taking over the bed: a pictoral timeline of tomato growth

Well, it turns out that fertile soil+water+sunshine=happy plants. As illusive as that combination of ingredients might be, I think I've finally found success in the backyard. Move over rosemary, step aside thyme, the tomato plants have taken over the raised bed! I'll give myself credit for a bit of forethought: I planted the tomatoes on the eastern side of the raised bed since I didn't want their height and bulk to block the sunlight from the smaller herbs. But that plan has been overcome by the lengthy tomato branches which have completely dominated the rest of the garden. The poor purplette onions are smothered! It is remarkable how quickly the tomatoes have bulked up, now that their root system is in place. As a tribute to the remarkable tomato plants, I have assembled a pictorial timeline of their unprecedented growth (maybe I should make a flip book!):

June 11 (planting day):
July 2 (bamboo stakes added):

July 16:
July 20:

July 28 (surpassed the bamboo):

Small yellow flowers on the tomato plants:


And a few flowers have already yielded little baby tomatoes!

lazy locavores: outsourcing the backyard garden

A relevant article from today's New York Times:

"Eating locally raised food is a growing trend. But who has time to get to the farmer’s market, let alone plant a garden?

That is where Trevor Paque comes in. For a fee, Mr. Paque, who lives in San Francisco, will build an organic garden in your backyard, weed it weekly and even harvest the bounty, gently placing a box of vegetables on the back porch when he leaves.

Call them the lazy locavores — city dwellers who insist on eating food grown close to home but have no inclination to get their hands dirty. Mr. Paque is typical of a new breed of business owner serving their needs."

-NYTimes.com (link to full article)

For me, the joy of backyard gardening is experiencing the plants as they grow and change each day. I like learning about the soil, light and water conditions that make growing food possible. As I've found out, growing food is challenging and from that challenge comes a deep appreciation of the miraculous process of photosynthesis. When we take food for granted, sitting on the shelves of the supermarket, we don't see all of work that goes into producing food.

I would encourage any "lazy locavore" who is considering outsourcing their backyard garden to think again. While it may take time to tend to a garden and it will definitely result in some dirty clothes, I argue that this is exactly the type of connection to the earth that we so desperately need to rediscover. Not only for the sake of our own appreciation but also for the sake of the planet.

guest blogger: pesto!

Guest Blogger: Future wife of "Bean Grower"

Summer is here and that means that basil is growing like crazy. Between the basil we get from the CSA and the basil growing in our garden, we are inundated with basil! The more we harvest, the more it grows. What do we do with all that basil? We make pesto, of course!

Pesto is a sauce that originated in
Genoa in Northern Italy. It is a combination of basil, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil, salt, pepper, and a hard cheese such as parmesan. The name comes from the Latin root pestle--to pound or to crush. Historically, pesto was made using a mortar and pestle. First the basil leaves were washed and dried and then put in the mortar along with garlic and salt and crushed to a pulp. Then pine nuts were crushed and added to the mix. Afterwards, cheese and oil were stirred in with a spoon.

Now, I can make pesto with fresh basil by blending the ingredients in a food processor. After adding the fresh pesto to pasta, I often have extra. My trick is to fill ice cube trays with the leftover pesto. Once it freezes, I take it out of the ice cube trays and leave the cubes in the freezer in zip lock bags. When we are ready for more pesto, I defrost a few cubes.

blackberry breakfast ritual

This past week I've started a new morning ritual. As soon as I wake up, I head out to the backyard and collect the darkest, juiciest blackberries from the blackberry bush. I add them to my morning bowl of cereal and they are simply delicious. So far, I've picked on pace with how fast they ripen, so every morning there are new ripe berries waiting for me. I have a feeling this might last through August...

peach harvest

The peaches are plump, ripe and ready to eat. My friend who gave me the peach tree a year ago returned to the Bay Area for a brief visit, just in time for the peach harvest. With a gentle twist, they come right off the tree, a sure sign that they are ready to be picked. I even found one lying on the ground next to the tree.

