What's In Season - White Currants

I was excited to find yesterday that the white currants were ready to be picked.  The reds still need another week or so and the black currants are ripening a few at a time.  


We have one small white currant bush, which was covered underneath a thick canopy of tall weeds.  I was surprised that we able to get exactly a pound of fruit.  I have BIG plans for these!

Strangely, this year I'm more excited about all of the fruit shrubs we have growing around our unit than I am about my vegetable garden.  It's nice to have such a big reward from so little effort!

North Star Sour Cherries

A week ago, the cherries on the dwarf 'North Star' sour cherry tree next to our condo looked yellow.  This morning, I went out and they looked like this:


So now my question is - how do you know when then sour cherries are ripe?  They feel moderately soft to the touch and the one I tasted was juicy and sour enough.  Is that good enough?

Fruit Propagation Update

The cranberry plants I divided earlier this year are putting on lots of new growth.  I have about a dozen potted plants now from the two that I purchased three years ago.  Strangely, they haven't produced many flowers (and hence, fruit) during this time. I wonder if there is something I should be doing that I'm not.


I also have seven raspberry plants that I grew from suckers taken from our old garden.  After I potted them up, I placed them inside a sealed plastic bag for about a month until sufficient roots formed to support the foliage.  I love this everbearing variety and was glad that they survived.  They've since been moved to my community garden plot.

On the left-hand side are black and red currant hard wood cuttings that I took in early spring.  I removed about half of the buds and applied some rooting hormone to the cut ends before potting them up and placing them into a sealed plastic bag for about 6 weeks.   From the 6 cuttings that I took, 4 went on to root successfully.  I imagine they all would have survived if I'd noticed that they'd become infested with whiteflies and tiny leaf-eating caterpillars while they were covered in plastic.

Soon, I plan on taking even more cuttings from from all of the fruit shrubs around our townhouse.  It'll be a few years before we settle into a more permanent home. By then, I hope to have a ton of potted fruit shrubs ready to be transplanted. 

What's In Season

I thought I'd do a quick rundown of what we're eating right now.  Last weekend, Jonathan and I went out and picked some snow peas.  He ended up eating two-thirds of the bowl. 

I've grown 'snowbird' for the past three years and it always seems to produce a ton of pods each spring.


The broccoli is about ready as well.


I tend to get smaller crowns in the spring.  The fall ones are usually twice this size.  I've grown 'Bonanza' for the past couple of years and it has proven to be very reliable from germination to harvest.  Unfortunately, I haven't seen this variety for sale lately and my seed stash is running low so this might be the last year I'll be growing it.


My 'Winter Density' lettuce was on the verge of bolting so I picked it.  It has a slight bitter edge now but not too bad.


Finally, 'Hakurei' are my favorite turnips to eat.  They are very mild, sweet and perfect simple steamed with a bit of butter or sauteed.

Our Raised Beds

These pictures are outdated at this point but here's an idea of what we have planted in the raised beds behind our unit.  The largest one closest to the house contains most of my tomatoes, all of my peppers, some cucumbers and bush beans.  I'm not growing nearly as many tomatoes as I used to but I still think that we'll have enough to suit our needs.

I was hoping that, like the slugs, the cucumber beetles here would not be as bad as they were at the old garden.  Unfortunately, they are even WORSE and it'll be interesting to see whether I'll be able to get a decent cucumber harvest this year.


I also have some container tomatoes this years.  Orange Blossom is the lone early determinate tomato I'm growing this year.  I figured it would be best suited for container growing.

In addition to these, we have melons and zucchini planted behind our house.  And as the spring greens and veggies clear out, I'll plant our falls veggies starting in late July.

I still find it fascinating to think that these little flowers result in something as amazingly delicious as an heirloom tomato.

Cooking up the Harvest - Crab Cakes and Sauteed Spicy Asparagus

I made this a while ago but never had a chance to blog about it.  One of my favorite things in the world is homemade lump crab cakes.  I've been making this recipe from Cooking Light magazine for years now and it's still one of my favorites - simple and delicious.  To get the biggest lumps of crab for this recipe, I usually buy whole dungeness crabs from the market and shell them myself.

On this particular occasion, I made a simple salad with some homegrown mizuna and some spicy sauteed asparagus (also homegrown).  To make the asparagus, brown a couple tablespoons of butter in a shallow pan on high heat.  Add the asparagus and toss.  Add some soy sauce and continue to saute for a couple of minutes or until most of the liquid has evaporated and the soy sauce appears somewhat caramelized.  At the very end, add a fair amount a fine chili paste and cook for a few more seconds.  This is my favorite way to prepare Asparagus and green beans (especially when I'm feeling lazy).

