Sugar Snap Chronicle

End of the line

2009-08-03T20:46:00.004-04:00

I am afraid this is the end of the line with the Sugar Snap Chronicle. I have started a new blog. Everyone is welcome.
Here's the new site.

Spinach

2009-03-25T18:49:00.002-04:00

Last fall I planted some spinach seeds on my plot and the winter came right after it germinated and grew only about an inch across. What do you know, I found today that spinach seedlings survived below zero, harsh winter wind, and inches of snow over the winter. They are about 5 inches across now and not quite ready to eat but slowly it's getting there. I must say spinach is the hardiest vegetable I know of and it is quite miraculous that the tiny little seedlings can survive this harsh east cost cold and dry winter - not even a single leaf damage! How do they do it? I don't know. Now I have a new found great admiration for spinach and anyone who says against it will hear earful from me.

Winter Sun

2009-03-25T18:38:00.002-04:00

I feel the winter passing, spring approaching by my bedroom window.

We are so tiny

2009-03-04T12:25:00.005-05:00

This is actually a couple of month old photo. We went to this pretty cool exhibition at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum called The Sant Ocean Hall. I don't really know what it all means but this chart gave me a lot of funny feelings in my stomach.

It's too bad that you can't really read the chart in the photo but basically the human part is the very thin, dark red line at the very end. It's so tiny you can't even see it in this picture. I am not Buddhist or religious in general but sometimes I feel like they may have gotten it right. We really are just fleeting in this world and sometimes it seems so silly that we have these ridiculous wants in our lives. We always struggle to make our short lives so meaningful and I can't really seem to figure out why but we do anyway. Are we that afraid of being washed off in millions of time and history? Are we just doing it because everyone else is doing it? Do we really believe that our live must have purpose? Really? Why? Says who?

I am not trying to be cynical and I don't believe therefore we shouldn't do anything in our lives.

But somedays, especially these day when money and worldly ambition seem to be such a source of problem of everyone's life and fear and I can't get my head straight looking at my life. It makes me wonder why we suffer so much in this quick stroke of our existence.

Snow Day

2009-03-03T21:38:00.005-05:00

It finally came. The whole city got covered by this beautiful snow overnight. It actually was quite the experience to wake up at 7:30 in the morning and see outside through sleepy eyes - the whole world was whirling in a huge snow wind tunnel. Unfortunately, heavy snow=whole city shut down days are over, thanks to the new major. By the time I actually managed to get up around 10 am every single street in DC were plowed and the whole city was moving as if nothing ever happened. I wish my day were full of magical things as you always wish on any snow day but when the world still goes around you like a clockwork it's hard to feel that snow day fun and comfort. I am sure this is a good thing that businesses are open, roads are clear, children don't miss school. But purely out of my selfishness, today I really missed the days that I got to walk on the snow covered streets and the day existed in frozen time because everything around you stopped moving. It's quite lame we spend an hour cleaning the snow off the car because we didn't wanna do it later but we did manage to walk in to the woods after that for a while, so that was pretty cool.

It's kind of generic snow day picture but I think it's OK because snow day is kind of like that.

Société de le cache-col rouge

2008-12-22T13:52:00.008-05:00

The league of the red scarf.

It has been a long and dangerous road. I will never be able to relate all that I have seen in researching this post. Some is too outlandish to believe. Some is simply inexpressible in any human language. What little I can share, though, may chill you to the core, and then warm you up again. Dave here. What follows is an account of the few details I have been able to glean regarding the dreaded secret society of cats responsible for god-only-knows how much sabotage against the human race.

Codename: Actioncat

The exact membership of the league is unknown, but it has become clear that operatives are active in Washington, DC, Virginia, Chicago, and St. Louis. Pictured above is Actioncat. I suspect her to be highly ranked in the organization. Near the edge of this photo, a pair of knitting needles and a bit of red yarn can just be made out. I do not know if she is herself responsible for knitting the scarves, or if she has a human enabler. The latter seems more likely, considering the lack of dexterity I have observed on her part on a number of occasions. She is capable of being cute, when she wishes to. It may even be the case that she has tricked Suzi into doing her bidding:

Actioncat using hypnosis (?) on a human

The history of the red scarves is shrouded in mystery. There is evidence that the group dates back at least fifty years. There seems to have been a spike in their activity this year near Christmastime. A number of parcels containing scarves were sent from Actioncat's headquarters in DC to the cities mentioned above. Each parcel contained at least one new, red scarf wrapped in home-made packaging as pictured here:

Who is Cold Cat Creations?

The wrapping appears to have been produced from a crudely drawn sketch that was then manipulated in Photoshop. The quality of the drawing is such that Actioncat herself may indeed be responsible, but I suspect she had help creating the digital file and printing the copies. Indeed, while I have no memory of these events, it is entirely possible that, in the course of my undercover research, I too was hypnotized and forced to act as an agent of this evil group. I found the following photo on my camera, which leads me to believe that I am suspected, and that she hopes to blackmail me, should I ever make my more disturbing findings public.

What can they be up to?

I do not think that they know how to read, so I speak relatively freely here. For now, Suzi and I will continue to keep a watch on this group, or at least this one operative. Still, I cannot but wonder: are we watching her, or is she watching us?

Citrus and Yogurt

2008-12-04T17:10:00.005-05:00

This is probably not such an uncommon combination but I sort of made it up simply because I had some clementines and yogurt. We have been really into eating this and the bag of clementine is gone in two days. Plus I can never just eat 1 clementine in a sitting. How could you, they are gone in a minute. I could probably have the whole bag in a sitting if a good TV show is on. That is winter to me. Nothing is more wintry than eating lots of clementines in a snowy night in front of the TV with a blanket. You say hot coco- that too, but I didn't grow up drinking hot coco much so it's still clementines to me.

I initially made it for a dessert because I bought this European style yogurt from the Trader Joe's for the first time and they are very velvety and creamy so it felt more like dessert. But I tried this morning and it works as a part of breakfast, too. Hey, why not.

I haven't really shopped at the Trader Joe's much because there wasn't one in the city. But now there's new one open and it's not hard to get to so I started to shop there. One thing that is lacking is the vegetable and bulk section and breads are pretty bad - but I know it's not that kind of store. They have vegetable section but they're all prepped, cut, all neatly packed in individual containers. This is great for people who are busy and doesn't really care for cleaning vegetables but it is too excessive for people like me. Cleaning, prepping is such part of cooking I can't imagine not doing it myself. They have fabulous nuts and dried fruit section but normally packages are too big for me because I'd rather get little bit of fresh stock each time I use them. And bread, they don't have an on site bakery so I understand breads tend to suck except crumpets are worthy of purchase.

Having said these minor problems I like the place more and more each time I shop there. Price is great - amazing on some stuff, I find these little treasures each time I shop. For example I found ricotta cheese without any additives which is surprisingly hard to find. I got real Greek feta which is way superior than just feta that you normally get from a store - This may need some explanation. Real Greek feta comes in a tub in the brine and last very long time. You basically cut away the amount you want and you store the left over in the brine, in the tub. They are noticeably less salty. Those common feta you see often is way too salty. All you taste is salt. These are not. They are very edible and pleasant. The only place I was able to get it in any reasonable way was when they were having Greek Festival at the Greek Church in my neighborhood once a year. Now I can get it from the Trader Joe's at a half price.

