I grew these

and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm totally proud of them.



I know I always say how much I love growing and cooking our own food, blah blah blah. And I do. Usually. But this summer I've been on a little "avoid the kitchen at almost all costs" hiatus. I'd like to say it's just a function of warm weather and not wanting to be around hot foods and things, but I think it's probably something else.

So, occasionally I do still force myself to make something from scratch at the stove... I can't let my cooking muscles atrophy completely. But all that food growing out back, the squashes in particular, were starting having the opposite creative effect. As in, if I see another summer squash I might throw up. So in a moment of inspiration, I ripped out every single squash plant a few weeks ago. (I left the delicious winter squash in. Never sick of them and their pretty orange insides). Genius. I feel so much better.

This summer, I'm most excited about the flowers that I planted from seed. I can't believe they worked! I made flowers! And they are bright and pretty and healthy. And our sunflowers are at least 10 feet tall. Maybe taller. I love them. And the little babies that pop up around the rows.

Sorry for the lack of posting. It's either because there's nothing going on that seems of interest to other people, or that there's so much going on that it's all I can do to keep things together in a semi-normal way. And I hate just posting something random for the sake of posting.

Plus, I needed a break from thinking and computing.

It happens.

dinner from the backyard

I learned something this year. Something that I'd never really considered up until this point.

Plant more than a few summer squashes.

See usually I plant one or two zucchinis. Maybe a patty pan. Mostly for insurance sake because if everything else fails, you can always count on good old zucchini to produce. So reliable. But this year, with the new raised beds and no wedding to occupy every last second of the summer, I'm taking my garden a little more seriously. And by seriously I mean stuffing it full of everything I can. Including A LOT of summer squash.



And the good thing about lots of summer squash is that you don't feel bad picking them when they are teeny and delicious. Behold, ingredients for dinner:



That celery top looking herb is lovage. If you aren't familiar with lovage, we should have a little talk. It is so delicious and different and sweet and salty and weirdly a little like cardamom(?), if cardamom was crossed with parsely, and it makes everything taste exiting and divine. Last year my lovage didn't fare well, but this year I could make lovage juice.

The tricky thing about lovage is finding it for sale. Farmer's markets would be your best bet. Especially if you have a stand that specializes in greens and herbs. If you can't find it, you can always grow it from seed in a pot. Which seems like an awful lot of fuss for one ingredient, but I'm telling you, it is completely worth it.

And luckily it goes nicely with summer squash and a little bit of butter.

semi-DIY potting bench

I have to tell you, Sunset has been seriously rocking recently. I can't decide if I've changed or if they've changed, but either way I'm quite pleased with our current relationship.

Aside from the magazine, they have a great blog, One Block Diet (which actually just won a James Beard Award), an amazing test garden, and they raise chickens and bees and grow ingredients for beer and all sorts of other good things.

And they have really good ideas in the magazine. Like good enough that I've actually dog-eared half of the pages in the April issue. I successfully completed one of those projects this weekend.

Potting Bench Euphoria, people. They made it so easy I couldn't resist:



So here's their idea: Buy an old table from a thrift store. Put the old table in your backyard. Voila! And here I've been waiting years for one because I couldn't be bothered to build one. Or have someone build one for me (more like it).

I successfully found and purchased a funky old pine desk at a thrift/antique-ish store up the street from my house. Instead of bricks for the "floor" I used a bunch of random old cement pavers that have been lurking around the side yard since we moved in. (So satisfying to find a use for them.) And I bought a few old crates at the flea market a few weeks ago to use for shelves.

I soooo wish I would have taken a "before" photo. It was hideous. Weeds and pots and neglected plants and bags of soil. Since you can't see the before, I know you won't be as ecstatic as I am with the results, but here goes:







I love that it has drawers for keeping pruners and plant tags and other essentials that have been cluttering up the laundry room forever. And I love that I now have a place for little horticultural experiments outside of the kitchen. Plus I can dry flowers on the lovely bars that decorate our windows. I'm so happy.

an urban farmer blog

My mom sent me this awesome blog last week and though I'm not sure how many of you darling readers are actually turning your backyards into vegetable farms this summer, perhaps there are a few who would benefit:

Diggin Food

It's a Seattle-based vegetable garden and food blog written by Willi Galloway, and stuffed full of awesome backyard farming tips. Like:




How to make a super simple and inexpensive squash teepee. Making it this weekend, for sure.



