This week in the garden…more rain.

We're going to have SO MANY peas.

People are starting to get cranky. It’s nearly summer, and we’ve had just a few short hours of sun over the last couple of weeks. Even people who are proud Seattle natives, don’t own an umbrella, wear shorts in December – even those people are starting to complain about this never-ending greyness.

The plants sure do love it, though. Things are out of control in the yard and garden. Last week I planted corn and it’s up already! The spinach has pretty much gone to seed, radishes are starting to sprout, and the peas are putting a monumental effort into flowering. The tomatoes are not quite as happy, though; the ones in containers are doing pretty well, but those in the garden soil just hunker there sadly,  shivering and woeful.

In a way, I feel like the garden is in a holding pattern…or at least, my enjoyment of it seems to be. I hope we get a little bit of summer before fall gets here!

Carrots are doing really well (none harvested yet, though).

The container lettuce is looking great!

I don't think this radish flower is a good thing.

Making veggies crunchy part 2: Spinach chips

Yesterday’s Radish Chips experiment went so well that I thought I’d try another little experiment. I had heard work friends talking about making Kale Chips, and since I don’t have kale, I did a little googling and found that you can do the same thing with spinach. So I did, combining elements of several recipes I found.

I picked and washed some spinach leaves.

Direct from the garden.

Dried them a bit and rubbed each with olive oil.

A little tedious but ultimately worthwhile.

Laid them on a baking sheet and sprinkled on some kosher salt.

Ready to bake!

And baked them at 350° for about 7 or 8 minutes.

They look wilted but they're actually crunchy!

They were great! A little too salty, but next time I’m going to try some spices; I read that basil is good. Or maybe garlic; can’t go wrong with that.

Finished spinach chips

Brett pronounced them “Surprisingly good!” They don’t look like much, but they’re paper-thin and pleasantly crunchy, with a nice spinach flavor.

I like this way of getting my green leafies!

Baked Radish Chips

Fresh!

I’ve been pulling one or two radishes a day out of the garden to munch on; they’re the only thing that’s ready to eat so far, so I just enjoy them raw. But they’re getting pretty crowded in their little bed, so I thought I’d better find a way to use a bigger bunch at once. I found this recipe for radish chips, and this is the story of me giving it a try.

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Baked Radish Chips

Makes 1 serving

Ingredients
10 radishes
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp paprika

Directions
1. Thinly slice radishes
2. Steam in microwave for 5 minutes
3. Put in bowl with spices; stir
4. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, flip the chips, and bake for another 10 minutes.

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Ok, picked some radishes. I showed Brett and he decided he had to go and get the camera. Thanks, honey.

Here they are.

I washed them and cut them into thin slices; they’re really not that big, and there were some bug-eaten parts, so that handful ended up being less than it looks like. That’s ok, this is just a test.

Trying to slice them thin!

I steamed them in the microwave as directed, in a bowl with a slosh of water. I covered the bowl with plastic wrap, and just cooked them on high. They softened up quite a bit and puffed up a little too.

Post-steaming.

Then I poured out extra water, and added the spices – more or less. I didn’t have any chili powder, so I used a sprinkle of taco seasoning, and added some black pepper along with the paprika and garlic salt. I put a little bit of olive oil in too, because it seemed like a good idea (and I’d read that it’s used in making other vegetable chips).

I spread them out on a baking sheet and popped them in the oven.

Ready to bake.

The total of 20 minutes was too long for this tiny amount, so after the first ten minutes I pulled them out, tried to flip over the bigger ones, and put them back in for about five more minutes. That was plenty; some were already a bit too dark by that time.

After baking.

That’s it. They were pretty tasty! I’d try them without the spicy seasoning next time, to get a better taste of the radishes themselves. And I’d use quite a few more. But it was easy, and a nice little snack.

Radish chips

If you make these, or anything else interesting, from your garden veggies, let me know! I’ll be looking for more ways to use mine, even though I do really like to eat them right out of the ground.

