Avocado and Banana Are Friends

Avocado: Yo.
Banana: 'Sup.
Avocado: You new?
Banana: Yup.
Avocado: Mail order?
Banana: Yup.
Avocado: Cool. Same.
Banana: Dude. How's it here?
Avocado: 'S cool. Gets kinda hot.
Banana: I'm into it.
Avocado: Cool.
Banana: . . .
Avocado: . . .
Banana: See you round?
Avocado: Yup.

#ProduceTip

Your vegetables will look approximately 372% more glamorous if you put them in a fancy gardening basket.

Wheelbarrow optional.

On a related note, does anyone know what I can do with three habaneros? That won't kill me?

Rogue Tomato Goes Rogue

Some people say that tomatoes are choosy, delicate plants requiring only the best in soils, nutrients, and growing conditions.

Rogue tomato would beg to differ.

You talkin' to me?

Rogue tomato sprouted from the seed of a fruit left to fall and sit on the ground through the winter because it was too gross to pick up. It set its roots in soil that manages to be at the same time both rock-hard and entirely composed of sand and sprouted through a layer of red rubber groundcover, spread for the express purpose of keeping things from growing. You can try to dig up and transplant Rouge Tomato to more comfortable environs, but I wouldn't advise it.

Wimps.

So, while the other tomatoes luxuriate in their raised bed, with their trellises and carefully composed soil, Rogue Tomato remains defiantly alive, where no tomato should be able to expect to live, down with the weeds and the slugs and the shoes of inattentive gardeners who weren't expecting to find a tomato there until they almost stepped on it.

And you know what else? Rogue Tomato is not alone.

Yo.

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.

Optimism

Plan for success.

Gardening Accessories of the Rich and Stupid

Do you want the satisfaction of tending your own garden plot, but are afraid you might not be able to spend sufficiently ridiculous amounts of money and/or look stupid enough while doing it? Well, fear not! Capitalism has you covered.

For starters, you're going to need some tools.

Shime Garden Tools, $1250

You provide the sticks. (Seriously.) The primary downside of purchasing this set is that, if you do, a farmer from the 1860s will appear on your doorstep and punch you in the face.

Or, if that seems like too much of a commitment, you could always start by just buying a shovel:

Orion long handled spade, $258

Solid copper, so your plants won't get arthritis.

And what if you like the look of old garden tools but would rather sit on them than use them?

Antique garden tool chair, $4100

Free tetanus shot with purchase!

Or maybe you have moved to a "transitional" neighborhood that is still in the part of the transition where people pile industrial scrap in their yards, and you want to fit in, but not too much:

Bozeman furnace, $2100

Steampunt.

Once you've settled in, you'll want to invite some friends over, maybe play some bocce:

Bocce ball set, $298

You'll need a tub for drinks:

Vintage grape crate, $398

Somewhere for people to sit:

"Weathered" regency chair, $1800

And some sort of pointless little garden cupboard:

Driftwood Cabinet, $2400

There ain't no party like a pointless little cupboard party.


But really, when you come down to it, the garden is your space, to grow flowers and food and maybe even raise some chickens in a ludicrously expensive coop that looks like the abandoned craft project of a drunk four-year-old:

Chicken coop, $3000

(You know you're doing something wrong when you're making Williams-Sonoma's offerings look sane and reasonable by comparison.)

Just a Little Off the Top

Let's check in on the garden, shall we?

The chard is starting to look like chard:

We got the heirloom "sideways" variety.

The favas have joined the party:

And the edamame came along too:

The lettuces have been particularly enthusiastic:

So much so that I decided to free up some space by clipping some leaves (I cut a bunch, I swear):

(Makes about 1/5th of a salad.)

Up next: The great outdoors!

Log Out

You can't say I didn't try. I gave it two rounds of soaking in the recommended dechlorinated ice water, a paper bag over it to keep it damp and its very own plate to stand on and hardly bothered it at all, no matter how much I wanted to know if it was working. But, after that one surprise initial bloom, my mushroom log has been resolutely unproductive, and I think it may be time to throw in the towel.

Or log. Whatever.

Ballad* of the Mushroom Log

Sometimes, when the weather is nice on a weekend day, Cameron and I take some reading material and a bottle of wine and go sit out on the patio, to enjoy the sunshine and the view of the WheelWorks across the street. And sometimes, when the weather is nice for an unusually long time and the internet (via my iPad) is easily accessible, I drink slightly too much wine and buy a mushroom log.**

It came just before we left for the East coast, so I didn't have time to prep it for sprouting according to the directions. So instead I followed the instructions for setting it up for a rest period and left it to rest on its packing material (the directions didn't specify otherwise). So it was a surprise when I got home and Cameron told me that it sprouted:

The harvest is modest, but I figure it's not that bad for not trying. I could get into this kind of gardening.


*This post 100% ballad-free.
**Also, a home-cheesemaking kit. More on that later.

Pepper Pot

It's not just tomatoes and herbs in the garden here. I mean, it is, mostly, but we have a couple of pepper plants too. Unfortunately, I've misplaced their tags, so I'm not sure what kind of peppers these are, but I did remember enough to know that I was supposed to wait for them to get red, which was handy, because they stayed green for about three months before finally coming around. Now I just have to come up with something to do with them.

Stir fry, anyone?

The Remains of the Basil

All quiet on the tomato front this week, so today we are bringing you news from the world of basil.* My plant (pictured, with sage and rosemary) had been getting somewhat overgrown, to the point that I had to trim off the flowers that were sprouting, which was a little sad, because they smelled nice and I couldn't think of what to do with them. But I'd read you aren't supposed to let your basil bolt, and since I couldn't figure out how to get a harness on it I figured this was going to be the best way.

I really like having my own herb garden-- it's nice to be able to just step out onto the balcony when you want something, instead of paying a ridiculous amount for it at the store and having most of it go bad in the fridge. But, for once, I seem to have found something I am better at growing than I am at eating, and we've been suffering from something of a surfeit.

Which is why it was nice last night, when I went to dinner at my parents' and they were planning on having pasta with pesto** and didn't have any basil on hand. So I took a pair of scissors to my overgrown little plant, and we had the first meal ever that had as a major ingredient something produced in my garden. Which I thought was pretty cool, and also tasty.



*Not Basil.
**Or, as it was known to me as a child, "green spaghetti." As opposed to "red spaghetti." It wasn't until much later in life that I realized that not everyone thought of pasta as coming in those two basic options. Also, mixed greens were "funny lettuce."

Tomatoes In Potentia

If I get two of them to sprout, I'm calling it a win.