abandoned romanesco: aphid delight

After abandoning my original backyard plot, my romanesco plants
were left to fend for themselves. Without much sun, their thick stems ran along the ground before turning up into the air, craning to escape the shade. While feeling slightly guilty having neglected the romanesco as I focused on the raised bed, I was also curious to see how they would fare with minimal attention. I suppose it was an attempt to validate my conclusion that the original plot was not meant to be. Alas, the romanesco managed to hang in there, benefiting from an occasional watering on my behalf. I finally noticed the spiral romanesco head beginning to emerge from the center of the plant. But upon closer inspection, I also noticed a huge colony of aphids growing under the leaves. The infestation was so rampant and horrifying that I quickly hacked down all of the infested plants and put them in a garbage bag for disposal. With organic gardening methods, I'm not sure what I could have done to protect the plants, but I suppose that closer attention would have helped. While it does sadden me to have lost the romanesco crop, I hope that the swift removal avoided further spreading of the aphid infestation.

guest blogger: our fully belly csa

Guest Blogger: Future Wife of the "Bean Grower"

As we watch our garden grow, we enjoy eating vegetables that are almost as local as the ones from our backyard. We belong to a CSA program or Community Supported Agriculture. This means that at the beginning of each growing season we buy a share of a local farm. By paying up front, we help the farmers to replace farming equipment, buy seed etc. In return, we get fresh vegetables from the farm each week--whatever produce is ready for harvesting. It is pretty exciting (and at times discouraging...) because you never quite know what you are going to get. Your weeks worth of produce is in the hands of the farmers. They know best.

We belong to the Full Belly Farm CSA, a farm in the Capay Valley in Guinda, California and we pick up our vegetables right here in Berkeley. This is our third CSA. We were members of CSAs from two farms when we lived in New York. When we started the CSA four years ago, I barely knew how to cook. I would pick up a couple of large bags of vegetables in the East Village and I would be completely stumped. What I am going to do with 12 eggplants?! We don't even like eggplant! How about rhubarb?! I have never eaten it in my life. Needless to say, a lot of food went to waste. And...not even in the compost bin. This was NYC and we lived in a 6 floor walk up. A lot of it went in the trash. However, I did learn to make ratatouille and rhubarb cake!

I am happy to report over the past few years, I have used the CSA vegetables to actually teach myself how to cook. It is a game I play with myself. What delicious recipes can I make based on the vegetables from the CSA each week?

Yesterday was notable. I made a recipe for which every ingredient was from our CSA (minus the lemon juice...more on that later). I made German potato salad with green beans (a family favorite for July 4th.) Here are the ingredients: potatoes, green beans, fresh basil, red onion, garlic, and purslane. (A note about purslane: I have never even heard of this before. It is a green plant with small, thick leaves. I was told it is often used in Mexican cooking and is similar to spinach. It is apparently really good for you.) I also used lemon juice from a Meyer lemon picked from our backyard. It was part of the dressing I put on top of the salad (lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and Dijon mustard). All in all, it was a big hit.

I love that lots of vegetables we are eating are from a local farm! I can't wait to find out what we will get in our CSA box next week.

bamboo stakes: better late than never

As my tomato plants grow taller, they are looking like they need some support. The heavy branches cause the plant to lean and the stems are not strong enough to keep the plant erect, especially when weighed down by tomatoes. There are many ways to scaffold tomato plants including trellises, verticle ropes, cages, stakes or a combination thereof. Since there is a bamboo patch growing in the backyard, I harvested some bamboo shoots to make stakes. I looked for the dry pieces which were stiff and strong. The bamboo ripped right through the tomato roots when I stuck them into the soil right next to the plant. This is definitely a step I should have taken on the day I planted the tomato starts, so the roots could grow around the bamboo. Better late than never. Hopefully the tomato roots will recover. I also added a metal cage and a bit of masking tape to bind the stem and bamboo so that the plants stay straight.