A Special Day in Several Ways

Today, August 8, is a trifecta of events worth noting. From a personal perspective, my younger sister turning 70 is the most significant item on the calendar: Happy Birthday, Sis! She stays spry by riding her senior citizen tricycle around the tiny rural town where she lives and picking blackberries with neighbors. I try to keep the kinks out by puttering around in the backyard.

Today is also International Cat Day which seems a fitting tribute to my sister, who does appear to have nine lives and always lands on her feet, even in the bygone days, fortunately brief, when she used to jump out of airplanes for the fun of it. She has cats who acquired her some years ago; we have no permanent cats at present as our perimeters are patrolled by a fifteen year old canine, wobbly but determined, who still takes his job seriously. There are a few persistent visitors, however, who know where the safe spots in the yard are, and are clearly applying for a position should one become available.

Less auspiciously, August 8 also happens to be Earth Overshoot Day, the point at which we humans begin overdrawing our account of Earth resources. We are using more resources than Mother Earth can replenish in a year's time and today is when the bank account is empty and we have to break into our grandchildren's trust fund, using up what should be carefully set aside for generations coming after us. The experts who measure these things say that at current rates of consumption we are using the equivalent of 1.6 Earths to keep the party going.

So it feels especially good today to gather a boxful of garden bounty grown in the richly composted soil of our backyard. All the jewel-toned summer produce will indeed be used up to the last bite. But all the scraps will go into the compost bin, pass through the digestive tracts of many eager worms, combine with whatever organic debris is layered in, and then replenish the very ground from which it sprang. Daily deposits for Mother Earth's account.

Happy Birthday! Happy Cat Day! Guardedly happy Overshoot Day . . . . .

High Point of Summer

Here we are in the lush peak of the season and, despite our diminished expectations, our drought-stricken, curtailed garden is nonetheless yielding more produce than we can deal with:

An array of hefty heirloom tomatoes in subtle shades of orange, red, pink and yellow . . .

Three kinds of zucchini in farmer's market quantities . . . and so many bristly cucumbers that we are running out of space in the fridge for the pickling experiments.

Not to mention the best collection of basil ever.

And the backyard even looks good if the camera angles are just right, edging out the dry, scraggly, burnt-brown areas and capturing only the productive beds overflowing with abundance.

Season of Plenty

The blooming of the pink lilies signals the season of plenty in our backyard. As the blossoms gradually opened this week, we brought in several harvest baskets of lush produce:

Dona tomatoes
Better Boy tomatoes
Sungold cherry tomatoes
Padron peppers
Fairy Tale eggplant
Prosperosa eggplant
Ronde de Nice zucchini
Emperor's Jade zucchini
Genovese basil (the best for pesto)
Summertime lettuce
Michelle lettuce
A few stray leaves of volunteer arugula
Assorted leaves of volunteer yard chard
Purple plums (last few of their waning season)
Yellow plums (more than we can deal with)
Pears!!!!!!! (See below).

And that's not even the full roster. Still to come are:

Roman Stripe paste tomatoes
Indigo Blue tomatoes
Sweet Million cherry tomatoes
Pimento peppers
Lemon cucumbers
Blue Lake beans
Fortex beans
Volunteer mystery squash most likely descended from the Trombetta di Albenga of previous summers (judging by the size of the vines).

The lilies bloom in early August, announcing the all too short season of feasting on our summer specialties: Insanely Great Pasta Sauce and the inimitable Pear Tarte Tatin.

When the lilies bloom the pears are ready to drop. It's time to start watching the pear tree carefully because pears, counter-intuitively, should not be allowed to ripen on the tree. When the first one falls the whole harvest must be picked at once.

This year we got impatient and didn't wait for that first plopped pear before sending H. up on a ladder to gather in whatever he could reach -- everything but a few fat ones clinging to the topmost branches.

I think the blooming lilies are now so strongly associated in my mind with the season of plenty that, like Pavlov's dog, I start to salivate when I see them! Fill the harvest baskets; it's the time of fruiting and feasting!

Christmas Reds and Greens

Evergreens in the house are an essential part of Christmas and just a few simple touches can evoke the season. It's even better when the glossy branches and bright berries can be gathered from the yard.






We don't really have enough to form a whole wreath or swag, nor am I willing to put in the time making them, but it feels so good to cut a few branches from the berry bush and the little redwood tree in the front yard to fill out the inexpensive store-bought greenery.






The seasonal backyard produce is also thematically correct with a range of dark greens set off by soft reds. Even the tomatoes from the garage are in harmony. (And we've been very happy to use the backyard bounty in simple meals of soup and salad to balance all the rich once-a-year fare: fruitcake, eggnog, exotic cheeses, nuts, and fruits, etc.)







