Farmers' market flowers

I go to farmers' markets to buy fresh produce. I try not to have a shopping list. Instead I buy what calls out to me, like those ruby red strawberries did last week. Damn those were good.

One thing that consistently calls out to me, but which I seldom purchase, are the flowers. Gosh are the flowers amazing. It's not the prices that turn me away. No no. The flower prices are always unbelievably reasonable. My excuse usually has to do with not "needing" flowers, and how cumbersome they can be to get all the way home. 

So lame!

A varied bunch from Chicagoland farmers' market, circa 2014

Let's not forget to add flowers to our mental farmers' market shopping lists. Go for the bunch that sings your name. They nourish us every bit as much as those sun-filled, juicy-as-beating-hearts heirloom tomatoes, just in a different way. 

Wouldn't you agree? 

Garden 2014

May, June, July...
My plot is a 300+ square feet area that I share with a ghost.

My garden area this year is... complicated.

Instead of the two single edge plots from last year, I joined forces for what I hoped would be more fertile ground.

Fertile, yes. Grass loves it.

In the picture above on the right you can see a square of dirt. That was where I first planted beets and greens in late spring. After several hot and humid thunderstorms, this area was a plush carpet of grassy weeds. Recently a friend wanted to plant something and didn't have space, so I let him rip it up and start over.

Two-thirds of the plot has plants and weeds waist high and higher. The back is lined with wild amaranth. Morning glory and bean vines dance through corn stalks, amaranth, sunflowers, tomatillos, cilantro and weeds. All wild. All going wild.

I'm feeling pretty zen about it.

Despite the disarray I should have tomatoes, tomatillos, and jalapenos from this plot, along with the many herbs I've been enjoying for a while now -- heavenly. And nasturtiums! Elsewhere in a small plot I have red cabbage, brussels sprouts, and more tomatoes.

But no significant harvesting yet. So to the farmer's market, tomorrow, I go...

Early July garden

This is my same plot from last year, 2012, and many years before. Picture below taken in early July of this year.

In it are, front-to-back-ish, celery, fennel, marigolds, lettuces, kohlrabi, radishes, and beet rows, calendula galore, and horseradish (I'm hoping). Coming up along the left from the back are the veggies from my symmetric-ish row that divides my two areas and some leeks which I haven't properly be tending to.

In the new plot:

This plot has so much going on. 3 cherry tomatoes, 1 heirloom tomato, 3 broccoli, 4 cauliflower, 5 brussel sprouts, 4 cabbages, 3 jalapeno, 1 italian sweet pepper, 2 sweet banana, 2 yellow bell, herbs, herbs, herbs, flowers....

Ahhhh......

Wish it luck!

Summer's path

Has unfolded:

This year my garden plot stretched across the aisle, so I decided to try a symmetric aisle planting of purple and green cabbages, cauliflower and brussel sprouts.

It's gonna be pretty rad.

Garden 2013!!!

The ground around here is still a tad frozen, but that hasn't stopped me from daydreaming about my 2013 garden plot....

Nefarious castor of yesteryear

These are a must:  beets, arugula, brussel sprouts, herbs galore, red cabbage, jalapeño peppers, radishes, cauliflower, pretty flowers, and what else? I know, I know, I know what you're thinking - TOMATOES. I'm hopeless with tomatoes and my CSA is not so I leave the tomatoes to them. 

But what else??? So far I haven't listed anything new. Spinach and banana peppers are calling my name. Fennel would be nice. Kale I adore. I'm open to suggestions (for hardiness zone 5A).

Colors of my garden

The colors in the garden were a sight to be seen this year.

Chutney for all

This year I had access to lots of unripe tomatoes. Our late summer was unfavorable for tomatoes, but favorable for my new favorite condiment, tomato chutney.

I based my recipe on that of the only celebrity I've ever met, Mollie Katzen. She was in the best supermarket in existence, The Berkeley Bowl, dishing out some of her new heat & eat soups. Not being prepared for this sighting, I'm sure I was a total dork. (Who am I kidding - I'd have been a dork regardless.) I mustered the courage to approach her and thank her for the The New Moosewood Cookbook, home of my hummus, home of my samosas, home of my more vegetarian fantasies. This recipe stems from there as well.