What I love to do most is to make these baked eggs for the breakfast with it. I will post separately here when I make one- I am waiting for tomatoes coming this weekend. It basically involves individual ramekins, lay a piece of Greek feta and slices of tomato, crack an egg sprinkle some herbs such as fresh thyme or oregano - thank god, I have them all year around now in my garden, yea! Then finally bake until the white is set and yoke is still runny - they way I like it. It is heavenly with a piece of nice bread. I have lots of favorite breakfast but this is definitely at the top.

Back to this yogurt business. You may wonder what this 'European Style Yogurt' is all about. I don't know either. I don't know how European eats their yogurt but nevertheless in was intriguing. But to be honest I bought that one because it was the only yogurt that had only milk and bacteria, those two things in the ingredient list as it should be - none of the pectin, gum non sense.

I've had Greek Yogurt which is very thick since they are just strained yogurt meaning they literally put the regular yogurt on a sieve for hours so the moisture falls to the bottom and what you end up with is these luscious thick sour cream like yogurt. At least this is what it's supposed to be but this simply processed yogurt is actually hard to find.

What I mean is, these days when you see Greek style yogurt, if you look at the ingredient list they are thickened with different additives like pectin, Gum - Pretty terrible. This probably happens I suppose, 1) to cut the cost because you need more of actual yogurt to get to the consistency. so when you use thickener you can have the effect with less yogurt. 2) people somehow got obsessed with low fat and non fat idea. It doesn't really sell to have whole milk yogurt at least in the US. When you make yogurt at home with low fat or non fat milk it simply doesn't happen. I know so because I used to make yogurt at home all the time. Somehow I got lazy. I must start this again. It is so easy. Anyway, one time I used 2 % milk because I wanted to get rid of it. Sadly they just got sort of slurry and that was it.

I think everyone have different priories in life and things like this may not be a big deal. I am not trying to change peoples lives nor pretend that everyone cares about the same thing that I do. But what I'd like to point out is that when we buy these products that are compromised and reduced something, something, we are essencially getting an inferior product and less for the money. Some might argue that now we eat too much fat therefore low/none fat would be a healtheir and better choice in general. I think this makes sense in some ways and some people may not have much choice. But given the choice I'd much prefer to have the real thing than some imitation because there might be some health benefit to it - ugh, how boring life has to be? I personally try to eat healthy in general, though not always perfectly. But I hate to see such fundamental, not only joyful but an ultimate necessity as eating becoming something fearful, something that would hurt /kill you instead of sustaining life. How bizzare notion of eating is this?

So in the sprit of good eating, I totally recommend plain whole milk yogurt for this thing (please read the ingredient list and try to find the one that doesn't have additives in it if you can.) No pectin. No gum. It's not the end of the world if you can't find one and this would be as delicious with any whole milk yogurt and ok, even low fat and none fat will do, too. If you are ok with the texture of them, more power to you. I personally don't like the texture of them -they are all pasty and gelly like.

Nothing could be easier.

1) You put some plain yogurt in a bowl - as much as you want

2) Peel and cut some clementines and place them on top nice and neat. I think any citrus will do. I think very nice orange segment would be very nice, I think blood orange would be awesome. This is actually influenced by a recipe I have. It's some kind of Greek thing. They cut orange peels in wedges and roll each one and make a chain with needle and thread and boil them with sugar maybe honey and water and until they are little bit syrupy then they top yogurt with the final product which is sort of syrupy orange peels.

3) After citrus is placed you drizzle with some honey. Not too much. Yogurt in my opinion should not be eaten like candy like those fruit on the bottom stuff you see in a store.

Speaking of candy like yogurt, I was talking to Dave the other day and we sort of chatted about when we knew yogurt was not candy. Mine was when I was in high school - after a year or two since I came to the States, there was for about a semester I lived off campus and live with one of the teacher in an apartment right next to the school. She was from Turky and she always bought a tub of plain yogurt and ate scallions, cucumbers with it on bread. This was really a revelation for me and maybe the begining of my interest in how others eat around the world. There I was, came from a different country and all I knew about yogurt was in a small tub with various fruits and lots of sugar stired in. Strange and funny thing- when it was first introduced in Korea when I was in grades school, it was one of the snacks that you can get from a public bathhouse. So we'd soak in a large, very hot water bathtub and eat those sugary snack.

Anyway, it was such an eye opener to me that there was this different yogurt world out there. Also that was the first time I tasted real Turkish Delights. I think her parents sent a box from Turky and I swear it was the most delicious sugary thing you could have. There's this scene in The Chronicles of Narnia, the first one, when Edward follows the witch to her castle in the carriage - she lures him with Turkish Delights and he chows it down. Seriously, I know what that's like. Ever since then I had Turkish Delights bought from a store, but they are never as good as what I had and I am seriously thinking about making some if it's not too complicated. They were that good.

Pomegranate

2008-11-19T21:00:00.002-05:00

I can't believe it's been a month since I wrote the last post. Shame on me!

I don't know how these things happen. This is just like doing pilates. I do it everyday for months and one day I don't do it and the whole thing goes down the drain. I just can't form a habit. This maybe blessing but also a curse.

Let's see what changes has happened in my life.

- I bought tons of knee socks

- I gave myself a fall/ winter haircut which turned out great

- I finally saw what the fuss is about pomegranate

- We re-read the Harry Potter books because we were furious about the delay of the movie

OK, not that interesting.

I haven't been to the garden for days because I have been actually so busy with new clients - people who wants to improve their yard situation. But all that is over for the year so maybe I'll have more time and energy to write if I can still find the inspiration over the winter. I'd really like to because there's always something going on.

So I mentioned pomegranate. It's in season now. Let me start here.

I've not been caught on the whole pomegranate craze that's been going on last couple of years.

I am not talking about juice. I am talking about actual fruit. I've not been able to embrace the goodness of the fruit until very recently. Not only because it's tacky to follow these kind of food fad, this one seemed like it's got a practical problem. What do I do with the leftovers? I certainly can't eat the whole pomegranate in one sitting. I think this and not knowing exactly what I should eat it with prevented me from buying one.

And one day, dinner at a lebanese restaurant opened my eyes and I had a light bulb moment. Now I have to say it is a must have in my fridge.

The biggest mistake I made thinking about this fruit was that I was treating it like a fruit. I don't know how many people have had actual pomegranate but they are a bit too much when you eat them like a regular fruit. They are very seedy and it gets tiring munching on those seeds by mouthful.

When I had the first bite of the hummus sprinkled with some pomegranate seeds at the restaurant, it really hit me that this is it. you eat it as a condiment. like a garnish.

This being solved I bought one and I had to deal with the storage problem. And I couldn't believe how simple the solution was and how I just didn't think of it before.

This is what you do. You might already know and maybe I am slow to figure out on my own.