Out in the garage the hanging tomatoes (the few remaining branches of the summer plants, rescued from the first frost in late November) form a makeshift Christmas tree with colored bulbs attached. Like the inside tree, this one will not be taken down for several weeks to come -- not until the last harvestable morsel has been gathered -- as we try to wring every bit of delight from this all-too-brief season of celebration.

Our Cornucupia Runneth Over

Pictured above is the garden produce we had on hand as of 4:30 Sunday afternoon, August 29.

Clockwise from the top are:

Assorted chard volunteers: Lipstick, Biondi di Lyon, Rainbow
Cherry tomatoes: Sungold and Yellow Pear
Tomatoes: Early Girl, Japanese Black Trifele, Constoluto Genovese
Eggplant: Hansel
Zucchini: Green Bush
Pole beans: Kentucky Blue
Climbing squash: Trombetta di Albenga
Bush beans: French Haricot/Nickel

In the center:

Cucumbers: Armenian, Lemon

Since then more tomatoes and cucumbers have been harvested.

All of the zucchini and chard plus two of the trombetta squash (the long snaky green things on the left) went into a big batch of green soup for the freezer.

We've given away some of the tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, and beans.

We eat tomatoes and cucumbers in salad every night.

The French beans make a wonderful side dish, gently steamed and served with some orange zest and butter.

The tomatoes and eggplant cook up into a showstopper of a pasta sauce.

I plan to try freezing some of the Kentucky Blue beans, just a small batch to see if it works better than last year's experiment.

We need to give away more tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers and beans . . . .

One Day's Harvest

All this came out of the garden today:

Assorted lettuces: Black Seeded Simpson, Red Sails, Endive
Cucumbers: Armenian (just one), Lemon
Zucchini: Green Bush
Tomatoes: one little Early Girl
Peppers: Ace
Beans: Kentucky Blue (pole beans)
Plums: yellow and red (don't know the varieties)
Chard: assorted volunteers

Garden of Eatin'

Over the past week the harvests have been keeping us amply supplied with fresh produce, and still on track with our Eat the Yard Challenge. A basketful of chard and kale went into a big pot of minestrone, with plenty left over that's still in the fridge. Fortunately it keeps well.




Three little heads of Romanesco broccoli, lightly steamed, made Valentine's Day dinner festive.





And salad greens are reliable daily fare. Above, top to bottom: Red Lollo Antago lettuce, cilantro, Forellenschluss lettuce.




Above, top to bottom: Bronze Arrowhead lettuce, Miner's lettuce.




Above, left to right: Black Seeded Simpson lettuce, spinach (mixed Bloomsdale and Gigante d'Inverno), arugula.

For the record, here is the ongoing tally of eating something from the garden every day:

February 11: Minestrone with with winter greens (chard, kale)
February 12: Same
February 13: Same
February 14: Pasta primavera with garden parsley, Romanesco broccoli
February 15: Pasta primavera with garden parsley
February 16: Oatmeal walnut burgers with garden lettuce
February 17: Oatmeal walnut loaf, garden salad
February 18: Garden salad

Thyme for Soup!

Above: English thyme is on the left, rose bouquet thyme on the right -- each growing out of its private compartment in an old cinder block. This arrangement makes a cost-effective border for the very utilitarian black plastic raised beds that form our garden. So far there are only a few blocks lined up against a couple of beds, planted with thyme, cilantro, and alyssum.

Mostly the thyme is decorative, but on a cold, grey winter's eve the thyme becomes the harvest: just the right grace note for a big pot of French onion soup.



Three hungry people made short work of this classic dish.



The only accompaniment was a fresh garden salad.

So far we are meeting the self-imposed 2010 Eat the Yard challenge of having something from the garden every day -- mostly salad. The challenge has been a nice incentive to get out there and harvest something no matter how uninviting the weather.

January 5: garden salad (lettuce, baby spinach, miner's lettuce, arugula, cilantro)
January 6: French onion soup with garden thyme, garden salad
January 7: garden salad
January 8: garden salad
January 9: sauteed garden greens (kale, chard), with juice of Meyer lemon from the tree
January 10: quinoa with fresh garden greens and summer green beans from the freezer

And for tonight? More salad!

Eat the Yard: 2010 New Year's Challenge

Today's harvest is typical of these cold grey mid-winter days -- salad makings galore. There are four kinds of lettuce, two kinds of spinach, and some extras to add flair: cilantro, miner's lettuce, and arugula. Oh yes, there are also three wizened and pale Better Boy tomatoes from the dried up branches hanging in the garage. These may not be usable -- too dry or rotted inside -- but even if only a tiny morsel is edible, it packs a much greater ascorbic acid "hit" on the palate than the mushy globes from the supermarket.

Five days into the new year, we are on track to meet a private New Year's resolution: eat something from the yard every day, even if it's just a sprig of parsley or a twig of thyme (we wouldn't eat the twig, of course).



