Giant Bearded Irises

They say that April showers bring May flowers.  Although most of April was pretty dry this year, we did have our fair share of rainy days towards the end.  Here are some of the beautiful May flowers that have come forth.   These are all pictures of the annuals growing our yard.  An added bonus is that the chive flowers make a spicy, but tasty, addition to a salad.

Snow Drops

Chives

Azalea

Purple Cups

Violets - Rhode Island State Flower

Bleeding Hearts

Red Tulip

White Phlox

Lily of the Valley

Blue Bells

Irises

Many thanks to my aunt, Carole Hamilton, for solving the mystery of the feral squash.  As it turns out, I was on the right path from the get-go.  My mysterious vegetable was, in fact, a pumpkin  — a Long Island Cheese Pumpkin to be exact.  Carole sent me a link to this great site which identifies late season squash so you can see for yourself.  I’m thrilled to actually know what I’ve been eating.  These guys were so good, we are going to save the seeds and try to grow some more Long Island Cheese Pumpkins next year.  If all works out, I’ll send the first ripe one up to Carole!  Time to start making room in the fridge!

With two of the remaining segments, I’m making “Roasted Winter Root Vegetables”  with dinner tonight.  I tweaked the recipe a bit, and this is what I’ve come up with:

Roasted Winter Root Vegetables

• 2 cups winter squash cut into 1″ cubes
• 2 large carrots cut into 1/2″ segments
• 2 red potatoes cut into 1″ cubes
• 3-4 sprigs of fresh rosemary
• 4 tablespoons of olive oil
• salt & pepper to taste

Heat oven to 450 degrees.  Mix all ingredients in a casserole dish.  Cover dish.  Bake until vegetables are tender.  Remove cover for last 10 minutes.  Approx. 35 minutes total cook time.

Mystery Squash

If you read my Feral Pumpkin post, you know that I was convinced that I had giant pumpkins growing out of my compost.  Well, now that fall is here, nature has proven me wrong.   What I thought were pumpkins turned out to be some type of huge, unidentified winter squash.  We ended up with four of these beauties.  They are about 12-15 inches across, kind of squatty, and have the same beige color as a butternut squash.  Honestly, I can’t figure out what they are.  I described them to one of the farmers at the Farmer’s Market, but she wasn’t quite sure either, although she was quite certain that they would be good eatin’!  If you have ANY idea what kind of squash these are, please let me know!

Identified or not, we are planning on eating them all.  Here are a few of the yummy recipes I plan to check out:

• Squash Pie
• Squash Soup
• Roasted Winter Vegetables

!!!!UPDATE!!!!

Here is a photo of what one of the super-squash looks like after being opened up.  So far, I’ve made enough soup for three meals, made 2 pies, and froze enough boiled squash for 2 more pies.  Oh, yeah, that only accounts for 1/2 of one squash.  We still have the other 1/2 in the fridge and one more waiting to be eaten.  We gave the others away to be enjoyed by others.  Not too bad for something that spontaneously came out of the compost bin!!!

Cross Section of Our Super-Squash

Here are some more pics of Deirdre and Jonah enjoying their harvest:

Deirdre's Feat of Strength

Jonah Just Hanging Out

The Feral Pumpkin

Since I was laid up for a good part of the spring with Lyme Disease, I really didn’t put that much effort into our vegetable garden this year.  We threw in some peas, beans, tomatoes, potatoes,  various squashes, and a variety of herbs, but no one bothered much to weed, or even water, for that matter, early in the season.  Once I had the energy to actually give my plants a helping hand, I noticed a thick, green vine with huge leaves creeping out of the compost bin.  Actually, it was more like charging out of the bin, at full force.  I knew it was some type of squash plant by the leaves, but wasn’t exactly sure what kind of squash it might be.  As the summer went on, this plant (well, two plants to be completely accurate) took over an entire corner of the yard.  In fact, one of the tendrils even managed to rip off a side of the compost bin!