Rain rain rain rain SUN rain rain rain…

I wasn’t planning to spend most of the weekend indoors. I had hope that there might be a last-minute chance of sun on Memorial Day weekend. But Cliff Mass, local weather guru, pretty much called it. He didn’t actually say “look for grey, crushingly bleak weather all weekend, punctuated by soul-tormenting flashes of sunlight, and then back to rain” but I imagine that’s only because he’s an academic with a reputation to uphold and so had to say about the same thing in nicer terms.

Anyway, it rained.

Wet pea vines

And rained.

Moist spinach.

And poured and there were showers and precipitation…

Damp Asian pear.

And rain.

Soggy huckleberry.

Finally, today the sun came out for  a couple of wonderful hours! I knew that if I didn’t get outside I’d feel like the little girl in the Ray Bradbury story that gets locked in a closet during her planet’s one non-rainy day in years.

I’d pretty much given up on being able to do any garden work by that time, so to get in the mood, I told myself that if I went out and weeded for one hour, I could sit in the sun (or whatever it was by that time) and play Plants vs. Zombies (don’t play this game ever, not even once. It’s video crack).

So I went out with trowel in hand and worked hard for at least 45 minutes…then I looked at my watch and discovered that only ten minutes had actually passed. But after a while I got into the rhythm, and got an entire flower bed weeded. And then I sat outside and, instead of playing my game, I brought out a bowl of fresh Rainier cherries that I’d picked up at the Lynnwood fruit stand, and stared at nothing (and sometimes hummingbirds) while the sun got fainter and fainter behind the clouds. It was nice.

Here’s the state of The Tiny Garden as of this week:

Things seem to be growing.

I even ate a radish or two this week.

Crunch!

May showers bring crazy garden growth!

We’re having more typical Seattle spring weather: warm and sunny one hour, cold and rainy the next. The plants love it.

I planted a few more tomatoes in the garden, and one in a big pot; I think that’s as many as I can squeeze in, so now I’ll be giving away the rest of the starts, finally. I hate to let the babies go, but I’m sure I’ll find them good homes.

Ready to grow!

The rest of the garden is going nuts!

Spinach, almost ready to eat.

Carrots, coming along nicely.

I didn’t know if I’d get any blueberries this year. I planted two blueberry plants last year, thinking that you needed them to pollinate each other. Well, one of them developed no flowers at all, and the other did…so I thought they’d just fall off and die. But no: they’re turning into big bunches of berries!! I can’t wait…!

I'll be having blueberries soon!

And the asian pear tree is tempting me with things to come…

Asian pear looks promising.

Here are some of the radishes I’ll be having in a salad soon. Mina, in the background, is leaping straight up into the air, because she loves to eat the radish greens and wants me to give them to her. I’m not sure why. She’s a strange dog.

Radishes. Want.

Jupiter, on the other hand, is unimpressed.

They don't appear to be salmon.

It’s looking like a great year in the garden so far!

Mina checking out the basil.

Tomatoes planted, cross your fingers

A lot of my tomato starts didn’t make it through the last couple of weeks, but over 20 did, so I decided that I’d plant some in the garden, and if it really is too early, I’d have plenty for backup.

Tomatoes and radishes

The remaining starts are short and tough-looking.

Young tomato plant

Everything else seems to be doing well; the spinach, radishes and carrots are getting taller all the time, and the peas are slowly growing into their string trellis.

Spinach

Carrots

Zoo Doo and the first garden bite of the year

I won the poop lottery. My Shoredog friend Maggie and I won the chance to buy a truckload of lovely composted Zoo Doo from the Woodland Park Zoo this year. What we actually bought was what they call “Bed Spread” which is more of a mulch “made from the manures and bedding of the zoo’s non-primate herbivores.” The refuse that the zoo has to clean out and dispose of is actually a wonderful mulch for the garden, so they sell it to gardeners and everyone benefits.

