that a fair disclaimer, dear? okay then...so the other day bryson took a field trip with his first grade class to Tanaka Farms - cute place...a bit pricey...but what do you expect for a farm in O.C.? and anyway - they got to pick a pumpkin and also other vegetables out of the ground. Bryson was so excited because apparently they told him he could only pick 4 carrots, but one that he pulled out had like 5 fingers...you would have thought he won the lottery the way he described how it all went down...love that kid and his enthusiasm!

okay...back to my point. sorry - i am so tangential today...you are just going to have to roll with it...i doubt its going to get better...look i did it again. okay, right, so anyway - my point in it all is that when you get kiddos involved with the whole process they begin to see food differently. bryson has his own garden this past year for the first time and our only stipulation was that he could only grow foods he would eat and that he had to eat anything he picked. to my surprise he planted a bunch of peppers...and ate them all! So when he came home from the field trip with onions and radishes and carrots - i told him...you know what this means? you have to eat them! "oh man, mom...i didn't want the radishes...they told me i had to pick them. i don't really like radishes" Too bad! was my gentle mothering reply.

making a long story a little longer...last night i made a really special dinner for the fam bam...i lit candles and made dessert - the whole deal. part of the dinner was roasted veggies - and all of the veggies he picked were in it. He ate a whole radish and liked it...but loved the onion even more! Now - can i just tell you that Bryson did not start out an adventurous eater? This is only in the last 2 or 3 years (he is 7) that he is eating all this stuff - like spicy things and peppers and onions, etc. and a large part of it is the whole garden experience.


I know many of you may live in apartments or places that are hard to grow food, but even just one plant can open them up to the experience of seeing food grown. It is magical to them and so fun to see Bryson now plan his next year's garden alongside his dad. Even starting with something like this could open it up to them! Happy growing!

P.S. Sorry for the cruddy photos...its all my phone (and me) were capable of at the moment

Instagram Garden

We thoroughly enjoyed our little garden this summer. I didnt take many pics with our good camera, but managed to snap a few thanks to Instagram! we munched on cucumbers (and made pickles) strawberries, lemons, grapes, one apple, corn, lots and lots of tomatoes, beans - we grew the prettiest burgundy beans, sweet peas, onions, all kinds of herbs and basil and chilis that came in handy in most dinners - we are looking forward to the last of the tomatoes and then preparing for a very leafy fall/winter garden. Yay to going out to the garden for salad mixings! but Boo for the 90 degree heat we are experiencing. once it cools down we plan on going for it!

Homemade Garden Tomato Marinara Sauce

Blanching the tomatoes

Marinara and Meatballs

Beefmaster

Red Brandywine

Black Firm

Large Red Cherry (they look big in this picture, but they are truly cherry tomatoes, promise!)

Gold Medal Heirloom 

This post is kind of funny because i really cant take credit for any of this...but now that i have fully disclaimered that...let me just ramble on and take credit for all of this.

i think because we got such an early start on our summer garden after our winter garden...and because bryan totally vamped up the soil and turned it real nice...and because sometimes there are just better tomato years...this year has been our earliest crops and our best crops. He planted 10 different plants (gold medal heirloom, beefsteak, 2 beefmaster plants, black firm, mortgage lifter, red brandywine, lg red cherry and 2 un-known to me...but they probably have some cool name). we went away for a long weekend and came back to a huge crop ready for picking. normally we use the tomatoes every day - our favorite is to make a tomato, cucumber, onion and avocado salad with this sesame ginger dressing - soooo good...the best summer salad. or bryan makes salsa, or we use them in sandwiches...but this was a big crop, so i decided to make a marinara sauce with it.

i had looked up how to do it...and had all the ingredients...but the problem was that we have soooo many left-overs in our fridge from 4th of july and such that it seemed silly to make a new big pot of something. well...good thing my mom came over and picked all the tomatoes thereby forcing Spaghetti Sunday back into effect.

The thing about it is that it was much easier to do than i thought...which is probably another reason why i was procrastinating. you want the skins off your tomatoes before they become sauce and the easiest way to do that is to blanch them in boiling water for about a minute and then throw them in an ice bath...the skin slips off - its amazing. then we (and by we i mean mostly my mom) cored them and diced them and threw them in.

For the sauce - this time was a little different since my mom made these amazing italian meatballs first, but normally we (and by we i mean mostly bryan) get some onions sweating in olive oil and garlic...lots of garlic...i never count, but usually i think he uses a whole bulb...at least 10 cloves and probably 1/2 an onion to a whole onion. And then after the tomatoes we added some herbs from the garden - marinara sauce loves oregano and thyme...my mom even added mint. some salt and pepper...

but i think the thing i love most about Spaghetti Sundays is that there are always people around to help consume said spaghetti and last night we had lovely company in my (very pregnant) sister, brother in law, mother and two of my boys and my man. it was a truly lovely meal on the porch on a lovely summer night with a glass of nice wine and our new Leonard Cohen record playing. truly memorable. its what family is all about...and i went to bed feeling very blessed and very content.

