Wintertime Moro Blood Oranges

These are the first pickings off the Moro Blood Orange tree we planted a year and a half ago.  Out of the dozens of blossoms that bloomed from the tree last year, only 4 fruited and ripened this Winter. I love how these look when you cut them open!

Colorful Containers

It’s getting towards the end of the summer, and the container plants have been looking a little depressed.   I had an embarrassingly good time by myself at the nursery picking out plants to refresh them.

Hanging Container Basket

Marigolds: has antiseptic properties and used for wound healing and detoxifying the lymphatic, digestive, & immune systems.

Blue Ageratum: also know as goat weed.  An ayurvedic medicinal plant historically used for cuts, wounds, bruises, pneumonia , & headaches.

Ivy Geranium: the essential oil has been used for skin conditioning, dermatitis, insect stings, & water retention.

Dahlberg Daisy: tiny yellow flowers that smell nice.  Attracts bees & butterflies.

Celosia: Externally as an extract, used to heal wounds, cuts, & sores.  Leaves are edible and has been used in treating some parasites.

All Green Container Planting

This pot is right next to the front door and usually greets people completely overflowing with the Foxtail fern that’s now in the back.  After a bit of careful muscling (with Vincent’s help) I was able to split the foxtail plant in half to start another pot and make room in the original container for a few new plants.  In front, I added a Sweet Potato Vine (I hope this cascades over)  & a little bit of Artemisia Silver Mound.  The combination of the textures & the different greens came out pretty cool, right?

 

Summer Backyard Update

Lot’s of pictures taken over the summer on what’s growing in the backyard.

Three sisters gardening

In the larger vegetable plot I wanted to try the 3 sisters method this season.  That’s where you plant corn, beans, & squash in a particular formation that allows each of the vegetables to help each other.  You start with corn and let that grow about 4″, then you plant the beans around the corn, and the squash in between the corn/bean combination.  The vining beans will use the corn stalk to climb, the corn shades the squash from the sun, & the squash covers the soil and keeps it moist and cool.  I planted patty pan squash (swimming in these now) and butternut squash to keep for the winter.

three sisters gardening close up

Here’s a close up.  This site provides a lot of helpful information to get started.

Globe Artichoke Plant

The artichokes from last year grew back.  They were even bigger this year and I’vebeen able to grab a couple for dinner every few weeks.

Globe Artichoke

Yummmy.

Passion Fruit

Out of the hundreds of passion flowers that bloomed on this vine, this is the only fruit I’ve seen.  So it’s a little egg-shaped treasure, and I look at it everyday to see if it’s ready.

Garden Fresh Pasta

Garden Fresh Pasta

 

On the weekend, the easiest thing to make is pasta with a sauce made from fresh veggies & spices.  All the main ingredients except for the spaghetti & portobello mushrooms are from the backyard, yay!  The rest consists of onions, tomatoes, & patty pan squash.   Cumin, black pepper, salt, & cayenne pepper for spices.  Fresh basil leaves as garnish.

First Summer Harvest

 

 

 

The summer garden started late this year so I’m just pulling the first veggies.  Here’s what I picked earlier last week.  Some patty pan squash & super flavorful tomatoes.  This week’s pull has practically tripled.  And the butternut squash is starting to form up, so I should be buried in them by the end of August.

Beets & Broccoli Fettuccine

Sauted beets and garlic broccoli combine to make a sweet, savory, and nutritious combination.  The thick fettuccine mellows everything out and gives the dish a good base.  I prefer 1 or 2 notes in my pasta dishes, and these 2 veggies complement each other really well. Serves 4 – 6.

Beets & Broccoli Fettuccine

INGREDIENTS:

2 large or 3 medium-sized Beets (trims removed, cut into short french fry-shaped pieces)

2 cups of Broccoli crowns

4 cloves of Garlic, minced ( I really like garlic, so I add even more than that.  You’re welcome to reduce or raise this measurement to your liking)

1 lb box of Fettuccine pasta

2 Tbsp Earth Balance

2  Tbsp Olive Oil

1.5 tsp Balsamic Vinegar

1 tsp Nutritional Yeast

Salt & Pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Cook Fettuccine according to directions on the box, or however you usually cook pasta.  Once cooked, rinse to cool, then toss in 1 to 2 tsp of olive oil to keep it from sticking.  Set aside.

2. Use the remaining olive oil to heat a medium saute pan.  Add garlic and saute for 5 minutes at medium-high heat, until garlic is starting to brown at the sides.

3. Add broccoli, saute to combine.  Adding salt & pepper to taste.  I would make it slightly saltier, so that it will even out when you add the pasta later.  Cook for 5 – 8 minutes, until tender and bright green.  Be sure to mix/flip the broccoli for even cooking.  Set aside in a separate bowl when done.

4. Using the same pan (now empty), add the Earth Balance and allow it to melt and simmer – no more than 2 minutes.  You don’t want it to start burning.

5. Add the beets and saute to cover in the melted Earth Balance.  I like cooking beets this way when I’m pressed for time, since they cook so much faster.  Cover pan with lid or foil for 5 – 10 minutes, until beets are just tender.  Uncover and saute, until all sides are slightly browned from the carmelized Earth Balance & beet sugar. Yum!

