May 31 - Vegetable Garden Week 9

The garden is great. The snap peas are about 2 feet high, the tomatoes are growing well, and we actually have some strawberries growing. The mulch is keeping the weeds down and it looks nicer. We're still getting radishes, but I'm looking forward to snap peas and all the other good veggies. 

Garden - Week 6, April 20

The garden is coming along! The snap peas, peas, radishes, and lettuces were all sprouting. The chard was coming up a little bit, but not as quick as the others. It's so satisfying to see!

Garden - Week 1, March 15

It's time to start the garden! Can you believe it? It has been such a long, cold winter, but there are some things you can plant as soon as the ground can be worked, and if you have raised garden beds, the ground can probably be worked now.

Vegetable Garden-May 18 (Week 9)

The garden looks great! I planted the peas on March 16, planted most of the tomatoes, hot peppers, and eggplants (with Wall O Waters to keep them warm), the cucumbers and zucchinis form seeds, and the lettuce, transplanted, on April 20. I hadn't been out in a few weekends and everything is looking happy.

Even though there have been some cold nights, the Wall O Waters seem to have kept the tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers happy, the snap peas are almost 2 feet high, the zucchini and cucumbers have come up and look healthy, and the lettuce is already huge. My parsley also survived the winter from last summer and is enormous.

Spring!

So it's 30 degrees and freezing and maybe not quite spring yet, but it's pea planting time! The tradition is planting peas on St. Patrick's Day, so Jamie and I are heading out to Long Island to plant our peas this weekend. Can't wait to be working in the garden again. It makes these lingering cold days bearable, sort of.

Snap Pea Pesto

I could have sworn my friend Kara told me about snap pea pesto and I'd been dying to try it since last summer and have been anxiously waiting for my snap peas to come out. When I asked her about it, she had no idea. Maybe I dreamed  it? Either way, I tried it out last night. Yum! It's really simple and fresh and summery.

Serves 2-4
Ingredients:
2 cups snap peas (pull off the strings)
4 basil leaves
1/2 large or 1 whole small clove of garlic, mashed into a paste with some kosher salt
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/2 cup-1 cup grated Pecorino Romano or Parm
pasta (I used gemelli)

Veggie Garden Week 13

Everything is looking good!

I pulled out a couple more beets that were too close to others so that the others can grow. Aren't they pretty/cool looking?

Vegetable Garden Week 7

Back out to Long Island this weekend to check on the garden! It's doing really well! The Swiss Chard is sprouting well, the beets are really happy. Brussels Sprouts too. Lots of good greens! I'm excited that I don't have to thin the beets until the leaves are about 4-5 inches high, then I can eat the baby beet greens in salad. Perfect! The peas are almost a foot high and are really hanging on to the string. Hopefully, by June we'll have tons of snap peas to snack on. And since we planted them earlier this year, they're much further along than this time last year - so we'll get peas earlier, yay!

The warm weather plants inside the wall o waters are much happier than those outside.

Vegetable Garden Week 5

The vegetable garden is really starting to look like a garden! (Though a little goofy with the wall o waters.) It's so great. We packed up the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants that had been living in our apartment and headed out to Long Island Saturday morning.

The wall o waters are up, and they will really be tested this week with the temperatures suddenly plummeting! I planted all of my tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers. I was able to squeeze a few of the little ones together in one wall o water, so that was nice.

Garden Bed #2

Jamie and I were out in Southampton with our garden plan this weekend and ready to dive into this year's garden. It feels great to be outside and working in the dirt! Very satisfying. We built a second garden bed, so it was back to Riverhead Building Supply for wood and Lynch's for LOTS of dirt and composted manure.
We found out they do free delivery, so that was great. We put the new garden together pretty quickly - after doing the first one last year, we're old hands now.

Vegetable Garden Week 11

Everything in the garden is growing so well. There was lots of rain this week and it seems to have made a huge difference. The pea vines were covered in peas.

The zucchini plants were full of blossoms and there was one little zucchini ready to eat and a couple babies that will be ready next weekend. The zucchinis I planted from seed are striped and those I planted from seedlings are regular green, so there'll be a little variety.

Vegetable Garden Week 10

I don't know if it was least week's heat wave, but the garden is growing like crazy! The zucchini are enormous, the yellow brandywine tomato has grown up to about 3 feet, the green grape tomato is bushy and thick, and the three Better Boy tomatoes are starting really grow (about a foot high now). The Swiss Chard is growing and I was actually able to harvest some - dinner recipe will follow soon.

The peas are getting a little too tall for their trellis, but there are finally peas to be had!

The basil is also growing like crazy, and one of the peppers has its first flower. I can't wait til next weekend when I can start pulling off peas. The mulch (and all the rain) has helped keep the garden moist, and the new marigolds and nasturtium give it a little more color. The zucchinis are starting to have little blossoms, so that'll add some nice yellow/orange flowers. And fried zucchini blossoms are out of this world (recipe will follow). The eggplant is also finally growing, yay!

Jamie behind the peas

 Beautiful healthy garden

 Me with my basil and Swiss Chard - first harvest from the garden

 My pretty rainbow Swiss Chard

Vegetable Garden - Week 3

My garden is starting to look like a real garden! I went to the Union Square Green Market last week and was pleased to find that all of the vegetable plant vendors are back! I browsed several of them to find the plants I was looking to use. I found a pretty big green grape tomato plant (produces bright, almost neon green cherry tomatoes that are tart and sweet and look beautiful in salads) and a small yellow brandywine tomato plant which is supposed to make big, yellow beef steak tomatoes. I want to plant a few big beef tomatoes as well. The heirlooms are definitely pretty and tasty, but the big beef tomatoes straight from the garden are equally as tasty and they're much hardier and produce more tomatoes. To hedge my bets, I want a few heirloom and a few big beef for a good mix. I also bought an eggplant plant - first time planting them and very excited.

Vegetable Garden - Week 2

My little peas are sprouting! Just a little thing popping out, but it looked like each pea I planted sprouted, so I'm happy! Just hope the deer don't eat them. No sign of the Swiss Chard, but we'll see this weekend.

And two of my pepper plants have sprouted! Hopefully they'll grow quickly enough to actually get some peppers this summer!

Vegetable Garden - Part One

I had a little back porch vegetable garden last year with a few tomato plants etc in pots and have since been planning my real vegetable garden. Summer tomatoes are so amazing and juicy and red and having them fresh from your yard is such a treat. My tomato plants did pretty well on the back porch, so I'm hoping they do even better with more room to grow. I'm also planning on planting some zucchini, eggplant, peas, swiss chard, hot peppers, and strawberries, along with some herbs. It was a really fun activity - and luckily this early April Saturday was sunny and warm. Jamie was an amazing help, very handy and strong - the bags of top soil and the beams were super heavy.