This Voracious Vine Tore Off the Compost Bin Door

Jack and his Beanstalk be damned, here comes my feral pumpkin!  The leaves were about 4 times the size of the leaves on my zucchini, summer squash and spaghetti squash.  But, for all the effort it was putting into its amazonian foliage, there was no fruit to be seen.  Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I spotted a small squash that has turned out to be a pumpkin.  Its now about the size of a soccer ball, and still going strong.  And, this morning, I noticed another little pumkin-let growing on another tendril.  I’m crossing my fingers that by Halloween, we have a nice crop of feral pumpkins to carve into Jack-o-lanterns!  I will certainly post a picture, if we do!

Twenty Five Feet of Pumpkin Vines

I learned a few things myself this week during our ‘journey’ to Bangladesh.  I had always thought of it as a ‘tiny’ country over by India.  I really had no idea that it is one of the most populous nations in the world (7th largest population).

Fresh Okra

The book that we selected from the library was a little bit too dense for the kids, but we had fun scanning through the pictures and talking about what life might be like in a small village or large city in Bangladesh.  There was one chapter that talked about children growing up in poverty, and it mentioned that although kids didn’t have many playthings, they enjoyed playing games like hide-and-seek.  For some reason this really resonated with my kids — a common bond over one of their favorite games!  And, of course the wanted to talk about Bengal tigers (as luck would have it, we saw one at the zoo while we were on vacation a few weeks ago).

We also found a website that translated the letters of your name, or any word for that matter, into Devanagari, one of the forms of script used in Bangladesh. We printed out the kids’ names in really large font, and they decorated them to look like calligraphy painintngs.

Our two biggest projects were pottery and cooking Bengali food.  We learned that throwing pottery is a traditional trade in a number of villages.  I don’t have a pottery wheel, but we did manage to have fun doing some hand-building.   And, I’m pretty sure the villagers in Bangladesh focus more on  throwing bowl and pots, rather than animal-shaped Christmas tree ornaments.  Hopefully, we will be able to have these fired soon (thanks, Laurent!)

Our Own Pottery Workshop

Finally, I decided to try my hand at a homemade Chapati (flat bread),  Dhedosh (Okra) and Masoor Daal (lentils) The chapati was surprisingly easy and satisfying to make.  It was definitely a recipe that lent itself to having a 5-year old sous-chef.  Deirdre loved making balls with the dough and rolling them out flat.  And, I was thrilled to make the okra since we actually grew it in our garden this summer.  Yes, the picture at the top of this post is okra straight from the garden!  whoo hooo!  I had to leave out a couple of the more exotic spices since I didn’t have them in stock, but the meal was actually very tasty.  I’ll definitely cook my okra this way for the rest of the season.

Attempting the Cuisine - Lentils, Okra and Chapati

Next week, Czech Republic…

I can’t believe that we’re already sweltering away into the middle of July!   As I sit inside, enjoying the AC, I thought I’d give a quick update on our Garden’s progress.

That's Me Hiding Behind The Tomato Tree

Let me start by saying that if crabgrass were a cash crop, I’d be rolling in green right now (pun quite intended).  Seriously — some parts of the garden, the crabgrass is so thick, I can’t even remember what I’ve planted.  It seems like the hotter it gets, the faster it grows.  And, of course, the hotter it gets, the less likely I am to stand outside weeding.   Anyway, on a more positive note, the runaway hit of the season is our tomato tree.  This was a little seedling that we got as a freebie at the Roger Williams Park Zoo on Earth Day, back in April.  My daughter carried it all day and managed to break almost every branch.  Even though we were instructed to wait until Memorial Day to plant it, I figured its only hope was to go into the garden early.  So, in it went the first week in May.  By July 4th, it was bigger than me!  I’m pretty sure some of the tomatoes will be ripe by next week.  Yum!  The tomatoes that we started from seeds didn’t fare so well.  I think their biggest hurdle was that they never got watered regularly when they were tender seedlings in our sun room.  … Something to do with a disagreement my husband and I had over who was responsible for watering them…  But, we got lucky, because a whole slew of ‘volunteer’s popped up all over the garden.  They must have been seeds from all the tomatoes that dropped of the vines last year.

