Archive for April, 2013

Planting Our Garden in April

We had bought some herbs and planted them in pots at the end of March (see Herbs in Pots). We had prepped our garden’s soil in March, too (integrated some compost, turned it a bunch to loosen it up), but it took us until the second weekend in April to get our act together and actually plant our garden. It was a little bit later than we’d hoped, but we used all plants rather than seeds so we should be ok.

The garden consists of lots of peppers, tomatillo, and musk melon.

Mminiature red bell pepper plant

Miniature red bell pepper

Italian roaster pepper plant

Italian roaster pepper

Guajillo chile pepper

Guajillo chile pepper

Jalapeno pepper

Jalapeno pepper (we planted two of these)

Fresno chile pepper

Fresno chile pepper (we planted two of these)

Caribbean red hot pepper

Caribbean red hot pepper

Musk melon plant

Musk melon

Yellow tomatillo plant

Yellow tomatillo

I also planted a couple more things in pots earlier this month – chives, and a tomato plant I got at work (my boss was giving away his extras, planted from seed).

Tomato plant

Tomato – pretty sure it’s a brandywine

Community Garden March-April

There was a lot of work on the community garden in the past month, planting stuff for a spring/summer harvest. Most stuff was planted the last two weeks in March or first week in April. Including:

Beans planted from seed next to the onions.

Beans planted from seed next to the onions (look carefully to the left under the trellis).

Variety of mild peppers

Variety of mild peppers

Two cucumber plants

Two cucumber plants – one is a “lemon” cucumber that produces round, yellow fruit

Hot peppers (back) and tomatoes (front)

Hot peppers (back) and tomatoes (front)

You can see we used a lot of hay as mulch this year, which should protect the soil (keeps it cool and moist).

There are also several squash plants, but I didn’t take a photo.

We had a weird end of March where there was a cold front for a day or two and we had a little frost, so some of the seeds never produced and we think that was why.

The peppers were all plants, but the beans and squash were from seed.

One of the pepper plants up close

One of the pepper plants up close

Vegan North African Stew

North African Stew

This North African-inspired stew was made with white and orange carrots from the community garden, as well as cilantro and Italian parsley from our herb garden. It made about 3 servings.

2 tbs olive oil
1/3 red onion, chopped
2 tsp crushed, roasted garlic
1 red skinned potato, chopped
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can black-eyed peas
4 small carrots, chopped
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cinnamon
1 box couscous, cooked
Handful of Italian parsley & cilantro sprigs, chopped
2 tbs lemon juice

I sauteed the onion in the olive oil for a few minutes, then added the garlic & all the spices and the can of diced tomatoes (with the juice). Then added the carrots, covered and simmered for about 5 minutes. Added about 1/3 cup of water. Then added the potato and simmered another half hour until the potatoes were soft. Added the black-eyed peas last with the lemon juice for just a few minutes more.

In the meantime, I had cooked up some boxed couscous to serve it over, which was already infused with North African flavors so it went really nicely together.

Herbs in Pots

This year, we decided to keep all herbs in pots so we have more control over their access to sun, and so they can keep surviving over the seasons (if all goes well).

The spicy oregano and lemon balm made it from last year, so we just re-potted them.

Lemon balm

Lemon balm

Spicy oregano

Spicy oregano

We went to Magic Garden Nursery and picked up the rest. We got Thai basil, which did really well last year; spearmint (as opposed to peppermint which we tried last year – spearmint has bigger leaves); and cilantro and Italian parsley, which I tend to use regularly in cooking so thought they were good bets.

Thai basil

Thai basil

Spearmint
Spearmint

 

Cilantro

Cilantro

Italian parsley

Italian parsley

I still want to get chives and possibly regular basil, rosemary, and/or thyme. I can’t decide…

The Last of the Carrots

All what remained of the carrots in the community garden had to be pulled up last week to make way for the summer garden. There was some pretty decent sized ones – I think the sun in the last few weeks made a big difference.

Here is a sampling of the batch we got to take home.

Carrots, white, orange and purple

These are so good. I really like the purple ones, and the white ones cook up nicely, but would have to say the traditional orange ones are still the tastiest just as they are out of the ground.

Baked Broccoli Chips

You may have tried kale chips, which are delicious. Turns out you can also make broccoli chips using the leaves from your broccoli plants!

We just broke off the leaves, mixed in a bowl with some olive oil and salt, then baked in the oven at 350F for about 10 minutes. They turn out crispy and kind of melt in your mouth. The after taste was a little bitter at first, and you do have to avoid some of the wider stems, but overall they were pretty good and I’d definitely do this again.

Broccoli chips

I just wish we’d known about this earlier in the season – we did this for our last batch of broccoli, but could have been doing it all along rather than composting the leaves.