Home-Made Sunflower Seeds

My sweet husband on the day that Bodie was born, ran out and got me two huge sunflowers. I never particularly liked them before, but in his card it read - may these "Son Flowers" brighten your days for years and years to come. It was the sweetest thing and it really did make me love sun flowers and always make me remember that sweet gesture of his....also a side note - we had purple calla lilies at our wedding and every house we have lived at he has planted me my own purple calla lilies to remind me of our wedding day. He is romantic in those ways and I love him for it.

So this year he planted a "Son Flower" for each of my boys and they got HUGE! we let them seed and I was leaving for my camping trip thinking, I must look into when they are ready to harvest...and how to harvest and roast them...well - i never did - i just let them sit there, but yesterday when we got back they seemed to fall out easier, so i decided it was time to harvest! (BTW - This site pretty much says exactly what we did to harvest and roast)

I soaked them and cooked them in salted water for an hour and a half and then roasted them for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees. They are SO GOOD. like, SO GOOD...and i love sunflower seeds...and my husband too - we have never had freshly made seeds like this - what a difference! i am finding that with everything freshly made it is becoming this new experience...which is why making things at home is so addicting...in a sense. Bringing the boys in on the process is so fun too. Even Bobby was enjoying them! (after i shelled them of course!)

We are having so much fun with our garden this year! More pics to come! Hope you all are enjoying the summer so far!

winter garden harvests

peas....took me like an hour to shell them, but it was worth it! they were sooo good! i just threw them in boiling water for 3 minutes and then into an ice bath - no butter, no salt and pepper, we just ate them up like that - so so good!  

some carrots...and i was reminded (again) at how amazing freshly picked carrots are. seriously. they taste so different than what you buy in the store. not sure how to describe the difference, but to say they are better and "meatier" if that makes sense. we always fight over the carrots...they never make it in to any recipe...

arugula - sorry for the blurry pic...our lens was quite nasty...but that is a zippie full of the most amazing arugula - been making all kinds of arugula/goat cheese salads, pizzas, bryan cooks up the arugula with our eggs in the morning - we are loving our little bounty of it!

Winter Garden

our winter crop

rainbow chard, arugula, beans in the back

snap peas

arugula

see the carrot?

our stoooopid lemons...huge and void of taste

looking toward spring

this is our first winter garden...but certainly not our last! and i love that i am posting pictures of it...because that is about as far as i can go in taking any type of credit for it. bryan completely over-hauled one of our boxes and put in new soil and went to town back in december. everything was very slow growing until a couple weeks ago when we had unseasonably (who am i kidding...its so-cal?) warm weather and the garden just woke up! it was actually pretty amazing to watch...

we have been really loving arugula lately - especially since finding out that arugula'soul mate is goat cheese...those two can really conquer any dish - we have made pizza, salad, sandwiches, egg scrambles...you name it - with the pair and it always seems to come out right!

also - our rainbow chard is so beautiful. my boys will snack on it raw...but they wont with spinach...so i am guessing its cause of all the perty colors that makes it kid-appealing...but even bobby goes over and tears off a leaf and goes to town...i follow his lead because there is something so delicious in something so beautiful and fresh! same with the peas...i like them best raw...i have to open them up for bobby and bodie, but at least bryson is also eating them raw.

we have also been enjoying the lemons from our neighbor's tree that have been making its way onto on yard...which is so nice...we have two lemon trees in our backyard, but one is dumb...makes these big tasteless dumb things. we still use them - for the peel/rind and for juicing....and the other tree gives us like 5 a year. our neighbor's tree though has been great...whenever i need one i just go outside and pick away!

we also have some strawberries growing...and artichokes...both of which will pop with spring. and we have our starter garden growing in our dining room (last pic) that will get a home in the next few weeks as well.

i have some big plans for spring...our yard makes it difficult to plan properly because only a small portion of our backyard sees the sun for enough time to support veggies...so we need to make the most with what we got. i do want to get finally back going on composting...i want to grow out my herb garden now that i am cooking with herbs more...and i want to grow some veggies we dont normally eat...any suggestions on adventurous veggies?

