vegetables – Ink, Yarn & Beer

Waiting to be Planted

For the past several days I have had a lot of little gardening projects going on. I transplanted a number of seedlings into pots. I also started seeds. I have some seedlings I have sent on to a new home. This season I have vegetables already setting fruit, even it won’t mature for weeks, and seeds which are sprouting, and seeds I am waiting to sprout. Vegetables this year include winter (hard, yellow) squash, bush beans, radishes, lettuce, pepper of the hot variety, tomatoes, parsley and cilantro.

I also have a lot of flowers. These include hummingbird and butterfly mixes all thrown together in the front flower bed as well as foxglove, larkspur, polka dots (which I think are scabiosa or pincushion plants), carnations, nigella, Mexican sunflowers, Titan sunflowers (they can grow 12 feet tall with seed heads 24″ across!), and moonflowers. Herbs include the usual rosemary, sage, parsley, thyme, basil, but I have also added summer savory and a few Asian ones for variety. Mint and lemon balm and lemon verbena.

With all this work, there has been little time for sketching or painting. Thus I decided, much like my “Not Taken Vacation” that a sketchbook dedicated to this year’s gardening efforts would be fun to do. I have a fanfold Chinese calligraphy book I am using. It is a fanfold, so I can spread it out if I want to create a panorama, or use individual pages.

Above, just an individual page to get a sense of the paper. It is very soft and very absorbent, as well as a creamy color that is far from white, but not yellow. I figured my first foray into this documentation would be best served with a simple ink and watercolor drawing to see how the paper handled. Overall, I like it. The soft paper requires a bit more caution with the water, yet it does seem to handle it very well.

So, a few pony packs with seedling waiting for a home on my gardening table. My hand trowel is not well represented, but such is life! Meanwhile, I can enjoy the sweet smell of a freshly turned bit of earth and dream of flowers and garden produce.

Waiting to be Planted

Gardening

There is something about the smell of dirt, whether in the form of sodden leaves and dirt in the fall rain, or a pot of soil, or spreading amendment into a garden bed.

For years I had a house with a fenced-off area for gardening. I grew tomatoes and corn and lettuces and lemons and figs for the most part. There was a 40-foot tall avocado tree too, but it was old and diseased. The soil was clay, and if I watered it, I could sink into it up to my ankles unless I put paving stones around the beds. It wasn’t the best of situations, and had I the wherewithal, I could have rototilled amendment to make a better bed, but it never happened. Still, going out to play in the soil, plant and weed and pick were some of the best bits of summer.

Since then we have moved. The guy we bought our current house from put in too many trees, and now we are paying the price of having them removed over time. About a dozen more to go (that’s down from about 20). Then, a small back hoe or something is going to need to come in to dig down to get at roots and such – probably 24″ or so – and put in a new watering system and dirt. In hindsight, I should have done it when we moved in, but that is hindsight! With foresight, I am planning ahead. It will take time and money and a bit of thought, and perhaps even a landscaper or professional.

Only one tree is going to be saved – the crepe myrtle (above).

However! All is not lost as I have a Dog Free Zone (a.k.a the “DFZ” – a side patio where the dogs are forbidden, and is fenced off). There is also a small flower bed in the front yard, and gardening areas for a fig tree and roses.

We have a couple of tangerine trees in pots on wheels which we roll around on the back patio to collect the sun. Today I did some transplanting of flowers into larger pots, pruning, and general clean up. After that, I started some old seeds in starter containers – things like cucumber seeds from 2008, long beans, mesclun, holly hocks, lupines, stock and carnations, pimientos and cayenne peppers. If they come up, great; if not, at least I tried, right?

Flowers and vegetables and fruit – all are better when home grown! Besides what I put in today, I also have a couple of tomatoes, odd bulbs, lilies, zinnias, more peppers (about 12 or so), mint, milkweed, lavender, alyssum, sunflowers, marigolds, and few other bits and bobs that attracted my attention these past months. Front and back are getting spruced up!

Gardening is one of the great joys of retirement, a beautiful spring, and an unfolding summer season . . .

Garlic, Jalapenos, and a Cherry Tomato

Today I spent the afternoon doing watercolor exercises. Positive and negative space. Lost and found edges. Shadows. This is the best result, though the shadow side of the tomato sucks.

Kitchen Sink Soup

eat-72478_1280

Toward the end of the month, and with $0.02 left in the food budget, we have to get creative. Hence, Kitchen Sink Soup!

In the freezer, I found a cut-up chicken. I put it in a stew pot, added water, celery, onion, tomato slices, bay leaves, peppercorns, a carrot, and some herbs. I brought it to a boil, turned it down to a low simmer, covered, and cooked the chicken. I pulled out the chicken, and set it aside for a pot pie or something else for tomorrow (after all the soup is gone). I ran the broth through a sieve, set it aside, discarded the cooked veggies (put them into your compost if you have it), and washed out the kettle. From there, I did this:

Kitchen Sink Soup

2-3 T. olive oil
1 andouille or other sausage or leftover meat (or none), chopped
4-6 cloves grated garlic
1 onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 ribs celery, diced,
1 zucchini, diced
1 28-oz can plum tomatoes (I used Cento’s San Marzano Plum Tomatoes)
1 15-oz can Great Northern Beans
1/2 c. pasta (I used orecchiette)
broth from the chicken I just stewed (you can use regular broth, about 6-8 cups)
salt, pepper, etc.
Romano or Parmesan cheese, grated

Heat stew pot, add olive oil. Place chopped onion in pan, saute over low heat until clear and golden. Add meat (if using) and saute a bit. Stir in grated garlic. Add remaining diced vegetables, saute until cooked. Once the vegetables are at the desired degree of being done, pour in the can of tomatoes. Mash up the tomatoes (I used my potato masher), and cook a bit more. Put in the chicken broth or whatever stock you are using. Bring to a boil, add pasta and beans. Drop to a simmer and cover pot. Watch to make sure the pot does not boil over from the cooking pasta. Check pasta for al dente. Ready to serve!

Ladle into bowls, sprinkle grated cheese on top, and eat with good bread. (We used our homemade sourdough.)

Enjoy!