Gooseneck Barnacles at Botanical Beach
Tags: seafood, Wordless Wednesday
August 10 2010 | Growing Food and Photography and Vancouver | 5 Comments »
Harvesting in Early August
This month my neighbours and I have more growing than we can harvest and eat so there is quite a bit of food sharing going around. Almost daily I get a delivery of somthing, like a giant bowl of fresh figs, that I turn into some lucious creation. I have also now organized a farm fresh egg delivery in my city neighbourhood and been out picking wild berries – all making for a crazy first few weeks in August.
I’m currently harvesting the following veg from my home garden and the community garden plot:
Beans: Purple Peacock, French Filet
Peas: MammothMelting Snow Peas
Tomatoes: Black Russian, Siletz, Sweetheart Grape, Gold Nugget Cherry, Sungold Cherry, Isis Candy Cherry, Red Zebra, Tumbler
Sema Fino Florence Fennel
Beets: Detroit Supreme, Red Ace, Chioggia, and Golden
Chard: Rainbow, Fordhook Giant, Rhubarb
Peppers: Filius Blue, Garden Salsa
Basil: Organic Sweet Basil, Thai Basil
Squash: one Gold Nugget was ready at the community garden
Potatoes: Red Chief, French Fingerlings
All this has made for some interesting recipes like carmelized figs, fig ginger jam, walnut pesto, and mixed veggies ragu. I’ll be sure to share very soon. If I can get out of the kitchen long enough. help.
Tags: basil, bean, beet, chard, fennel, fig, harvest monday, pea, pepper, potato, Squash, tomato
August 09 2010 | Community Garden and Gardening and Growing Food and Harvest and Photography | 8 Comments »
Pickin’ Blackberries and Makin’ Jam
Today, on the annual organic blueberry run to Richmond, I stopped to walk the pooch by the Fraser River and found some huge, ripe blackberries that practically leaped into a little beach pail that I picked up for the occasion. I always snicker a bit when I see blackberries on sale around here as they are pretty easy to get a hold of here in BC. But I guess many folks are too busy to get out and pick blackberries if they want them.
The Himalayan Blackberry (Rubus laciniatus) is an invasive intruder that can be found by the side of the roads nearly everywhere there is still green space. There are brambles of the arm-stabbing, leg-slicing, nasty ass blackberries all around my community garden, but I’m fairly cautious about what I get from there given the transient nature of the neighbourhood (I’m putting it lightly – there is quite a bit of prostitution and drug use at night). I’d much prefer to get out in the woods somewhere as I did today and for my efforts I went home with a pail and a half. Plus I had a great walk, very much enjoying the first rainy weekend we have had in about 5 weeks, even if I did have to pick around the local wildlife.
Once home, the blackberries were so ripe that really, the only way to keep a large amount is to preserve them. I call this Stupendously Simple Wild Blackberry Jam because it only has 3 ingredients. The whole experince was very entertaining so even though it took a whole day, it was a day well spent.
Stupendously Simple Wild Blackberry Jam
- 8 cups fresh wild blackberries
- 4 cups sugar
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
Directions:
Lightly rinse the berries and put into a large pot. Mash them up a bit with a potato masher or fork. Add sugar and lemon and bring to a boil. Reduce to medium low and keep it bubbling lightly until the liquid cooks down to the thickness you desire. I cooked mine for 3 hours, stirring occasionally, to get a really thick final product. This jam will sit piled up on a cracker if I want it too.
Ladle finished jam into 12 clean, sterilized 125ml canning jars or 6 x 250ml (I think these are called 1/2 pints across the border). Process in a boiling water canner for 10 minutes for the small jars and 15 minutes for the large jars. Store for up to a year in a cool, dark place.
Tags: blackberry, preserves
August 08 2010 | Canning and Harvest and Vancouver | 16 Comments »
Hardy Blue Passion Flower
At the rental house before I bought my current home there was an alien-like passion flower vine that serpentined around the iron fence up front steps. It was obviously old and established because it set of a profusion of flowers each year and produced many egg-shaped little orange fruits. I never tasted one for fear of the unknown but I did enjoy my one season with the vine tremendously (I’ve since learned that the fruits are edible indeed).