I just score the outer skin top to bottom with a paring knife, sort of like a wedge as big as I want for the serving and I put my thumb at the very top of the fruit and pull the wedge out. Then you wrap the rest on a plastic wrap and it keeps very well in the fridge. The only thing you have to be careful is not to score the fruit inside. It can get very messy if you do and it may become hard to deal with. You just wanna cut the leathery outside skin so it can be pulled apart.

Once you have the section cut out it could be used in so many delightful ways. It could be sprinkled on salad, on ice cream, hummus- obviously, with granola.... and of course in could be sprinkled on lots of middle eastern main dish. I should really try to make some of these dishes.

So yes, screw juice. try actual pomegranate fruit if you haven't. It really is worth it and I don't say this to many things.

Coelacanth

2008-11-19T20:12:00.002-05:00

What can I say - It is coelacanth! I just can't resist posting this picture.

By the way the picture is taken from The Sant Ocean Hall exhibition at the Smithsonian Natural history museum.

Fall Vegetables

2008-10-17T17:42:00.003-04:00

It's been very busy couple of weeks at the garden. As the temperature falls the most summer crops died down and it means it's time for the fall clean up. Many people just end their production here and wait till next spring to start planting again and it is perfectly understandable because you simply get tired of it all or maybe you are not a big fan of fall/winter crops. I ran into someone at the garden yesterday who planted turnips and didn't really know how to cook them. I mean, how many people really regularly cook turnips?

I feel somewhat same way as these people except I like fall/winter vegetables but I am definitely tired. The only reason that keeps me going is my determination of making the best out of the plot. I can't really contemplate on a perfectly good piece of land not living up to it's potential.

There are surprisingly a lot of vegetables you could grow now. You'd be planting any of the cool season crops. The ones that takes long time to mature such as leeks, I have planted them last month. Most vegetables are in cabbage, turnip family. They do great in the cool weather, so does lettuce - they are back!

Broccoli Raab

Broccoli

Escarole

Yellow Turnip

Swiss Chard

Li'l Crabby

2008-09-27T16:30:00.009-04:00

It seems like ages ago now that I'm routinely putting on shoes instead of flip-flops and carrying an umbrella everywhere I go, but it was only about three weeks ago that Suzi and I were at the beach. Oh, this is Dave, by the way.

Probably my favorite thing to do at the beach, next to contemplating the blank expanse of the water, and its suggestions of infinity, death, and the unknowable intermingled with birth and vitality, is to look for live animals. Probably the easiest to find (that is impossible to miss) is the seagull.

This shot was harder to get than you may think.

They are so common that it is easy to forget that they are wild animals. They are so comfortable around humans that it is easy to overlook the fact that they are more than little "m" shapes in children's drawings. It takes a huge amount of energy to take off and land all the time, which means they are pretty much always hungry. If you see a seagull it is probably looking for one of these:

Seagull food/photo subject

We share a common interest here, the seagulls and I. Well, kind of. I don't like to eat crabs, but spotting them on the beach is the most fun that it is possible to have. Here's how it's done:

1) Go to the beach.

2) Wait until it is night.

3) Walk around with a flashlight. (Don't forget to turn it on first!)

4) That's it! Crabs are everywhere!

They will run away unless you get really close to them and kind of blind them with your flashlight. Then they'll stay still as long as you shine it in their eyes. I think it's kind of mean to do this for a long time, especially considering that they are all out there for a reason. It turns out that crabs spend most of their time in these little holes in the sand. I have seen these holes a lot, and I always assumed that birds had made them with their beaks while digging for food, but if you watch where the crabs go when they run away from you, they invariably dart into one of these little caves. They make them so that they are the perfect size for their own bodies. This is how they avoid getting eaten by seagulls. So if they're out, it means they're hungry.

An average-sized crab lives here

Pretty much all anything that lives at the beach eats is fish, and apparently, crabs are no exception. On one of our crab-spotting missions, Suzi and I came across a fairly big, freshly dead fish that had basically had it's entire left side (fillet?) cleanly removed by a small army of crabs. They were all walking around holding a strip of fish in their right claws, and one got the distinct impression of children at a carnival holding cotton candy. Some others had apparently managed to catch some minnows. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a picture of this, but this is pretty much what it looked like:

Granola

2008-09-25T17:31:00.004-04:00

I found this great cookbook called 'Peter Rabbit's Natural Foods Cookbook' at a used bookstore couple of years ago. I simply love it. It's filled with awesome Beatrix Potter illustrations which the chronicle's main mouse illustration is from and there are loads of recipes of what animals would make and eat if they were people. The book is kind of rare but if you manage to find one, it is totally worth buying because it is just a cool thing to have. I can't vouch for the quality of recipes because I haven't try most of them and it's kind of a cookbook for kids.

But my granola recipe is based on one from the book. It's called 'Johnny Town - Mouse's Granola and I've had many great success with the alteration which I guess it now is my version. I can proudly say they are top notch.

I am not much a granola eater despite the health benefit of it. It is one of those food that I always wish I liked more. The taste is fine. More than fine, it is good. The problem is, to me eating something cold, hard and crunch is not my idea of breakfast. I know most Americans grab cereals and pour milk and call it a breakfast but the thought of eating something like that first thing in the morning just chills me to the stomach. I think my stomach and jaw would have to be made out of steel to eat that in the morning. Sure I enjoy my all time favorite cereal Crunch Berries now and then if I happen to buy a box purely out of whim but to me it is always a snack, never a meal.

I like my breakfast warm and soft, most importantly not too sweet. Eggs prepared anyway, potatoes, grits, toast with homemade strawberry jam with butter if I am having it American way. I could have Korean style breakfast which is pretty much like any other Korean meal but it always includes simple soup piping hot. One other my favorite breakfast is this Indian Rice porridge with lots of vegetables topped with hard boiled egg. That's excellent. Maybe I'll do a post of it here.

Then you wonder why go through trouble making granola if I don't really eat much. I make it because Dave loves it first of all, so doing nice things for your loved one is just a pure joy. Besides, it is the only granola he could eat - he's got a strange stomach - he can't digest store bought granola well no matter where we get it from. But most importantly I make it because I love making most food homemade given the chance. Granola is especially wonderful thing to make because for one thing it's very easy, takes very little effort. What I like the most about it is that there's something wholesome about making something with very elementary food ingredients - grains, seeds, fruits, and honey etc. It's comforting and incredibly satisfying. There's certain slowness to it even though it doesn't take long to make. It's different kind of slowness. It's more of relaxing feeling. More of I have time to make it kind of feeling. And this feeling to me is what makes life richer because it is undeniably luxurious. It is also kind of luxury that is easily attainable.

My favorite way to serve this is obviously as a side dish, with plain whole milk yogurt, mix in some honey, cut up some fruits on top of yogurt, any fresh fruits, and finally sprinkle granola on top. I like just a little bit, but Dave likes it with much substantial amount.

