(Photo by Jordan Willox)
I wanted to introduce you to a blog worth following. One of my best friends, Jordan, who I have known for 10 years, has packed up his life in the city and exchanged it for a year on Gabriola Island. He is documenting his adventures on his blog Soiling Myself. It is funny, touching, inspiring, and honest.
This picture was taken several weeks ago when I first went to my garden to weed and prepare it for planting. I was pulling up the leeks and brussel sprouts that hadn't really flourished in the fall and tossing them to the side when 2 other gardeners told me I shouldn't compost them, but eat them. One said that the little broccoli like flowers on the brussel sprout plant were good to eat and the other said that despite the fact that the leeks were skinny and mostly green, I could eat those, too. I was skeptical, but I brought them home along with a huge bunch of chives that were already growing.
I sauteed the brussel tips in with a stir fry and made a leek, potato, chive soup - both turned out really well. I'll make sure to save anything I can from my garden from now on.
After spending a few hours weeding my plot I ended up switching plots (to a nicer, bigger one) but sadly I haven't been down there much yet to fix it up or plant anything. I have been quite discouraged by the weather we are having. However, I bought 2 squash plants and 1 tomato plant at the farmers market on Saturday so I'll have to get my ass to the garden asap to put those in the ground. And while I'm there I'll put in some leafy green seeds, because those can handle the cold weather.
How is your garden growing? Have you planted much despite the cold weather?
I have been extreemly busy getting ready for my upcoming art show at Libby's Cafe so I hadn't been to the garden in quite a few days. I called a couple of the gals to go there with me tonight for a garden watering break and quick catch up and we were quite pleasantly suprised with the harvest!
This head of lettuce came from the little patch of ground that my landlord gave me for growing things. It looked like this a few weeks ago:
and looks like this now:
The lettuce isn't even visible because the tomatoes are so large.
My plot at the community garden looks like this right now:
I planted the majority of these plants from seed.
Some of the veggies that I have in there that you can't see are pumpkins (between the tomatoes and the brussel sprouts), leeks (beside the red cabbage), onions (beside the beets, beside the lettuce, behind the leeks), lavender and poppies (in the far right corner out of the picture), beans, peas, chives, anise, parsley (all in the back, out of the picture).
The lettuce portion of my community garden (which you can just see the tip of in the left of the above picture) looks like this up close:
If you live in the neighbourhood and need some lettuce please help yourself.
I went strawberry picking the other day with my mom.
We picked 16 pounds of berries.
I made strawberry jam for the first time. It turned out pretty good. I used honey and pectin. It is a bit too sweet but tastes really yummy on a toasted english muffin with some peanut butter.
Yesterday I picked a collander full of mint from the garden.
I washed it, dried it between some napkins, and then put it in a warm oven to dry. I warmed up the oven at the lowest temperature for 20 mins then turned it off and put the mint inside. It dried in there over night. Leaving the light on creates a bit of warmth too, which helps. This is my first time drying this much mint, so I have no idea what I am doing, really. I will just have to experiment and see how it goes.
Also yesterday I tried making fettucini for the second time and it turned out way better this time. I made it much thinner and coated it with flour before rolling it through the machine. Then hung it to dry on my clothes rack over night.
I am completely addicted to spelt flour. I don't understand how anyone could go back to regular flour after using spelt! I ate the noodles tonight in a tomato sauce with shrimp and they were so great! I made a deal with myself that when I got a pasta maker I would stop buying pasta from the store. It has been 5 months and I have kept to it!
Remember the chive vinegar that I started a few weeks ago? Well, this is how it looks now! Amazing, eh?
And speaking of vinegar, I have a great salad dressing recipe that I would like to share with you. It is super simple (you probably have all the ingredients at home already) but is super tasty.
Oil and Vinegar Salad Dressing
1/3 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/3 cup Balsamic Vinegar
6 tbsp Dijon Mustard
1 tbs Honey
1 tsp Sugar
1/4 tsp Black Pepper
Put all the ingredients into a jar and shake until well mixed. You can use all honey or all sugar instead of a bit of both. You can also add any herbs that you like. I sometimes add dill or thyme, depending on the salad. If you don't have dijon you can use regular mustard. And of course, you can add more or less of any of the ingredients to suit your taste.
Two tbsp equals 100 calories.
Competely unrelated, but so cute - my landlord's cat, Charlie:
The Trout Lake Farmer's Market was beautiful (as usual) last Saturday. I was really lucky to be placed next to a couple who mill wheat into flour. They are called the Flour Peddler and they sell really wonderful LOCALLY GROWN flour. Their products are really affordable (way cheaper than the grocery store) and some of it is even milled by bicycle!
