the farm | cauli's growing!

ok, the cauliflower's getting bigger and it's truly adorable! can't wait for them to get huge so i can roast them. yum.

this is the one i posted about last time, but look what's happened to it in just a week or so. :(

the farm | winter bed

so a few months ago, i had a certain craving for cauliflower.

instead of going to the grocery store to buy it, i went to a nursery and picked up a few seedlings. they went straight into my winter bed along with two varieties of kale. i'm very proud to say that i've successfully grown cauliflower for the first time! and by "i," i mean...the soil, sun, water, and automatic drip system.


my craving's not quite the same after all this time, but i couldn't help but notice my tummy rumble a bit after i saw this recipe. imagine the mash being purple! yum...

secret garden whispers.

grow little one, grow.

a wee lil one

i planted beets. months ago.
very expectantly, i waited patiently and watered (almost) faithfully for the 3 beets that survived. (out of .... 60 or so). i waited for them to heave (as it's called in the farming world). and a week ago, i saw this one heave.

enthusiastically, i went outside and gave it a nice what-i-thought-was-going-to-be-a-really-satisfying YANK!

um. yeah. not quite what i had imagined. and not quite satisfying in the way i had hoped.

but. it's still cute. and definitely picture worthy. this one's my favorite.
i have 2 more beets. one that looks like it'll be nothing more than just a fat root, and the other could possible be eaten whole in one bite.

i think i could look at and eat beets all day.
... . .. um, okay fine. i probably can't look at them all day, but i sure could eat them ALL DAY.

o. i love winter love affairs.

persimmons, i'm not two-timing. i love you both a lot. ;)

love it or hate it

cilantro: i love it.
do you love or hate it?

news from the garden

things are movin and growin...

you might remember when i posted about my garden when i first planted transplants. i looked back at it, and am so bummed that i didn't post a picture of the weak-sauce squash plant. because it had 2 1/2 leaves and wasn't lookin so hot. now, some of the leaves are close to 2' wide. (look below)

i spent a little time in the garden this weekend and look what i found and ate.





























































this is the one and only watermelon that was growing and I accidentally dismembered it from the vine! AH...it was pretty disappointing to see this lil thing all alone. Even if I get one watermelon, I'd be thrilled!

gifts from the garden

there seems to be a lot of activity going on in my garden. these are some of the fruits of not a lot of labor.

vine-ripened and amazing

the watermelon and cucumber plants are spreading, but bearing nothing. hm.

while everyone else is lookin

I planted a watermelon plant - two, in fact! By the time it matures, it'll be soo past the season that they'll be in high demand. That's when we'll get to enjoy delicious watermelon while others have to patiently wait until next summer for some watermelon goodies.

We also have some bell peppers, tomatoes, armenian cucumbers, jalepenos, and squash gettin all CUTE and BIG (well, not yet).

butterhead

I wonder if this transplant comes with a written guarantee that anyone can become a frizzy headed drunken woman by consuming this species of butterhead lettuce. Steve from Cole Canyon Farm was offering these goodies at the farmer's market on Sunday. This may be the cheapest $3 answer for men who want to become women - forget an expensive sex change! The only downside is that it comes at the cost of being frizzy headed, drunken, and slow to bolt.

scrambled fresh

I finished the last of an egg scramble I made yesterday morning for breakfast. Garlic, onions, blue cheese, fresh bell peppers and tomatoes from the garden. I harvested most of the peppers since they weren't getting any larger. They are in shade most of the day except between sunrise and about 8am, which isn't enough sunshine to make them grow. They look large in the picture below, but it's only an illusion since those tomatoes are only about an 1" in diameter.

On a side note, I love having a slice of toast (whole grain wheat or cracked wheat sourdough) with a generous portion of butter every morning as I run out the door. Then about halfway until I hit the freeway, I pull out the first persimmon of the day. I've been consuming about 3-5 a day; I am passionate about persimmons. Rar. At 69 cents per pound, I've been rollin in the money...actually, the persimmons.

I'm off to Pt. Reyes, and am running late because I wanted to update my blog before I took off for the weekend, but I'll have some great pictures to post when I get back on Saturday. (I hope!)