We are also having good luck with our squashes, which is wonderful after last year’s disappointment (the rainy summer of 2009 caused all over our squash to get fungus and die back early).   Here is a picture of our first zucchini of the season!

First Zucchini Of 2010!

Happy Zucchini Plant

And, I can’t wait until the pumpkins start coming it!  As usual, the greens are a big success.  If you are new to gardening, I definitely recommend growing greens of any kind.  They are soooo easy to grow, its almost like instant gratification.  Between the early spinach, kale, arugula and other mixed greens, I haven’t had to buy salad greens in two months.  In fact, I’m actually getting sick of kale, but it just keeps on growing.

Unstoppable Kale

Here is a picture of a yummy salad using only stuff we grew — kale, zucchini, chives, and spring onions.

Yummy Salad

I’m also pretty happy with my herb garden.   So far, we have tarragon, chives, rosemary, thyme, mint, basil, oregano, flat parsley and cilantro.  Of course, it would be more visually appealing if I managed to get rid of all that crabgrass.  I just bought some lemon balm,  curly parsley, and stevia  plants to add.

The ‘volunteers’ sprouting up from our compost bin were also a pleasant surprise.  We have a few enormous squash vines (I have no idea what type of squash, but hope to find out soon!) and a veritable shrubbery of tomato plants.

Look What Grew In The Compost

Our ‘experimental’ corn and okra seem to be doing OK, too.  I call them ‘experimental’ since I’ve never grown either of them before and really have no idea how to grow them.  The corn was definitely ‘thigh high by the 4th of July’ and is sporting tassels, so I think we might end up with a few ears.  The okra had a rough start dealing with bugs but seem to have caught its stride.  The jury is still out on whether it will bear fruit…  Speaking of fruit, did I mention I almost killed my blueberry plants and apple trees?  Yeah, I went crazy spraying them with soapy water because I read it would kill bugs (they were infested with little green worm).  Well, it killed the worms, but all the leaves fell off!  The leaves eventually grew back, but no fruit on any of the bushes or trees.  Lesson learned — use VERY diluted soap/water solution.

If you’ve been watching the news, you know that those of us in Rhode Island have had our fair share of rain last week.

Spring Daffodil

Even though we got by relatively unscathed, it was still pretty weird to see your backyard turn into a swamp in a matter of hours.  Although the highways are open again, and most of the water has subsided, many of our neighbors are still draining their basements, and some friends are still waiting to get back into the house.  The ’silver lining’, so to speak, is that now everything is turning green and growing like crazy.  So, I thought it would be fun to write about our early gardening ventures and show some pics of all the great things getting a head start in the yard.

Last year, Jon built 5 raised beds in the yard and built a cloche over one of them.

Bacco and Max check out the sage and lavender

Typically, seeds packets advise you to wait until the last frost to plant outdoors, but we figured we could shave of 4-6 weeks by planting under the cloche.  So, as soon as we had a sunny weekend, we got started with our early spring crops.  The Demesne garden site has some good info on spring planting, and some fun ideas on companion planting.  In the end, a lot of what we ended up doing was based on trial and error.  A few things to note – most of the planting was done pre-flood, and you can’t get seeds in a straight row when a 4 year old is helping!

Spinach – the spinach was actually planted last fall and somehow managed to survive the winter as a little sprout.  When Jon put the cloche back up a few weeks ago, it really took off.  This is definitely a hearty plant!

Spinach Plant

Snow Peas – for some reason, I just love the way pea shoots look.  They are so cute!  These seeds were ones that I saved from the peas we grew last summer.  They sprouted in less than a week under the cloche and are growing well.  These are a great cool weather plant.

