Of Bees & Tomatillos

Bees love tomatillo blossoms! For the past two weeks, my tomatillo plants have been inundated with honey & bumble bees. This is my first tomatillo growing season. Last year I brought them home by the bucket-full from the CSA. So I figured why not grow my own?!

Presently, I have 3 plants. Two are growing strong on the deck (see above) while the other is struggling in my front garden. I hope that a healthy dose of compost will get the straggler in gear, but if not, the two on the deck may provide enough tomatillos for salsa verde all summer long.

As you can see, I was fascinated with this little bee. The bee buzzed from flower to flower for 15 minutes. These are well pollinated plants! I tried not to bother it too much, but I was pulled in but the bees focus and precision. Not a single flower left behind.

I can't wait to see more pollinators fluttering in the tomatillo, as well, as other plants in the garden. Hopefully this translates into a large summer bounty!

Do you grow tomatillos? What else do you like to make with these tangy gems?

What I'm Reading: To Market, To Market

My son & I love to read. Especially Nikki McClure books. It's as if the books told the story of this mama & her boy. Gardening, exploring, cooking & visiting farmers' markets. The books are visually stunning. Each page is a work of art, crafted by Ms. McClure's exacto knife and later colored with precision. To Market, To Market (published by Abrams Books for Young Readers) details a day at a beautiful autumn farmers' market. Each page tells the story of the food and the people cultivating the delicious treats. You can pick up most of Ms. McClure's books on Amazon, or via Buy Olympia. Make sure you check out the Buy Olympia site - it also sells her original art & prints. Phenomenal stuff.

Last weekend we visited the Glenwood farmers' market. Though it's small, no more than 8 vendors, it had a lot to offer. Check out what we picked up:

Sweet Cherries

Tomatoes & Snap Peas

Beet Cake Parfait (tastes just like a red velvet cupcake!)

We also picked up cantelope, cookies, peach cobbler, local bacon & sausages - Yum!

We don't make it to farmers' markets every week, but we do try. There's always something new and delicious, as well as friendly faces with a story about where these yummy treats came from.

Which farmers' market do you frequent? Do you prefer the big city markets or the smaller venues?

I Spy: Butternut Squash

Last year my butternut squash plant produced 1 squash. It was delicious, but 1 is not enough! So I bumped up to 6 plants this year, in the hopes this means more than 6 squash.

I may have to resort to manual pollination, but so far it seems like the bees are doing their job. Below is a picture of 1 of my containers of butternut squash plants. Growing squash in a container is easy. I water regularly and either add compost or liquid kelp/fish meal fertilizer every 3 weeks. Other than that - I just have to remind the squash vines to grow into my backyard instead of the patio.

Are you growing any squash in containers this year? When my plants are done in the fall, I'll pull the plants, add a ton of compost and plant garlic. So far, both have done well in containers!

Harvesting & Curing Garlic

My first garlic journey is almost complete. Over the weekend I harvested my garlic, 17 heads from 17 little cloves. Back in October I tucked these guys into a bed of heavily composted containers. Last month I harvested their curly scapes, and now it's time to cure these beauties.

After gently unearthing each head, I brushed off some of the dirt, and carefully fished the leaves into a stainless steel rack. The garlic cures best in a shaded, dry, breezy location. Many use a shed, garage or basement. But I prefer to keep these smelly bulbs outside. The rack of garlic is under my deck, directly under my table and umbrella...so far all dry. If a big storm rolls through I'll consider moving them. But it looks like they'll be outside curing for 2 weeks before I trim the leaves and roots for storage.

This has been a great gardening adventure and I cannot wait for another autumn planting of garlic. I guess that means I need to save some cloves for October!

I Spy: Jalapeño

The peppers are growing fairly well this year. But this plant caught my eye. The jalapeño on the plant matches the size of the plant! Instead of letting the pepper ripen, I clipped it off and used it in salsa. The little plant clearly needs to put its energy and time into growing a strong root system and a bit more height.

