Friday Favorite: Planting Things

It’s always nice to finally start planting things I started as seed so long ago. Yesterday evening I planted three of the four flats of onion seedlings. It’s always excited to start putting seedlings in the ground after nurturing them for so long.

The empty seed flats will be filled with more seeds: leeks for fall planting, warm weather flowers, herbs, and other random seeds I haven’t had the space to start yet. The best part about planting seedling is that the garden is finally starting to look like a garden.

What are you planting this week?

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Tomatoes

Last weekend I started my tomato seeds. I’m doing this a few weeks later than I usually do, but spring has been long in coming.


I’m growing a few new varieties this year, the ‘Beaverlodge’ types from Territorial. They are supposed to start producing at 55 days – we shall see if I’m harvesting fruit in late June. The best part about this variety is that if it does well it should be producing fruit for canning before late blight arrives.

This year I’m going to try grafting a few. I purchased the grafting seeds and am hoping to get enough rootstock to graft one of each of the heirloom varieties that I’m growing. I’ll plant them side by side with their non-grafted counterpart and look for any differences is disease resistance, growth rates and fruit production.

I’m most excited about my favorite tomato ‘Principe Borghese’. This beauty is the perfect tomato, small, delicious and a prolific producer. I love that it can easy be dried and tastes just like sun dried tomatoes. It also roasts up perfectly for my roasted tomato passata.

What’s your favorite tomato?

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Quote of the Day: Jerry Traunfeld

“Fresh herbs offer an astounding palette of vibrant and glorious tastes, but their delights go beyond the flavors they lend to food. For a cook, there is joy in simply handling fresh herbs in the kitchen. Who can resist stroking the proud sticky needles of rosemary, rubbing a plush sage leaf, or crushing a crinkled leaf of verdant mint between their fingers? When yous trip the fragrant leaves off sweet marjoram or tuck a few sprigs of shrubby thyme in a simmering stew, you feel connected to the soil and the season, no matter where you kitchen is.”

Jerry Traunfeld from The Herbfarm Cookbook

This time of year I’m always sad that cilantro and basil are gone, but thyme and rosemary will take their place. I have potted herbs in the house for winter eating, always thyme, and almost always rosemary.

I find thyme to be very easy to grow indoors, there are always a few different varieties. Lemon thyme is my favorite one, I use it almost daily. Rosemary can be hard to maintain as a houseplant, I have trouble with it dying on me. Recently, I read that if you plant it in the soil during the summer and dig it up for winter it will survive the winter much more easily. I’ll definitely be trying that method next year.

Do you have any potted herbs in the house?

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Why Not?

I was out working in the garden yesterday and noticed my Johnny Jump Ups are still blooming like mad, their last hurrah before the snow starts to fly. While harvesting greens for our salad, I decided to pick some lovely blooms as well. Why not? Salads should be beautiful and tasty.



I also think that the flowers are healthy and add their own vitamins and minerals. I know violet are high in vitamin C. I love adding flowers to my salad, I think the splash of color really adds a lot.

Do you ever add edible flowers to salads? Which is your favorite?

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Friday Favorite: Strawberries in October

This spring I planted 25 ‘Seascape’ strawberry plants in my garden. They took their time getting settled in and finally started producing a few berries last month. They’re really in the swing of things right now. I’m not the only one growing these beauties, there’s a stand at the farmers market that has had them for the last month as well.

It’s kind of crazy to be harvesting fresh strawberries from my own garden at the end of October. I’m not complaining, a handful of fresh strawberries is just as good in October as it is in June. It’s kind of like the last hurrah of summer before the snow flies!

Do you have any ever bearing strawberries in your garden?

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