*Granola ( I find the whole recipe too much for 2 people so I divide this recipe by 2, except I keep the handfuls as it is)

2 cups oatmeal - rolled oats, none of that instant or quick cooking kind

1/4 cup wheat germs - I like raw wheat germs, toasted wheat germs sometime are off tasting

1/4 cup ground flax seed

1/4 tsp salt

2 Tbsp canola oil - I use expeller pressed organic but vegetable oil is good sub.

1/4 cup honey - to your taste

Handful of sliced almonds -anything you like really

Handful of both pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds

Handful of dried fruits such as cranberries or raisins or anything you like even some coconuts

-Preheat the oven to 250

-Mix first 4 ingredients together in a large bowl

-Drizzle oils as you mix to coat them

-drizzle honey as you mix to coat them, some will be lumpy, some will be loose

-Spread mixture in a baking sheet, cookie sheet, whatever you have

-Bake for 30 min

-Taking it out of the oven and stir in carefully nuts and seeds and coconut if using

-Bake another 15 min or longer if you like toastier

-Take it out of the oven and stir in dried fruits and cool

-Store it in airtight container after it is completely cooled

Okra

2008-09-25T16:59:00.002-04:00

I don't really care for okra though I'd eat it without a problem if it is offered to me. I can't really get over that distinctive sliminess. I don't think it's gross. I just don't see what the fuss is all about. We had two okra plants this year because one of our good neighbor had left overs and gave it to us. So I thought sure, why not? My plan was to pickle them. I don't know how many people have had pickled okra and just like any pickled vegetables they are quite good and most importantly they are not slimy. ( if I remember correctly from many years ago, I might be wrong) - something to do with not cutting the pod through and cooking them whole minimizes it, I heard once.

I've never actually seen an okra plant before, so it was kind of nice having a chance to grow them this year though I didn't end up eating the product. The problem was, the deers loved them so the leaves got constantly stripped away. When they finally had a chance to recover some and fruit, it only gave something like one or two a week or something per plant. It was hardly worth pickling.

I probably am not gonna grow okra again because I don't care for it, but one thing that I thought it was worth noting is that the flowers are actually quite pretty. What happens is that it flowers - the flower looks something like a hibiscus then the pedals falls and there's tiny okra ( it is a seed pod ) at the base of the flower and then they grow big. That's what you eat - pretty neat.

Balcony insects

2008-09-11T22:02:00.004-04:00

We live on the 4th floor with a balcony. I have some plants and flowers. It is not a perfectly natural environment but I think it's worth taking a note of creatures that we encounter.

I've been dying to take a picture of this one spider that's been living somewhere between upstaires and my balcony for a couple of month now. I know this because everyday I find this gigantic spiderweb beautifully suspended in my balcony from the upstaires. Whenever I try to take a picture of it, it's so shy it just runs away real fast so I haven't been able to take a picture.

But this is still good.

I don't know what it is. I found it on the outside window. Check out that stinger.

Grasshopper in fuschia.

Some success and some failure

2008-09-11T20:49:00.004-04:00

There haven't been any updates here lately and I'm trying to figure out how this happened because there have been loads happening at the garden. It is like somehow I forgot about writing one day and I have never been able to go back for some reason.

But here I am and I promise I'd be more diligent about it.

It is already getting to the end of the summer harvest I have been ever so busy at the garden harvesting, preparing new beds and finally planting new seeds for the fall/winter crops.

We had amazing harvest with snap beans. I planted Green, yellow, purple beans. We got the least of the purples - I don't know why, but we had abundant of yellow wax beans. I have the last of the crop in the fridge now that will be eaten tomorrow. One harvest tip for green bean I can give is that harvest everyday because they grow really fast and if you miss a day you'll end up with a lot of over grown snap beans which is definitely inferior in taste and it could get stringy which is just unpleasant. I like to harvest when they are smaller than what you see in a grocery store to ensure they are sweet and tender.

The plot has been cleaned and I sow some rutabaga seeds couple of days ago. Rutabagas will be interesting thing to grow. Partially because I've never eaten it before but I always had a good feelings about it because it give such British or Scandinavian feel to it. They are supposed to be like sweet starcher turnip - it'll be lovely in a stew or savory pie with gherkins on the side in the winter with good ale next to it. Now we are speaking the Redwall cookery!

Two sort of failures were corns and melons.

I've been always suspicious about the purity of the corn seeds because it took so long and it grew twice as tall as it should. So the corn turned blue finally but when I poked on the kernel to see if it's ready for harvest, instead giving milky liquid, it was just hard and dry.

This is not good news but I harvest them anyway and boiled.

They were horrible. They were just really hard and had no taste, basically inedible. I strongly suspect that it is one of the ornamental corn or cross pollinated. It is huge disappointment but it's OK because we are able to get really great corns at the farmers market cheaply.

Maybe I'll try different variety next year. You win some you lose some, I am over it already.

Another disappointing result was melon. I have mentioned this before. They ended up taking over to much space but too little fruits. Mine ended up dying from probably powdery mildew among other things before the fruits ripen. Powdery mildew is unavoidable in our hot and humid summer with stale air, especially in cucumber/zucchini family. It's pretty harmless if there are little to medium amount in a plant but it could kill the plant if it takes over the whole plant.

For example, half of my squash leaves are covered in powdery mildew, but there are enough clean leaves to make food and all that stuff to support the plant so they don't seem to affect the plant much but melons were different story. The whole thing got covered and between this and squash beetles the plant just shriveled up before the fruits had chance to ripe. I am begining to realize you really do need to have a big space to grow melon. Not much because they have to spread because structures takes care of the problem, but so they could have lots of room for air circulation around the plant to discourage the mildew. Disappointing but I can live with it because the plot is cleared and leeks are planted for the fall/winter now. Another exciting crop to grow because it is another those hardy excellent vegetable that would go really well in soups. I love having a small dinner in the winter - homemade soups and good crusty bread, cheese, and simple salad. It is so comforting that you can't help but loving the winter.

Everyone knows the fall is here when you walk out the door and feel that cool fresh breeze in the sunlight, that great feeling. As a vegetable gardener it is more than that. It is once again working against clock, because things need to be planted once again so I can have a completely another set of vegetables before and after the frost. New anticipation and excitement, I can hardly sit still.

Chrysalis

2008-08-23T17:30:00.005-04:00

This is a beautiful thing to look at. We found this chrysalis on the corn couple of days ago. I don't know what it is going to be but I assume that it'd be some kind of a butterfly maybe.

It is amazing the creatures that we encounter at the garden.

Carrots and Corns

2008-08-23T16:39:00.004-04:00

Carrots are harvested for this year. They don't seem to taste as good as it could be, but I am happy nevertheless. Having grown carrots I have hard time understanding why carrots are so cheap. Sure they are pretty carefree and doesn't take a big space but they take very long time to grow, normally around 100 days. That is a long time. I am debating if we should grow carrots anymore, just because it takes so long and they are so cheap to buy even the organic ones. So maybe it's more economical for us to grow something else in that spot ( remember we have a small plot, we can't grow everything). Dave is more excited than I am actually to grow carrots and I think he wants to continue growing them. I think it won't be a bad idea to grow some of the baby or round ball looking ones rather than the full sized ordinary ones so we can have quicker turn around because small ones naturally takes shorter time to mature.

This year the taste is a bit dissapointing. I think it might be because we planted later in spring. Carrots are cold season crop and we definatly treated it as warm season crop this year. Some vegetables lose taste when they grow throught the summer heat. That's what might have happened with our carrots. This is not so bad because these carrots would make a good candidate for some kind of glazed carrot dish. It would also look very pretty cooked that way with a little bit of stems attached.

