As the Garden Grows

Rain, rain, rain. That has been my garden's theme this rather mild winter in Northern California. While this makes me want to hoard even more rain barrels just in case this summer is a dry one, it also has convinced me that I never want to live in a climate where this much rain is normal. Don't get me wrong - we needed this rain. But, the earlier rains in January and December I blame for making me restless. And, since I hate being out in the rain, I also blame the rain for making me and Sesame out of shape. I'd be a sloth if I lived in Portland or Seattle. Well, at least now I know that I'm meant for a climate with more sun.

If anyone wants to see more garden photos, my current obsession, you can find them at  @foggyveggiegarden on Instagram. I'm cramming by brain with books on high-yield gardening, permaculture (fascinating!), and dreaming of a south-facing garden. My current garden gets 6 hours of direct sunlight, at most, and it's bumming me out. However, I have managed to grow a fair amount of greens (and purples and reds) for us to eat this winter. 

The beauty of our mild climate is that I can grow food all year round, even though our lack of light makes the vegetables somewhat stunted compared to a sunnier local. Our neighbor across the street has the perfect vegetable-growing space, and I covet it daily. Yet, I can't really complain. Other parts of this country are buried in snow.

My other obsession, still, is my Instant Pot, the kitchen appliance I never thought I'd want yet now can't imagine living without. I haven't been without homemade stock since getting this device. I've also made Vietnamese yogurt multiple times, pho ga, countless Indian dishes, and amazake (much maltier than I expected in comparison to the amazake I buy from the store). My Instant Pot has replaced my slow cooker, and surprisingly, my fancy pants rice cooker. I can make perfect jasmine rice in 20 minutes, no lie! My fancy rice cooker will probably go to a relative soon.

Sesame and Greaseball are doing well. Greaseball is as grumpy as ever, and Sesame continues to become a better dog, although I'm resigned that she loves the boy more than me. I feed her, train her, and walk her, but all the boy needs to do is exist to be the apple of her eye. If he's watching television, she's watching him. If he's working at home, she's by his feet. When he plays the bass, she's his biggest fan. Can you tell I'm annoyed by this? I reason that because of this, I get to pick out our second dog, too. So far, he's not buying it.

And the Gardening and Kitchen Experiments Continue...

It's been roughly two months now since I decided to revamp the garden, and I'm finally happy with its progress. During the first month, since I'd let the front yard atrophy for a year, I was weeding, hacking back bushes, and pulling ivy.  Also, I'd never been happy with the previous landscape design, and I wanted something that was more functional (more vegetable gardening space), yet not an eyesore. Since my only choice for a food garden is to have it in the front yard, it gets tricky. 

For those of you not in California, we're in the midst of a drought. For me, this means that anytime I use water in the garden, it has to be for edibles 99% of the time. The succulents, once established, can be watered once a month. We put in a rain barrel system and it's been unusually rainy, so all this gardening I'm doing now hasn't used city water.

Chinese Dunce Caps are branching out!

I've added three more vegetable gardening areas, either by wall or by tearing out the previous, inedible landscaping, and now I'm in the process of growing green manure and clearing out yard waste (old scrap wood) around the house. It's amazing what you can put out for free, sometimes with the help of Craigslist or the homestead hookup list, and the creative things people use what I would normally throw away is astounding. For example, the guy who picked up the old oak scrap leftover from taking apart 3 wine barrel planters is going to turn the wood into biochar.

My favorite succulent, the dinner plate aeonium

I have a tray of succulent leaves I've culled from the new plants. Now, 6 weeks later, I have succulent babies! Once they're a little bigger and they've used up all the nutrients in the mother leaves, I'll put them outside because the front yard is still has bare spots that need some erosion control.

Babies!

Yesterday, I ordered a grow light setup online, mainly because when I grow most seedlings outdoors they're wimpy! This is what I didn't see before when I was lured by all the exotic seed packets that were all under $3 - there's a hidden cost!  The best grow light reviews, not surprisingly, are from people growing weed. It took me awhile to sort out what type of lights I should use and what would fit into our tiny house without looking like an eyesore.

The boy has mentioned several times that the cost of the vegetables we grow better be more than what we've put out, but I can stifle that conversation by pointing out his various toys in the garage that will never yield anything useful for us to both enjoy.

The collard and kale trees are recovering from the slugs. Favas are going well!

Sesame is back in Canine Circus School, and she likes to use school time to catch up on her sleep. If you want to see some adorable and impressive dog tricks, follow Canine Circus School on Instagram. You may even see some action shots and videos of us, that is, when Sesame isn't sleeping through school.

Circus School is the perfect place for a nap

Hiking it

Back in October, I started fermenting a jar of habaneros. 6 months later, I blended the fermented habaneros with lime juice and some of the brining liquid. It's good! Wicked hot and a little tart. Between this and the homemade Sriracha, I don't think we need to buy commercial hot sauce anymore.

