Spring has Sprung

There is so much going on in the garden right now.  With the recent heat wave, many cool spring greens have really taken off. In fact some arugula in my garden thinks summer has hit and is beginning to bolt.  Here are some photos of spring veggies in many plots at the garden.

Top left is orange stemmed chard, super healthy, great chopped up and added to spring soups. 
Saute, onions, carrots, celery, garlic in olive oil until all are soft, season with salt and pepper and your favorite herbs.  Add your chard, broth to cover all the veggies, 1 can of crushed tomatoes, 1 can of your favorite beans and that is what I call a soup.  Simmer until all the veggie flavors blend together,  turn the heat off and add 2 handfuls of short pasta, we use elbow macaroni.  Leave the uncooked pasta to 'cook' in the heat of the soup for 20 mins and dinner is served.  We pair our veggie soups with homemade focaccia bread but that is a family secret.

Top right, a nice couple of rows of tender salad greens.  Keep picking the outer leaves until the heads bolt (start to form seed heads, then pull up the plant and get ready to do it again in the Fall.)

Bottom left, nothing is like fresh artichokes.  Great for salads and fresh eating when steamed.  The plants are large so give them enough elbow room, sometimes getting up to 4 feet high and 5-6 feet wide.  To harvest many heads at a time plant at least 2-3 plants.

Bottom right, a nice tight head of broccoli, just about the right size for eating too.  Don't let them flower, pick them right before and you will be eating a delicious tender vitamin packed treat.

-Gia

MCGA Spring Work Party-The Best One Yet

Thank you everyone for coming out and working today at our first 'official' work party of the season. We got a lot done and had tons of fun too. See below for a photo summary of our most successful work party to date. (Photos courtesy of Sam and Laura)

Sam, Laura and Hannah were our greeters today as well as 'on hand' project managers and job 'pointer outers'. Much thanks also to Mike, Kendrick, Dana, Michelle, Jack, Shirley, please forgive us if we have left out any names!

John and Roman help to disassemble some very old planting boxes in favor of making room for new mini plots!  Thank you guys!  Paths were weeded, the wood chips on paths replenished too.

The sky threatened to turn grey but not a drop of rain fell, it was a perfect day, with a mix of sun to keep us warm, wind to cool us down and clouds to give us relief when we were sweating hard.

Here are some food bank worker bees tilling the food bank gardens and getting the beds ready for our seasons crops.  We planted potatoes today but will fill the food bank with spring planting very soon.

This is one of our new projects this year, we built a tomato only bed or the food bank garden along the pet memorial wall.  We are hoping being close to the wall will help the tomato plants stay warm and produce bountifully.

Here are the ladies have a go at taking apart the old ornamental beds,  thanks so much for your hard work.

Noxious weed removal was in full swing and folks for down on their hands and knees to help rid us of some weeds that cause everyone grief at the garden.

The tomato beds are looking great, only time will tell if the extra heat retained via the wall will help our tomatoes avoid blight and help produce a bumper crop.

After a busy morning, we all break for lunch! A giant thank you to all who attended and worked,  we really appreciate you.

Jump into Spring

Hello Spring (knock on wood)!  What a wet, wild, windy and wacky Spring we have been having. I know I have not been the only one anxiously waiting for warmer weather to arrive. Many of our fellow gardeners have already braved February and March to ensure they get a nice spring crop and harvest. Check out these early bird gardens.

I love the use of the hoop houses to start seeds and starts as early as Feb.  They stay warm and cozy in and get a nice jump start, even though we have seen temps in the 40's at night.

Another early bird gardener with a quick and simple, screw-less and nail-less method for making raised beds.  They are holding the boards together with soil and plats of wood on the outside of the boards.  Genius.

This gardener is already planning for summer with two smart drip irrigation systems designed to water the plants and not the weeds, way to go!

All I can say is "WOW".  These guys had their veggies under hoop houses for the winter and boy did they start early!  Look at the symmetry of the planting too! 

Growing Groceries at Marymoor Community Garden

I have been growing food with my family since I was 8 years old.  I actually have an old photo of me and my first cucumber.  We had a tiny sustenance farm on Guam and grew everything from sugar cane, to sweet potatoes and special herbs and mints that we sold to Vietnamese restaurants.

This will be my first year as the resident WSU Master Gardener at Marymoor Community Garden.  I am excited to be able to mentor my garden neighbors.  There is nothing more exhilarating and gratifying than producing healthy food for you and your family.  I look forward to a wonderful season.

