Garden report 4.2.10

Yesterday I discovered a mole terrorized two of the raised beds. He rummaged around in the lettuce and carrots area, and also in the bed that has onions-that will have tomatoes in the next couple months. Good thing I purchased castor beans from Baker Creek, as they will definitely get planted in the raised beds this year.

It looks as though everything I planted has germinated. All the shallots and elephant garlic poked through the dirt. The rhubarb has come back. Woot woot! The sage, which I was convinced had died, is coming back. The peppermint, spearmint and lemon balm (from Grandma Ettling) have come back.
In the root vegetable bed, the peas, kohlrabi, radishes, lettuce, and spinach have germinated and have their cotyledon leaves. The parsnips and carrots have not germinated. I should clarify on the peas: the little marvel and the sugar snap have come up, but not the snow peas. The seed was old, and I wasn't expecting it to come up. I'll probably plant a few more peas to get rid of the seed.
Last year I planted asparagus, and of the 10 crowns, only 5 have come back so far. The gentleman at Schaffitzel's told me to "Be patient" because they may not be ready yet. I went ahead and planted 10 more crowns, and marked them with bamboo stakes so I know I can't eat them until next year at the earliest.
Inside, I replanted the artichokes, most of the tomatoes, eggplant and peppers into larger containers. I started the seeds in clay pots that I made in ceramics class, with at least four seeds per container. Then I transplanted them into 8 ounce clear plastic cups after they had at least two sets of true leaves. Then I'm transplanting into 16 oz red plastic cups, which will be the last transplant until they go into the ground. I was only watering them once a week, but as they are getting larger, they need water at least twice a week.
The tomatillos are working on their first true leaves, as are the cilantro, dill and basil. The parsley is slower, which is expected since parsley, parsnips and carrots are all the same family and parsnips are known to germinate VERY SLOWLY.

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Chardonnay #2

Opened a bottle of Redwood Creek Chardonnay. It was on sale at Dillon's. I'm on the hunt for wines that taste good that are less than $15. I find it difficult to spend more than that on a bottle of wine, mostly because I don't know what I like and I'm afraid of spending $50 on a bottle of wine that might not taste good.

Well, the Chardonnay... I've learned it tastes better when it's not cold. When it's straight out of the fridge, it is very bitter, but once it comes to room temperature it is sweeter. It has afternotes of honey.

I want to learn more about where these wines are made and where the grapes are grown.

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Seed starting while drinking wine!

Today I planted the following herbs inside:
Dill, Sweet Basil, Cilantro and Flat leaf Parsley

I still have several varieties of basil to start, as well as castor beans and marigolds, but there is no room for them at the moment.

I planted onions outside today also. This year I purchased onions from Dixondale Farms. Usually I would purchase onions from the local nursery, but after reading the Farmgirl Fare blog I decided otherwise. And because I wanted different varieties of onions, and I wanted to know the real name of the onions besides "red", "white" or "yellow" because that's the only label they ever give to the onions at the nurseries around here.

So, I bought the Intermediate day sampler and a bunch of Borrettana Cippolini. The intermediate day sampler has: Candy (yellow), Super Star (white) and Red Candy Apple (yup, red!). The cippolini is a flat white onion.

I decided to plant the intermediate day sampler in the same bed where the tomatoes will be later this season. We'll see how they do together as companion plants. I planted a double row of each onion, which divided the rest of the bed into four spaces. Each of the four spaces will have two tomato plants.

The tomatoes I am growing for this year are Amish Paste (for making homemade tomato paste and pizza sauce), Thessaloniki (a slicing type from Greece, hopefully to make juice from), Cour di Bue (hopefully also for juice. This was a free packet sent to me when I ordered seeds from Baker Creek.), and Black Cherry (for eating straight off the vine, and for salads).

And now for the wine! I enjoyed a bottle of Sutter Home Moscato. I have this mental image of Sutter Home being a cheap wine for those who don't know how to choose wine. (right up my alley, right?) It wasn't bad at all. I like Moscato because they're always sweet and I never have to worry about the lemon drop pucker. There are two other Moscato wines that I like: Barefoot and Allegro Moscato. I like drinking Barefoot (not just the Moscato) because part of their profit goes to clean up beaches in California, so people can safely walk on them barefoot. Allegro Moscato is one of my mom's favorite wines, and is easily spotted in the wine aisle because the bottle is taller, the cork cover is lavendar, and there are ballet slippers on the label.

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Garden rivals

Peas and onions supposedly don't get along, so I need to find a new home for the onions. I originally planned to interplant them with the root vegetables.
I read that onions are good with the cucurbit and nightshade families.
I also read that squash like having radishes to help deter squash bugs.

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Root vegetables in the garden

Today I planted in the garden:
Hollow Crown Parsnips
Chioggia Beets
Golden Beets
Parissienne Carrots
Rocky Top Lettuce Mix
Giant Noble Spinach
Chinese Red Meat Radish
White Vienna Kohlrabi

I also incorporated compoast into this bed.

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Peas in the garden

Today I planted peas in the garden: sugar snap, little marvel and melting sugar.

The seed was packaged for 2009; we'll see if anything comes up.

I have a lot of seeds started indoors. I'm running out of space in the cloffice! I've fertilized them with half strength fish emulsion every 10 days. The eggplant are growing very slowly. They are just now setting on their true leaves and they sprouted a month ago.

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Sourdough Pizza Crust with Homemade sauce

Pizza dough:

1 1/2 c sourdough starter
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 c flour

Mix together. Let rest for 30 minutes. Roll out and bake for 7 min at 450. (I rolled out the dough onto a floured baking stone and put it directly in the oven) Remove from oven, put toppings on and bake until toppings are done to your liking.

I started using more whole wheat flour. Right now, my batch of flour is about 50% white/50% wheat.

Tomato sauce:

1 pint stewed tomatoes (that I canned from the garden last year)
1 pint tomato juice (also from the garden)
1 clove of garlic
1 bay leaf
1 1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp fennel
1/2 tsp basil (I used an ice cube of frozen basil, from this summer when I had WAY TOO MUCH basil to eat)
1/4 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp rosemary
Also added fresh parsley, about 2 Tbsp.

Simmer until reduced to the point where it can be used as a sauce. Mine reduced to about a third of what it was when started. I think it took about 30 minutes of simmering.

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