When I moved into my new house the following year, I went straight out and bought a passion flower along with an Italian Prune Plum tree which I also adored during my time at the rental. To my dismay, it died that winter. I bought another the following year and it died over winter too. I certainly wasn’t about to try a third time (at $18 a pop) so I grieved and moved on. Until one day a interesting plant collector traded me a Hardy Blue Passion Flower that was already more than 10 feet long! I planted and trellised it last year and just as the plant collector assured me, it WAS hardy enough to survive!
I now have an amazing twining vine above the apple espalier arbour and ducking under the variegated butterfly bush. I’m so happy to once again enjoy the most unique and stunning blooms. All hail the Hardy Blue Passion Flower – I hope to someday try your fruit.
Tags: Flora Friday, passion flower
August 06 2010 | Flowers and Photography | 13 Comments »
Botanical Beach in Port Renfew, British Columbia
Tags: BC, beach, Travel, Wordless Wednesday
August 04 2010 | Photography and Vancouver | 8 Comments »
Crocosmia: Beautiful Inside or Out
Right now my garden is alight with the fiery glow of crocosmia–the smaller orange ‘Emberglow’ and the taller red ‘Lucifer’. I’ve planted the of the corms in clumps around the back patio, bordering the back of the front potager, and interspersed wherever I find a space that needs some cheering up.
Crocosmia also puts on quite a show when it’s in bloom, attracting a constant stream of bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies to entertain you. It is such a prolific perennial that some gardeners shy away from it. I just enjoy the many blooms and when they are through, I’ll give a clump to a neighbour or friend. And if you want to thin them out a bit, well, they make great cut flowers as well.
For more detailed information on crocosmia click here.
July 30 2010 | Flowers | 8 Comments »
Wordless Wednesday: Summer Drink
Tags: cat, creatures, Wordless Wednesday
July 27 2010 | Photography | 14 Comments »
Harvest Monday: The First Tomatoes
This week the first slicer tomatoes ripened suddenly. I grow these Siletz organic seeds because they are dependably early on the coast and will withstand cooler temperatures so they can be set out in April. They are nice tidy shrubs with about 8-12 large tomatoes each ripening right now, and hopefully a long and productive season ahead. I have 3 plants at the house and one at the community garden plot.
The toms were amazing with fresh basil and some olive sourdough I made from my starter.
There are many peppers ready to be eaten green (or purple as with the Filius Blue peppers), some are picked to encourage more flowers, and the others will get left to allow the peppers to turn red and spicy.
There are still lots of blueberries on the shrubs out front, and now that I have divided my yellow alpine strawberries into a lot more room, I’m getting heaps of those as well (thanks for the advice, Laura!) And with all the kale growing at the community garden, I just had to have more kale chips.
I thinned out a bunch of small beets this week for both the sauteed greens and the roots. I’m growing at least 4 types this year: Detroit Supreme, Red Ace, Chioggia, and Golden.
It has also been a big week for flower harvests. With so many cutting blooms growing, my house is filled with colour both inside and out. The crocosmia below is one of my favourites – both the firey orange crocosmia and the larger upright lucifer crocosmia look just a good indoors as outside from my hammock.
Tags: beet, crocosmia, harvest monday, kale, pepper, tomato
July 26 2010 | Growing Food and Harvest and Photography | 14 Comments »
Artichoke January 2009 – July 2010
How could I have so quickly forgotten in my Harvest Monday post this week about my Green Globe artichoke?! Sorry old friend, you deserve much better.
And “old friend” is certainly appropriate. I started 6 plants from seed in January 2009 and this year just one of the 2 remaining plants gave me an artichoke. I watched it for weeks nervous that someone would take my prize from the community garden (theft is unfortunately a problem there) and just when I couldn’t stand the suspense for one more second, out came the clippers and I snatched it myself.
I brought my green gardening trophy and gave it a good rinse in the sink. Then I cooked it for about 45 minutes in a steam basket.
Then late on a summer evening, I enjoyed it with a Caper Mayo Dip. To make the dip, blend a 1/4 cup mayo with 1 tbsp drained capers, 1 clove garlic, 1 tsp lemon zest and add olive oil, salt, and pepper to taste in a mini food processor. Serve immediately with prized steamed artichokes and, of course, enjoy! I did.
Tags: artichoke, harvest monday
July 22 2010 | Growing Food and Harvest and Photography | 14 Comments »
Wordless Wednesday: Highland Cow from White Oaks Farm
Tags: cow, creatures, farm, farm stay, Oregon, Wordless Wednesday
July 20 2010 | Photography | 11 Comments »