My farmer' market sign still in progress:
I have been on a pasta kick. I bought some spelt and made roasted squash, romano, and ricotta tortellini. It was to die for! I would have never thought that I could make pasta so good. I love the colour of the pasta when spelt flour is used. Lovely. Today I will be making more, this time with a spinach filling.
I have planted a little herb garden in a little bucket at my house:
Lemon Verbena, Thyme, Basil (from seed), dill, two kinds of mint (chocolate and orange), and dill. The whole thing is growing nicely, but I am a bit unsure about the mint. It has gotten some black spots on the leaves and I can't really tell from the smell or taste which one is which.
Does anyone have any tips on growing/harvesting mint? When is the best time to pick it etc?
My landlord has given me this little patch of soil and I put in some tomato plants and pepper plants that I had grown from seed. But the pepper plants are dying. The tomoatoes are doing ok. All this rain is bogging them down, I think. I have also put in some lettuce, one red cabbage plant, and the basil and onions. The basil is a mix of some plants I grew from seed and some that I bought. The onions I grew from seed and they are doing really well. I recently transplanted them into those pots and trimmed them and since then they have thrived.
I harvested a HUGE batch (a packed grocery store sized bag) of greens from my community garden plot yesterday. Lots of peppercress, mizuna, pak choi, and red and green leaf lettuce.
End on a cute note:
This is the lettuce portion of my garden. Behind the lettuce you can also see fennel, peas, lemon balm, chives, thyme, parsley, and nasturtiums. I am trying to create a sort of herb section of the garden back there in the corner near the fence. After this picture was taken I planted some bergamot, too! I would like to get a larger container for the lemon balm. Maybe a foot and a half across. If anyone has one, please leave it at my garden for me! Thanks!
Above is a photo of my first harvest! I went back the next day (yesterday) and picked another batch just as big. It tastes wonderful.
The day I picked the first batch I found out it was my friend's birthday (he is kind of secretive) so I decided to bake him a cake - inspired by my Mother's Day cake, and my friend Jocelyn's sugar icing idea - so I got out all the ingredients and was pretty fricken excited about surprising him at work. Something went terribly wrong. It could have been the oven was acting funny, or perhaps I didn't whip the eggs enough. I was pretty sad so I decided to try again (even though I had washed all the dishes and put all the ingredients away) and it also turned out like crap. So after wasting 6 eggs and a bunch of sugar and flour I took him my delicious greens instead.
In happier food news, I made a delicious beet greens, mushroom, tomato, and shrimp dish with a lemon dill sauce, served over millet. I made the same thing again last night and used Enoki mushrooms!
My friend Priscilla is doing a show for the Fringe Festival in September and I took the photo that she will be using in the program guide:
And finally, a couple of events/activities that you might want to/should participate in:
The 30 Days Project - Create something for 30 days straight and share it with people. Registration ends today, project begins tomorrow. FREE!
Craft Party / Etsy Meetup - Come hang out with other crafters and craft. June 18, 2-5pm. FREE!
Ricky Powell Slide Show - "The legendary street photographer is coming to Fortune Sound Club on June 2, and he’ll be doing a little show and tell session." FREE!
Swap-O-Rama-Rama - "Swap-O-Rama-Rama is a clothing and craft supply swap in which a community explores reuse and creativity through the recycling of used clothing." $5/$6
Talent Time - "Talent Time is a live monthly comedy / variety / chat show & cable access television program featuring the country's greatest comedians, musical artists and novelty acts. Past guests include: Miniature Mariachis, Comic Hypnotists, Celebrity Impersonators, Extreme Wrestlers, Airbands, Drag Queens, Magicians, Laughing Meditation Demonstrations and Tribute Bands." $8
I took this picture of my tomato plants a few days ago and now they are even bigger. I now have them staked up with chop sticks, so they don't fall over. I think I will still wait a while until I take them to the garden to transplant them. The lettuce I seeded at the garden has just started to come up! The peas, however, don't seem to be doing too hot. I will give them some more time and hopefully they will perk up. Also on my windowsill I have onions, swiss chard, basil, beans, and peppers growing in little peat pots. Grow little babies! Grow!
