A Solstice Miracle

For the most part, I blog on weekend mornings when I should be studying (or running), and then I schedule my posts throughout the week. Yesterday's post was written on Sunday morning, which has been officially named the darkest day in June for all time in Seattle. As most of you are aware, life in Seattle is only made possible by the gift of gorgeous summers with endless daylight. When you are experiencing a truly dark, as in the newsman tells you science confirms it's dark, day on June 20, things are dismal.

After writing about my garden on Sunday, it was a tad warmer and brighter yesterday, so on a break from class Monday night, I added that paragraph about how at least we are able to harvest some things, so gardening is not a total waste of time, before the post went up. But today, glorious sunny and over 70 today, a miracle has occurred. When I surveyed my plants, I did not have the same depressing sense that I needed to check my plants into the ICU, in fact they showed awesome signs of survival.

I have a cherry tomato growing. Sun Golds' seriously are the ultimate. Normally I just like them for taste, but this is a true survivor that belongs in any Seattle garden.
 

In the best of years, I struggle with peppers. Let's face it, Seattle summers can be sunny, but they usually aren't hot. Even last year with the 100 degree days, I only got a few tiny peppers. But check this bad boy out. Not even phased by dark 45 degree days. This is they Gypsy pepper. Buy one. If it has good flavor, this will be the only pepper plant I ever bother with.
 

And perhaps most surprisingly, this zucchini is sending out flowers and forming a fruit. Wow. Totally unexpected.
 

Don't get me wrong, I have been doing my absolute best to baby these plants through the worst June in Seattle history. Normally I would not grow them in containers on the front cement, they would be in the colder raised beds. But this is the hottest spot. I trim the yellow leaves off and I spray them with blossom setting spray whenever it isn't raining.
 

I have even fashioned small greenhouses for the most sensitive plants.
 

Even more surprising were the backyard discoveries. We have never gotten apples, yet look at these ugly things on top of the bird feeder baffle. Wow.
 

We also have not had much luck on the raspberry frontier in years past, but we have many on there way and this beautiful tree above them is setting blossoms. So pretty.
 

This is my surprise harvest from tonight. Spring onions, Italian dandelion greens, borage, greek oregano, marjoram, arugula blossom, parsley, sorrel, mint, and lemon verbena. Plus, we ate a stirfry that included spring onion, onion scape, and snow peas from the garden. Delicious.
 

Garden Update

The one sunny weekend we got to enjoy recently made me feel a bit more optimistic about gardening this year, enough that I took these pictures. But now we are back to the gray, cold, rainy and just plain dismal days. One cucumber has died, my zucchinis are yellowing and the tomatoes are just standing still. It's very depressing because I can't help them. I've made mock greenhouses out of plastic containers, but we'll need to buy a full on greenhouse with a heater if this is the region's weather future.

Here's some updates on plants I posted before. This shows about a month's worth of growth, so while things are looking better, you can see that this cold weather has severely stunted the garden's progress.

I should note though before you read the depressing report below, that we have been eating some food from the garden. The herbs are awesome: sage, sorrel, mint (i have other plants besides the new Kentucky below), thyme, chives, and oregano. Edible flowers we've enjoyed include arugala, sage blossoms, chive and onion scapes. I also have an Italian dandelion that is growing like a champ (of course) and we've eaten the leaves in several salads or green combos. We've also had overwintered chard, collards, and onions. Yesterday I harvested snow peas. We've eaten some fava leaves and will have beans shortly. Kale is on it's way. Yesterday we ate young borage leaves - which are a bit fuzzy, but taste like crunchy cucumbers. Soon we will have borage flowers. Some plants will continue to thrive in this cold weather. And the hyperextended spring has meant more morels and fiddleheads at the forager stand.

Kentucky Mint - big enough to harvest now, but normally mint is a plant you keep in a container in a vain attempt to contain it. I bought this plant as a start in early April. In other year's, we would be eating mint pesto to keep up with the crop.
 