I'll check the rest of the pepper plants today for similar fruit-efforts. I don't mind waiting a few more weeks, I'd rather have a plant that can actually support the weight of its sweet/spicy peppers!

Growing Chamomile

My chamomile flowers are just starting to bloom. Early this spring I sowed the seeds in one of my deck-rail containers. The plants get good sun, and a regular breeze - but it took ages to get going. This, is apparently a good sign. Chamomile takes its time, and enjoys a few frigid nights before the summer swelter. As do I!

I decided to grow chamomile after participating in last winter's DDC. There were so many ingredients that I wanted to cook with, but couldn't because I couldn't find them locally. One week, I desperately wanted to feature some local honey in a cup of chamomile tea. But I couldn't find local chamomile tea, and I didn't have any dried chamomile - Outta luck! So I made a list of things I really wanted to have for the next DDC, chamomile and stevia are on the top of the list!

So now I need to read up on drying chamomile. I hope it's as easy as drying rosemary, and other herbs. Have you ever dried chamomile flowers and made your own tea? I'd love to hear about your experiences!

I Spy: Kohlrabi

Kohlrabi is finally growing! It's crisp, tasty - cooked or raw - and is way more fun to eat than ol' broccoli. This is one of my fav springtime veggies and this is my first time growing it. At first I had these little orbs out front, they were stunted and unhappy. So I transplanted the buggahs to the back, into partial shade and viola - happy kohlrabi!

I still have a few plants struggling to grow out front, I guess there's more digging in my future this week. Hopefully there will be more kohlrabi cooking in my future too! A few weeks ago I made an awesome rissotto with farro & kohlrabi, and I highly recommend it!

How about you? Growing any cool fun vegetables or fruit?

June Blooms

Lots of pretty things are blooming in the garden. An important part of vegetable gardening is having some flowers to attract bees, butterflies & ladybugs. Right now my garden is exploding with flowers of all colors: black, purple, pink, red, yellow, orange, and hopefully some green zinnias soon! Check out the pics below for a small sampling of the June Blooms in my garden:

Pictured Above: Lavender

Pictured Above: Marigolds

Pictured Above: Geraniums

Pictured Above: Zinnia

Pictured Above: English Daisy

Pictured Above: Arugula Flowers

Pictured Above: Bachelor's Button

Pictured Above: Black Viola

Many of these are edible (viola, bachelor's button, arugula flowers) and some are just summer garden staples, (geraniums & zinnia.) I love having flowers throughout the garden. The viola are shade dwellers, while the lavender soaks up the summer sun.

What is your favorite garden bloom?

I Spy: Tomatoes

Tomatoes are popping up all over the garden! So far just one plant boasts all the fruit, but there are flowers on almost all of the plants. This year I'm sticking with the same tomato line-up: Purple Cherokee, Pruden's Purple & Orange Pixie. These are all magnificent raw tomatoes. I'm leaving the sauce tomatoes up to the local farms.

Over the weekend I found out that I'm growing more tomatoes in my backyard planters. I'm not sure how the plants got down there, but obviously I planted tomato seeds instead of flower seeds! Or - somehow the seeds from my compost germinated into plants, doubtful, but you never know. I don't plan on babying the backyard plants, yet. Especially since that planter got the lions share of the homemade compost. I put up a few tomato cages and released a few ladybugs.

Always an adventure here at The Soffritto!

Did you - knowingly - plant any tomato seeds/plants this year? What kind? Happy growing!

Growing Mint

I love love mint. It's easy to grow, drought tolerant, and tastes great with rum. This year I'm growing six different varieties: Orange, Pineapple, Apple, Chocolate, Sweet & Spearmint. My fav is pineapple, but I have a feeling orange & chocolate will be in a close race for second place.