For the past two days we've had vegetable soup for dinner enlivened with lots of kale, chard, and parsley from the garden.



The two days before that the yard contribution was fresh garden salad. The photo above actually comes from mid-December when, along with the salad, we had spagetti supremo with a heavenly marinara sauce made from this summer's tomato squeezings from the freezer.

So far in 2010:

January 1: garden salad
January 2: garden salad
January 3: vegetable soup with garden greens
January 4: vegetable soup with garden greens

What's on for tonight??? Hmmmmmm . . . . . let's see what's available . . . .

Holiday Harvests

Above are the pickings for New Year's Eve, below are the Christmas Eve reds and greens. The splashes of gold come from the Meyer lemons -- five of them from the brave little potted plant that made it through the killing frosts of December. I couldn't resist picking them, although they may not be fully ripe yet.

Monday Harvest -- Fruits of Our Labor Day

Today is a holiday so I can get this post up on time for the harvest round-up at Daphne's Dandelions.

This week it has felt like the garden is slowing down because most of the plants look middle-aged, a bit like stressed-out parents with too many children. But bedraggled as the plants might be, their progeny is beautiful and plentiful. The peak harvest time continues.

We are pretty much keeping up day to day with eating lettuce, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, Black Krim tomatoes, an occasional pepper or eggplant. But the heavy producers that need to be processed for the freezer are accumulating. Counter tops are covered with Better Boy tomatoes and there are bulging bags of beans and zucchini in the refrigerator. Not to complain, of course. Abundance is not an obligation but a celebration!

Week of Sunday, August 30 through Sunday, September 6

Sunday, August 30 (This should have been included with last week's portfolio, but I got the days mixed up.)
Above, left to right: one Cochella zucchini; a handful of Kentucky Wonder pole beans; Better Boy tomatoes; lemon cucumbers; volunteer red cherry tomatoes; Blue Lake pole beans.



Tuesday, September 1
Blue Lake pole beans; Better Boy tomatoes; one lemon cucumber; one Black Krim tomato; Green Racer zucchini; Sungold cherry tomatoes.



Thursday, September 3
Red Sails summer lettuce; Better Boy tomatoes



Friday, September 4
Sungold cherry tomatoes; Better Boy tomatoes; Blue Lake pole beans; one Japanese eggplant (first one -- yay!); three Pimientos de Padron; one lemon cucumber; one Black Krim tomato; Green Racer zucchini; volunteer red cherry tomatoes



Saturday, September 5
Better Boy tomatoes; lemon cucumbers; a surprise resurgence of Tavera French haricot beans; lots and lots of Sungold cherry tomatoes; Blue Lake pole beans. Not pictured: another pile of Red Sails summer lettuce, picked before dawn because a certain canine companion just HAD to go out. Prime lettuce picking time.

The Kentucky Wonder beans have pretty much stopped producing -- nothing harvested since August 30. The spider mites got them. But that's a story for another time.

Monday Harvest(s)

Another Monday has come and gone! Lots more portraits of gorgeous produce have been posted at Daphne's Dandelions. It's thrilling to see the lush harvests people around the country are bringing in.

To add to the collective cornucopia, here is a belated record of what has come out of our backyard in the past two weeks.

Week of Monday August 17 through Sunday, August 23

Tuesday, August 18
Above, left to right: Lots of lovely, rustly, fragrant Genovese basil for pesto; Kentucky Wonder pole beans; Sungold cherry tomatoes; Blue Lake pole beans; Better Boy tomatoes; the last of the Tavera French haricot bush beans; Green Racer zucchini.


Friday, August 21
Kentucky Wonder pole beans; Better Boy tomatoes, including a couple of green ones that fell off the plant (they have ripened on the dining room table); Sungold cherry tomatoes; Cochella zucchini; lemon cucumbers; Green Racer zucchini; Blue Lake pole beans.


Saturday, August 22
Red Sails summer lettuce; Sungold cherry tomatoes; Better Boy tomatoes. With the abundance of lettuce, cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes, we are gobbling up garden salads every night.


Sunday, August 23
A Black Krim tomato! -- only the second one so far, but worth the wait; lemon cucumbers; Kentucky Wonder pole beans; Better Boy tomatoes; Blue Lake pole beans, Green Racer zucchini.


Sunday, August 23
Trombetta di Albenga Italian squash. The biggest ones are about three feet long and almost ten pounds in weight. B. suggested we honor his Irish heritage by making Shillelagh soup -- and indeed they do look like big cudgels. Ha ha.

Unfortunately, all but one of them started rotting from the bottom and ended up as biomass in the compost bin. The green, curvey, bulbous one in the middle has a hardened rind so I put it in the garage to see if it will last. I believe this variety can work as both a summer and a winter type. Meanwhile, there are several more growing. We will have another chance to actually cook one of them.


