Farm Share, Week #3

We're already on the third week of our farm share (aka CSA - Community Supported Agriculture) from Parker Farm. This week brought us carrots, kale, turnips, beets, raab, and strawberries. Note: The cat (look closely at right corner of above photo) did not come with the farm share drop off.

So, the night we picked up the farm share I decided to adapt a recipe on Epicurious to make kale and whole wheat fettuccine with locally-made chicken sausage. On the side, we used lettuce and sugar snap peas left over from last week's farm share drop-off to make a salad.

And, dessert was rhubarb sorbet, made at home earlier in the week using farmer's market rhubarb, topped with strawberries from the farm share.

Progress

The plants have been growing so fast lately that it makes me do double takes. I've set up a Flickr page with more photos of the progress on the balcony.

I must now go to eat some homemade rhubarb sorbet. More updates to come within the next few days.

Just a few tidbits

Tidbit 1: There was a recent article in the Boston Globe about the increase of urban gardening. Yay! I love walking around my neighborhood and seeing tomato plants in people's yards. There are also a couple of community gardens nearby, and I like passing by to see what's growing.

Tidbit 2: I just have a few seedlings inside still, and my plan is to get them all out this weekend. Mr. Foliage's tomatoes still need to go out, and I think he's going to do that this weekend as well. I have a whole tray of extra tomato seedlings, and a friend is picking them up next week to take them home. Soon the indoor seedling shelf will be empty!

Tidbit 3: Our first farm share pick up is on Tuesday. Our farmer sent out an email letting us know what to expect: sugar snap peas, pea tendrils, arugula, a lot of spinach (record setting crop this year), and possibly lettuce and a few other greens. I am very excited! Seeing this list makes me think of a pasta salad with arugula pesto, topped with peas and pea tendrils. Yum.

Tidbit 4: We just got an indoor composter. I was a bit nervous about indoor composting, but a friend has been using this same type of composter for a few months with no problems or smells. So, we're taking the plunge into the exciting world of home composting. We'll be using a microbial inoculant to actually pickle our compost. Wow!

That's it for today's tidbits. I'm now off to face the heat wave that is starting here today. We're expecting highs in the upper 80s and into the 90s for the next few days. Ugh.

Unruly

The seedlings have gone from small and mild-mannered to overgrown and unruly. In fact, the seedling shelf was quite out of hand.

Some tomato plants were so large that it was becoming quite ridiculous to still have them inside. I put off transferring plants outside for a long time, in part due to the up and down weather we've been having. It seems that every recent warm day has also included extreme wind or the chance of thundershowers. These are not such good conditions for throwing seedings out into the world.

But, there are also potential hazards inside. It was only a matter of time before the cats became aware of the delicious, green snacks looming above their heads.

So, on Friday afternoon, I transferred most of the seedlings outdoors. More will make the move outside today.

Future posts coming up (if I write this here, perhaps I'll actually do these): list of perrenials, weekly photo updates, soybean failure.

Growing

Here are the tomato and cucumber seedlings, towering over everything else. It looks nice and sunny in there, under the artificial plant light, while it's cloudy and raining outside.

The Season's Seedlings

Well, it's been about a month, so I figure it's time for an update. We've ordered the seeds, planted them, and now we have seedlings! Here's a list of what we planted this year.

Peas:
Dwarf Gray Sugar Pea (my first time growing a sugar snap pea)
Tom Thumb Pea (a dwarf pea that I had success with last year)

Radishes:
Early Scarlet Globe Radish

Greens:
Arugula - Sylvetta (slower to bolt!)
Tainong Emperor Heading Mustard (Mr. Foliage ended up with seeds for this instead of the bok choi he had planned for)
Japanese Giant Red Mustard (Mr. Foliage's)
Spinach - New Zealand (also Mr. Foliage's - he likes the greens)

Herbs:
Parsley - Triple Curled (very useful to have around for cooking)
Basil - Sweet Genovese (I can already taste the pesto)
Cilantro - Slo-Bolt (Mr. Foliage's)

Cucumbers:
Japanese Climbing (I've never tried this one before)
Lemon Cucumber (I love the taste of this cuke, even though the leaves always end up with powdery mildew)

Tomatoes (six different kinds!):
Cream Sausage (determinate; first time growing this variety)
Black Plum (indeterminate; did this last year and loved it)
Yellow Pear (indeterminate and my favorite tomato to grow)
Nebraska Wedding (determinate; first timer for me - orange with a quaint name)
Speckled Roman (indeterminate; Mr. Foliage's pick)
Green Grape (determinate; also Mr. Foliage's)

Peppers:
Tolli's Sweet Italian (sweet red pepper)
Purple Beauty (sweet purple pepper)
Roberto's Cuban Seasoning (hot pepper, selected by Mr. Foliage)

Beans:
Soybean - Envy (for edamame!)
Purple Podded Pole Bean (Mr. Foliage's pick)

Eggplant:
Japanese White (one of Mr. Foliage's selections)

Carrot:
Shin Kuroda (Mr. Foliage's; a baby Japanese variety)

Beets:
Golden (Mr. Foliage's)

Flowers:
Globe Amaranth (not edible)
Drumstick - Billy Button (also not edible)
Nasturtium - Tip Top (edible - the flowers taste like pepper!)

Whew! We might have gone a bit overboard this year. I hope that it'll all fit between the two balconies. I've planted extras of the tomatoes and peppers, and plan to give those seedlings away to friends. We just wouldn't be able to handle more than one of each tomato and pepper variety, due to our space restrictions.

Okay, time to go admire the seedlings now.

Staying Put

After much consideration, Mr. Foliage and I have decided not to move to a different apartment this year. This means that our garden planning has suddenly become much more exciting. There's no longer any need to scale down in plant size or quantity! I've been pouring through seed catalogs, trying to narrow down my choices. So, that's the task ahead of me tonight. We've got to get this seed order in soon, since we're already behind schedule getting seeds started.

Okay... I must go focus on my choices now. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, oh my!