The best way to grow mint is in a container. Mint wants to grow and take over the world, so keep it contained and snip runners when you see them. I've never grown mint from seed, always from new plants. If you are interested in growing mint, find a friend who grows it and snip a few branches. Keep some for your mojito and one to plant in your garden (container!).

Check out my mint in the pics below:

Pictured above: Orange Mint

Pictured above: Chocolate Mint

Pictured above: Apple Mint

Pictured above: Sweet Mint

Pictured above: Spearmint

Pictured above: Pineapple Mint

Are you growing any mint in your garden? Which one is your favorite?

Market, Two Markets

It's the last weekend before i start my Breezy Willow CSA pick up but I need veg for the first week of the SOLE Challenge! For much of May, I relied upon farmers' markets for local produce, cheese, honey, baked goods & meat. Today I hit up two local farm stands, Jenny's Market & Harbin Farm.

First up is Jenny's Market, located on East Ivory Rd just off of 32 & Ten Oaks Rd. Jenny's carries produce from all over the East Coast, but specializes in Maryland veg & fruit when it is in season. Today I picked up some gigantic spring onions, clover honey, pickled cucumbers, peas, and some banana bread.

As you can see, Jenny's has a wide variety of baked goods, local produce, canned goods (from last years local harvest), herbs & plants. For years I've seen the signs for Jenny's (the ones on route 32 & Ten Oaks) and I'm glad I stopped by today!

Next up is Harbin Farm, on the corner of 99 & Bethany Lane in Ellicott City, MD. I've been stopping & shopping at Harbin Farm for years. I drive past it at least twice a day, and am easily lured in by the flowers, produce & treats. Today I picked up tomatoes, patty pan squash, strawberries & nectarines.

Harbin is a little larger than Jenny's and carries a lot more flowers, plants & also carries local eggs. In the Fall they have pumpkins and around the holidays have Christmas trees. One of my favs at Harbin is the basket/bucket of "special" tomatoes. These tomatoes have spots or imperfections, to me this means 10 gigantic tomatoes for under $3...it also means I'm making salsa or gazpacho!

I'm fortunate to have both of theses markets so close to home. Tonight we'll be grilling up some of the delicious veg & making strawberries & cream for dessert. Finding a local farm-stand is just as easy as hopping in your car. Hope your dinner night is just as local & tasty!

Growing Peas

Peas are making a jungle out of my deck garden! The teeny tendrils grew into goliath vines. The past few weeks of rain and warmth must have excited these pods, one day I'm inundated with blossoms and the next day they're growing pods.

Instead of netting, I'm using two trellises in a container. So far, they're happy, and hidden from the squirrels. This spot is fairly sunny, but only in the morning. Which has been good, I don't think they'd survive the killer afternoon sun. Since this is my first pea-growing adventure, I'm not sure of the growing season length or pests to look out for. As long as it produces I must be doing something right!

Soon it will be time to shell some peas! I'm a little overwhelmed but delighted with the sweet gems in each pod. This week I should harvest ~20 pods, not a mountain of work. Last night I tasted the raw peas. They were sweet and crisp... but how would they do with a little olive oil and sea salt?

I know the season will be short, but now I know to plant double the amount next year! After the pea-season ends green-beans will be in action. My work in the garden - thankfully - never ends!

Chard is Going to Seed

Last year was my first exposure to growing leafy greens. I was drawn to the beauty of golden chard, as well as it's easy growing. My chard plants produced into January before they went dormant. I was thrilled to see them spring back to life in March, and mystified when they stopped growing leaves and started growing long stalks speckled with beads.

These aren't any ordinary beads, my chard is going to seed. Just in time too! It's just about time for me to harvest the rest of the lettuce and sow chard, basil & arugula seeds.

As each little bead bursts open with a flower, I hope to photograph and harvest the chard seeds. I won't see this process next year, not until 2014, so I'm hoping for a successful harvest & planting! What are you letting go to seed in your garden? Any springtime surprises?