How to grow your beans up the side of a fence.



Plus she posts an excellent backyard chicken resource. Did I mention we're getting chickens? I'm so excited. Sometimes I think we already have them, but really I just have their names picked out. We're actually waiting on our nifty modern henhouse to ship from the UK. Only a few more weeks...

ANYWAY, check out her blog. It makes me want to abandon all professional goals and dedicate my days to growing things up the sides of fences.

volunteers

that popped up on last year's pumpkin mound after we de-weeded it. It saddens me to dig them up, but we need the dirt for our raised bed project (which is coming along nicely). Maybe I will try to transplant them. Some of them. We do not need 37 pumpkin plants.

Also the huge zucchini from last year are refusing to decompose in a timely manner. See them back there, all sunburned and old? Just rot, already. I can't put you in our worm bin because the worms died when we went to Australia and I haven't ordered new ones. Gardens are so needy. Especially when you don't know what you're doing.

the weekend plan

dust off the shovel and gardening gloves, must reconcile the last 9 months of neglect.



My parents gave us raised beds (for vegetables and such) for our birthdays. And by gave us I mean they are going to come help us build them. Plus my mom ordered these nifty pre-made corners/joints from Burpee that should make the construction process a little less technical. Poor Brock has to get gardening supplies for his birthday. He is the best sport.

I shall report back with our progress.

alice waters's minestrone

To start, let me just say that this soup is highly delicious.

We're on a new program at our house right now. It involves making big batches of food that we can eat during the week, with the hope that we cut back on eating out, eating at the whole foods/gelson's salad bar (gelson's is especially vile, IMO), and eating food that isn't thoughtfully prepared. So making a huge soupy thing on Sunday turns out to be a nice staple to have through the week.



We also have an impressive stockpile of winter squash (you remember these guys, right?) lazing around the backyard and kitchen, so priority number one was to make something (ANYTHING) that used squash in some way. Good old Alice. She is such a trusty kitchen friend. This minestrone seemed deceptively simple on paper... which is probably the point of the book, duh. But it's sooooooo good. Did I mention that already? I ate 2 HUGE bowls on Sunday. Huge as in we were eating out of small serving bowls. So that's 2 SERVING BOWL size portions of soup. Anyway, she gives her standard summer minestrone recipe with seasonal variations which all sound really good.

If you're handy with the wooden spoon and chef's knife, and can read well enough to follow this recipe, you should make this soup.

The pump:



The friendly herbs:




Wintery Minestrone
(adapted from The Art of Simple Food).

1 1/2 cups dried cannellini or great northern beans (I used great northern because whole foods didn't have cannellini in stock. but I do love cannellini...)

Soaked over night, drained, and cooked in filtered water until soft. Salt towards the end of cooking and reserve cooking liquid. Set aside.



Heat in a heavy bottomed pan over medium heat:
1/4 c olive oil

Add:
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 carrots, peeled & finely chopped
2 celery stalks, finely chopped

Cook for 15 minutes until sofritto (new word for me! though I think this is just Italian for mirepoix, non?) is tender and tasty on it's own. Salt a teeny bit during the cooking, as Alice instructs, so the soup develops flavor as you go.

Then add:
4 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
leaves of 5 thyme springs
1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
4 bay leaves (I used fresh, because we have them growing outside, but dried is obviously fine... though maybe you need less?)
2 tsp salt

Cook for 5 minutes or so. Add:
1 small can of tomatoes, chopped
2 bunches Lacinato kale, chopped into bite size pieces.



