Scenes from the garden

Our garden is really filling in now and Thomas refers to it as "the jungle." It's not quite a jungle yet but it's certainly growing in really well and is hugely better than where we started!

Pinks from the garden

Hello! I've missed blogging and some of my friends have missed it too, enough that they told me to get back on the wagon. So here we go with a little photo post about what's up in my garden. First off is this amazing ruby red sweet corn that looks incredible. Dinner tomorrow evening for sure!

I love how even the silks are pink tinted. We have about a dozen ears and I can't wait to try it. Then there's this beauty, pink tints and all...

And last but not least is my mojito, a pink straw but the mint and lime are both from my garden! And the rum is even local, distilled by Ballast Point in San Diego. Yay, local!

Yay, blogging! I'll see you again soon, there's a lot to tell these days.

Spring Garden

My parents sent me this great book about square foot gardening and I love it. It's an old Rodale Press book that talks about maximizing the vegetable plants in the space you have. Perfect.

An aside: I'm sure my parents dug this book up from the closet-from-hell. Does your family have a closet-from-hell? A closet that lurks in your parents' home with tons of family stuff that nobody wants to sort through? That is the closet-from-hell. Where hidden book treasures are stuffed. Thank you for the closet-from-hell.

I put together a plan for the new veggies according to Mr. Bartholomew's square foot plan which allocates a certain amount of space per seedling. One square foot per bell pepper plant but nine spinach plants per square.

On the top is my coded plan for what I thought we might plant, below is Thomas' rework for what actually got planted. We did ruby red sweet corn, rainbow heirloom tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers, carrots, spinach and bibb lettuce. I can't wait until it all sprouts!

Garden to table: Eggplant {Recipe}

Eggplant harvest! Last spring I planted a variety pack of eggplant seeds and was really happy and surprised by the results. Eggplants of all different shapes and sizes started appearing. So fun! I had a few big harvests and as a result we've been eating eggplant with eggplant for weeks now. I tried making roasted eggplant, babaganoush, sweet and sour eggplant, but this Thai basil eggplant recipe is by far my favorite. I made a big batch for friends and the wok was practically licked clean!

Thai Eggplant Basil Dinner
(from thaitable.com)

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 bunch Thai basil, leaves picked from the stem
1 tablespoon sugar
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 eggplants
2 chili peppers

Slice the eggplants into irregular shapes for easy turning in the pan. When it is sliced into a small disk, it tends to stick to the bottom of the pan and makes it difficult to flip or turn.

Chop garlic and slice chili peppers. Pick the leaves from the stem of the Thai basil.

Heat a pan or wok over high or medium high. Add oil, chili peppers and garlic. Stir until the garlic turn golden brown. Add eggplant and stir. Add a cup of water and cover the pan or wok with a lid. Keep the lid close until the eggplant is cooked. It should take about 5-7 minutes before the eggplant is done. The eggplant turns from white to translucent when it is done. Almost all of the water should have been evaporated at this point. If the eggplant is still not cooked, add a little bit more water and keep lid closed until the eggplant is ready. Add fish sauce and sugar and stir. Add Thai basil and quickly stir to heat the basil, so that it retains it color. Turn off heat immediately.

Serve hot with rice.

65 and sunny with a light breeze

As the East Coast hunkers down for yet another winter storm (this time with damaging amounts of ice!) let me smugly welcome you to my Southern California garden.

KAPOW! I love Pêche, the peach tree. I might have to make that photo into a poster. Next up is Fred the aloe vera.

Fred was a sad looking clearance plant at Lowes last February. Mother-in-law and I took pity on him and loaded him in the cart. Have you ever tried to lift a giant, spike-ridden aloe plant that's overgrown its pot? Not easy! That's why he has a name, because he has a mind of his own. This year it looks like he's happy with his new digs, I've never seen aloe blossoms before.

This precious purple darling is called society garlic. It'll shoot up about 20 more flower clusters, it's a light addition to all the neighboring succulents.

And then for comedy relief... here's Henry being completely adorable. They're blurry photos but still so cute, so happy, and so free of ice!