Los Angeles Permaculture Vegetable Garden in the Winter

It is now winter but things continue to be super interesting. We planted cabbage. Not sure what to do with them once they are ready to harvest but I'll have to get creative, because, as usual, we over planted.

Kale in back, beets in the middle and gorgeous red cabbage in front. So colorful!

Before we planted the winter crop, I changed the drip system and installed flat piping. They are harder to close at the end and leak quite a bit. I don't think I like them. At least I was able to install before we planted, unlike our spring and summer crop, where I was always playing catch up, drip system-wise.

A ridiculously good-looking red cabbage.

Some kind of cabbage. Lost the tag, evidently...

"Kale bonne nouvelle!"  (only funny if you happen to speak French)

Starting to feel a little brassicaed-out if ya know what I mean.

Growing With Our Organic Garden

Everyday I am flabbergasted by the beauty of or small permaculture garden. And to think that for 10 long years all we had was an ugly, water-wasting, lawn! It's been only a year since we created our beds, installed our drip system, and planted everything we could lay our hands on. There is no turning back to the old us. We love our garden and we love gardening too much. My husband and I talk about our garden as though it were one of our children. We rejoice in it. We take photographs of it. We share its bounty with our children, our friends and our neighbors.



We nurture the vegetable garden and it nurture us, not just by feeding us organic fruit, herbs, and vegetables, but it keeps us fit and delights our senses. It connects us with nature, with outside, with the soil and the bugs, with ourselves.




We have learned to live with the seasons. (Yes, there are seasons in Los Angeles. Kind of.) There are times for planting, times for harvesting, and times for returning plants to the cycle through composting.



Nothing is wasted in the garden or the kitchen.  We wash our vegetables outside as we water, or over a large pitcher, so that the excess water is immediately returned to the garden. Food waste is down to nothing. Juicing pulp and peel go to the compost or the worm bin. It's the cycle of life and we are now part of it rather than in the way of it.



Critters big and small come to the garden and we have learned to accommodate each other.



Organic gardening also heals us. So much on this planet is messed up and cruel. There is only kindness in our garden. No rash tilling, no chemicals, no additives. Things grow and we watch them do that. The garden calms us, soothes us, and shows us what to do for ourselves and for the planet.

Eggplants Before and After + Baba Ganoush Recipe

Eggplants are very intense. The flowers are tough little things full of thorns. The eggplants themselves seem indestructible, dark purple, the shiniest thing that ever sprang out of a garden.  When you harvest them, be cautious; those beauties bite back. The stems are full of thorns.

And when they come, boy do they come! And you better know what to do with them. So here is my recipe for Baba Ganoush (or eggplant dish, which is probably what Baba Ganoush means in Arabic).

Don't let the eggplant flower fool you into picking it. It has teeth in back; Very Little Shop of Horrors.

Eggplants are naturally shiny when ripe. As soon as they shine and are deep purple they are ready to harvest no matter the size.

Eggplants are surprisingly pest-resistant and grow late into the fall in Southern California.

BABA Frigging-GANOUSH!

  In France we call this "caviar d'aubergine' Or eggplant caviar. Yum!

1- Put the eegplant in an oven at 350 degrees. Do not pierce the skin or remove the stem. Cook until completely soft, about 45 minutes. Some people wrap them in foil but I don't see what that does beside add aluminum to your blood-stream and the landfill.

2- Let it cool enough to handle without pain.

3- Without burning yourself, the eggplant, or the house, put the eggplant directly on the gas stove without a pan.  Let the flame lick it all over until the skin is died and burned in places.  This is the essential step that will give your Baba Ganoush that complex smoky flavor. No need to carbonize it. A little flame is all it takes.

4- Scrape off all traces of skin or scoop out the flesh.

5- Using a fork crush it all to a puree. I think the blender makes it all too smooth. I like it chunky.

6- Add: juice of 1 lemon (no pits), 2 tablespoons of Tahini, 1 Crushed garlic clove (no skin) and about 1/2 cup olive oil per large eggplant.  Add salt, pepper and a dash of cumin to taste. That's it!

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Cucumbers but Were Afraid to Ask

For those of you who found this post via google search and are disappointed that this post is, in fact, actually about cucumbers, I invite you to stay anyway. This tedious post about cucurbitacea might be the vegetable equivalent of a cold shower.

**A note of warning to readers who want to know about the cucumber vegetable, this post contains some graphic photos of cucumbers and is filled with cucumber-related language.

Cucumberus Stercus also know as a turd-looking cucumber

Cucumbers are impolite creatures that will grow anywhere if you don't give them something to climb on.

Cucumber can start growing slowly but when they do start they are a little scary.

Here is my husband about to make the rounds to the neighbors' houses to try and give them cucumber. I told him to not think of returning home until the tray is empty.