Cook for 5 minutes, Add:
3 cups filtered water

Bring to a boil and cook for 15 minutes. Then add:
4 cups cubed pumpkin or any orange flesh winter squash (Alice uses butternut, but I'm sure she would approve of my homegrown substitution)

Taste, and salt if necessary. Cook until squash is tender... about 10-15 minutes.

Finally, add the
Cooked white beans and 1 cup of their liquid (or more depending on how much is needed.)

Serve with grated Parmesan. (not shown... I had to take this the next morning. FOR THE LIGHT. Beacause I hate yellow compact fluorescent lightbulbs. The things we do for the earth, I tell you.)



YUM.

I'm going to submit this to this month's GROW YOUR OWN, which is a first for me. Fun! I feel so INVOLVED. New year, new me. You know?

Also, would anyone like some spare pumpkin? We have like 2/3 of that one left in the fridge.

our wedding: DIY succulent centerpieces

Kay, I'm just going to jump into the week here with a long wedding post. Ready?

These are easier than you think. I swear. But of course it means collecting a cohesive body of vessels, growing big pots of succulents for months before you're ready to harvest, and then being willing to pretty much massacre them, PLUS go to the nursery to buy extras to fill in the spaces. But I think it's kind of worth it!







Utter carnage on the back patio. Which was accentuated by my use of the huge coconut-hacking cleaver for the flower foam. You'll notice that the big pots are nearly cut clean of plants. But the best part about succulents is they just grow back. So loyal, they are.






So here's how you do it. Procure vessels. Buy flower foam. Soak flower foam in water. Cut pieces of foam to fit into vessels. Hack apart succulents. Arrange clippings into flower foam/vessels in pleasing manner. If necessary, fill space around the outside of the vase/pot with either little pebbles or spanish moss. VOILA!

Thanks to our super florist for both agreeing to share the centerpiece load with me AND giving me excellent pointers on putting these babies together.

My mom still has tons of these around her house in San Diego and they are totally happy 2 months later. She mixed them with poinsettias and cyclamens for Christmas-y spice and they looked great over the holidays. If you're not attached to your vessels (or you don't plan to resell most of them like I do) these would be excellent favors for your guests. I've got a few around our house too and they seem to be pretty happy, even the ones I actually planted in soil, in the pots with no drainage. (For these you need to start with a layer of pebbles below the soil so the roots don't rot, FYI).

Allow me one eco-friendly soapbox moment... succulents you grow and arrange yourself make the earth soooo happy. Having hundreds of roses imported from Ecuador, not so much. And yes, we did have a lot of our flowers done (most excellently) by our florist, Hoot & Heart, but for the most part they try to source organic, in-season flowers so we feel okay about that.

Maybe I should do a little DIY tutorial on these... would that be useful to anyone out there?

pretty winter garden decay

Due to the massive distraction that was our wedding, I severely neglected our garden last season. In fact Brock actually forbade me from spending time in the backyard on the weekends. Probably for good reason. Here's how the week would go...

Monday night, me freaking out about number of things on my list for wedding, Tuesday tired from work, overwhelmed, drinking wine on couch to relax self, unmotivated to do anything (due to 1/2 bottle of wine), by Friday state of panic because I'd completed exactly nothing in the space of a week. Saturday morning: gardening time!

See, so that's what your other (often better) half is for... to remind you that you were nearly in tears all last week because you had so much to do (but refused to do anything), so it would seem reasonable that you should take Saturday and Sunday to make a teeny bit of headway with the wedding project. NOT spend the entire weekend weeding and mulching and taking pictures in the backyard.

Hrrrrmphf.

Anyway, he was right, and now the vegetable patch is a brambly rotting jungle along the back fence. But in the early morning light, it's kind of beautiful.













The squashes won't stop coming. These were waiting for us when we returned from Australia. And there are still a few more on the way, though we'll see how they do with the recent cold and rain.

