Radishes and Raspberries

I am growing radishes this year, for the first time.  It is almost 4 weeks since I planted them, so today I finally remembered to check if any radishes are forming.  I was pleased to find some nicely formed radishes :

The one I tasted was quite peppery, so does that mean I should water them more often?  Or is it the variety?  I hear that the greens make a nice vegetable, but they are a bit prickly, so I won't try them raw, but I may collect some up and try sautéing/steaming them.

The raspberries continue to bear very nicely.  I am picking about 2 liters every 2 or 3 days.  I probably need to water them a bit more than I am doing, also.  It has been a heat wave here in Vancouver for the past 3 or 4 days.

Yam and Beet Chips

These yam and beet chips are even more delicious than they look, and very easy to make.

This weekend I amused myself by making yam and beet chips.  I was planning just to make kale chips, which I like, but the family doesn't really enjoy.  But then I decided to try something new.

 

I peeled the yams and beets, and sliced them as thin as I could.  Dried them between two paper towels, and laid them out, non-overlapping, on cookie sheets which I had sprayed lightly with oil, and salted.  Then I salted the tops, and placed them in a pre-heated 250 F oven.  When one side was dry, I flipped each over to let the other side dry quicker.  They took a total of 3 hours or so (and some of the thicker beet slices were still not crispy), but the result was very good.  Within a couple of hours, the family had eaten 3 beets and a medium sized yam, in chip form.

 

So I bought more yams and beets today, and made more chips.  This time I concentrated on slicing even thinner, left the beets between the paper towels for a while to become really dry, and the chips were done and very crispy in less than 3 hours.  I didn't take a photo of the yams or beets when first laid out on the pans, but here is a shot as I pulled them out of the oven, when done.  When they dry, they shrink, so I had combined a couple of sheets together as they came close to the end.

I'm not sure what veggies I'll try next.  I was thinking of carrots.  I need to take a look at one of those gourmet veggie chip bags to see what else I should try.

 

Let me know if you try any veggie chips, and what veggies work well.

Embarrassed Sunflower and Veggie Faces

Remember the handsome sunflower I posted about earlier? Well, he may be a bit embarrassed by all the attention, and ever since has been hanging his head:

On the veggie side, I have been blessed with a great crop of Purple Peacock and Scarlet Runner beans, even though I have only 4 poles of the former and 1 of the latter this year, with 5 of the poles not fully utilized (cut down by slugs or pulled off the poles by my snap peas). Even with only 5 poles, I have been picking a large handful of beans every 2nd day. In the last week, my cucumbers have started bearing also, with a fresh crisp cucumber for me every 2 or 3 days.

I was hoping to post a few photos, but realizing that it will look very much like my Purple Peacock bean photos from last year, and wanting to keep up my reputation for creativity, having recently been awarded the Creative Blogger Award by Crafty Gardener (thanks so much - what an honour!), I decided to post some veggie faces.... Mine:

My daughter's:

...and my son's:

By the way, "cool" moms encourage their kids to play with their food. :-)

Planting Tomatoes and Cukes

I am blessed to have a mother with two very large east-facing windows, who is willing to offer her windowsills for starting my seedlings - not to mention watering and turning them every day! So this year, as is our custom, she started for me a number of tomato plants, cucumbers, and all sorts of odd perennials I have collected or purchased seeds for.

The last couple of days, she has been acclimatizing some of the plants, by taking them outside during the day, and bringing them in at night. So tonight they were ready to plant into my garden.

For the tomatoes, it is important to water deep, to prepare the soil, so I started by digging 5 holes, and filling them repeatedly with water. Since my garden is rich soil on top of a solid clay base, the holes drain very slowly.

I would have liked to add in some bonemeal, but I couldn't find it (perhaps I need to buy more?) so I planted without it. Tomatoes can be buried in quite deep, to allow a good root structure to develop. So I removed all but the top 2 branches, and buried the remainder. Then another good watering, or two, or three. The sun was already setting behind the house, so the conditions were ideal for planting - cool, with no direct sun. Here are the little row of tomatoes, between my espalier apple (left) and espalier asian pear (right). Behind the post is a Sunflower Giganteum.

Next, the cucumbers. Two years ago, I planted a couple of seedlings at the top of my upper retaining wall, on the West side of our house, and they were a huge success, trailing down the wall and onto the grass, and bearing a crisp, sweet cucumber nearly every second day! Then last year, I tried the same thing with cukes and squashes, and was completely disappointed, they couldn't even make their way to trail over the edge of the wall, and I only got one small squash. I suspect the soil, which at that location, is a thin layer of topsoil on top of gravel and clay (backfill to the wall), had lost its nutrients. As an indicator, the hydrangea down the wall had blue flowers, whereas the others in my garden were a vibrant pink.