Week of Monday, August 24 through Sunday, August 30

Monday, August 24
The last of the pears. We never did get hold of a ladder, but, with B.'s help, I stood on a kitchen stool and managed to pick most of what remained in the upper branches of the little pear tree. What I couldn't reach we shook down into the ivy below. About a third of those were lost to nicking and bruising but we still ended up with plenty to set ripening in the garage, with a few set aside in the refrigerator.

When ripe they are absolutely delicious. For all these years we have been letting gourmet fruit rot away untended. Sometimes we regret this, but when sweet pear juice is dripping down your chin, you just want to live in the moment.


Wednesday, August 26
Kentucky Wonder pole beans; Better Boy tomatoes; Sungold cherry tomatoes; lemon cucumbers; Blue Lake pole beans; Green Racer zucchini.


Sunday, August 29
The biggest one-day harvest so far. Left to right: one overgrown Cochella zucchini; Red Sails lettuce; Genovese basil; Kentucky Wonder pole beans; nestled among the beans is one red cherry tomato from the volunteer plant growing amidst the morning glory vines; lemon cucumbers; Better Boy tomatoes; Blue Lake pole beans; Sungold cherry tomatoes; Green Racer zucchini. This represents pretty much all the vegetables in the garden except the Trombetta squash, oh, and also the peppers and eggplant which are not yet really up to speed.

It's really remarkable how productive an ordinary yard can be. I read a blog post recently that claimed there are 19 million acres of arable land in suburban yards across the county. And that's just the suburbs.

We are in a small city. I've noticed that more than a few people in our neighborhood have taken out their front lawns and replaced them with vegetable gardens. Who knows what is going on in the backyards.

Let the gardening revolution begin! Gardeners of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your counter space.

UPDATE: Another source states there are 30 million acres of prime farmland in the suburbs now being tended as lawns. Key quote:

Fortunately, in the United States, “suburbia occupies vast swaths of former prime U.S. farmland. NASA’s ecological forecasting research group reports that the people living there already water about 30 million acres of lawn, three times the land planted in irrigated corn.

UPDATE 2: I found the original source for that quote.

This Is the Week That Was

Tracking the harvest in photos: what a good idea! Hat tip to Daphne's Dandelions who has organized a Monday photo-share where gardeners in various locales can admire each others' garden output of the previous week. It's so easy to take veggie portraits before bringing everything into the house that it's become a new habit.

Here is a round-up of our harvest over the past couple of weeks.

Week of Monday, August 3 through Sunday, August 9

Above, garden gleanings for Tuesday, August 4, not quite two weeks ago:
Left to right: Kentucky Wonder pole beans, Sungold cherry tomatoes, Blue Lake pole beans, Green Racer zucchini, and two Cochella zucchini on the far right.




Week of August 3 through August 9, continued

Above, quite a respectable haul on Friday, August 7:
Left to right: Blue Lake pole beans, Tavera French haricot bush beans, Kentucky Wonder pole beans, Better Boy tomatoes and Sungold cherry tomatoes, lemon cucumbers, Green Racer zucchini.



Week of August 3 through August 9, continued

Friday, August 7 and Saturday August 8 combined:
Above are shown all the pears that could be picked standing on the ground or on a small table, minus about a dozen more that are stored in the refrigerator to stop the ripening process.



Week of Monday, August 10 through Sunday, August 16

Tuesday, August 11:
Clockwise, more or less, from top: One Yolo Wonder green pepper and a few Pimientos de Padron peppers (in bowl), Sungold cherry tomatoes (in bowl), Better Boy tomatoes, Cochella zucchini, Green Racer zucchini, lemon cucumbers, Kentucky Wonder pole beans, Tavera French haricot bush beans (in bowl), Blue Lake pole beans.




Week of August 10 through August 16, continued

Friday, August 14:
Clockwise from top: Blue Lake pole beans, Green Racer zucchini, lemon cucumbers, Sungold cherry tomatos, Kentucky Wonder pole beans, Better Boy tomatoes.



Week of August 10 through August 16, continued

Sunday, August 16:
Clockwise from top: Red Sails summer lettuce, Kentucky Wonder pole beans, one Cochella zucchini, Sungold cherry tomatoes, Pimiento de Padron peppers, lemon cucumbers, Green Racer zucchini, Better Boy tomatoes.



Week of August 10 through August 16, continued

Sunday, August 16:
A few volunteer mystery tomatoes from a plant that has twined itself among the morning glories. They start out looking like the Sungolds but then ripen red and have a more standard cherry tomato taste, not the distinctive and complex flavor burst of the Sungolds that resonates across the palate. Quite tasty nonetheless. Some stray seeds from the compost got lucky -- and so did we.