My dog ate my herbs

When I last posted, I expected to have to commit an entry to how my attempts to grow seedlings into real plants were a total failure. However, the herbs have unexpectedly recovered from being eaten by a dog as well as repotting, and I now have three bell pepper plants that are growing well but have no place to be set outside (anybody want one? They are from a mix, so the pepper color will be a surprise). Next year, I think I will skip the seed trays and just plant directly in the container - or skip the seeds altogether and just cop out by buying seedlings. We'll see what's available in Switzerland next spring!

I came home one day to this - apparently the organic fertilizer that comes with the seed tray is quite tasty for canines. She suffered no ill effects, which I suppose I should be grateful for.

I managed to salvage one cell of each type of basil (sweet, genovese, and lemon), a lemon balm, cilantro (the long stringy ones), and finally some very, very tiny oregano (I think - probably should've written it down).

To my surprise, this is how they looked ten days later! Not sure about the oregano on the end, but the basils and cilantro are doing well! I may have some herbs by the end of the summer. Although the labels have disappeared from the rain, so I won't know what the herbs are, specifically. It will make cooking an adventure.

These pepper plants are available for adoption! They are healthy and green, and a bit on the quiet side if that's the type you go for.

The past week has been perfect weather for the plants, although a bit humid for their human (who has a very low humidity tolerance). The pea plants have taken off, although my attempts to guide where they grow are failing spectacularly. I set the pot closer to the balcony rail and have been trying to guide the tendrils to wrap around it - perhaps it's too thick? I'm concerned that the makeshift scaffold I set up isn't actually big enough for them. Something I never thought would be a problem when I first made it! Overall, I've found that I have vastly underestimated how large the plants would be - and it's less than halfway through the summer! I'm worried that they may outgrow their pots and die before I get any significant harvest, but I think I can get them through it between frequent watering and some liberal fertilizer applications. Next year, though - bigger pots are definitely on the list.

The sugar snap peas. It's unbelievable how much they've grown in two weeks when you compare them to this post just 10 days ago.

All three tomato plants continue to be my rock stars in terms of growth and flowers. I'm surprised at how quickly they wilt (possibly because they are in almost too-small pots) even from evening to the next morning, so I am watering them almost daily at this point.

The Heirloom keeps trying to sneak into the kitchen. It may succeed by the end of the month if I'm not careful.

A closeup of the Sweet 'n Neat to give an idea of the flower blossoms. My mouth waters just thinking about the day that these will all be little red juicy goodness.

I love seeing all the green outside my kitchen window - it makes doing dishes at the sink just slightly less painful, and if I ever need a pick me up, I just stick my head out the window and take a few deep breaths. It's not the same as actually living where there are trees and grass, but it's a wonderful substitute!

I am working on some more baking posts, but I realized that my previous posts in which I link to a recipe and then talk about how I changed it is not terribly user friendly. So I will fix that in future posts, and also do a better job of getting pictures at every step. For now, I will just share pictures of what I consider two of my tastiest triumphs (the third, a blackberry lime pie, I have made twice, but haven't gotten pictures of it before it's disappeared).

Cheese herb bread. I've made it twice, and it is unbelievably delicious. It has enough flavor to be wonderful with just butter, but for an extra treat, we used it for BLTs.

Monkey bread (NOT from canned biscuits) with a lime-cream cheese glaze. It's like the inside of a cinnamon bun without any of that crappy dry crust.

 

Mother Nature steps in...

In one of my first posts, I worried that I would drown my plants. It turns out, Mother Nature is doing her best to do it for me. We've had only four sunny days in the past 2-3 weeks, and most overcast days have had either a drizzle or downpour associated. I've been surprised to see the wide range of responses. The tomato plants seem to love it - all three have overgrown their pots and have dozens of small yellow blossoms. I tied the heirloom plant to the balcony (with a leg from a former pair of tights) just this past weekend for support and hopefully to encourage it to grow away from the other plants instead of over them. The Patio plant shouldn't need staking/support, and I'm keeping my eye on the Sweet 'n Neat (who names these things?), but so far it is holding its own weight. There's really nothing to do with the tomatoes, as they have needed no tending, but I still like to play around with them simply for the way they smell. They smell like earth and green, and just one whiff reminds me why I've been aching for a garden for the past five years.

Two of the tomato plants. The Heirloom is on the left. This was two days before I strapped it to the balcony, as it was starting to take over the other tomato (the Sweet 'n Neat) and the strawberries on the other side. Not sure if you can see the flowers in this shot - I'll get better pictures!

