Late August Harvest, Austin Urban Garden August 20, 2010

It is actually like Hades out in the gardens, and I’m glad anything is still alive.  I’m harvesting and eating very few foods from the gardens now, and per my previous post, not planning to keep some of the less productive plants going.  This makes me sad, but I also hate my water bill and am a little scared about the next one.  So, today’s harvest:

Late August Harvest, limes, serranos and a watermelon

How random, I know!    I was afraid the watermelon wasn’t ready to be picked, but my instinct was good.  The bottom was softening and it was perfect!

Perfect Watermelon!

I have now successfully grown two watermelons.  Who would have thunk it?  I’m a bit of a watermelon farmer.

The rest of the garden is just hanging in.  I’ll pull up the low yield crops, per my earlier post, tomorrow.  Thank goodness for farmer’s markets or I’d be struggling for the next month, since my garden isn’t providing much food.

No Grocery Store, Day 219 – Thunderheart Bison Dinner Series #3 August 8, 2010

For late breakfast, two scrambled eggs, and a link of Dai Due Champagne sausage.  Nuff said.

Dinner for this day has been in the works for a while.  My friends Christian and Jamie and I started doing Thunderheart Bison dinners a while back.  The first one still might be my favorite dinner ever.  Last night, runs a very close second.

Christian recently interviewed the chef at Fonda San Miguel about their most popular dish, Carne Asada.  We immediately thought about doing a similar dish with Bison tenderloin.

Christian has the spices already ground and assembled when I got there.  Peppers, chipotle, cumin, annato, and clove.

Carne Asada Mise en Place

He deftly spiral cut the bison, for a flat strip.

slicing the bison

He had already mixed up some peppers and onions for a flavorful garnish.

pepers and onions

For crunch he fried some corn tortillas.

Fried corn tortilla

Next up, he seared the well seasoned bison in a hot cast iron skillet.

Seared bison asada

While the bison cooked, he made an avocado, tomato, red onion salad and lightly tossed it with oil and vinegar.

Avocado, tomato, red onion salad

The final plate was black bean puree, topped with the bison, topped with the peppers and onions, then surrounded with the avocado salad, and garnished with a tortilla.  The end result was spicy smokey bison, tempered perfectly with the creamy avocado, and cool tomato, with very slight acidity from the vinegar, creamy black beans with crunch from the tortilla.  This is one of my all time favorite meals ever.

Bison Carne Asada

State of the Garden, Surviving the August Heat August 7, 2010

The last week of 100 degree temperatures has stressed some of the garden plants, yet some seem unfazed.  I’m watering pretty much every day, and spritzing the plants in the heat of the afternoon.  The Lemon Cucumbers look horrible, but there are so many flowers on them, they are covered with bees.  Basically, at this point, I’m leaving them in for the bees.  The Purple Hull Peas are gorgeous, and seemingly sprang out of nowhere.  They will be ready to pick when about half of the pod has turned purple, so very soon.

Purple Hull Peas

The one Celebrity plant I left in from Spring, looks like Hell, but true to form, is still setting fruit.

Celebrity Tomato

I also have another watermelon. This one is from a different plant than the last, and is a different variety.  It’s very cute though.

Watermelon

The peppers, of course, are happy as can be and getting hotter by the day.  Heat begets heat, so they are fiery.  I’m going to make homemade Siracha (not spelled right) with the Thai Chiles.

Thai Chiles

The Three Sisters Garden is having mixed results.  The corn looks fantastic, but shows signs of stress at the heat of the day.  The beans and pumpkins are not doing as well, and I can’t predict their outcome.

Three Sisters Garden

The lemons and limes are ready to be picked, I just need to decide what to do with them so none of these precious gems go to waste.

No sign of the potatoes yet, I’m keeping that site slightly damp.  I planted them deep and they are slow, so I’m not looking for signs of life for another couple of weeks.  Hopefully not until it is cooler.

The tomatoes I put out a couple weeks ago are hanging in and a couple have flowered.  I’m pleased with the garden as a whole, but wish this horrible heat would end soon.