So a week ago, I amended the soil with an inch of so of compost on the top, and mixed that in, to form a richer base to plant into. I ended up putting in all 7 seedlings, and I'm already dreaming of crispy cucumbers this year. Assuming a slug doesn't come by and chew them off (which is a good possibility in my garden). Well, let's hope.

I also planted in some more seedlings of Cardoon. Last year, I planted one in the front (shady) garden, which didn't get very big, but seems to be taking off this year (although quite covered in black aphids!!).

To my delight, my daughter has taken an interest recently in helping me in the garden. I have even bought her garden gloves (the stretchy cloth ones, with rubberized fingers and palms), and she has been helping me weed the garden a couple of nights. Here is my beautiful little helper, holding a few stalks of our very healthy Campanula Glomerata, which are now on the respective bathroom counters of my two little garden helpers (my son's ongoing contribution, among other gardening interests, is cutting up slugs).

Peculiar Person Picks Purple Peacock Pole Beans by Pale Moonlight

Okay, okay, I admit I am a bit peculiar, and it wasn't actually the light of the moon, it was the artificial moonlight cast by our 300 W halogen spotlight (which does a pretty fantastic job of lighting up our 140' back yard), but I did pick Purple Peacock Pole beans tonight, long after the sun had set. What a rush! There is something very wholesomely sensual and satisfying about rustling around in the leaves, seeing only the dark - very dark - silhouettes of the long dark purple beans, and feeling the cool, smooth beans among the rough tangle of leaves and vines.

I don't know what overcame me, on my way back from turning off the sprinkler, but it had been a couple days since I've picked my Purple Peacock Pole beans, and I suddenly found myself picking beans in the light of our halogen moon. I would recommend the experience (and the beans - see my posts on buying the beans, and picking my first crop) to anyone.

New Favourites : "Purple Peacock" Pole Bean

Last time I checked on my beans, which was maybe a week ago, there were a few tiny strings forming among the flowers. This morning I was overjoyed to pick about 2 pounds of spectacular deep purple beans. Wow! This is the first year I am growing the "Purple Peacock" pole bean, from Westcoast Seeds. As I had dreamed (see my posting about the Purple Peacock beans when I purchased the seeds), these are a real treat to the eye, as I hope some of the photos here will convey.

The leaves of the Purple Peacock are green, the flowers are light purple, and the stems and beans are a deep purple. The flowers are quite unnoticeable, not like the showy Scarlet Runner beans, whose red flowers (see photo) are worthy of growing for ornamental value. Although my beans had a very slow start this year (the slugs kept eating them back as they emerged from the soil), they show vigorous growth now, and look like they will be VERY productive. Unlike the Scarlet Runner (one shown on top of the Purple Peacock beans), whose beans are hairy and can get tough if allowed to mature, the Purple Peacock are long, slender, smooth and tender.

"Purple Peacock" Pole Bean

While dreaming of gardening during the dark of winter, I came upon an amazing plant in the Westcoast Seeds catalog, which I absolutely MUST try this year. It is a purple pole bean called "Purple Peacock". Here is the description and a photo from the catalog:

A beautiful plant - dark purple pods and twining stems, light purple flowers and dark leaves. A very striking and useful screen in the garden. This variety flowers first of all the beans, and handles cool conditions well. Purple pods keep their flavour and tenderness even when very long, turn green when cooked. Sets abundantly.

Okay, purple beans turn green when cooked, and this one is no exception. But this one offers purple stems, dark (presumably green) leaves, and even purple flowers! This is a purple-lover's dream-come-true!! My seven-year-old daughter will surely LOVE this plant! Better yet, Westcoast Seeds, which is a local company in Delta BC, distributes its seeds through my local Gardenworks in Burnaby, so no shipping (or waiting).

I picked up my Purple Peacock seeds today (approx 140 seeds for $3.10), along with a few more which caught my eye, including the swiss chard called Rhubarb Chard. I mistakenly bought a single small plant last year at a garden shop, thinking it was rhubarb. The tag had "Rhubarb" at the top and "Swiss Chard" at the bottom! Well, it provided a beautiful show of red stems all year (even better than the WestCoast Seeds photo at left), and a number of servings of cooked chard also (I harvested only the outer leaves). This year I hope to have more plants, for even more colour and more harvesting. I will likely start some indoors, and direct others outdoors, since I suspect the slugs may enjoy the chard seedlings.