Chrysanthemum Tea Plants - Update

A while back, I dug up two of my four Chrysanthemum tea plants from the old garden and brought them up to Vermont.  Since then, they've fared pretty well as potted specimens.  In prior years, I've left them to grow unattended without much care on my part, which probably explains why they ended up looking leggy and not very well formed by summer's end.  This year, I've decided to prune them vigorously in order to get a bushier looking plant and also to get more flowers (hopefully).  This is a photo I took a couple weeks ago, and since then, they grown much larger. I've already pruned them a second time. 

Growing my chrysanthemum tea plants in pots is probably the only away I'll be able to get any flowers to dry into tea in Zone 5 Vermont as the plants tend to bloom in November - well after our usual fall frost date.  Although the flowers themselves are pretty frost tolerant, even in Zone 6 Massachusetts, the window to harvest them was extremely short and never guaranteed before a serious hard frost would wipe them all out.  This fall I will probably bring them indoors in September, pick the flowers in November, and then let them overwinter in a semi-protected sheltered place like our enclosed porch. 

Berry Update

We have four pathetic looking blueberry bushes in the back of the house but surprisingly, they all have a fair amount of blueberries on them.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we might actually be able to pick a few this year...that is if the birds stay away.  I'm also going to try rooting some green stem cuttings later on this summer.

The red and black currant bushes are loaded with fruit.  I'd like to dry the black ones and make red currant jelly if we get enough.

Although I've never picked them before, currants seem rather tedious to harvest.  However, the little clusters of fruit sure do look inviting.  The leaves themselves also have a wonderfully pungent wine-y dark fruit scent to them. 

The gooseberries are fattening up as well.  It's another soft fruit that I've grown to love.

In addition to these, our raspberries are growing like gangbusters and there are a ton of flowering blackberry canes growing wild all around the development.  I've been told that they are suspected to be a cultivated variety that was planted by someone before the land was developed here so I might dig up a few plants to take with us if ever we decide leave this wonderful home we're renting.  

The Season for Asian Greens

Our fridge is well stocked with Asian greens at the moment although the season for them is quickly coming to an end as the weather heats up.


I've grown bok choy now for that past three years and this is my best crop yet.  Unlike our old garden, slugs don't seem to be much of a problem here, although I have spotted a few. In prior years, I would lose about 30 to 40 percent of my crop from slug damage alone but this year, every single one was made it to harvest unscathed.

This is my first time growing this larger white stem variety (Win-Win Choi).  It's much milder than the green stem varieties and contains a lot more water but strays very crisp when sauteed.  I highly recommend it.


Of course I'm also growing my usual tatsoi and Shanghai bok choy. I've probably mentioned this before but my favorite way to prepare bok choy is so saute them in some butter on high heat.  I add season with soy sauce, a couple pinches of sugar and some chile paste. Delicious!

The Intervale - My Community Garden Plot

Wow... I can't believe I've neglected my blog for the past couple of weeks.  I really need to get my act together!  On a side note, this is my 600th post!  They sure really add up after a while. 

Anyway, I realize I hadn't posted any pictures of my community garden plot. (I wish I was British so I could refer to it as my "allotment," which in my opinion, has a nicer ring to it.)  I'm not entirely sure of the exact dimensions but it's a good size.  The soil is in excellent shape (a nice sandy loam), and was planted with winter rye this past fall and tilled earlier this spring.  There are two types of plots at the Intervale - till and no-till.  Gardeners who have till plots must have everything removed by mid-October and are assigned new freshly tilled plots each April.  Those who have no-till plots can stay year round, plant perennials and erect fences and other structures.  A few spaces opened up in the no-till section this year (I'm sure Hurricane Irene had something to do with it) so I jumped on one.  (Normally you have to garden here for at least a year here before you can apply for one.)  The thought of have a blank canvas to work with every year was tempting, but in the end, I opted for an extended growing season.


I'm trying to keep things simple this year.  Only a few of the gardeners here have fences erected although I've been told that we have our fair share of garden pests (human and of the furrier sort).  I think I'll forgo the fence this year and take my chances (living dangerous, I know).  I have however lined my planting beds with string so I don't trample over everything.  Currently, I have shell peas, fava beans, onions, potatoes, celery, tomatoes (only five plants), peppers (only two) and artichokes planted here.  This weekend, I'll plant some corn, soybeans, beets and some perennials. 


The artichokes are off to a good start despite the colder climate here so I'm hopeful that we'll get a few edible buds this year.

Lastly, expect a stream of posts during the next few days!