The other plants that seem to enjoy the rain are the sugar pea plants. All three seem to be surviving, although one is definitely the runt of the litter and may end up getting beaten out by its bigger siblings. While the peas can't beat the tomato plants in scent, they are more interactive. I like to take the little green shoots and curl them around the homemade lattice. The next day, the plant will have taken initiative and wrapped around the string several times, where even a fairly strong tug can't disentagle, and be off in a different direction. I still have no idea if I'll actually get any peas from them, but we'll see.

The pea plants have actually recovered nicely from their precarious repotting. We've reached a tentative mutual agreement in which they've agreed not to be angry at me about it.

The strawberries have been a mixed bag. I have managed to snag a few tasty red ones from my container with only strawberry plants, which make me feel quite triumphant. However, I'd had to throw out just as many berries as I've eaten. Unfortunately, all the extra moisture and sitting water in the container makes the berries quick to rot, sometimes before they've turned more than just a light pink. It's sad to have to throw them away, but I am trying to be more vigilant about catching them before they go bad.

My very first strawberry from the balcony. Others have tasted better and been prettier, but this was my first. They say you never forget your first (and now I won't, because I have this blurry, crappy picture to remember it by).

The strawberry plants that have not been as ill affected by all the rain - complete with ripe berries, unripe berries, and even some flowers.

The other planter with strawberries has not been faring as well. Even when we had three straight days of sunshine, the soil never dried out, and it's taking its toll on all the plants in the container. The strawberries - which even when I purchased them were a little sad - were starting to cheer up, but stalled out since the rain started 3 weeks ago, and now the new sprigs are starting to die.

This was actually taken on day three of sunshine, after the second bout of rain and before the current third one we are enduring. You can see that even three days of sunshine isn't enough to get rid of the standing water around the plants.

The pepper plant in the same container is starting to yellow and droop a little, and the herbs have remained static. I'm fairly sure that thyme and rosemary, at least, prefer a drier soil (I'll have to look up sage, but it also doesn't seem to be inclined to grow). I'm deeply regretting not putting rocks or a better drainage system in place, but I had no idea that Boston would have a monsoon season this summer.

I am behind on my posts and have many more updates, including weekend baking frenzies that have led to as many as six recipes in a day as well as my dog deciding that organic fertilizer is pretty tasty stuff. But for now, I'll just hope that Mother Nature decides to give my plants a day off tomorrow (current forecast: no rain, but heavy cloud cover).

Running out of Thyme

I made a "tart" this weekend. It's in quotes because I'm not sure what it ended up being (other than tasty!). I started out following this recipe. I made it to the putting the dough in the refrigerator step and then wandered off on my own idea. The onions smelled heavenly while caramelizing (the key is to put them over a very low heat so that they don't burn, which was a bit challenging on my gas stove). I used some thyme and rosemary from the window for flavoring. Unfortunately, my thyme plant is being used up faster than it is growing, so I won't be using any more for a few weeks to give it a chance to recover. I threw in some pancetta about halfway through the caramelization.

When first added to the pan. The onions barely fit, and I could barely see them through my tears. Anyone have tips on how to avoid waterworks during cutting them?

About halfway through, when I added the pancetta and the herbs. Starting to cook down and look delicious.

About 35 minutes later. The onions were soft and sweet, and my entire apartment smelled like heaven.

I was disappointed to see that the cream/egg in the recipe was just for the crust, so I found this recipe and used it as inspiration for a spread. In my mind, the tart would be something akin to a tarte flambee - a delicious Alsatian dish that I fell in love with when I lived in Strasbourg years ago. I ended up using about 4 oz of goat cheese, 2 tablespoons of sour cream, and just enough heavy cream to make it soft enough to spread easily. Yum, healthy!

I rolled out the dough (it was a bit crumbly, so it did not roll evenly), and then curled up the sides to make a sort of "crust." The goat cheese mixture spread easily and was about 1/4" thick over the dough.

I let the onions and pancetta cool some, then placed it into the crust. Overall, after baking, the tartness of the goat cheese mixed well with the sweetness of the caramelized onions and the crust was light and flaky, although it was a bit too crumbly. Changes for next time include: making more of the spread and making it more liquid so that it can mix with the onions while it cooks in the crust. Overall, though the mix of flavors worked very well, and it is now in containers for lunches this week.

Ready to pop in the oven!

Getting it out of the oven 20 minutes later was a bit challenging. The parchment paper broke and part of the tart ended up on the open oven door. I ate it anyway.

On the garden front, we had rain or overcast skies the entire past week in Boston, so unfortunately the outside plants haven't had much sun. Despite this, however, the strawberry plants continue to grow and my heirloom tomato plant has started to outgrow its pot. I may have to invest in a larger one.

The Heirloom plant. The pot seemed oversized when I first purchased it!