Here’s the big garden:

the big garden overall

Garden Update, Mid July July 16, 2010

It’s hot, and most of the gardens space is in rest mode.  I’m not going to plant anything else for at least a couple of weeks.  The Three Sisters Garden is doing well, I think.  The corn looks perfect, but the second set of sisters beans, and pumpkins are not quite all up.  Something has sprung up, but I haven’t looked close enough to see if its the pumpkin or beans.

Three Sisters Garden

The purple hull peas in the former landscape Nadina bed are looking gorgeous.

Purple Hull Peas

An unexpected surprise from the Watermelon I planted way too late.

Watermelon!

I’m still picking Chocolate Cherry Tomatoes from one plant, and Lemon Cucumbers are coming on strong.  Peppers are still producing as well.

The Limes are almost ready to be picked and the Meyer Lemon needs some more time.

Limes

Meyer Lemons

And, once again, its time to make pesto.

Basil and Thyme

The lettuce is coming up in pots and needs to be thinned, which I’m horrible at.

Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce

I’m on the hunt for seed potatoes to plant the first of August.  If you see any out there, let me know since I can’t go to the grocery store to use those.  I can probably order some online.

My First Garden Corn! July 1, 2010

For those of you who follow my little adventures, you know how excited I was to rip out my horrible landscaping (Nandina) and plant corn.  I’ve been so hopeful all along that the corn would make it, but for the last couple of weeks, it seemed to stop its progressive growth.  Yesterday a couple of the stalks fell over.  Was it from the weight of the corn?  Was it a sign that the plants were done?  The corn cobs seemed smallish.  After a day of errands, my friend Christian stopped by to chat about the day’s events.  When time came for him to leave to pick up Jaime, I said come back for a glass of wine and we’ll have happy hour.  I really just wanted support for what was about to happen, the plucking of the corn.  I had no idea if there would be kernals or not, worms or not, or just not anything.

So, I plucked a corn cob.

My first corn!

While not the monumental, lengthy grocery corn of my youth, I found it to be perfect, and wormless.  So, with company coming back, I wanted to celebrate my corn, so I scraped it off the cob, picked a ripe jalapeno, and took a ripe Celebrity from the window, and sauteed them together.

Corn, Garden tomato, and garden pepper

MMM, garden corn

The end result, was amazing to me, topped with shaved Sand Creek Farm Monterrey Jack.  I over peppered it for one of my guests.  Sorry C!  I didn’t know.

Final corn tasting

I have planted 40 corn seeds in the 5 x 5 garden I’ve dedicated to Three Sisters Gardening.   The corn I planted is different, but from Buck Moore Feed, so I’m sure it is corn that grows well here.  I’m excited for more corn adventures.  I picked some more and another tomato to boot!

this evening's harvest

Tomato and Pepper Harvest! June 25, 2010

The last few days have shown me a bit of a reprieve on the pests and I’ve pulled some unmolested tomatoes before the squirrels got to them.  The Chocolate Cherry tomatoes continue to be the rock stars of my garden, soon to be followed by the 3 lemon cucumbers I’ll pull this weekend.  I’m still waiting for the corn to fatten up and haven’t snuck a peak inside the husks yet.  Looks like corn though!

Tomatoes and Peppers

The two striped, oblong tomatoes in the middle are called Speckled Romans.  They didn’t get nearly as large as the one stolen by squirrels.  I have no idea what the large orange tomato is, all of my markers have long since been lost.  I have a major garden over planned this weekend, if I can work it into an already overly busy schedule.

No Grocery Store, Day 170 June 21, 2010

Not too much excitement to report on the food realm.  Yesterday for Father’s Day my dad requested to go to Flemings at the Domain.  So Flemings, it was. I had the filet Benedict and it was fine.  After that, I headed to some friends house to meet my new “puppy nephew” which is what I’m calling Leo the Catahoula puppy rescue that arrived on Saturday.  Puppies are so entertaining, we spent the afternoon marveling at his cuteness, while he played, then slept, then played, then slept.  For dinner, homemade pasta with my garden pesto, which they had in their freezer.  Lazy Sunday.   Time to back off the carbs.