Mounds of poo

It was a nice day for digging around in poo.

Dorky poo joy.

The “doo guy” first asked us what we were growing. We told him veggies, and also flowerbeds. He said that the Bed Spread is best for mulching around the ornamentals, but the actual zoo poop is better for veggies. Knowing that we wanted to add some goodness to our edible gardens, he gave us each a bag of Zoo Doo for no charge.

Bag o' poo.

The half-truckload of compost was perfect for filling in my front yard flowerbed, and I’m saving the poo for when I finally plant tomatoes.

Another exciting moment: I had my first nibbles from the garden. The radishes are pretty crowded (I need to thin them out but I hate to “waste” any; will have to just suck it up soon, though, because they’re packed in there).

Radishes looking consumable!

I couldn’t resist – I picked a tiny radish, washed it off, and ate it. One little nibble, but it was a really tasty one!

Nom!

Now I am quite tired from shoveling that poo four times – into the truck, out of the truck, into the wheelbarrow, and into the garden. But it was a great day to be outside, and I think the Zoo Doo mulch will be very good for the garden. I just hope the mutt doesn’t try to eat the poop.

I support peas (but the tomatoes are starting to rebel)

Between the sun and warm temperatures on the weekend, and the chilly rain today, I can only hope that my little seedlings are learning all about the extremes of life in the big green world.

I built a sort of stringy-cage thing to support the peas; it looks a bit like the squirrels got drunk and decided to have a drunken squirrel circus in the middle of the garden. The bamboo poles are held together at the top with wire, and there are smaller stakes holding down the sides. I actually think it will stand up to some use.

A new garden structure

It looks pretty silly, though.

Another view of the atrocity

Here’s an update on my little tomato seedlings: I got the second patch transplanted, and they’re doing well outside, against a wall of the house. The first batch is having some issues, though; a few of the seedlings just…died. They fall over and eventually crumple. I’m not too upset about it, though; I have so many, and perhaps those just weren’t going to be good tomato plants anyway. That’s what I’m telling myself. It could be that they didn’t get out in the elements soon enough, and so their spoiled little leaves were too used to the cushy life indoors to hack it in the real world. Or it could be “damping off” – a fungal disease of some kind attacking them. You can see some of the distressed babies in the photo.

Worrisome tomato seedlings.

We’ll see how many are left when it’s time to plant. I may end up buying tomato starts at the nursery after all!

Today in the garden

The carrots are finally up and looking good!

Spinach is taking off.

I've moved the tomato starts outdoors (the ones that didn't die off for some reason).

Mina oversees the garden and hopes someone will throw her frisbee.

And sadly, today we lost our old cat, Bridget. She was a sweet, gentle cat who liked everyone, human and animal. She had a tough last couple of weeks, and it was time to let her go on today. She’s buried in a shady, quiet spot under a statue of Buddha. We will miss the old girl.

Sleep tight, Zen Cat.

Transplanting the tomato seedlings

Since so many of my tomato seedlings have their second set of leaves, I decided to get as many as possible moved into new containers today. This is the point where the little groups of 2, 3 or 4 seedlings get broken into individual pots, where they’ll stay until they go into the garden. I used this page as a reference on how to accomplish this.

My tools: a pair of disposable chopsticks, a crab fork, a felt marker to label each container, and the dozens of green plastic pots that my sweet mother-in-law gave me from her stash.

Ready to proceed.

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Following the online guide, I carefully pried each set of seedlings out of their starter homes, untangled them from their siblings, and inserted them into a hole in the soil of the new pot. The idea is to bury them with most of their stems under the soil, because new roots will form.

It's a little like playing "Operation."

It took a while to get all of them moved, but it was a lovely afternoon and nice to be outside.

One at a time...

Gently!

New homes

And now I have 36 little green pots, each with its own tomato baby.

And that’s about half of what I planted…the rest aren’t ready to transplant yet!

Too many tomatoes!