The habaneros are finally ready to become hot sauce

I also brined some eggs for 40 days in preparation for making joong. Joong, at least in California, is usually described to those unfamiliar with it as "Chinese tamales" - I love how Mexican food is so prevalent here that I can use a tamale as a descriptor and people shake their heads in recognition. The reasons joong is likened to a tamale is because it's sticky rice mixed with a salted egg yolk, beans, and various pork products all wrapped up in a bamboo (traditional) or banana leaf. I've been using banana leaves because I have them on hand for making tempeh.

Brining eggs

I used this recipe for brining the eggs, but for my next batch, I'm going to add a splash of rice wine and star anise per this recipe. The previous attempt was good, but the flavor was a little flat. It still tasted better than what I get from the Chinese markets, and by using my own eggs I know that the quality is better, but I think a seasoned egg yolk will be delicious. This time, I have a dozen eggs I traded with friends. The boy makes beer, and our friends use the spent grains to feed their goats, chickens, and turkeys.

Finished yolk!

The hardest part is waiting for the yolks to be finished, but since making joong is a lot of work (nothing hard, but a lot of preparation), the 40 days gives us enough time to recover.

Until next time, blogosphere! I notice that a lot of bloggers I follow have moved to Instagram, and that's where I spend the bulk of my social media allotment. So, follow me there if you'd like to see more pictures of Greaseball, Sesame, or be bombarded with succulent and garden photos.  My user ID is sungoldtomato.

2016 Garden Shakedown

In February, one of my client's landscaping was overhauled with drought-friendly plants. Mostly succulents and grasses. The colors of the succulents, purple and dusty blue, made me pause every time I passed it. I started reading up on succulents, and discovered that they are low maintenance, have very little water needs once established, are relatively cheap, and are easy to propagate. Succulent obsession in 3, 2, 1...

Ground zero of succulent obsession

Now, a couple months later, I overhauled our front yard to include a ribbon of succulents along a previously boring stretch of soil. I decided that plants in the front yard garden had to either have low water requirements, or they had to feed me. Anything that got in the way of those two goals had to go. The only exception to this rule was the grass, shown below. Although it barely needed water, it was blocking sunlight to my food garden, so I spent a month chopping away at it and filling all our green waste bins to capacity. Now it's gone and a lovely Meyer lemon tree (aka my cocktail ingredient tree) is in its place.

Once I start getting into something, I start seeing it everywhere and I can't stop talking about it. Sempervivums, echeverias, crassulas, and aeoniums fill my dreams, along with kale and citrus plants.  I subscribed to Design for Serenity's Facebook page because there is a daily "Succulent Tip of the Day." 

My succulent garden is itty bitty because I'm cheap and because I have a number of propagation experiments going on, the most exciting being a tray of leaves I am misting once a week.

I repurposed several rocks I found in our front and back yards, and I made one terrifying trip to American Soil for rocks and clay soil amendment.  The trip was terrifying because I had a hatchback full of rocks and at one point I made a sharp turn and thought I heard my car window break (nothing was broken, but I can't figure out where that sound came from). I also had to drive my car into tight spaces and drive backwards while avoiding forklifts and an audience of (probably indifferent) people milling around. Oh well, part of learning new things is feeling like an idiot, so I should be used to that by now.

Sesame has been very patient with my new hobby, and I even try to incorporate training drills ("STAY!") while I play in the dirt.

This installation looks like a tombstone. What it needs is a big spiral aloe in the front of it, but see the part above where I state that I'm cheap. Those dark aeoniums were from the backyard and part of Mingus's pee garden. I really miss that dog.

I was constantly slipping on this sloped area to the food garden, so the boy and I created some traction by putting ledge stones leftover from our fireplace remodel. I interspersed elfin thyme (cutest name ever!) between the stones. Hopefully, the thyme will spread so it will look less like the steps have a disease. Landscape architect, I am not.

I've been told that this gardening period of mine is more pleasant, aesthetically speaking, than my tempeh period. I freaked a lot of people out with pictures of moldy beans, but hey! It's food! It's good food, but not pretty food.

My patch of Chinese garlic chives is back, as and my Richmond Pride collard tree is thriving.

Some yellow snow peas, squash, and snap peas are starting to gather steam.

Since my collard tree is doing so well, I'm propagating cuttings for it. These collards were so, so sweet during the winter, and they were great to have when nothing else in the garden was ready to eat. Therefore, I must have more! 

If I can grow 90% of my vegetables, I'd be so happy. This year, I'll settle for 50%. The boy and I made two new gardening areas in the front yard, and I'm currently green mulching them (refer to the part where I am cheap) instead of bringing in bags of good soil. I am determined to make this clay soil usable! 

Gardening is not for the faint-hearted, though. I think I've freaked myself out a few times by lifting rocks and finding disgusting things. Like this, for example. What is it? Eggs? If you know what they are, can you please leave a comment and assure me that they won't kill me? I started a few internet searches trying to ID these, but got grossed out by images and had to stop. 

When I discovered these disgusting white round things, I put the rock back down and went back in the house. It didn't help that I also unearthed slugs and some salamanders along with these weird globs. It took me about 15 minutes to venture out again to take a better look at them. They're not giant egg sacks, but tumors or something else gross on roots.  Maybe they're anemic radishes. If I can eat them, I don't think I will. Oh, man. I have to stop writing about this because I have goosebumps.