6. (I like to do this next step in a giant wok, but you can do this in anything big enough to hold all of the ingredients and that can be heated over the stove.)  Using a large pan or wok at medium-low heat, combine the broccoli & pasta.  Toss to evenly coat, while sprinkling in the Nutritional Yeast.  Add additional salt/pepper to taste, if needed.

7. Add the sauted beets and toss until evenly mixed.*  Serve & enjoy!

* I do this step last so that the entire dish doesn’t turn pink.  I don’t really mind it, but others might find magenta pink pasta a little off-putting. )

Growing in the Spring

Updates from the backyard garden!

Globe Artichokes, Sweet Basil, Carrots, & Beets

Baby Sweet Bell Pepper

Passiflora Passion Flower – There are a ton of these on the vine.  I hope a few of them turn into Passion Fruits!

Gobo (Great Burdock) & Tomatoes

Ciabatta Sandwich with Home-grown Lettuce

Most of this sandwich was made from store-bought ingredients.  The ciabatta bread is from Whole Foods – one of the less expensive things there.  You can get a 2 pack ciabatta loaf for $3.  This sandwich includes the following:

• Ciabatta bread cut lengthwise
• Spicy sprout mix
• “Turkey” wheat meat
• Tomato
• Avocado
• Veganaise
• Yellow Mustard

The combination of ingredients is very tasty & satisfying, so we tend to make this particular sandwich on a regular basis.

The lettuce is from the garden, which I’m quite proud of since I could only get lettuce, onions, & peas to grow from this past Fall.

For the 2 of us, I’ve found that we only need 2 or 3 leaf lettuce plants to get us through the winter.  I like that this lettuce grows leaves you can pick rather than the kind that you have to wait for the entire head to grow.  I can just pick a couple of leaves off each plant, the lettuce will keep growing, & I don’t have to worry about an entire head of lettuce going bad before I can get myself to put together a salad.

Quinoa Mid-Way

Quinoa is a staple food item in our kitchen.  I like to cook it pilaf-style with vegetable or mushroom broth and I usually throw a handful in whatever soup/stew I happen to be making.  It made sense to try to grow it in the garden this winter.  Quinoa is a short day, cool weather crop, which means in Los Angeles, I should be planting this in the middle of winter instead of waiting for March.  Basic growing information for this high-protein food crop can be found here.

Like almost all of the plants I’ve had experience with, the Rainbow Quinoa did not grow as expected.  I planted 2 rows of 6 in the raised beds in January.  I only saw two sprouts come up from this location, which i attribute to a combo of strong winds, suddenly warm weather (90 degrees F), then a downpour of rain…all during the week I was looking out for seed germination.  The two plants that made it are now about 3 ft tall, and there are seed heads growing at the head of every branch on each of the plants.  I can’t wait to see these guys change into their red, gold, & yellow colors when it’s time to harvest.

The strange & amazing thing is that I noticed that these plants grow just about anywhere.  Most of the seeds I planted didn’t end up sprouting in the raised bed.  Instead, I’ve been seeding quinoa sprouts popping up all over the other parts of the garden, and even the front yard!  They are literally everywhere – against the back wall, behind the nopales, next to the sprinkler system controls, under the passion fruit vine.  None of them are in the way or taking over another plant’s spot, so I’m just going to leave all of them where they are and check them out in about a month.  If they’re still doing well, I’ll put up some pictures.

Night Phlox

Ever since moving into the house, I’ve wanted to put together a night-scented garden.  The idea of sitting on the porch at night surrounded by the intoxicating-ly unique perfume of night-scented flowers is totally appealing.  Last March I attempted to seed 3 types of flowers:  Night Phlox, Night-Scented Stock, & Night-Scented Tobacco.  They were all seeded in peat pods and started indoors,  just like the other vegetables I was preparing for the spring & summer.   Well, basically, none of them seeded.  I even tried again a few months later in July.      Nothing.

For most any type of plant, there is usually a small portion of seeds that don’t sprout.  I have a large terracotta pot, where recycled soil from these failed attempts are collected.  This is my emergency soil supply for what kind of emergency, I’m not sure yet.  Last November, a single sprout appeared!  Since it could be any number of flowers, herbs & vegetable I left it to see if I could identify it later.

It’s now March again (a year later) and the sprout has grown into an 8″ shrubby plant (still growing).  I’ve been trying to figure out what it could be – trying to match it to sprouts I’ve seen before.  This morning I was looking at it and noticed that it had flowers, but the petals were closed.  I remembered the night-scented flower failure and decided to check it out at night.  It’s 10:00pm now and I just came in from the backyard, having taken the picture above.  Woop, woop! It’s Night Phlox, it’s so cute, and it smells like awesome.  A vanilla jasmine-y with chocolate perfume smell.

In the last post, I mentioned that  I also tried seeding the night-scented stock & tobacco, again, a couple of months ago.  It was a success this time, and the seedlings are currently sitting under an indoor light.  Crossing fingers that these ones make it too!