Now I am excited.

Despite our anxiety, I think corn is finally coming to a harvest time. We planted somewhat unusual variety this year. It is called 'Blue Jade'. It's an heirloom corn which in itself makes it kind of special because most corns you buy, eat, grow are hybrid even if you buy them from a farmers market. There aren't many heirloom corns left in the world and this happens to be one of them. What makes them truly special is that it is blue in color and a dwarf plant. There are many blue corns available, American Indians used them constantly but they are normally not sweet corn. Normally you'd find blue corn that are really for corn meal or flour. But 'Blue Jade' is a sweet corn.

Normally corns grow up to the 7-8 feets in heights, but ours is 'supposedly' grown to only 3-4 feet which makes it a dwarf plant ( and the corns itself are small, miniature). This is why I chose this corn to begin with. I have a small plot and the sensible thing to do would be to grow small variety.

I only said it 'supposedly' because in my plot they grew up to be 7 feet- twice as tall as they should be- I don't know why and what it means.

I really had my doubts. It's been taking a very long time to grow and flower and it's been somewhat mysterious thing to grow. It seemed not what it is supposed to be except the corns are gonna be small. To add to my doubt, It seemed to be a white corn inside when we checked yesterday. I just wanted to check if they are ready to be harvested.

But today I am surprised and relieved to find out the corn is turing blue indeed inside and they would be ready to be harvested next couple of days, I'd think.

Another summer lunch

2008-08-17T19:53:00.004-04:00

Another fantastic summer lunch idea similar to the one I posted before.

*Sauteed Italian sausage with swiss chard

- Take the sausage out of casing and crumbled the meat and dump it in a hot pan and brown the meat and transfer meat to the paper towel lined plate( I am using fresh sweet Italian sausage from Cibola farms but any kind of fresh sausage will work)

- This is totally up to people but I get rid of all the fat that's collected in the pan because I don't think I wanna eat table spoons full of pork rendering. It is supposedly taste better, but honestly I can't really tell the difference.

-Drizzle some olive oil in the same pan saute some sliced garlic, depending on the taste. Do not burn the garlic, they taste bad. They just should be golden brown. Throw in some red pepper flakes, and toss in some swiss chard, white, red , any kind works I am using rainbow chard from my garden. Saute a couple of minite until the chard is cooked. I like my vegetable cooked until it is tender. Put the sausage back to the pan, splash some white wine because I had some or lemon juice and salt and pepper and done, super easy.

*Tomato salad with cucumber

-Chop some tomatoes , any fresh tomatoes work. grape tomatoes good choice if tomatoes are from a regular supermarket because they are sweeter. I used Lemon Boy from my garden.

-This is perfectly fine with just tomatoes but I added some cucumbers because I had some.

-Add chopped or torn fresh basil. This is a must but I think fresh mint just a little bit or fresh oregano would be nice too.

-Salt and fresh pepper, a couple of dashes of olive oil and a splash of red wine vinegar and toss.

(Obviously some fresh mozzarella could be added or even fresh goat cheese if it's served by itself or it could be tossed with some hot pasta with some chopped garlic without the vinegar but with the sausage dish adding cheese seem to me a bit too much. )

Serve with hot crusty bread and Sunday lunch is served. Btw, I always heat up a bread in the preheated 400 degree oven until it's hot and crusty takes about 10 min maybe, I never count, I just check. Even if it's freshly made today, they sit around for hours and by the time you eat it it's not good as it could be. This is a great trick because reheating dries the outside crust bakes it again and brings the moisture back inside the bread.

This works great on a day old bread, even a baguette. I keep the left over bread in a plastic bag and over night and reheat it in the oven. It takes some time because the oven have to preheat and stuff, but it's like magic, works every time. A day old bread is as good as the freshly made, I swear.

Today's harvest

2008-08-17T19:29:00.002-04:00

This is today's harvest and I thought the picture came out rather beautiful. I always thought I didn't like digital photography much but now I have a digital camera and it really grew on me.

The thing that really kept me from working on photography on daily basis besides my laziness was the fact it was always very expensive and I never seemed to have extra money to just blow it on something that might not worth - sometimes with the traditional photography you could easily end up with the entire roll of nothing interesting and you just spent like $20. Now with the digital camera the whole thing is more liberating I feel like and the quality of photos I get from this a little over a hundred dollar camera is incredible.

Sure I enjoy traditional black and white and color photos and one of my fantasy still is to own an medium format camera or even bigger (though I'll never be able to afford to keep up the cost of owning one) I think this little digital camera is just perfect for my actual use.

The Flying Lesson

2008-08-16T11:34:00.007-04:00

The bird family has been extra loud last couple of days. The parents must have been antsy to get the little ones out of the nest as soon as they can. There has been a lot of different calls and chirping- just about any kind noises birds can make could be heard outside.

Finally the day came, yesterday morning, the little ones were lured out of the nest and took the very first step to outside world. It all happened around 10 am while we were having breakfast. Two very clumsy birds fell from the fuschia plant and awkwardly landed on our balcony. We had three baby birds so the first one must have took off already.

I have anticipated the day, and sort of knew the day would come anytime in next couple of days but I rather thought it came a little sooner than usual because the birds still seemed very small. I remember from the previous two years, the baby birds looked more fully grown than these ones. Nevertheless there's nothing anyone can do. The mother knows best and we have to have a complete faith in the parents that they know what they are doing.

My speculation on their size must have not been completely off because these two seemed to sort of struggle right away though it is pretty normal for a baby bird to not fly off well right away and bound to a ground for a while. It's just that all the other babies ever lived in our balcony have flown off right away.

First, they were just hopping around in the balcony for about an hour checking things out, the parents were keep flying off to the nearest tree to show them how it's done, showing them the way. There was a lot of commotions outside. This is not such a good picture below because we had to watched through the window from inside. This is the whole scene- on the balcony ledge, the front one ( more clear one) is a parent, the one in the back standing up against the wall is the baby and here's the close up of them. One thing that the picture doesn't show is how hesitant the babies were to take off. It seemed the babies didn't look like they were ready and the parents really wanted them to go. I mean you see the baby birds pacing on the balcony ledge and you can see they are not confident at all.

Finally they managed to take off and we were cheering them on, thought they were gone, but later we found out they only partially made it. Instead of flying off to the distant and landing on the nearest perch out in a tree they actually ended up falling to the first floor balcony from our 4th floor.

Oh no!!!! This is not good. Not only they could have gotten hurt which they were not appeared to be, thank god, still there are a lot of problem with it. The whole process got more difficult. Now they are all the way down on the first floor. This sounds like it'll be easier, but not for flying. The physics is against them. It takes a lot of energy to take off from the ground because they have to lift the whole body weight. That's why it's much easier to take off from the higher place like my balcony because they can just glide then.

It's not as bad as being in a open space because the balcony is sheltered and you don't really have to worry about predators. But they potentially might have to deal with people who more likely might not know what's going on or not wanting to have animal there - not everyone likes animals. People could do all sorts of wrong thing to these guys trying to help them when the best thing to do is to leave them alone.