Snow Pea Shoots

Arugula – we always do really well with arugula.  These seeds were also from plants we grew last year that went to seed.  They sprouted in less than a week, and the ones in the cloche are growing very rapidly.  I hope to be eating arugula in a couple of weeks.  (As an experiment, I planted a few rows under the cloche and one row out in the open; the ones under the cloche are about 3 times as big).

Arugula

Kale – I never grew kale before, but heard it is a great cool weather crop.  It sprouted in a little over a week and already has its second set of leaves.

Kale

Carrots – These are supposedly a good cool weather crop.  Ours haven’t sprouted yet, but I’m still hopeful.

Garlic – You can’t go wrong with this herb.  Put them in the ground around Halloween, and don’t worry about them until August.  I planted cloves from one head of garlic last fall.  All of them sprouted over the winter and have been growing steadily.  We’ll have scapes early summer and 15-20 heads of garlic by the fall.  Yum!

Garlic

French Tarragon – I was told this plant couldn’t over winter in our zone.  I dug it up and put it in a pot, but accidentally left it outside all winter.  Much to my surprise, it totally came back!  I just moved it into its permanent home in one of the raised beds.  I guess it is pretty hardy after all.

French Tarragon

Sage – This is a very hardy plant.  It stayed out all winter, and its all ready getting full and bushy.

Parsley – Once again, I didn’t think this plant was a) a perennial, or b) could survive the winter.  Well, our parsley is alive and well!

Mint – What can I say about mint?  You can’t keep it down even with a steamroller.  Get ready for mint juleps!

Basil, Dill, Cilantro, Oregano – just put these seeds in this week.  The jury is out!  (although we always seem to do well with herbs)

Rhubarb – this is the second year we’ve had this perennial in our garden.  The roots were a transplant from my uncle’s and aunt’s garden in Maine.  They seem to be thriving!

Rhubarb

I can’t wait until we start picking and eating!  Happy spring, and happy gardening.

Azalea

As I write this article, I’m looking out my window watching three doves take a bath in our birdbath.   After a long and frosty winter, it really seems like spring has made her move.

Wheelbarrow Ride

I can’t believe the temperatures were well into the mid ’50’s all weekend.   I thought I would never be able to rid myself of my heavy coat and hat.  Don’t get me wrong; I’m not naive;  this is New England, so I know the cold and ice will be back before I know it — we may even get another snow storm.  But in the meantime, I’ll heed the buddhist teachings and live in the moment.   And, what a great ‘moment’ this weekend has been!  My family and I were outside getting a headstart on all our spring cleaning.  We raked leaves, cleared out flower beds, and checked for signs of life.

Budding Daffodil

The kids rode around on their bikes, and I even took out the old skateboard for a spin. (don’t get me going on skateboards…I’m not that good, but good enough to ride one home from Manhattan to Prospect Heights during the big blackout of 2003).

But, the biggest coup of all was getting our first veggie crops planted in the garden.  Jon had noticed that a small patch of spinach had managed to survive the winter in our mini-polytunnel.  It was suprisingly balmy under that plastic canopy.  I figured if that little patch of spinach could pull through, maybe we could give it a go with some of the early veggies.  So, we put in arugula, kale, mixed greens, peas, and carrots.  I’ll keep a close eye on them over the next few weeks to see what sprouts.  If all goes well, I’ll do an updated post with some pics of our seedlings!

The Poly Tunnel

Spring Spinach Shoots

Spring definitely gets me in the mood for fresh veggies.  Although it’s still too early for most of us to pick anything from our own gardens, did you know that you can still buy fresh produce at certain farmer’s markets in the winter? For those of you lucky enough (like me) to live in Rhode Island, the Pawtucket Wintertime Farmer’s Market is open from Nov. 7 – May 29. I’ve also enjoyed going to the Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan and the Grand Army Plaza and Fort Greene Farmer’s Markets in Brooklyn year round.   And, remember, only two more weeks until the official start of Spring!

Hanging Out In The Trees

Helping With the Yard