Last Garden Harvest
Our home garden did not disappoint this year. It was all we could do to keep up with harvest all the goodies, and thanks to some extended warmer weather we harvested well into October, eating the last of it this November. Cheers to green thumbs!
Home Garden Update
The corn is now taller than all of us, and we see the ears of corn starting to grow. The birds have started stealing blueberries. We have a baby watermelon. We picked another squash and plan for cucumbers this weekend. Tomatoes are growing but not ripe yet (it always feels like such a long runway to tomato deliciousness).
How about you? Pick anything summery good from your garden recently?
Home Garden Update
Our plant starts have been in the ground for about 6 weeks and we had our first veggie pick of the season this past weekend! (not counting herbs and greens) Every year we learn more about the space we have to grow, what grows best here, and what we enjoy watching grow, picking, and eating. This season, so far, it’s become really apparent where the sunshine hits first and longest. We have a zuchinni plant on either side of the garden. One we harvested a giant squash from and the other just has its first flower. Each to its own.
Did you plant a home garden this summer? What are you most looking forward to picking and enjoying? Let us know in the comments!
Home Garden: Blueberries!
We had the good fortune of coming across and advertisement for mature blueberry bushes for sale. Sonoma Swamp Blues of Sebastopol is going out of business and selling their 15 yr old bushes, by the bush. You can go dig them up (as we did) or order them online and pick them up ready to go.
There are small, medium, and large varieties. We opted for the medium variety blue jay. So exciting! It’s hard work, and we definitely have an advantage with an expert plant person in the family, but we are all so excited to see the literal fruits of this labor. If you’ve got some space, you should really check out this rare opportunity.
Fish Dish: Baked Salmon
There are a few dinners that are just better with wine. The dishes almost beg for a pairing, and the sipping helps savor the dish. Pizza and a nice medium-bodied red wine - our go-to is Zinfandel. Tacos and Pinot Noir. Fish baked or grilled with a well balanced (fruit and acid) white wine. Maybe it’s the acidity that helps cut the fat in the food, the combination embodies mouth-wateringly savory. Maybe it’s because we’re in wine country and it just makes sense. Maybe it makes the evening feel more celebratory and less like a Tuesday.
Either way, we enjoyed a nice piece of salmon, flavored with cilantro (substituted for the dill in the following recipe) from our garden, lemon, garlic and butter. And served it with roasted red potatoes, and fresh green beans with a little butter, salt and lemon. Back-deck kinda eating. It was good. And so, we share the following recipe inspiration for baked salmon and say a socially-distant cheers!
We used this recipe from Tastes Better From Scratch. She offers lots of good tips, and three flavor options. We went with the Lemon & Dill and substituted cilantro for dill.
Kale Chips
From our home garden to the table - kale chips. With recipe.
When we started this business, Francisco was adamant about the logo. It had to be green. We are wine growers and plants that are healthy and strong are green. Green is our color.
The greenery is also calming, re-assuring, and exciting. This year we’ve been able to extend that to our home garden. Our latest green harvest - kale. Now, if you’d told me a few months ago that I’d be writing my first food post on the new blog (in a previous life I was food blogger) on kale, I would’ve laughed. I’m not kale’s biggest fan. I get it, kale is a super food. It’s also a chore to eat raw.
And then we had fresh kale greens in the garden. We had kale seeds on-hand this winter, and Francisco sewed some along with the other greens, first planted indoors in March and then transplanted outdoors in April. We didn’t know how good we had it, and let these leaves get pretty large before our first harvest. Their wavy, green leaves have been lovely in the garden and we let them hang on longer than needed before we finally harvested.
Harvest we did. Before being turned into something wonderfully delicious:
Toasted and transformed - the leaves made a delicious, fought-over, pre-dinner snack. Below is the recipe. Enjoy and cheers!
Toasted Kale Chips
Ingredients
Bunch of kale
Olive oil
Kosher salt
Directions
Preheat your oven to 350 deg. Line a cookie sheet (or two depending on how much kale you have) with parchment paper.
With a knife, cut away the greens from the thick stems. Then roughly slice them into 2 inch pieces. And place them in a large bowl (with room for tossing).
Drizzle the kale with olive oil. Do this with a light hand as a little goes a long way. Use about 1 tablespoon of oil if you have enough kale to spread out evenly in one layer on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle liberally with salt.
Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes, until the leaves are crisp to the touch. Toss in a bowl and don’t forget to taste some before sharing with others (they’ll be gone by the time the bowl comes back around to you).
Our Garden
We had actually decided to expand our garden before the pandemic turned life on its side and helped us focus more on home and not just work. Last year, Francisco removed a large oak tree which left us with room for an additional garden bed this year.
Last year was our first garden, and like true newbies, we started too late. Come fall, the cucumbers were amazing, and the corn some how grew 15’ tall, but most of the summer we spent watering and looking longingly at the plants, waiting for them to offer their fruit.
This year, we got our seeds out in February, and planted indoors in the first week of March. At some point the labels we had on everything washed off (note for next year), so we’re enjoying some guesswork and finger pointing this spring. The plants went into the ground the week of Easter and, well, they look happy to be outside - green and full. We’ve harvested lettuce and spinach. And this week, we cut back the oregano, and are drying it for later use.
Upside down and in the California sun.
Do you have favorite plants/varieties for your home garden?