It's not the discussion of whether people should interfere or not with nature because this happens with birds all the time. This is a pretty normal process. A lot of times baby birds doesn't quite have the strength to fully fly right after they leave the nest- flying is a very hard work requires a lot of strength. They normally bound to the ground for a while but one thing people have to remember is the bird parents are extremely devoted, they are always around feeding them and communicate with them constantly. The birds sound all frantic and crying to our ears, that maybe but they are also communicating with each other, they do that as soon as they are born. It's nothing new. They are not asking for OUR help unless they are fallen to a tiny hole or got caught in a net, and these are obviously not normal and they could probably use our help. But under the normal circumstances what is likely to happen is that they'll gather up the strength next couple of hours or days - they grow extremely fast and they'll be able to fly off no problem.

It is hard to restrain oneself from stepping in because you worry. You love them and they are struggling. But the harsh truth is that they must learn on their own in their own time otherwise they would get killed by the predators in no time when they leave this relatively sheltered area.

Hours went they are still down on the first floor balcony. They haven't seemed to figure out how to climb up on the metal ledge that's about a foot above the floor itself. This seem to us such an easy task. Any grown birds could easily do this in a heartbeat but not for the little ones. It's like watching a kid learning how to use a spoon. It is so elementary but it is a huge task for them. We went out to run an errand and we came back. It's already around 7:30 pm. The dusk has already settled in, One has left, but there's still the last one still trying really hard to get off to that ledge. He's doing it all wrong. He's keep falling to different areas. Now I am getting really anxious because it's getting dark and predators are gonna come out soon and the parents would have to leave the bird there alone because they'll have to find a shelter, too.

About 20 minutes must have pass by, I am anxiously watching from all the way up here. The parents seem to try very hard to get the bird out. They are getting louder, they are keep flying to the near perch to show the way. He finally managed to fly up to the metal ledge all he had to is to just take off. He's pacing a little then... he hops down back to the balcony. This is so stupid, I am thinking. Now what? Several minutes might have passed, he managed again to fly up to the ledge. He got it. He really got it this time. I could tell. The parents are keep calling him from the perch. He's staring, pacing and I'm screaming inside "GO!!!!!!!" Then he finally took a very hesitant leap and glide above the lawn. He could only make it couple of feet at a time. But he reached to the perch all on his own and with the parents they disappeared to the woods.

I've seen the baby birds leaving the nest each year, but this one would always be the most memorable one. We had a very tough one this year and the emotional one also. It is always emotional watching them go. It's happiness, sadness and proudness all in the same pot.

Once again Actioncat is the master of the balcony. The reward for being such a lady like gracious host , she's getting a freshly sown cat grass.

Bird Pic. update

2008-08-15T21:48:00.003-04:00

They are more or less like an adult bird now - very little baby down left on their body. You can still see some right above their eyes.

Non-Pest Insects

2008-08-14T14:39:00.008-04:00

Silver Bee

Dave here again.

On any given day, there are probably about a dozen different kinds of bees and wasps readily visible in the garden. There are probably way more, but if you stand still for even a few seconds, you can't help but see at least five or ten different kinds. This fellow here probably has an official name, but I call him a silver bee. He was one of a few insects that were feeling particularly cooperative on the day I finally decided to try and get a few pictures of some of them.

Sweat Bee

Sweat bees have always been one of my favorite bugs. This one is probably about half a centimeter long. Apparently, one of his wings has been damaged in some way, but he was still getting around all right.

Some kind of tiny wasp, I think

I'm not sure, but on closer inspection, I suspect sweat bees might actually be wasps. When they are as tiny as this, it's hard to get a good look at them until after I get the camera home and can view the photo full size on my computer. Why does it have patterned wings? Why are the bottoms of its legs brown, but the tops greenish-yellow?

Honey Bee and Wasp on Mint Flowers

Our neighbor at the garden has a bunch of mint that is flowering now. All the pollinators in the world seem to have noticed, and they congregate there in tremendous numbers. I haven't seen that many traditional yellow honeybees like this for a few years, so it was nice to see that this one had made a friend.

Moth and Silver Bee

Speaking of friends, this particular type of moth, which has a clever camouflage that makes it resemble bird droppings is a regular around our garden. It seems to have made friends with the silver bee, much as I have. I think one of the most valuable things I have learned from gardening this year is that I can be near hundreds of bees without freaking out. In fact, I don't think that I could call myself a person who is afraid of bees anymore. I had a pretty sad experience the other day, taking down the cucumber teepee. Apparently, the wasp I kept away by plugging up the holes had already laid an egg in there. It hatched and died while trying to struggle its way out from under the stick I put in the hole at the end of the pole. If I had felt the same way about wasps then that I do now, I would not have plugged up the hole, and I probably would have waited excitedly for the day the larva hatched.

Another Moth

I'm not sure if this is that bird-dropping moth or not. They usually have a white spot on their wings, below the yellow spot. In any case, this certainly is a handsome specimen.

Tiny Moth

This moth is on one of the corn leaves. Those hairs on the leaf are not really visible to the naked eye, so that moth is probably smaller than a sweat bee. All that detail on the wings must be for someone to notice, though. Someone tiny, with very good eyesight.

Goodbye cucumbers

2008-08-13T20:38:00.003-04:00

One of the most prolific producer of this year, our beloved cucumber is hitting the end of the line. My cucumber growing experience is a highly positive one. I find that it is the one of the easiest thing to grow right from the seeds and very productive, too. I can't count how many we ate and gave it away. It is very rewarding every way.

Unlike the snap beans or eggplants and some other vegetables that is better to start late I find that cucumbers are better to start on time, right after the last frost date to get the maximum production. We basically planted seeds in two different times because we built two teepees and I wanted to get cucumber season stretched. So we planted around the first teepee right after the last frost date, then I planted around the other one about 2-3 weeks later. This time difference for me made a huge difference in quality and quantity of the produce - early planted ones far better and more than the later one, and to my surprise they are dying just about the same time.

Also one of my neighbour who planted her cucumber seed very late looks like she maybe just got a couple of decent one. A lot of them looks normal right below the stem but as the fruit comes downwards it gets dramatically narrower so basically the whole thing looks like an upside down cone. A couple of mine did that towards the end of the season but not too dramatically. I think that might be because mine are miniature cucumbers only about 4 inches in length at best. This is pure guess, I could be wrong.

There isn't anything difficult I could point out. You just plant seed, water well since cucumbers are mostly water inside. It needs something to climb on, so a teepee or cages - very common, cheap, easy to make and even buy. Cucumber beetles or squash beetles and powdery mildews might be a problem and how severe the damage depends on many factors. It could be the kind of cucumber - some are more susceptible or how heathy the plants are or what kind of growing condition and practice it receives etc... I can't say for other cucumbers but they both weren't a huge problem with mine. Squash beetles were more present towards the end when the plant was already starting to die and the production was dwindling anyway, so does the powdery mildew. The damage was very minimal while during it's peak season so I can't complain.

I'd say definitely a must next year. I'd probably try a different kind and see how hat works out.

Cucumbers doesn't like to be transfered, so don't bother with the potted seedling from a nursery. Stick to the seeds, save money.

