At-Long-Last Update

The last in-depth news of the yard was back on May 22nd. The yard and garden beds look way different now. To begin with, the irises bowed out to make room for the Tiger lilies, which bloomed the second week of June. That week was pretty much their season - they came and went quickly.

We harvested three bunches of spinach on June 4th.

We just steamed them, but they were full of flavor.

Had some heavy rains and storms the past month, and some very hot days (heat index of 111F one day). I think it's been too hot for the celery, as it's beginning to yellow. The lettuce came up very belatedly a couple weeks ago, in the shade of some tall weeds. I cut the weeds to give the lettuce room but it's pretty hot for them too. These days it's 80's and 90's. I believe celery doesn't like much higher than 85F and I know lettuce is a cold-weather crop. Next year, an idea may be to plant the celery in August - it likes 150 days and although baby celery can't handle very cold temperatures, mature celery can handle down to 30F, so we may be able to harvest them in early November. Wow... nevermind. I just figured the Math and if I planted celery today, 150 days from now is December 4th. So that would be cutting it close.

The carrots are doing the best - they are beautiful, big, healthy, and green.

The pea harvest has come and gone. The peak was probably around June 27th.

This is June 10th:

And June 20th (the first real ones harvested) –

Now they are brown and nearly dead. The fourth spinach plant came up belatedly, and rather than harvest the entire plant, we picked some leaves and left the rest. It has bolted so hopefully we will have spinach come in early next year in the same place.

Some of the cover crops did not take well. I'd like to try again this Fall with Fall cover crops. The Yellow Blossom Sweetclover (in the two Southeasternmost beds) are doing very, very well, and the beds just north of those, with the Spring Barley, are also thriving. Three tomato plants came up in the midst of the Spring Barley, on the west side (Omicron), and those are flowering, and even have small 1-inch tomato babies, shaped like grape tomatoes. There is a fourth tomato plant that came up in the western bed nearest the composters, and some sort of squash or cucumber in the same bed (Delta). The Medium Red Clover in Xi is sparse, as well as the Speckled Field Peas, the Spring Oats (Iota), and the Spring Triticale (Lambda). The Speckled Field Peas were beautiful but they are too isolated and so got too hot before their fruit reached a harvest stage. Here is a picture of the bloom on the Speckled Field Peas June 22nd:

The strawberries have been blooming and bearing intermittently since early June. I believe their season is ending. The bed is overrun with weeds this year!

The lavender began blooming mid-June.

Here is June 10th:

And June 22nd:

The grapes seem do be doing well, although the fruit trees are not.

Here's a picture of the grapes from June 22nd:

~ ~ ~

Spring Triticale:

Spring Barley:

We used fresh lavender to make the most delicious baked salmon I've ever had. Ania had a frozen salmon so we took fresh lavender and tied it around, drizzled some oil and lemon, and baked. It was fantastic!

 

Lavender Salmon

Take a thawed filleted salmon (~1.5 lbs) and brush the meat side with olive oil. Take a handful of fresh lavender and place it evenly atop. Using string, strap the lavendar securely to the fish. Drizzle with lemon juice. Wrap in aluminum foil and cling wrap and refrigerate for a few hours.

Heat the oven to 500 degrees. Take the fish out of the fridge and let it set it out while the oven heats. When the oven is 500 degrees, pour some orange juice (if on hand) and balsamic vinegar into a pan and place that on the lower rack in the oven, then remove the cling wrap from the fish and place it, wrapped in foil, on the top rack.

Bake 15-20 minutes and serve.

Chloe and I inspecting the grapes, 7/4/11: