PLANTING GARLIC?

21 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in Cooking & Eating, Fall, Planting

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Garlic cloves ready for planting.

NOW IS THE TIME TO PLANT GARLIC– at least here in the Pacific Northwest, for mid-summer harvesting. For the last four years or so I have been planting five varieties: Inchelium Red, Chesnok and three unknown varieties; one softneck and two hardneck types started from one head each, originally grown by friends. I plant 25 cloves of each variety. It typically takes 2-3 heads to provide the largest cloves.

Sweet, poached garlic.

After planting the largest cloves I am left with a lot of medium and small sized cloves to use up.

Garlic cloves poaching in olive oil with bay leaves.

My solution for using all those orphaned cloves is to poach all them very slowly in olive oil until they are meltingly soft (place all the skin-on cloves in a heavy pan or metal bowl; cover with a lid and shake like mad. The skins pop off!). Use bay leaves as I did or any other herb of choice for a little extra flavor if it suits you. I end up with two wonderful products: garlic flavored oil (refrigerate) and soft, sweet cloves to mash into just about anything you would use roasted garlic for.

Happy planting!

OCTOBER SNOW FALL

20 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by in Fall

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IT’S A BEAUTIFUL MORNING here in West Seattle and lots of new snow showing in the Olympic Mountains. Fall is really here and winter is in the offing.

SURPRISE—NOT A PUMPKIN AFTER ALL; GOODBYE, TOMATOES

19 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by in Fall, Fun in the Garden, Tomatoes, Vegetable garden

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Sure doesn’t look like a pumpkin!

THIS VOLUNTEER SQUASH VINE has turned into a monster in my small vegetable garden and it turns out not to be a pumpkin plant, but more like delicata squash. No matter, as it will soon be a mere remembrance of a generous experiment in curiousity.

Red oakleaf lettuce seeds, like little fairies waiting to take flight. Probably 6-8 generations away from original planting.

Finally seems like fall here with the arrival of some intermittent rain this past week and the dial back of the setting sun, a little earlier each day.

Berkley Tie Dye

With regret, it was time to pull up the tomato and pepper plants on Sunday. Good news: put up seven pints of green tomato-chile salsa on Monday. Ate fried green tomatoes one night and last night a salad of thinly sliced a green tomato, thinly sliced not-quite-ripe pear and some greens made a nice salad.  This year I bought tomato and pepper plants due to our trip and found some that I had never heard of: Berkley Tie Dye, funny shaped fruits that ripen to reddish green outside and inside; Porkchop, a large yellow beefsteak with green streaking at the shoulder and Nebraska Wedding, another beefsteak type that was yellow, with a blush of orange. All tasty so I saved seed from each for next year. Now only a few ripe and ripening ones in a bowl on the counter (sigh). It will be six months or more until we taste a decent tomato.

A ripened Berkley Tie Dye tomato, streaked with green.

UPDATE: After the initial post, I found a ripe Berkley Tie Dye in a bowl with some cherry tomatoes and an Aunt Ruby’s green, so had to share.

Time spent this weekend will be planting garlic and fava beans if the weather cooperates.

JOY IN LEARNING

18 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by in Art, Drawing, Learning

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Step one: the line drawing

IN AUGUST I ENROLLED in a botanical drawing class at Gage Academy with Kathleen McKeehen for five three hour sessions. Since I have an abiding interest in things botanical, it seemed the right time to give this art form a try. I have spent quite a bit of time drawing the last month.

Step two: giving the line drawing dimension

Scientific drawing. A whole new concept for me, requiring a lot of patience and intense observation, slow and exacting. All of these drawings are actual size.

The completed drawing.

I never thought I would have the patience to accomplish something like this. Just a few HB pencils and tools for measuring are all I need to produce some beautiful drawings. After the completion of the August classes I enrolled in Kathleen’s class for fall quarter (10 weeks!). With each successive drawing the task becomes a little easier and faster. The artichoke took one class session to complete the line drawing (amazing!) but many, many hours to finish the drawing and bring it to life.

Dahlia

 

Learning is about challenging and shaping ideas, discipline and patience, creating new references to inform our views of daily life and just maybe, the world around us.

Rumex crispus, also known as a weed called dock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who knew roots had such beauty? This is the third drawing I have completed (and at least three more to finish) and it took the least amount of time; line drawing in class last Friday and finished yesterday. Several hours since then, but not as many as the dahlia or artichoke.

Joy in the sense of accomplishment, learning a new skill, creating something beautiful.

 

SURPRISE! I’M A PUMPKIN VINE

25 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by in Fun in the Garden, Vegetable garden

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REMEMBER ME, THE LITTLE SEEDLING THAT VOLUNTEERED IN THE FIRST WEEK OF AUGUST?

ONE month later it is taking over. I’m certain that it is a pumpkin so I pulled all of the other squash volunteers since they would have crowded out all of the new vegetables. Not much of a chance to see any fruit at this late date, but has been fun to watch it grow so much in just a little more than a month – I’m amazed!