Eating Local - Southern SOLE Food Challenge

Over the winter I contributed to the Dark Days of Winter Challenge. Once a week we ate a local, organic, & sustainable meal - from meat & veg to wine & milk. Everything came from within a 130 mile radius of home.

Many of my fellow DDCers stayed in touch and we're starting a new challenge with a Summer twist. We'll be coming up with fun ways to prepare all of Summer's bounty with a few twists here & there. The challenge will run from June through Halloween, and I foresee lots of tasty dishes as well as a few culinary adventures.

The participants are: Annie Rie Unplugged Backyard Grocery Bumble Lush Eat.Drink.Nourish Eating Appalachia Eating Flyod Family Foodie Survival Guide Sincerely Emily Chew on This! & me, The Soffritto

I'm fortunate to have a great CSA, some great local resources & my own garden. Check back weekly, starting in June, for all the fun. As I type, the rain in pouring and my rain barrels are filling. Let's hope for a good weather growing & grilling season!

Harvesting Garlic Scapes

Back in October I planted 15 bulbs of garlic, 3 in the ground and 12 in containers. Now it's the end of Spring and I'm harvesting 15 garlic scapes! Nearly 8 months have gone by and these tiny bulbs transformed into fairly large garlic plants. I'm not sure if it was the mild winter or the expert composting and mulching that went on, but success is success! One of the boons of growing your own hardneck garlic is the garlic scape. At the end of spring the garlic plant usually sends up a flower shoot. When it curls, it's time to harvest!

Step One: Locate your scapes. Look for a pointed bulb shoot coming from the middle of the plant. I noticed my scapes about a week ago, and they were almost all curled when the harvesting commenced. You want to cut before the scape blooms into a flower.

Step Two: In the afternoon, with sharp pruning shears, cut the scape from the plant. Cut the scape close to the top set of leaves. The aroma of garlic fills the air!

Step Three: Note your harvest date in a garden journal. Roughly 20 days from now you'll be harvesting heads of garlic...and hoping for some dry weather to cure them outside!

Step Four: Cook the scapes! They're great in a million different ways, I love them grilled with a finish of fruity olive oil and salt. A local blogger-friend, Annie, made a delicious garlic scape pesto last week. The next time I score scapes, pesto I will make!

Scapes can be found at farmers' markets, specialty grocery stores, and my back yard! Have you tried garlic scapes yet? If yes, what did you make? If no, do it already before they're gone for the year!

A special thanks to my garden model/sister, Jenn. Who knew you had a green thumb?!

May Garden Update: plants in the ground and containers!

A few weeks ago I "finished" getting my seedlings & plants into the ground. I use the quotes because I'm never really done. Something will mow down a plant here and there, or I magically find room for one more container of tomatoes on the deck. This year I'm venturing a bit more into the outer rim of my gardens. Planting peppers and eggplant in the front and adding 4 more containers to the back. The big benefit of planting in containers is soil temperature. It warms up a lot faster than the ground. I'm thinking my peppers went in a bit too soon. But maybe the heat wave will save them yet!

In the front garden I'm growing: In-ground: Rainbow Chard Sage Thyme Chives Lemongrass Lemon Verbena Lavender Assorted hot peppers Bambino Eggplant Rosemary

Containers: Mint Purple Ruffles Basil Okra Tomatillo Little Fingers Eggplant Kale Beets Carrots Chervil Strawberries Tarragon Cilantro Oregano

On the deck (in various containers) I'm growing: Lettuce Arugula Golden Chard (which I'm letting go to seed!) Peas Nasturtiums Tomatoes (Orange Pixie, Pruden's Purple & Purple Cherokee) Sweet Bell Peppers Pequillo Peppers Dill Kholrabi (transferred from the front) Lacinato Kale Chives Cilantro (can't have too much!) Basil (Thai, Genovese & Lemon) Fennel Viola Bachelors Button Cucumbers Chamomile

In the back garden... In containers: Chives Butternut Squash Hardneck Garlic

In the ground: Black Eyed Susan's Rosemary Lavender Hosta

We just a stormy week so the plants are even bigger than when I took these pictures. I hope this year's garden adventure is as fortuitous as years past. Maybe I should buy some extra plant food & lady bugs, just in case!