Please join me, Gia Parsons and Laura Matter, from Seattle Tilth,  on April 1st at 1 pm at the garden for  a hands on workshop on early spring veggie garden preparation and planting.

We will be covering the basics of getting started to include:

· Soil Building; How to check your soil to make sure it is ready to plant. Choosing soil amendments and fertilizers. Till or no-till methods.

· Planting Vegetables; Choosing the best varieties for spring planting. Knowing when to use seed and when to use transplants. Spacing in the garden bed. How to plant your veggies.

· Spring maintenance; Understanding crop rotation and succession gardening. Choosing mulches for your beds. What to expect from your plants (when can you harvest them?)

NOTE: Laura has worked with Seattle Tilth for 4.5 years and in horticulture for 30 years in the northwest. I am a site coordinator for Picardo P-Patch in NE Seattle where I have been in leadership for the last ten years and am the Garden Hotline coordinator at Seattle Tilth.

Puntarelle= Poon-ta-rell-leh

Puntarelle when turned into a salad is heaven sent. I first ate puntarelle when I as living in Italy with my husband. It is a famous Roman vegetable available for only 1-2 months a year, usually November and December, many northern Italians have never even heard of it.   This beautiful green is as elusive as the famous white truffle from Alba but won't cost you $2000/kilo. 

I guess I can attune it to a very region specific food like the lobster roll, beignet or (scratching my head to think of another regional American food) etouffee.  Since I am not from Northeastern US or the South, I won't even try to pinpoint what cities/towns/states these foods hail from, I just know they are delicious.
I craved this salad so much after I left Italy, I searched online for the seeds and set out to grow it myself. This is the second year I have had success and here are the results.

This is the plant picked straight out of the ground,  it grows in a cluster with larger leaves around it.  It is in the chicory family but looks like a celery plant, kind of.

The little spear are plucked one by one from the main stem.

The spears which look like fat, leafy asparagus need to be sliced length wise and soaked in cold water (so they can get their signature curl) with a lemon in it so it does not oxidize and turn brown. 

Here the spears have been sliced and they are not as curly as they should be as we were starved.  They can actually be soaked for 4-6 hours or even overnight in the refrigerator.

The dressing is classic and Roman and called salsa di accuighe. (anchovy sauce)  Blend good olive oil with anchovies, garlic, salt and pepper to taste and a spritz of lemon on top.

-Gia

Kale Chips-A Fall Treat

Before I discovered kale chips, I struggled to come up with ingenious ways to use lacinato kale that mostly consisted of kale soups. Since discovering kale chips, we have depleted our entire supply in about 2 weeks. Luckily, I ran into Sam tonight and he gave me some generous bunches of black kale and curly kale. When I got home, kale chip production began.

First you strip the kale leaves off the main stem and wash thoroughly.  It does not matter if the leaves have slug holes in them or are frost bitten, they will still make perfect chips.

We then strip the kale leaves off the main rib. Tear the pieces into bite large bite-sized pieces since they will shrink up a bit when baked.

Season the kale pieces by tossing them in a large bowl with olive oil, salt and pepper. I drizzle the olive on like I am dressing a salad.  If you don't like a lot of oil, use less.

Bake the kale chips in the oven in a single layer for 10-15 minutes.  Do not let them get burnt, they will be very bitter.  I play with various shades of green, dark green, light brown and dark brown for a variety of flavors and textures.  A special treat is to grate some fresh parmigiano on top of the warm kale chips and toss.  Super yummy and healthy.  The kids can finish a large portion like the one pictured in one sitting.

-gia

Garden Critters

Sometimes I wonder if other gardeners think I am looney when I tell them about the 'resident' critters that live out in the garden.  No doubt we have all encountered the slugs and rabbits that munch away at our greens, the moles that make hills everywhere (but aerate the soil), the voles that eat up our root crops and those deer that have been really enjoying all the green tops of my pole beans. 

I am not speaking so much about those critters but the ones we want to see in the garden.  Hummingbirds and other avian friends; we have a resident heron, who last year ate up a 3-4 foot garden snake in front of my very eyes, a gorgeous pheasant that looks like he belongs in a National Geographic documentary, and the super elusive, sable colored weasel that I have seen only once.

Now that the season is almost over, I really have relished in the fact that my children got a real chance to experience what its like to share a space with real wild critters, I have to remind them that wild bunnies do not want to be petted.  The wonder and bewilderment that comes to their little faces when they realize something wild is near them is truly a sight to behold.  Even though we aren't growing much this fall or winter, the garden is still a source of great amazement.

-Gia