July 4, 2011 - Harvest Monday

Happy July 4th! I hope the weather holds up so I can go see the fireworks! But the sky is looking like it wants to rain.

In the garden I've been getting some more early girls which is very exciting! The summer squash continues to produce, but I have to pick them small since there were no male flowers blooming (I finally saw one today).

The jalapenos now have a little kick to them. I like them sweet, but spicy is delicious too! I see some salsa in the future!

I want to restart some dill since the first batch was starting to get brown. I thought they would get bigger and bushier. Maybe the pot is too small. I am thinking of trying the dill that Granny sent me.

Linking to Daphne's blog for Harvest Monday!

GTTC - Jalapeno, zucchini salad & rosemary

I have no names for most of my recipes...Here is a stir fried jalapeno with salt/pepper and little soy sauce. This works only because the jalapeno is sweet and not spicy. When I was little, we used to have this dish made out of shishitou pepper (I'm not sure if there is an English name for this). Every once in a while we'd get a spicy one but that was part of the fun. It worked well with jalapeno too!

I made a little salad with the zucchini mixed in with dill and a simple vinaigrette. I only used a small sprig of dill but it gave a wonderful flavor.

Finally here is one of the few recipes I know using rosemary. It is so simple yet delicious. You pan fry the chicken with olive oil and just as the chicken is cooked you add some rosemary (let it cook for bit) then add balsamic vinegar. Let the vinegar evaporate a bit and that's it.

Chicken with rosemary sauce with beet greens and zucchini

I'm linking to Wendy's blog Greenish Thumb for garden to table challenge. Thank you for hosting the GTTC challenge!

Herbs in the garden

The hot weather is doing great things for the rosemary and german thyme. The plants are getting lush and look generally healthier than when they were growing inside. I would really love to learn more recipes using these herbs.

German thyme looking strong

Rosemary smelling wonderful!

The basil and oregano don't like the heat as much. The oregano is turning purple and bolting. I've pinched the flowers but I think I need to move it to a shadier area.

Both the purple and sweet basil leaves are narrowing. The plant itself is very strong (ie: the stems are hard) but these are also starting to bolt.

Purple basil turning green?

Sweet basil are curled up and the leaves are very hard

I will be moving them to a cooler area in front of the house. If you compare the basil plant on the balcony with the basil in the container with the tomato plant out front, you can definitely tell the difference. The leaves on the plant in the cooler spot is larger compared to the ones on the balcony. The balcony basil are considerably stiffer.

The balcony basil used to look like this before the heat wave

My only concern about moving the basil here are slugs. So far the slugs have not found their way up to the balcony but last year when I had the basil on the ground floor outside, they slugs feasted on them. EWWW. I will have to keep a close eye on them! The dill is also doing so much better now that it is out direct sunlight. I love dill and hope to use it more in my cooking.

So now I have a little bit of space on the balcony. I'll have to see if there are herbs that are particularly resistant to heat (any suggestions?). I'm wondering if the jade plants would do well in the heat. They are generally unhappy in the house and I saw some of neighbors with HUGE jade plants in front of their homes. I love these plants but succulent tend to die in my hands...

Too hot for the dill

It is another blistering day here in Baltimore city. I really might have to think of getting some shade for the plants (how spoiled are these plants!). It seems that all the vegetable plants are doing well in the heat...all except the dill. The soil is well watered but the dill is drying up and turning brownish. The delicate foliage cannot take the heat! I tried to leave them under the table, but still they were burning up. I moved them off the balcony up in front of the house where it is shaded half the day.

I think I need to add some soil to support the plants

Sad Dill

The peas are almost ready for harvesting. I want to wait wee bit more but soon I will have a pea or two to nibble on. So excited!

Almost ready to pick...I think

Fertilizer experiment update

Gregor Mendel experimented with peas and became the father of modern genetics. The peas, however, do not want to cooperate with me. Actually, they just grew too fast and I needed to transplant them before I could start the experiment. The one pea plant in the MiracleGro (MG) potting soil was growing the fastest - which shows that the cheap soil is cheap for a reason. It may be my imagination, but I feel like the plant in the MG (with the fertilizer) is lanky compared to the plants in the non-fertilized soil. It is difficult to make any conclusion when I have only 1 plant in the MG.

I made a self-watering container using water bottles, a Chinese takeout container, and a styrofoam cup using the instructions at Bucolic Bushwick as a guide.  The end product is not as elegant as Elaine's but hopefully it will do the job. I transplanted my peas and put together a simple trellis using bamboo and string. So now I have 2 pots of peas!

To update on all my other plants. I've got flowers on my zucchini plants!! (the ones on the ground floor) These are male flowers...I guess the female flowers are being coy. I've read that it is normal for the male flowers to come first. One of the flowers were open in the morning and was very beautiful.  I didn't expect vegetable plants to be visually pleasing so it was a nice surprise.

The tomato and pepper seedlings are recovering from the wind/sun overexposure (I think) and seem happy on my windowsill.

The arugula seedlings are also looking good. I'm really excited about these little guys. Even the little seedlings taste really good.

The dill seedlings are starting to look more like dill. They are super cute.

Amazing herbs

I stuck some rosemary & english thyme cuttings in water and left it on the kitchen windowsill. I had forgotten about them for a while. Today, I went to go open the window and I saw this:

Rosemary roots

English thyme roots

They are so resilient! I should find a little pot for them. I love herbs! They just grow & grow and smell amazing!
     The dill that sowed last week are starting to pop out. The seeds smelled like dill but the seedlings do not. I actually forgot that about these too since I left them out on the ground floor next to my backup zucchini plants (which are doing still doing way better than the ones in the bigger pots). It seems that the plants do better when I'm not hovering over them like an overprotective parent!