Welcome to Unseasonable Farm

Motto: "Why not plant potatoes in October?"

Pictured but not visible: Recently sprouted parsnips.

The favas are doing okay, but the peas are going to need some better support after the storm.

Tiiimberrrr-peeaaas

Probably the last pepper harvest, though, unless we get a run of warm weather.

Not that I'm being smug or anything. Okay, maybe a little smug.

And, unfortunately, the pickling cucumbers aren't going to be ready in time for New Years.

I wasn't kidding about the unseasonable thing.

Stay tuned for further adventures in planting things with no regard to the printed instructions.

Confused Tomato: The Legacy

Once upon a time, I planted a tomato upside-down. It was not pleased. There was denial, there was determination; there was even a victory of sorts. But there wasn't a whole lot of actual tomatoes.

Things are a little different now.

I wasn't sure that this side of the bay, with its fog exposure, was going to be any good for growing tomatoes, but I was determined to try.

So were they.

In retrospect, I may not have needed to plant quite so many.

Thanks to the general weirdness of the climate around here (woo! Fogust is over!), the season is only now getting started, and most of my harvest so far has been the hybrid cherry tomatoes (sweet 100s).

See? They're just shy.

Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed by now that none of these plants are upside-down. That's because, thanks to Confused Tomato, I now know that tomatoes are strict conformists when it comes to gravity-orientation, and to try and force my media-derived notions of technological progress on them is never going to end well.

They don't mind the occasional stake, though, and they're not afraid to get outside of the box.

We all need a little help making our way up sometimes.

Off Plum

As we move deeper into spring, the plum tree has stopped flowering:

See you next year, flowers.

And started plumming:

The early fruit often comes in out of focus.

It seems to be developing a lot of plums:

Look closely; they're there.

Looks like I'm going to have to come up with things to do with them:

I'll also need to plant some peppers.

The fig tree is also starting to get its act together:

Figging out.

And the greens remain well-defended:

No kale left behind!

Next time, on As the Garden Turns: More boxes, endless weeding (so. . . much. . . weeding), The War On Aphids, the great avocado dream.

Taking It Outside

February, spring-- potato, po-tah-to.

Early blooms on our plum tree

When we last saw the sprouts, they were getting dangerously close to outgrowing their containers. Fortunately, I was able to find them an area with a bit more space.

The back yard, in its natural state.

Unfortunately, said space is next to a house that was built in 1905, which happens to be about 73 years before people realized that putting lead in all your exterior paint might be in some way a bad idea. We had the soil tested and, while it isn't hugely contaminated, we're mostly growing leafy greens at this point, which are the most likely to pick up lead and pass it on, so we invested in a raised bed kit.

Not pictured: 10 bags of soil, roll of chicken wire, weed cloth.

I am not what is traditionally considered "handy" (as Cameron pointed out when I decided, after watching an evening's worth of HGTV, that I wanted a nail gun, "You regularly almost kill yourself drinking tea." Which I had to admit is a compelling argument). So the good news was that the instructions here were 'dig holes in the ground, put the posts in the holes, put the boards in the slots in the posts.' The bad news was that the strata of our yard seem to be as follows:
1. Weeds.
2. Dirt*. (*may contain lead)
3. Various things, including but not limited to chunks of concrete, broken pottery, glass

I'm just hoping our house isn't on an ancient Indian construction site.


At any rate, I did finish it eventually.

Overdramatic lens flare optional, but recommended.

The plants on either side are blueberry bushes, because fruiting plants have very little lead danger and I like blueberries.

It took longer than I expected to get everything in, and by the end I was being eaten by mosquitoes (Yes, in February. No, I don't understand either.), so this picture was taken at a later date. But I think you get the general idea.

Someday we will eat these.

Up next: Beans and lemons! Not a serving suggestion.

Nanogreens

Kale

Spinach

Lettuces (mixed)

Beets

Chard (of the rare, heritage "blurry" variety)

Fava Bean (related to the chard)

Edamame

Nanogreens Salad:

1. Pick desired greens. Use tweezers if necessary.

2. Prepare dressing:
300 ul Extra Virgin Olive Oil
100 ul Red Wine Vinegar
20 ul Dijon Mustard
500 ng salt
20 ng pepper (finely ground)

3. Add dressing to greens. Invert gently to mix.

4. Wash tweezers and reuse for serving.

Serves 0.00002

The Garden Plot

(One of my resolutions for this year is to post on this blog more often. Also, no drinking on weeknights.)

This week in last month's news: We bought a house! It is lovely and very large. I feel a bit weird posting pictures of the front of it online*, but here's a shot of the staircase.

But more on that later.** Right now I want to talk gardening. Longtime readers*** may recall that I have an enthusiastic but spotty history of growing things, particularly tomatoes. But one of the things that came with our house was a big, sunny, south-facing backyard, with enough space to grow almost anything we want, just as soon as we have to soil tested to make sure it isn't too contaminated with the lead paint that's been flaking off the house since 1905.

In the meantime, let's start some sprouts:

Back row: beets Middle Row: kale, spinach, lettuce Front: chard Not Pictured: fava beans, edamame

We really should have started most of these last fall, for a winter crop, but we didn't actually, technically own the house then, and that might have presented some problems.

The above picture is from Day 0, when we planted everything but the legumes. (It was taken in the sunroom, planned future home of tomatoes and peppers, because it gets really hot in there.) How have they progressed since then? So glad you asked:

I think it's going rather well.



*50% Privacy concerns, 50% embarrassment about how badly it needs painting.
**So, so much more. Seriously, you have no idea.
***Hi, Mom!