Check out some of the pics below, everything looks so good. I couldn't bare to delete these beauties! Especially those purple sage blossoms! Hope your garden is growing beautifully as well!

I Spy: Praying Mantis Hatchlings

In March, I ordered Praying Mantis eggs from Amazon. What arrived were 3 cocoon-like vessels full of mantis eggs. We placed one in the window-box, one in the dwarf pine tree in the front garden, and one in a large rosemary bush in the backyard. Last Friday I found little tiny mantis hatchlings perusing my window box!

Some are still emerging, others are crawling up screens, and some are getting down to business and hunting for bugs! The process was really just as simple as it sounds.

1. Find a place 2-3 feet above ground to hide the egg-case. This keeps ants & other carnivorous bugs away from the fragile eggs & hatchlings.

2. After 10 straight days of warm weather, they will emerge looking for something to devour.

As my garden expands, and we have fewer freeze days during winter, I find myself researching additional ways to keep the bad bugs at bay. Tonight we'll release ladybugs on the deck and front/back gardens. Though some will become food for the various spiders and growing mantis hatchlings, they'll get to work on the sinister gifts left by white moths as well as the onion aphids plaguing my neighbors unkept deck garden.

Good predator bugs are essential to an organic garden, and are a great science lesson for my little dude! I hope some mantis hatchlings & ladybugs make it into your garden this year, they're fun to watch and are the guardians over our harvest.

I Spy: Pea Blossoms

This is my first time growing peas. For the last few weeks I've been dazzled by the tiny green tendrils shooting, darting, and searching for something to hold on to. Last night I saw the first blossoms, which means peas will soon follow!

Above you can see a blossom getting ready to open. I have no doubt that a flower will be in its place when I get home! It's moments like this, anticipation, that are so rewarding to me as a gardener. I lovingly planted and nurtured these little guys from seed, and as the sun shines on them, they develop in to vegetables soon to be on my table.

Another garden addition is Miss Roxy. Shes an adorable lab-mix that just completed a cross-country journey with my sister. You'll see her in the garden and yard [and kitchen] from time to time. I think the neighborhood squirrels are formally on notice - this girl can book it!

And here's Jay - the consummate host. He's teaching Roxy the ropes and is absolutely smitten with her!

So what's new in your garden? Any thing flowering or barking?

Chive Blossoms

Eat chive blossoms. They are beautiful, free (if you grow chives), and have just enough of that fresh onion taste to please your tastebuds. This spring I've tossed them into salads, risotto and sandwiches. I bet they'd taste great on bruschetta, or sprinkled on top of hummus.

Thankfully - we'll get another chance to feast on these oniony blooms this autumn. But don't wait until then - get 'em from your garden or farmers' market before they turn to seed!

Are you feasting on anything from your garden yet?

Bachelor's Button

Flowers are a necessary garden component. Not only do they fend off weeds, look pretty, and attract pollinators, but some taste good too! The Bachelor's Buttons (aka Cornflowers) I planted last fall came back stronger than ever this spring. They are a little over 12 inches tall and bloom beautifully, check them out:

Wasn't that gorgeous?! I didn't grow enough to save seeds and to devour in my next salad or risotto, but this Autumn I will. Bachelor's Buttons also come in cerulean blue, hot pink, and the black varies from purple to burgundy - depending on the light. Yesterday I did a haphazard seed planting, I hope they like the backyard planters as much as they like my deck-rail boxes! Planting these from seed is quite easy and I recommend it! Watching the blooms go from tiny sprout to a tall bloom is amazing. I picked up my seeds from Baker Creek.

What flowers are you growing this spring? Anything new, edible, or exotic?