Oh, no one complained when we offer them tomatoes. Somehow cucumbers are not received with the same level of enthusiasm. So my husband knocks on doors. We see curtains stir but nobody answers.

I'm thinking we could freeze them until Halloween (the cucumbers, not the neighbors) and give to unsuspecting kids. That and a toothbrush.


I tried my hand at pickling cucumbers but that's only kicking the problem down the road: that means months from now I still will have to EAT CUCUMBERS :(((((

The moral of the story:  Do not plant 12 cucumber plants for a family of 4. Plant 2 and even that might even be too much.

Looked What "Turnip" in the Garden

Turnips are everything.

They are so pretty with that white and pastel mauve hue.

They are super resistant to disease; they grow in any soil and any weather or season (as long as you live in Los Angeles).

They are great cooked in stews (couscous, boeuf bourguignon) or braised (sauté first and then add a bit of water or broth) or pickled in vinegar (add a slice of raw beet to give the pickled turnip that nice pink color).

Turns out you can juice the greens or cook them (even though they are rough and hurt the hand when picked). Well, not me but I was hoping you'd try and tell me how that went.

Tomatoes Galore

This isn't funny anymore!

 








Guess what's for dinner ...

July Harvest in Southern California

Almost overnight, our garden has grown a Ratatouille...









Time to get cooking!

Oh wait. we went on a vacation for a week and look what the harvest table looks like now:

Installing a Drip System in the Vegetable Garden

So, I've already established that our vegetable garden has an odd shape. It's basically pizza-shaped. I rather call it native American medicine wheel shaped because every time I use the word pizza I end up dialing the phone for Domino's.

*** call to Domino's pause ***

So, installing a drip system is a lot like playing with Legos but with more cursing.  You get your little pieces and you push them together. Working on a hot day makes the tubing softer to work with but you sweat more.

Drip systems can become expensive but only because every time you run to the hardware store to get a missing piece you need, you end up buying something you don't need but WANT.  Other than that, the system is affordable and runs for years. I spent about $150 in all for a fairly large garden.

It took me a while to decide how to run the main line. I have one-inch drip irrigation pipes going from a faucet (to which I added a pressure compensator and a timer) running all around the outer edge of the circle.





The tubing is hidden in the wood chips that cover the paths. From that pipe, I attached elbows, risers that go into each bed.

From that riser comes another elbow and a straight line of one-inch tubing. From that tubing comes a variety of micro tubing.

I have tiny sprays for the carrots, but for everything else, I either use perforated micro tubing or un-perforated micro tubing with a head at the end.

When I have more time I might add to this post if anyone has questions.

Holy Mackerel, First Potatoes!

So, I planted some potatoes.

Or to be specific I found germinated dried up potatoes in the cupboard and I tossed them somewhere in the yard and forgot all about them.

Until I asked myself, what is that weird plant coming out of the strawberry patch?  I pulled it out, believing it was a weed ...

... And out came the most darling little potatoes I had ever laid eyes on.

Honestly, had I dug up a raw diamond I would have been less excited.



True, I have no idea what I am doing, but Nature knows, so we're okay.

The Vegetable Garden in Early June

From ugly lawn to Garden of Eden.  To think that we began the work in February blows my mind.

The joy this vegetable garden has added to our lives is hard to measure. We are always outside, gardening or picking or enjoying the many surprises the garden offers.  Is it work? Yes. But it's work in the same way that raising children is work. Enough love and enjoyments comes with it that we don't call it work.

In fact, I mostly feel that the plants do all the work and all we do is get the reward of their effort.

Garden view from above.

Bush beans in front and tomatoes behind them.

A wee watermelon plant.

Corn in back, cucumber in the center, and yet to be identified squashes in corners. We still have not learn to label things.

Everything humming with life.

First Tomatoes and Al Fresco Lunch

Radishes, carrots, beets and now tomatoes?!

First tomatoes. In May! Pass the salt. I'm about to faint with joy.

Basically I could not tell you what's what anymore. Note to self: write things down next time.

The carrots so close together that you need a jackhammer to dislodge them from the soil

Perfect temperature to set the table outside. Eating al fresco today.

Stop the Press! First Harvest.

I'm in love. In love with a radish and a carrot. I've only put one image here but I took dozens of pictures, like the veggi-razzi that I have become.

A radish and a carrot in tender embrace. 

Beets: can't live without them; Can't kill them.

Beets are so pretty that I almost forgive them for tasting hideous.  If you disagree on this point, here is my argument:  Insects are all over our vegetables. The only plant they won't touch are the beets. I'm just sayin' ...



OMG am I really going to have tomatoes. Still can't quite trust it.



Peas. One or two at first, and we were so excited! Our excitement  did wane a bit after we had to eat them at every meal for two weeks.





Strawberries delicately lifted off the ground. Soon, they came so hard and fast that the thought of lifting each of them off the ground became laughable.