Lilikoi Jelly Take 2 - Urban Foraging

this is such a sweet story. it begins with our little lilikoi (passion fruit) weed in our backyard that i blogged about last year. well this spring the plant exploded all over our little area...over our lemon trees and up our pine tree and went crazy. i was so excited when the little lilikoi buds started sprouting and dreamt about all the jelly and sauce i was going to make...

then...we got new gardeners. who did not see the same beautiful lilikoi plant, but a weed, rather. a weed that was choking the life of our other trees...so most of it was cut. about half of the plant was cut and i was so heartbroken over it. honestly. it was stupid silly how sad i was. and then the next time the gardeners were coming we were to be out of town and so i recruited my father in law to show them that we actually love this weed and please don't cut the rest of it - feel free to move it (which is like next to impossible - that think grabs on!) but not cut it and guess what? they cut it...not ALL of it, but most of it and now instead of seeing about 50 little fruits i see 2. 

i have since cleared it up and we together created a space for the plant, but i thought my plans for jelly were done for. 

i also at this time need to mention that i have been running again on my designated mornings and i walk/run through my neighborhood and pass a couple houses that have fruiting trees and i see the (perfectly good) fruit on the ground because no one is harvesting it. i started getting mad seeing all these trees not being taken advantage of their gifts and started formulating a letter in my head to leave at these houses...asking them for permission to pick their tree and in exchange giving them a jar of jelly...or whatever...i have also been hearing a ton of stories about urban foraging and thought it would just make perfect sense. 

okay so...that is all the background...now i will take you to the other morning playing at a park with my boys and bryson and i were trying to find a cache hidden somewhere near this flood drain...we looked and looked everywhere and couldnt find the dern thing and as we were looking i spotted this huge lilikoi plant! it was in a place hard to get to, but i was trying to figure out how i could make it over there with a baby in my ergo and two other small kids when i spotted another, even larger bush down the way! it was out of the way enough that i dont believe it was sprayed or tended - it was among other wild flowers and grasses and judging by the amount of bugs we also brought home with us, i am even more convinced it was truly wild. i told bryson to grab a bag in the car and recruited him to help me pick...and pick we did! (see him holding up the bag full as evidence)

so the story ends with me getting my passion fruit after all. and me making my jelly after all. and teaching my sons that what is a weed to some people is actually a treasure to others. pretty good story.

Garden Update

our little garden is so exciting right now - we are in our second "plant" and actually just had a third this last week, so we are expecting some exciting things...but i was out in the garden today and wanted to share a few little snapshots of the life happening around our little postage stamp of a backyard...

flawless roses from our seemingly endlessly producing rose bush

the flower from our wedding - purple cala lillies

this WAS a bunch of grapes...purple grapes...until my boys discovered how delicious they are/were!

looking forward to corn!

the biggest lemon ever

Thankful For the Roses

I have been in a sorta crummy mood and I gotta tell you...you can't be too mad if you put some of these on your desk...automatic mood lifters! Today i am going to be grateful for beautiful roses from my garden and a beautiful gardener (aka my husband) who knows how to prune rose bushes so that I can enjoy said roses! See?! Feeling better already!

Garden Update - Placenta Tree in Bloom!

no...it doesn't grow placentas...remember this post? i know Kaci does! Well Bodie's little pomegranate tree is doing so well (by the way - i read that wiki article and did you know that some people think the forbidden fruit from the garden of Eden was a pomegranate, not an apple? fascinating, no?)

last year it gave us one teeny wittle pomegranate and we are thinking this year we may see many more. i think bryan finally got the placement right as far as sun exposure goes. this little guy is doing quite well in his little spot. they don't fruit until late fall, so it may be a while, but we love poms and now that we have our juicer there will hopefully be pom juice a plenty!

Garden Update - Spring in Bloom!

my favorite weed ever! this lilikoi (passionfruit) plant found its way into our yard last year...it fruited and we got about 40 lilikois...this year though...holy crow! check it out! the second picture gives you an idea of how much it has overtaken our yard...it is currently making a not so perdy tree quite decorative! it is all around our back trellis and up this tree - amazing! i won't be surprised if we get twice the amount from last year...or more!














I am lucky to know some gals from Hawaii and one of them shared her father's lilikoi sauce and lilikoi jelly recipe with me. i totally botched the sauce (because i didnt read the directions exactly, not because the recipe is no good)...and i liked the jelly, but think i could make it stronger, especially with all the fruit we will be getting it should be amazing! By the way...i get the most random e-mails from strangers that tell me they tried the recipes and it turned out great and asking me about them...i guess there isn't too much on the internet? it makes me laugh a little because i didn't even know what i had growing until i showed a gardener a picture of the bizarre flower on my phone! now i am an expert...gotta love the web!



















and here is our cucumbers...2 of them got picked today to make refrigerator pickles...i have never done it before today, so if they are any good i'll share with you what i did...if they are no good, we'll just pretend it never happened, k? kthanks.














and the mystery of the giant citrus tree mystery fruit has been solved this year. they are indeed lemons. just very large, not that tasty lemons...you can't really tell by my horrible photography, but this one is green on the top and yellow on the bottom...like Sprite...but again...not as tasty...

And our bean pole...of course Bryan had to throw some flair in the garden...these beans are so so tasty - i had about 5 of them today and gave some to all the boys to try...if there were more ready i would've eaten them too...i think this is how we get a lot of our raw foods in us...by foraging around and being too lazy to cook...