Tomatoes in the ground...finally!

On a sunny, warm, Sunday, Aaron joined us for a day of planting tomatoes. To get started, we had to clear some nasturtia (in gorgeous bloom already!) and pull some mature pea plants on trellises (carefully picking most of the pods...gee, we've filled the refrigerator with peapods already). Tess helped, chewing on peapods and twigs as we worked. Then, carefully labeling each plant variety that went into the ground, we planted over 100 plants representing over 40 varieties. We're not sure if we'll have enough tomatoes this summer!

First roses of the year

We have been watching the progress of our rose garden for weeks...watching the bushes leaf out, then bud, and finally produce flowers. These are our first roses of the season, and we're anticipating (and seeing in the buds) many more to come!

Potato planting day

Today we planted our potatoes for the season: 4 fingerling varieties (Rose Finn Apple, Russian Banana, LaRatte, and French Fingerling), two yellow-fleshed mashing or roasting potatoes (Red Gold and Red Pontiac), and one white-fleshed mashing potato (Caribe). In total, the planting took 8 rows of about 15 feet each, or about 120 row-feet. We'll water them every so often with soaker hoses that we laid down today along the planting rows. By June 1, we'll be able to start digging and enjoying new potatoes. In mid-June, we'll have full-grown Red Pontiacs and Caribes. In early July, the mid-season potatoes (Rose Finn Apple, Red Gold French Fingerlings, and LaRattes) will be ready. And finally, by the end of July, the "late season" Russian Bananas should be ready. However, all of these should keep nicely in the ground and available for us to enjoy, until early winter.

Spring pea soup

Peas, peas, and more peas maturing in the garden! And it's almost time to clear out the pea plants to make room for the tomatoes. So we picked 130 pods or so today and made a spring pea soup using a simple French preparation method. With a garnish of young pea pods, crostini, and creme fraiche on top, it looked and tasted marvelous.

After this first course, we "finished" with filet mignon, homemade onion rings in a batter that included a lot of chopped arugula from the garden, and asparagus. Now that's dinner!

Pizza time!

Now that we have discovered that our favorite pizza in the world comes right out of our kitchen, we find that we MUST have it every couple of weeks--or more often. Tonight we made three kinds: Margherita (shown, with fresh chopped oregano from the garden for sprinkling on top), sausage and carmelized onion, and (of course, for it's our very favorite) four cheese. There is a little left over, but it won't last past lunch tomorrow, we're sure.

Perry takes inventory

Until now, we've just planted and nurtured tomato seeds, carefully labeling which are which, but without regard to how many we have. Our "eyeball estimates" have led us to think we have 150-175 tomatoes of 35-40 varieties. Well, today Perry did an inventory of the tomatoes, in part to get a more concrete idea of what we've got, and in part to make a determination of what tomatoes we should put in the ground "early" (i.e., this week). It would also be helpful to know how many of what tomato colors and sizes we'll have.

Here's the result. As of today, we have 375 plants representing 58 varieties. And colors? We will have red, orange, yellow, black, green, and all combinations. Perhaps we should think about showing up at Farmers' Markets and selling tomato plants, or, later in the season, tomatoes.

The Ins and Outs of tomatoes

By last approximate count, we have over 150 tomato plants of about 40 varieties growing in small pots. By night, they rest on the ledge in the garage in temperatures around 55 degrees, and catch a couple of hours of warm morning sun through the windows of the garage. Each morning, we carry them out into the garden and let them bask in the direct sunlight for several hours, before bringing them in again in the late afternoon.

There are just three problems with this routine. First, as the tomatoes get repotted again and again into larger and larger pots, they are getting heavier to schlep in and out every day. Second, larger pots means more shelf space required for the nighttime beds, and we're out of shelf space. (We've got some flats of eggplant seeds sprouting in the garage, also.) And finally, some of us (i.e., Perry) can't wait to get some tomatoes into the ground. So today, he put in five plants in the sunniest spot in the garden: a Pineapple (red and yellow, up to 2 pounds), a Hawaiian Pineapple (golden-orange, up to 1.5 pounds), an Earl of Edgecombe (medium-sized, round, orange), a Marizol Red (1-pound large, bright red), and a Chocolate Stripe (3-4 inch, mahogany colored). These are some of the sweetest, best tasting, and best for BLTs and caprese salads...and we have lots of the plants still growing in pots.

Pleased with peas!

Those jumbles of shelling pea plants nestled up against the garden trellises are going wild. They love the end-of-March, beginning-of-April weather we're having: cold nights, sunny days, with intermittent days and nights of rain. And we're starting to harvest daily to enjoy one of the most pleasing and compelling signs of Spring: tender, delicious fresh peas.



Our first gathering of peas wasn't quite enough for a stand-alone bowl of steamed green pearls, so we dressed up the peas with some sauteed onions and proscuitto, and tossed them with farfalle and




parmesan to create a wonderful first course of Farfalle Con Proscuitto e Piselli.

But then, a few days later, we had so many peas that we just had to make an entire bowl of them. Here's how: we picked a scallion from the garden, chopped it and sauteed it in butter, then stirred in the steamed peas with salt and pepper. We served the peas alongside some veal marsala, and a salad of greens just cut from the garden. Fantastico! Bella was quite pleased with the outcome, as you can see!