I'm not going to spell out her recipe because I don't have permission to do so, but I can surely say that mine was a simmered combination of unripe green tomatoes, ginger, spices (heavy on the cumin, coriander, and mustard), garlic, a bit of sugar, spicy peppers, and some apple cider vinegar to bring it all together. Then I canned it. In one variation I split the tomatoes with some pears.

You'd think I was trying to take shitty pictures.

Appetizers are served.

What do I eat this with? Oh, about everything. Above you can see it dressing up cheese and crackers. I've also mixed it with rice and chicken. I've put it on sandwiches - even egg sandwiches. I've eaten it with naan and spinach. I've mixed it with whatever is in the crockpot for some added depth of flavor. I'm clearly diggin this stuff.

When I give it as a gift this Christmas I'll want to add a card with some recipe suggestions, so what I'm doing is technically research. Research, people. Not gorging.

Growth

Having a garden is an amazing experience. As it grows, you grow. No need to think, "as it fails, you fail," because that doesn't happen. Ever. Gardens don't fail. They just go untended sometimes.

Here's my garden as of late-August (right), compared to my garden from mid-June (left).

In the front are lots of marigolds and herbs. Behind them my cruciferous vegetables. Cruciferous probably means crucify (cruci) those who eat the iron-rich (ferous) plant... possibly due to bad smells. Behind this is my beet square (2nd beet crop of year). Three Brussels sprouts line my right side (next to neighboring weeds) and red cabbages line the left side. Also includes: jalapeno, fennel, celery, catnip, arugula, purslane, flowers.

F-yeah

Purslane!!

Perhaps one of the best surprises of my summer has been the discovery of purslane. It first came to me in my CSA box and looked oddly familiar....... This is the damn weed that's crawling around my garden. I was picking out and tossing this albeitly-cool Martian succulent left and right. Not Any More.

Correctly identifying my garden purslane of course worried me, but proved easy enough. The first time I ate mine I made sure people knew about my experiment = = good general laboratory practice. 

Morning Glory (AKA my nemesis)

Mystery plants in gardens can be cool. When they're good, we call them "volunteers". When they're bad, I call them Morning Glory.

I let Morning Glory volunteer a couple years ago thinking it was a volunteer pea. It wasn't until I watered in the early morning one time that I noticed the vibrant, lovely purple flowers. Aha! This is Morning Glory!

Fast forward to the next summer. Morning.Glory.Sproutlings.EVERYWHERE!

I hate you.

I'm about 99% positive this is Morning Glory. The first 2 leaves always look like butterfly wings and the next two are pointed. After this it's a foot tall and after that it's winding around your ankles and after that it's gone to seed to drive you crazy next year.

The only blessing about this beautiful weed is how easy (and satisfying) it is to pluck them from the soil. If you're creepy and gross, like me, weeding these little suckers is akin to acnephilia. (I had no idea that term existed -- I just googled "joy of picking or popping things out".)

Weeds of my garden

For the fourth or so year in a row I have this nice little garden plot at work. It's bigger than anything I could possibly wish for on my non-existent balcony or yard. Every summer is now a new journey with dirt and plants within an area maybe 10' x 15' or so:

As long as I work here, I'm keeping this little slice of courtyard heaven.

This year I thought I'd try starting most of the garden from seed. After a shallow tilling I got right to work planting beets and brussel sprouts while there were little weeds overall. As time went on and the unplanted areas began to grow weeds, I had to dig up and turn over the soil (overall about two thirds of the plot). This did wonders to dry up the weeds while I otherwise prepared. As of now, most of my garden has been planted and some of the seeds have actually worked! I'll report back throughout the season.

But weeds.... ahhh weeds. I love and hate the little bastards. As I wait patiently for seedlings to emerge and make themselves known, I have gotten a good lesson in the many different types of weeds in my area. This year I'm documenting all the weeds with photos... I hope to get most of the desired seedlings with the camera too. Hopefully in later years I can have more certainty in what is, and what is not, desired plant matter.

I could maybe label this aspect of my life, "nerdy constant gentle learning".