Purple podded peas. They are beautiful. And the flowers are like sweet peas. We will get a few as you can see and we will actually get them on time for peas, but the wind knocked over the top growth this week and snapped the vines, so we won't get many. Have we ever had heavy wind like that in the middle of June before? That was not a gardening scenario I was prepared for.
 

These lettuces are nearly big enough to harvest a few leaves. I bought these as starts in early April. Can you imagine how much we would pay for lettuce in the store if growing seasons were always like this? Normally a lettuce crop is about 45 days from seed planting to full heads. These went in the ground as 3 inch starts 2 months agree and have grown about 2 inches. Wow.
 

A bean sprout - some hope for summer? I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
 

Starting a new blog

I can't seem to get enough of blogging these days, so I started a second one: http://bigislandanniversary.blogspot.com/ to plan our 10th Anniversary trip. Hopefully this will morph into a travel blog of some sort.

I was inspired to do this by Charlie's co-worker Tiffany, who started a blog to plan a big event trip. I was thinking it was a good way for me to visually share travel ideas with Charlie, who often listens patiently as I ramble on from the guide book, and then says "what do you mean?"
My communications prof said to communicate verbally with visual people you need to use words that imply sight, like "My view is this," "The way they see it is this," but I'm so auditor-illy inclined that I immediately start resorting back to "I hear you," "What you are saying is this."

So pictures are the new plan, because I want this trip to be awesome for both of us. I'll record all the things "I hear" about doing on the island here, so Charlie can "see" them and tell me what he thinks. And since you all can too, send us your advice!! Because it is a big island and we want to enjoy all of it.

 

My big accomplishment

I haven't graduated yet, but I was inducted into the National Honor's Society for Public Administration students. I ordered a medal to go with my certificate because I used to earn them all the time running races, but haven't since I started school. So this is my big medal for the last 2 years :)
 

Pea Vines

Pea vine is hard to find outside of asian grocery stores, but it's excellent stir-fried with garlic and mirin. It has a delicate flavor that combines peas and lettuce with the heartiness of spinach. Emily often orders this dish off the secret menu at Chinese Restaurants and I got really spoiled with the quality of the greens. She has told me that the pea vine dish is actually a good indicator of the overall quality of the restaurant.

 

I have to admit that the greens I bought (above) at the farmer's market were not nearly as good as the ones I've enjoyed with Emily. I think my first mistake is that I bought ones with flowers - they looked so magical I didn't think of their significance - but the reality of flowering vines is that the stem is too mature to be stir-fried in this manner. But my dish was completely edible and Charlie said he didn't mind the stems.

I bought a second bunch later with no flowers.
 

And I really enjoyed them the second time round.
 

Sweet Kitties

Django sits on my jacket so I can't leave in the morning.
 

Django and River are best buds. In fact they are sleeping in a similar position next to me right now. Jill made that awesome seahawk colored crochet blanket on our bed, but the cats love it so much they are willing to wrestle us for it. So it only gets to warm our feet at night.
 

When I was a girl, I had another cat that looks just like Django only he had all black pads on his feet and a black nose. I used to think that was perfect, but now I'm quite charmed by Django's pink and black pad combination.
 

Fave and Ravioli with an Egg on Top

Fava beans are a tasty delight. They grow well here and I love to watch them get tall and big, plus they are good for the soil. Unfortunately, the final product is a bit laborious to shell. I think there are recipes that use the whole pod, but I prefer the beans on their own. But their big pods are fuzzy and unique enough to make shelling them interesting. Some of the bigger beans need to have their second skins removed, which can be both fascinating and annoying, but if you don't they pucker in the roasting and diminish the flavor a bit. Just a bit. You can see in this photo that I got lazy and didn't do this with the whitish looking ones. These are sauted with shallot and green garlic.

 


Then served a top ravioli with a fried egg and parm to make the sauce.