I’ve got lots of peppers in the garden these days, jalapenos, serranos, and poblanos.   I guess I need to start pickling again or come up with something else to do with them.  Ideas appreciated!

Mid June in My Garden, and Corn Update June 20, 2010

I’m watering every other day, picking Chocolate Cherry Tomatoes and peppers every day, and obsessing about the corn every day.  Welcome to my garden, where something works and something fails every season.  This season’s failure 1) the black beans.  They grew fine, but never produced beans, so I pulled them up and planted purple hull peas today.  Failure 2) my inability to keep the squirrels away from my big tomatoes.  Outsmarted so far, at every turn.  This season’s champion by far is the Chocolate Cherry Tomato.  If you want lots of really great tomatoes, that neither the squirrels nor the bugs seem interested in, plant these.

Corn!

More corn porn

Celebrity tomatoes

Chocolate Cherry Tomatoes in the Earthbox

Chocolate Cherry tomatoes in the garden

Lemon Cucumber

Squirrel Food

Poblano Pepper

Jalapeno Peppers

Watermelon planted late

Malabar Spinach

Limes!

What’s up next in the garden?  I still need to pull up the last of the strawberries, add some soil to the compacted bed and turn it to make way for the pumpkins to be planted in a couple of weeks.  I’m undecided as to whether to leave in all the Spring planted tomatoes, or pull the less productive ones up and replace them with new Fall plants.  The time to start planting tomatoes again is July.  I think the Chocolate Cherry tomatoes will keep producing through the Fall, they have been so productive all Spring.    Happy gardening!

A Peck of Plums, and Peppers June 3, 2010

Peck of Plums

There is so much gorgeous fruit at the Farmer’s Markets these days.  I couldn’t resist these beautiful plums, sold by the peck and half peck.  They are not too sweet, and their skins are slightly tart.   I love the variance in color, it makes a pretty picture.

I harvested peppers a couple days ago, serranos and jalapenos.  Not nearly a peck. The serranos are not hot but the jalapenos are.  Arse backwards.  I wasn’t expecting such heat, so soon in the season, and made the mistake of eating one off the vine.  Yowza.

I’ll be looking at plum and pepper recipes today.  I’m not quite ready to start pickling yet, so I’ll do something fresh with the peppers.  Heirloom tomato salsa, perhaps.  Or gazpacho.

Not quite a peck of peppers

Almost Summer in an Urban Garden May 27, 2010

It feels like summer, already – the only time I enjoy being out, is in the morning and late evening.  The garden is very productive and I’m excited about the good things to come.  The strawberries are about done, and I’ve decided to pull them up, as I usually do.  I thought about getting another season out of them, but then I’d just be watering them for another 8 months before they produce again, when I could be growing something else that will produce before time to plant strawberries again.  I’ve pulled up all the onions and garlic, which all did fine.  I’ve decided not to plant purple onions again, because so many bolted.  I did manage to grow the biggest onion I’ve ever grown.  It really looks much larger in person.

Personal Best Onion

The corn seems to be doing what corn should do, and the larger stalks are sending up shoots, whatever they are called.  If I actually get corn, I’ll be a happy girl.

Aside from the pestilence, detailed in my earlier post the tomatoes are looking good, however I believe the two tomato plants in my Earthbox have become one, so it looks like 2 kinds of tomatoes growing on one plant.

tomato confusion

I’ve been eating Chocolate Cherry tomatoes all week, and they are wonderful.

The peppers are taking the production lead and there will be plenty to eat, make salsa, pickle, and share.

Peppers

jalapenos

Ancho Pepper

I’m still waiting for more lemon cucumbers, those were so good.  The eggplants aren’t looking good, having been choked out by the cucumbers and the watermelon looks a bit sad as well, but I just planted it last week.  I don’t think the black bean experiment is working, so that is a lesson learned.  The potato grow bag experiment may be a lesson learned as well, but in the grow bag’s defense, I didn’t mound the plants like I was supposed to, because I got too busy.  I’m giving them a couple more weeks.