Luckily now I'm allowed to get back out in the dirt and start over for next season. This year we're doing raised beds. Yay, projects!

recycled wrapping (mostly)

Inside-out grocery/shopping bags tied up with pretty ribbon and butcher's twine = wrapping paper that makes me feel less guilty when all the presents have been opened and the recycling bin is full. Inside-out unless there are good graphics to be used, like the Spacecraft bag we lugged home from Melbourne. Couldn't resist the festive red dots.



And for spice, super easy tags punched from the papersource catalog and backed (using studio tac) with more grocery bag paper so there's a place to write.

It's amazing how much more comprehensive your craft supply area becomes post-wedding. Makes the last minute wrapping crisis much easier to handle.

when you're away for a month

You come back to a sad, cold, unlived in house and it's raining and the house is a semi-disaster because you left in a rush. And there are lots of little friends now inhabiting your space. And some of them, no not you spiders, are really pretty:



This guy was having his merry way with the parsley growing in what used to be my vegetable garden. Now it's a tangle of dead tomato plants, weeds, cucumber carcasses, and the largest zucchini I've ever seen, which at this point I think I'll just let grow back there until it bursts.

I think he's a tomato worm actually, but since there are no tomatoes left, I suppose he had to settle for something else.

I'm getting back into it here people. I have a handful of projects for the wedding left, and then there's the wedding itself of course, but it's hard to just jump right into that.

DIY ceremony arrangements!

I had to stay away from the blog world this morning. It was seriously encroaching on my ability to finish my projects in a timely manner. But I have some good things to share. Which to me means that I'm working my way through the list!

Kay, first are these:



I started them a LONG time ago, like maybe in June, so they had plenty of time to grow all full and nice by the wedding. There are two different versions, 4 of each... so we have 8 big arrangements to line the aisle. Does that make sense? It's kind of hard to see them in this photo and then right after I took it I realized I should test out the ribbon too.

So the finished product will look like this:



They are totally charlie brown and funny, but guess what? We're going with them! I kind of wish I had black & white ribbon or something more fun, but I don't know if I can bare another trip downtown to the flower market.

No one will notice they even exist I'm sure. Our awesome and creative florist, Hoot & Heart, has been exceedingly nice and agreed to let me get all in their business with my own contributions. I love them. They are adding garden roses and petals to the aisle too.

Here is how you complete this project:

Buy large pots.
Buy cactus/succulent planting mix.
Buy succulents.
Plant in desired arrangement.
Wait. (water sparingly).
Remember they exist, run to the side of the house to make sure they haven't died during months of neglect, and water again.
Wait some more.

THEN, when it's time for the wedding, fill in the empty space where you can see the dirt with spanish moss (the coolest floral supply ever, I just learned).
Tie your ribbons around the top of the pot and VOILA!

A note to interested parties, you can actually make these a few weeks before the wedding too, they will just be a little smaller. But the good thing is you have way more control over the final product and you don't have to worry that your succulents want sun and your sword plants want shade, making neither particularly happy.

more on pumpkins

from the grande dame herself, of course:



These are old news to those who love Martha "regular" (as I like to refer to the original publication) like I do, but I couldn't resist posting them now that I have time.

I LOVE this. Look how many varieties of pumpkin-like squashes there are. And up until a few years ago we've all been stuck with the boring jack-o-lantern sort.

Here's to growing and purchasing heirloom varieties. For why, might I suggest reading The Botany of Desire if you haven't yet? C'est tres excellente!

I'm going to the farmer's market now, because I can.

zucchini pickles á la zuni cafe

First, on zucchini. If you plant them, be aware that you will be finding them, lurking and huge in the back of the garden well into October. I just lugged one in from the backyard. It was the size of my thigh. Oopsies. That's what I call worm food. Unless someone out there has another suggestion?

Now, on pickles. I love freshly made pickles! Any kind really, but these from the Zuni Cafe are essential if you're growing zucchini (or any zuke-like squash) in your yard. One can only take so much zucchini bread after all. I had nearly forgotten about these this summer until I happened upon The Wednesday Chef on the day she posted the recipe herself. (SIDE NOTE: great food blog, and she just got engaged! welcome to the world of wedding planning Luisa!) Inspired, I opened my Zuni Cafe cookbook and have made like 4 batches since.