This is the first to go this year. I feel a huge change in season and feel a bit overwhelmed by it but with a very full, contented heart. All good things must come to an end. That's the truth.

Goodbye cucumbers, see you next year.

Yellow wax beans

2008-08-13T17:18:00.005-04:00

We are getting some of the very first snap beans harvested. To me this is certainly something to celebrate. As I mentioned before growing snap beans (green beans) at our community garden is one of the biggest challenge because Mexican bean beetle damage is so severe. Many people have stopped growing it all together. I also had my worries but I am happy that it worked out at the end.

I definitely recommend planting seeds late for the snap beans, at least a week or two after the last frost date and using row cover right after the seedling is thinned. I like to stick a short pole in the middle of the growing area so the row cover forms like a tent over the seedling. They would have to be covered like that for most of the growing period so they need room to grow under the cover.

I would uncover it every time I was at the site, while I am working so whatever heat and moisture built up would evaporate little bit plus they can get stronger sunlight that way. The row cover is very light weight and porous so they let a lot of air and sunlight through but they are not perfect. I cover it back when I leave. You'll still get some damage but it is very minimal that it doesn't affect the production. This is more realistic goal.

I'd permanently remove the cover once all the plant develops good number of flowers. I initially planned on keeping it covered all the way, but it didn't work. The flowers just dropped and it didn't form any beans.

Once the cover is removed you have to check for the bugs and eggs every day, especially look underside of the leaves, that's their favorite spot.

I think this is a good example of what I learned the most this year in gardening. Don't believe what others say what you can't grow unless you actually try it. Not because it's untrue but because it's only partially true. There are somethings that you might not get as good of a crop depending on where you grow. And some might not really worth growing depending on your situation. For example I came to the conclusion that growing melon in my situation might not be the most productive thing because I only ended up with couple that might be OK and it takes up a huge amount of space. But that's not to say that I can't grow.

Many people have said that we couldn't grow snap beans at the plot but with some technique and minor effort we can grow beautiful snap beans. If I just didn't try I would've never known.

This is not really some corny lesson on merely not to give up until you try. I think it to me is more of a valuable gardening lesson of how much of individual experience matters over the general opinion. General opinion, knowledge and rules gives you a good starting point - you gotta start from somewhere. It's good for that but after that it really boils down to the very unique experience between the plant genetics (are your seeds has good genes to begin with?) and physics and chemistry of the soil ( is your soil have good balance of chemistry and structure?) and your own growing practice and understanding of the growing situation you've got. ( everything else that you do and don't in the garden)

It is always on going process, it is always imperfect, but it is always whole. Surprisingly there are lots of room for personal expression and interpretation even though it's a total work of science. So much of it is unknown. So I mean it. You never know until you try and you might just figure out some good way to make it work.

Bird pic. update

2008-08-10T17:25:00.002-04:00

The bird laid four eggs and only three hatched. I don't know what happened to the fourth one. Nothing happened. I had my doubt but it would've been very nice to see all four of them hatched. Still three is a crowd up in their home. They are growing very fast and looking more like a proper bird by day. When they were born it was basically naked looking like a little mouse and next couple of days it started to grow downs over their body. Right now, It's hard to say but their eyes are completely open and they are over all getting darker and it looks like some are turning in to feather, especially on their wings you can see the structures of feather.

It is funny how they are getting more self conscious, well in a way, now they opened their eyes. When they were first being born when I peeked in to their nest they thought I was their mother so they started cry. Now they make noises all the time except when I peek at their nest - they stop and just stare at me. They know I am something else that's foreign, definitely not their mom.

Another baby bird picture

2008-08-06T22:22:00.004-04:00

More garden pictures

2008-08-06T21:57:00.005-04:00

It is kind of strange to me how a lot of things in my garden takes long time to mature. It is quite the mystery to me. For example the corn I planted is supposed to take only 50 days and grow up to be only 3-4 feet because they are miniature. Well, It's been about 60 month and it's now starting to flower. And to my surprise they are about 6 - 7 feet tall. I was actually relieved to see the beard coming out a few days ago because it really didn't look like it was gonna fruit. It could still fail but I am happy to see at least it's trying. It's like that with carrots, melons, tomatoes and I have no idea what's taking them so long. I don't know, maybe it's a good thing because aren't good things supposed to take long? you can't rush things and all that. I'll take it as a good sign.

Corn starting to fruit finally

Green beans just starting to fruit, they are only about an inch long now

Jalapeno peppers are abundant and they are keep fruiting

Deer repellant

2008-08-05T17:12:00.006-04:00

I have seen deer tracks on my plot couple of times and found my swiss chard being munched before. Often times I've also talk to many neighbors in the garden who had their tomatoes ripped by them. Deers have never been a big problem in my plot until a couple of days ago. One day I came to the plot and found like 5 tomatoes on the ground some half eaten some just teeth marks. I thought, oh, this sucks. I would have actually felt better if they finished them , but most of it they just took a bite and left it there so I couldn't even have it. It is definitely deer damage because there are tracks all over my newly sown lettuce patch. This is probably where they came in, only wide open space in my plot without any obstacle or big plants. This might have been like a 4th time I've seen deer track in my plot so I thought oh, well, it's only 4th time out of the whole summer, it's not too bad, maybe they won't come back for a while. So I bite the loss and let it go even though they destroyed the very first ripening tomatoes of the season. They've got to it before I did but I have more so it sucks, but it's OK.

The next day I get to the garden and I find like 10 tomatoes all destroyed on the ground by a deer, the deer, who knows - I found new tracks on the same lettuce plot. This is not OK, this is not gonna be OK. 2 days in a row, same place, more damage. Also it's deer, they carry deer tick. Something desperately needs to be done. I like deers, for that matter I love all animals and I'd like to be friend with all. Quite frankly my whole garden philosophy is it's OK to share some with them. I accept that as a part of gardening. But I am not crazy to think that it's OK to give all of it to them because I feel bad. I am neither that emotional nor could afford the luxury. I don't grow vegetables just for fun. I essentially grow them to eat. I spent a lot of hours and effort to have it going plus money.

The tomatoes are just begging to ripen for the season. If I don't do anything about it the damage would just get more severe because there will be more ripen sweet and juicy ones.

Plus they like to come back to the same spot over and over. That's why it's so important to remove all the damaged vegetables and clean the pick up the poops if you see them.

Initially I didn't really planning on using repellent because I normally try not to use any product if I don't have to and I am always suspicious if it's just a scam and they just wanna make money. I was planning on putting some net up or something like that like a cage although it would be pretty pain in the ass trying to get harvest tomatoes each time. So we go to a nursery. I always go to American Plant in Bethesda, MD unless I feel exceptionally lazy because they are really the best nursery around in DC - they have quality plants and most staffs are very nice for one thing but many are actually knowledgeable in gardening. And instead of netting I got some organic deer repellent because one of the staff recommended it to us. He was pretty skeptical about netting only and he seem to know more than I do about deer problem so his recommendation is better way to go.

I don't know how other repellents are made of, but the one I bought was 'dried blood' that is granulated. Wha????? that's what I thought first. This is kind of spooky and gruesome to some people but I know a lot of organic fertilizer contains dried blood and I get over things like this pretty fast. I think the way it works is that the deer can smell it and it makes them think there's been a predator so they avoid the area.

