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By feral, on October 23rd, 2011%
On Friday we were due for our bi-weekly garden visitation. However, James had to travel to California; so, I drove upstate by myself. With several How Stuff Works podcasts entertaining my curious mind and with the Taconic wowing my weary eyes with foliage landscapes at every turn, it turned out to be a lovely drive.
With green rapidly fading from the scene, the garden still had a couple of green surprises for me: the last batch of green tomatoes, string beans, the relentless shishito peppers, 2 radishes and even 3 cucumbers! (Which brings the total number of cucumbers I harvested this year to 5. Ok, maybe to 10…)
 I spent some time on Friday afternoon cleaning up in the garden. It gets dark around 6 now, so I didn’t have that much time. The dusk’s sudden advance interrupted my activities; I raised my eyes from wilted tomato plants I was pulling out of the ground and suddenly saw a gleaming beam of red light shooting out from the woods. It looked almost like the tail of a meteor — but, in fact, it was the tail of a rainbow. . . . CONTINUE READING → Out with the green!
By feral, on May 22nd, 2011%
 And it’s time to push out some content after an extended blogger’s block!
Last couple of weeks all of my energy was consumed by the grading marathon and other end-of-semester matters but now I’m officially ready for the summer. Whenever it decides to arrive.
While we’re waiting, let’s reflect on what I’ve done so far. This list has no particular order.
Peas — I planted most of them around St. Patrick’s Day. Thought I’d never see them again but they surprised me several weeks ago with some confident and strong shoots. I had to quickly improvise some trellises. To protect the young shoots from my resident rodents, I placed some plastic bottles, cut off on both ends, around them. Onions — planted in April and already sporting some nice green shoots. James’ rhubarb is already pretty enormous. Last weekend we had to remove its giant flower stalks to ensure it doesn’t throw all of its energy into seeds. When spring is as cold as this year, rhubarb tends to bolt (go to flower -> seeds) early, which stops the growth of its edible (stalks) and poisonous (leaves) parts. . . . CONTINUE READING → grades are in, peas are up!
By feral, on August 17th, 2010%
A scary tropical monsoon poured down on Canaan today. All of a sudden lights were flickering, and there was a real Donnerwetter with loud thunder, lightening, and chickpea-sized hail. I wailed preemptively for my poor tomatoes. But luckily, the hail lasted for only a few minutes and caused almost no damage.
chilled cucumber soup, presentation by James
 The torrential storm arrived almost simultaneously with Richard and Fran who were stopping by to see us for lunch on their way from Boston to NYC. Thanks to said lunch, I now have photos of the chilled cucumber, mint and yogurt soup (on the left) and I also tried my first Alice Waters’ zucchini recipe from Chez Panisse Vegetables — the zucchini fritters (on the right).
I diverged a little from Chez Panisse recipe. I definitely used more than a pound of grated zucchini, and the zest of only 1 lemon (instead of . . . CONTINUE READING → lunch update
By feral, on August 14th, 2010%
We arrived in Canaan around 11pm last night, so I had to wait until the morning to inspect the garden. After an understandably restless night, I was out in the field at 7am. Well, after the 2 weeks of my absence the garden is now officially feral. Or, according to James: “This garden has gone rogue. It’s a maverick garden.” In an amazing kind of way though.
 There are tomatoes everywhere, and they’re getting ripe by the hour! The zucchini are the size and the shape of bomb shells. Plus, I found 8 overgrown cucumbers. They haven’t turned yellow yet but some of them have already developed a pretty thick skin and need to be peeled. So, peel them I did.
For lunch I improvised a quick chilled soup: 2 large (peeled) cucumbers, about 16 oz. yogurt, 3 small cloves of young garlic, fresh dill, about 10 fresh mint leaves, juice of a half lime, 5-6 walnut halves, salt, and a pinch of cumin, paprika and cayenne pepper — blended in a food processor and served immediately.
Both preparation and consumption happened so quickly that . . . CONTINUE READING → chilled cucumber & yogurt soup
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