I added a few things to the o.g. recipe, because I can never help myself. And my quantities are a little loose... because 1 pound of squash doesn't even begin to dent a healthy backyard crop. Plus I don't have a kitchen scale... maybe I need?



Editor's note: if you don't have a mandoline you need one. In a bad way. (and it doesn't have to be fancy. I have this one, it's excellent, easy to use, and inexpensive). SO, mandoline in hand it takes about 3 minutes to perfectly slice a huge bowl full of squash and onions. Mandoline not in hand, potentially scary long time slaving over cutting board + inevitably ill-shaped pickles.


Zucchini Pickles adapted from the Zuni Cafe
(this is a doubled recipe... if you're going to go to the trouble, just make a bunch!)

2 lbs very fresh firm zucchini or other summer squash
2 small red onions (real recipe calls for yellow, but I never seem to have on hand)
2-3 HUGE garlic cloves (or more small ones)
4 T kosher salt
3 1/2 c cider vinegar
1/2 c filtered water
2 c sugar
3 or 4 springs of fresh thyme
3 t dry mustard
3 t teaspoons crushed yellow and/or brown mustard seeds
1 1/2 t ground turmeric

1. Wash and trim the zucchini, and slice thinly (1/16") using hopefully a mandoline for speed and ease, but a nice sharp knife will work too. Same goes for the onions and garlic. Combine the zucchini and onions in a large but shallow nonreactive bowl, add the salt and toss to distribute. Add a few ice cubes and cold water to cover, then stir to dissolve the salt. Leave be on the counter.

2. After about 1 hour, taste and feel a piece of zucchini - it should be slightly softened. Drain and pat dry. I layered the squash in between paper towels to ensure maximum moisture absorption.

3. Combine the vinegar, sugar, thyme, dry mustard, mustard seeds and turmeric in a small saucepan and simmer for 3 minutes. Set aside until just warm to the touch. (If the brine is too hot, it will cook the vegetables and make the pickles soft instead of crisp.)

4. Return the zucchini to the dry bowl and cover with the cooled brine. Stir to make sure everything is evenly distributed. Select appropriately sized glass jars and wash in super hot water to make sure they are nice and clean. Fill jar(s) with pickles and brine, making sure to cover the squash with liquid. If you're short on juice, personally I think it's fine to add a little water. These will live in the fridge, so you don't have to worry about growing bad things in the jars.



5. Open your fridge the next morning to get soy milk for coffee and see lovely jars of homemade pickles smiling back at you. yay.

The big jar is for the little cocktail party we're having the night before the wedding. The small jar is to tide us over until then.

very favorite fig jam

Really. This jam is insanely delicious. We have 3 fig trees in our yard that produce an absurd amount of figs, which mostly go to support the extremely healthy avian population in our neighborhood. And I have to admit, the first few years I lived here, I let most of them go to the birds. I tried lots of recipes, I did. But I couldn't find one that I loved enough to be my standard end of summer canning project.





And then a few years ago I did. I found a version of this recipe somewhere on the Internets, not a normal recipe site, just through google. And I made the necessary adjustments to make it as delicious as possible. It's sweet from the figs, floral from the lavender, rich from the pinenuts, and sort of deep from the port. It is amazing with a nutty aged cheese and glass of red wine, but also perfect on toast with butter on a bright fall Saturday morning.




Fig & Lavender Jam with pinenuts and port
(as always, these quantities are a little loose... I'm not so good with the measurements)

1 very large bowl of washed, roughly chopped figs (2-3 lbs)

~3 cups sugar

zest of 1 lemon

6T lemon juice

2 T finely chopped ginger (i use fresh, but i suppose you could use preserved too, it would just be sweeter)

1/8 - 1/4 c (depending on how flowery you want it to taste) tied in muslin or cheesecloth. i buy these little muslin bags from health food stores that they sell in the bulk herb section, but I've used cheesecloth before too, just make sure none of the little flowers can escape and if you use cheesecloth, be aware of strings that get lost in the jam.