I thought I had lost two of the three pea plants I transplanted, but when I checked them Sunday afternoon, they may have a chance at recovery yet. The tops of them had wilted, but they each have other leaves that may allow them to grow. I'm staying optimistic!

Sorry for the blur. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for these guys to pull through. I had no idea pea plants were so sensitive to replanting.

Haven't killed them yet! Every time I look I see more berries on these plants, but the pink one hasn't ripened any further yet. I hate waiting.

Bonus shot of the mini blueberry muffins on Sunday. I also made some delicious soft molasses cookies with icing. Sundays have become baking marathons the past few weekends, and it's been great! Although perhaps not for my (or my labmates') diets.

Outings and Plantings

I made it to Haymarket this weekend, although I still haven't used the berries and limes purchased there (I had hoped to make a raspberry/blackberry lime tart but ran out of time in the weekend - the berries are surprisingly still good in the fridge, so mayhaps this evening!). However, I still wanted to share some of the pictures. It's a full city block of tents, with most selling fruits and vegetables. There are also at least two seafood tents, as well as some storefronts that face the tents and sell cheese, bread, and various meats. It was a perfect day to be there - cool and sunny. I've never been there when it wasn't shoulder-to-shoulder traffic, and unfortunately the pictures are not able to capture the noise and chaos of the place. I love going not only because it's the cheapest fruits around, but also because in my opinion, it's one of the most wonderful, lively events in Boston.

Strawberries! No more than $1.50/box (prices vary according to vendor, so it's always a good idea to scope out the entire market for quality vs. price before purchasing).

Some booths let you pick out your own, while others select for you. Obviously I prefer the former, so this is something else to check on before buying.

One of my favorite occurrences - the vendors will cut open some of the goods and put them on display, so that you can see how ripe things are. These mangoes were tempting at only $5/box, but I couldn't come up with a use for 10+ mangoes.

My first attempt at capturing some of the vendors unawares. I had quite limited success - I think they are accustomed to watch lurkers closely.

Did I mention stuff is CHEAP here?

One of the meat stores that lines the outer edge of the market. Some of the crabs were crawling around on the ice. Freaked me out, but hard to argue about the freshness.

If I ever need raw sugar cane I know where to go...

My second semi-successful attempt at capturing a vendor portrait. He had the accent of a true Bostonian and the facial hair of Seneca Crane.

Unfortunately I didn't make it back before 4 pm, at which point my plants were in shade and I wasn't sure when it had occurred. However, on Sunday I was able to determine that the first hints of sunshine hit my plants at 8:20 am and by 3 pm the sun has moved to the other side of the building (where it should be hitting my seedlings, now set in the front window). So they are just barely hitting their "minimum" six hours of sunshine, but they are making it! Good news.

I repotted my pea plants last night. As mentioned earlier, they had been growing great guns, but stalled out over the weekend. I needed to make/buy some sort of lattice, so on Friday I grabbed a few tall sticks from decorative pots on the medical campus. They had been there since before Christmas, so I figured they wouldn't miss a few. I had my camera out on Saturday morning when I went into lab to capture what I had stolen from, but the landscapers were there, removing the decorations and putting live plants in the pots. Great timing!

The tools. The colored sticks with some offshoots were much taller than I needed, but were serviceable after cutting. I do wonder what they originally were before being stuck in a pot for winter decorations.

 I was horrified when I pulled up the pea plants to repot them to discover that the roots were dripping wet. So I will be holding off on watering the rest of the tray for a few days to let them dry out. I have no idea how the lattice will work - I definitely don't get any points for presentation, but I wanted to give the plants options on where to grow.

The final product. It's a little sad looking, I know.

I checked the pea pot out on the balcony this morning and nothing has fallen down yet, so that's...good? I'll see how it holds up in the rain the next few days. I also checked the rest of my plants, as it had gotten down to just a few degrees above freezing several nights in the past week (I had read how several farms outside the city had been going to extremes to protect their crops, but luckily I am well within the urban heat island of Boston itself). I was pleased to see a strawberry with a slight pink tint, as well as at least one white berry on each of the other three plants I first bought.

Definitely pinkish. I plan to eat it as soon as possible.

I also found the first flower on one of my tomato plants (the Patio strain), although the angle made taking a picture rather challenging.

It's blurry and hard to see, but in the center there is a spot of yellow - that's a flower! I had to hang out my window at a most precarious angle and hope that I got a shot, so this was the best one.

Finally, I was thrilled to see new growth on the two strawberry plants I bought on my second trip to Home Depot, as they had been rather large question marks. So currently it looks as if all my plants are heading in a positive direction!

My two sadder strawberry plants. On the right there is fresh growth in the middle of the three leaves, while the one on the left has new growth as sprigs underneath two of the current leaves.