Hopefully this will be me in a few months:
This is me now:
The title of the above print is "The Potential was Endless," and the caption reads "sometimes the potential stopped her dead in her tracks" which is EXACTLY how I feel lots of the time. These are prints by Corid, a cool illustrator, who's work you can find on Etsy. I love both of these prints so much and they are very reasonably priced.
More on the gardening front - these seed bombs by Visualingual would make a really wonderful gift for an earth friendly friend.
My crafty friend Amanda Wood has a DIY flashcard tutorial posted on the Granville Magazine website. These are great for kids!
Some photos I took on Earth Day:
My little plants are growing up. Here are some updated photos.
Beans
Tomatoes
Today I took my peas to the garden and transplanted them. I feel nervous about leaving them outside. But I am sure they will be fine. If not, I will seed some more. I am going to wait a bit longer for the beans and tomatoes, because they prefer warm soil.
The community garden plot that I have was full of flowers when I got it about a week or so ago. This is what it looked like after my friend Adam took a bunch of flowers out. The part with a pink 'x' is the garden beside me.
Then my friends Alise and Amy came and took most of the rest of them (including the huge rose bush in the back that took lots of womanpower to get out. A lot of weeding and three wheelbarrows full of manure and you get this:
The peas are planted in the back, in front of the honeysuckle bush. I found the little piece of white picket fence and don't know where I want to keep it yet, but I really like it. I also found the big skid and thought I might use it as a trellis for the peas and beans, but I don't know if it will be tall enough.
In the back corner there is also a little fennel plant, some chives, and a lemon balm plant. I kept those for myself from the plants that were in there. I also gave a nice lady a fennel plant and she gave me some kale.
I plucked the leaves from most of the lemon balm plants and dried them on cookie sheets in my kitchen for a few days. Then I crumbled them up and put them in a jar to use for tea. I read on line somewhere that there is no need to wash them as the dirt will fall off as they dry, but I laid mine on sheets, instead of hung them, so I really should have washed them. Instead a sifted them in a strainer before I crumpled them into the jar. I will make sure to try this batch before I serve it to anyone, just in case it tastes like dirt. Next time I will hang it to dry. Lemon balm is supposed to be good for anxiety. I would like to experiment with mixing it with other herbs to make some tea.
Does anyone have and herb suggestions to accompany lemon balm in tea?
I think a common accompaniment is peppermint, but I am not a fan of peppermint teas. I was thinking lavender might be nice.
I want to draw houses. I take pictures of houses all the time and I am going to start drawing and colouring them. I will post them up here. Maybe I'll start with this one. I remember a time in elementary school when our teacher took us outside and we walked a few blocks to the nice neighbourhood with really intricate and beautiful houses and we drew them. I like that. Maybe it will help to make drawing positive for me.
UPDATE: The soup stock I made the other day was great. It ended up being about 8 cups. I saved 4 in the fridge and used them to make lentil stew. Then I froze the other 4 cups into 2 portions.
WINNER: Alise wins the tub tea contest.
Hello,
Thanks to everyone who came out to Blim yesterday. It was a good show. Chanda and I had a lot of fun sitting behind our table, eating from Open Sesame, making observations, talking shop, and indluging in a little hair of the dog.
There were two artists there who I would really like to mention. The first is Meghan from Soap Scents, a Vancouver based company that creates vegan friendly soaps & bath products. They smell divine, especially Frangipani, which might actually be the best smelling soap ever. On top of selling soap she has salts, shaving cream, and bath tea bags, which Meghan gave me a three pack sample of, which includes Call Me Rosie, Calming Chamomile, and Lavender Fields Forever. They have no animal by-products, no synthetic material, no added colour, and they smell delicious. Her products are very reasonably priced. You can get a bath tea bag or "Tub Tea" for $2 on her Etsy site, which will last for 2 baths.
I will be giving away one Chamomile Tub Tea. For your chance to win leave a comment below describing your favourite way to enjoy a bath. Open until April 7, 2010.
My favourite way to enjoy a bath is with someone else! Alone or otherwise, I like to light candles and listen to blues or Jar of Flies.
The second artists who I would like to introduce you to is Gabrielle of Gabriellephant Design. She is a ceramic artist, who's work I adore. There is a mug of hers that I really want! She makes functional ceramics such as bowls, plates, cups, and buttons, and she also makes sculptural cermaics. Her work would make a great wedding present for someone.
I have wanted to get back into ceramics for a while... soon!
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My little seedlings. So excited about watching them grow and then planting them. They seem to be doing quite well. I seeded Hungarian peppers, tomatoes, Thai Dragon peppers, lemon balm, and Basil.