1/4 c LIGHTLY toasted pinenuts (you can eyeball this, I just like to make sure that there are enough in there so you always get one when you take a scoop)

1 GENEROUS pour of port (this really makes the jam so try not to leave it out. And pick a decent quality port that you wouldn't mind drinking yourself, I think).


Chop all figs roughly. Put them in a large, broad, heavy saucepan with the sugar, lemon zest and juice, ginger and lavender. Bring them slowly to a boil and then boil quite fast for 20 - 40 minutes. Towards the end of the cooking, I pour in the port. I like to wait until close to the end so all the alcohol doesn't burn off, you know? Just go by feel here.

I like to let the jam go until the figs start to break apart, but not so long as it starts to smell like burning candy. That is bad. If your lavender bag is sort of precariously tied, I might wait until the sugar melts and the mixture gets a little soupy to add it This way the lavender doesn't have to endure so many turns with the spoon.

Once you've determined that the jam is done, take it off the heat, discard the lavender bag, and stir in the pinenuts. and Voila! You can obviously can it at this point, while the jam is piping hot, or just ladle it into big glass jars and keep it in the fridge.

my pumpkins

Speaking of little hints of fall... I harvested my pumpkin experiment a few weeks ago. so satisfying! the original inspiration for turning our yard into a pumpkin patch over the summer was to use them for, um, centerpieces for the wedding. OOPS. I made up this story in my head that they would all grow to be perfect LITTLE heirloom pumpkins in muted shades of peach, green, and white. A touch of late october without the overwhelming feeling of halloween.



WELL. They are mostly huge. But I haven't given up hope of incorporating them into wedding decors. I think I might pile the green ones up at 1) the entrance to hotel? 2) the entrance to the ceremony space (like behind the chairs at the start of the aisle? 3) somewhere around the reception?

IDEAS???



We're renting a U-haul to go out to Palm Springs anyway (need to take a load of succulent arrangements I've planted for the ceremony and reception) so might as well throw the pumps in and put them to work! Plus then, we can pass them out on Sunday to good homes.

PS. When planting pumpkins, be aware that spiders and at least in our yard, Black Widows, love making their web on the underside of each squash.



We apparently live in the ideal microclimate for Black Widows to thrive. They are everywhere. Very cool looking spiders but unnerving all the same.

meet Stapelia, my most favorite plant

I've been fighting the suspicion that fall is sneakily nudging the warm days of summer out of the air. I love fall. It's by far my favorite season, which is why we're getting married in October. It's just that I'm not really ready to give up on warm nights requiring no sweater. But then again I'm giddy with the subtle change in the light, with the hard squashes piling up at the farmer's market, with that tiny chill that settles over our bed in the early morning.

And of course with the blooming of the coolest succulent on my front porch.



I snipped a little clipping of this guy from a planter in front of a DWP building in Marina Del Rey years ago. I couldn't live without these wild flowers and I decided no one in the public works department would notice a tiny sprig gone missing. The plant part of the Stapelia Gigantea is nothing special, just a regular cactus-y looking thing, but the flowers are bigger than my hand and feel strangely like rubbery flesh. AND they apparently smell like rotting meat in order to attract flies for pollination, but I've never noticed a thing... except for the flies. That part really works.

Isn't it so cool?

passion fruit flowers for fun

Some pretty passion fruit flowers to start the week off. Aren't these the coolest? I love them. The vine grows like crazy, but it's so beautiful I have a hard time cutting it back. And look, a real passion fruit! Actually, I'm not entirely sure if it's real, in the sense that you can eat it, but I'm still excited for it.



And coincidence! Purple is so in these days... seriously, I am wishing I would have chosen plum for my bridesmaids dresses. Would have been so much easier on everyone. But we're in too deep now. 2 months from today. YAY! (i think).

tomato family from our yard

We have 5 kinds of tomatoes growing out back. They are just starting to ripen so we only get a few at a time, but aren't they cute all together?