Outside

Psychedelic Pesto

When you have a plethora of basil, it's time to make pesto. Nothing says it's summer like some beautiful green pesto.

In my last post, I bragged about my basil plants. In all the years I've gardened, I've never had this much basil this early in the season. Now I must brag about my beautiful pesto. Look at how bright green and fresh it is - the picture doesn't do justice the the almost lime green color.

And the taste . . . ahh. I base my pesto on a recipe in the original The Silver Palate cookbook. It calls for the usual basil, garlic, olive oil and Parmesan cheese, but instead of pine nuts it calls for walnuts. The walnuts add a nice, rich taste, and they're a lot less expensive than pine nuts. I pretty much follow the proportions in the recipe except for the olive oil - I tend to use a lot less than the recipe calls for.

From this very large batch, I made one big pot of pasta with pesto, then froze the rest. I spoon the pesto into ice cube trays, freeze, then transfer the frozen cubes into a Ziploc freezer bag.

Bionic Basil

I have a confession. This year I bought basil plants from a big box store. Normally I purchase all my plants from a nursery, but this spring I stopped in a big orange store for something else and saw these big, lush Genovese basil plants. I bought them.

And look what I have now - the biggest, most lush basil I've ever had.

Some of the leaves are almost as big as the palm of my hand - and I have big hands. They are still growing like gangbusters. In the kitchen, I've been tossing basil into just about everything, and it's wonderful.

More Garden Spinach

Yes, I know, this looks very much like my spinach post from earlier this month, but I'm just so very excited about being able to grow - and harvest - spinach this year!

This time I've pulled some Plum Purple Radishes, which are quite pretty. We'll have salad the next two nights. Tonight I'll serve it with radishes, goat cheese crumbles and maybe some cashews. Tomorrow I'll top it with some beautiful strawberry slices, maybe some avocado, chive flowers and a raspberry vinaigrette.

What a great time of year.

Tomatoes Planted

I planted all the tomatoes today. Thanks to my friend Pete for starting all the seeds for me this year - without him I'd be at the mercy of the selection at the nursery.

5 each - Pruden's Purple (main crop slicers)
4 each - Gregori's Alti (main crop all-purpose)
3 each - Principe Borghese (small salad and/or drying)
2 each - Sungold (orange cherry-size)
2 each - Yellow Pear (yellow cherry-size)

First Harvest 2009 - Spinach and Radishes

Here it is, the first harvest from the garden in 2009 - Bloomsbury spinach and Cherry Belle radishes. I think I'll serve a simple spinach salad - radishes, chives, raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Mmmmm.

Greens Looking Good!

The greens bed is looking particularly good this year.

On the right on the top and bottom are radishes. Also on the right are two lettuces - Black Seeded Simpson and Merlot. Both are cut-and-come-again varieties, so I can snip what I need and more will grow from the root. They should last until about the 4th of July, depending on how hot it gets.

What I'm most excited about, though, is the spinach, in two rows on the left. I've planted spinach for the past five years or so, and this will be the first year I'll harvest anything significant before it bolts.

Why is the spinach doing so well this year? I wish I could say it's because of something I've done, but I doubt it. The only thing I did differently this year was plant the seed thickly in the rows. All my books say to plant spinach 2" apart, but this year I had old seed and was running out of time, so I made two 1/2" furrows and put in lots of seed.

I think, though, the main reason the spinach is doing well this year is because it's been a cool spring. Here in Minnesota, we can go from frozen ground to temperatures in the 80's in about a month - not the best growing weather for spinach. This year, though, the temperatures have stayed moderate, in the 60's and 70's, so the spinach is able to grow slowly.

The first salad should be this weekend. I'm looking forward to it!

Bush Beans - Half bed planted

I planted a half bed of bush beans today - Blue Lake 274. This year I'm going to see how many green beans I can freeze for the upcoming winter. The taste of "fresh" grocery store beans is so woody and bleh - I'm hoping I can stock enough for garden beans once per week during the winter. We'll see.

Potatoes Planted

I got the potatoes planted today. I did two garbage cans of Norland Red. This definitely wasn't my first choice of varieties (I like the fingerlings), but I didn't order at the right time so had to make do with what was at the garden center. Oh well, just about any home-grown potato is better than store-bought, so I'll be in for a treat later this summer.

What's Blooming Now - April 24, 2009

The first flush of green is spreading across Minnesota. Here in my neighborhood, a few things have started blooming.

The only flowers I have in my yard right now are daffodils.

Magnolias just started blooming yesterday, while the forsynthias have been in full-flower for about 4-5 days. On the left is a neighbor's full-size tree as seen through the woods. The same neighbor has a forsynthia in their front yard as seen on the right.

Yet another neighbor has a pretty rock wall with species tulips and little Siberian squill flowers.

First Spring Planting, 2009

Planted today:

Sugar Snap Peas
Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce
Merlot Lettuce
Bloomsbury Spinach