I would have never thought I'd do this but I had to first sprinkle them around the plot on the walk ways, so they don't wanna come in at all. Then we built the little temporary fence next to the lettuce patch to discourage them from entering that way. I also made number of saches with cheese cloths that contains the repellent and some strands of my hair and hang them in couple of places around the plot. While I was cutting my hairs off with garden knife and making those little sacks it felt so funny because all I needed was some incantation to go along with it. My friend Jen also suggested cat hairs, so I added that to some.

I must say I was pretty skeptical of the whole thing but they haven't come back last two days and we got 4 beautiful first tomatoes so I am very satisfied with my little witch craft experiment so far.

Farmer's market sunday lunch

2008-08-03T19:55:00.002-04:00

I didn't really wanna get up early today. I've never been a morning person in my whole life and I still hate having to get up early in the morning when I need to. Despite my need to catch up sleep from last night - I only slept spotty 5 hours- I dragged myself out of the bed and made myself a quick breakfast and headed out to the Dupont Circle farmer's market.

Now, I love farmer's market because I can get really good produces and fruits but I don't really enjoy the whole shopping experience at the farmer's market. I know people get really excited about it- it's outdoor, you get to meet the farmers, you run into people you know, etc, etc... Many people treat it as some sort of a hang out institution, the way to spend the weekend morning, the life style.

I can really care less about all that. It's hot, it's really crowded, people walk really slow and stop in the middle of the walk way while talking - couldn't bother to have courtesy to step aside for others to pass.

I go there simply because I have to, otherwise where the hell would I get summer fruits?

I had something like a mission today. The watermelon season has started if I don't get one today I'll have to wait for a week and since the season is so short I need to make the best of it.

My favorite orchard grows yellow watermelon ( I suspect it's 'Yellow Doll', I could be wrong) and they are truly heavenly. This is the first week they are in the market and it's worth all the annoyance of getting up early.

The best thing about liking food, liking cooking for me is that I really get to enjoy and appreciate the all four seasons. This is a total cliche I admit, I am not the first person saying this but I guess cliche also exist because they are true. Certain season just brings out the best of certain food, the kind of cooking ( or is it the other way around?) Japanese cuisine achieves the highest form of this idea (I am defiantly not talking about sushi, sushi is specialty food even in Japan), the reflection of the season in food. They take it so literally and breathtakingly. I actually mean it. It is so ritualized that it makes you really nervous to face the meal in front of you.

While this kind of rigidity in food is never my cup of tea, I like the spirit of it so I like to make the best out of the season in food when I can.

When I went to the market today I also picked up some other stuff for the lunch such as cheese and bread that I was able to make fabulous summer lunch for us. I was very happy with the outcome.

Lunch normally means some kind of sandwich for most people but not me. I rarely want a sandwich for lunch and I much prefer a real meal. So this is what I made.

* fresh mozzarella with tomatoes with basil

- This is the summer classic. Slice fresh mozzarella, stalked them with fresh basil and tomato

slice and sprinkle nice flaked salt and freshly ground pepper. Drizzle olive oil on top to finish.

* Marinated roasted red bell peppers

- Charr the whole pepper on the stove top, on the direct fire and put them in a bowl and cover for like 15 mins and more. Peel. I don't care much about the whole smoky flavor so I wash them quick under the running water. At this stage the peppers are normally still undercooked for my liking So after I clean the inside ( take the seed and stem out) and cut into thin strips I put them in the microwave and cook about 2 mins or so basically until it gets rid of the raw taste. It shouldn't be mushy. It should have a soft bite but lost raw vegetal flavor. Salt and pepper then cool completely to room temperature. When it's room temperature stir in some finely chopped garlic so just some specs would show, dash of red wine vinegar, just a touch, it shouldn't be sour, it should just brighten up. and cover them in olive oil, stir. They are ready to eat in 30 mins or longer the better. Keep them in the fridge to store but serve in room temperature.

*Sauteed corn and caramelized onion.

-Caramelizing onion is rewarding but you have to be patient. It takes about 20-30 min on a very low flame. In a sauce pan, preferably a non stick, put a pat of butter and some olive oil and throw in thinly sliced onions when it's hot. salt a little so it draws moisture out and mix and lower the flame to very low and cover. Stir occasionally and you get this glistening caramelized onion after 20-30 min depending on the flame. Take it out of the pan, put aside after it's done and in a same pan, or not, put another pat of butter and add fresh corn kernels and salt. Saute until outside is light brown, caramelized and cooked inside. This should just take a couple of minutes. Mix with caramelized onion and maybe a dash of balsamic vinegar to brighten up and chopped thyme if you got it but no big deal if you don't. This also makes a great topping for a salad.

Some bread - I got this wonderful REAL french baguette from the bakery stand at the market.

and some olives from the fridge. It turned out to be a great summer lunch that's not so heart wrenching.

Deer

2008-08-02T15:31:00.002-04:00

Seeing deer is so common in America so It might not feel special but growing up in Korea, the only place you ever saw it was at the zoo, I still am amazed to see it. We live by the Rock Creek Park so when I look out the window you see the lawn and the woods and deers are the most common animal you see besides , of course, squirrel. Many days I see a doe and a fawn feeding, sometimes the whole group, sometimes a buck. I've been trying to take a decent picture of them for number of years. Surprisingly it's really hard to do that because they are very, um... I forgot the word, they run away if you get closer. So even with the zoom I have in my camera it's been just hard to get a good picture. This is not a close up, but I think it's a very beautiful picture.

Baby birds

2008-08-02T15:30:00.002-04:00

It's not really a good picture so I might post a different one instead if I manage to get one but I just couldn't help posting anyway because I am so excited. The first two chicks are born today. They are not the cuddliest looking little ones in the world but no doubt they are amazing.

I expect next one(s) to be born sometime tonight or tomorrow. They look so strange and vulnerable. They haven't open their eyes yet but their sense is so acute that they start crying and opening their mouth for food when I check upon there. It is incredible to witness the whole thing first hand.

Garden update pictures cont.

2008-07-28T14:01:00.007-04:00

Melon

Eggplant

We found couple of melons and eggplant fruits are setting few days ago. The news is especially exciting because I have always been kind of nervous about growing melon because it's not something many people grow in their garden. I still have very little idea how to grow or manage them. I almost didn't plant them for number of reason but I am happy that probably I am richer in knowledge having done it. It could still fail, but all the same I know somethings now than nothing.

I was hesitant about growing melons mainly because of the space I got. Melons are like pumpkins, they spread over a huge amount of space and from what I read and you only get very few fruits. Given the fact that the space I had was only 3x3 maybe a little bigger, it was challenge from the start. We decided to make a big teepee and maybe have them climb over and basically that's how we set it up. Because the fruit would be hanging rather than spread on the ground we chose small fruiting kind, like a softball , 1 lb. size so it doesn't collapse on it's weight. Right now the fruit has reached about 50% of it's mature size it looks like, so it's not a done deal yet. I still don't know how it's gonna turn out. So far I found 2 of them like this and they both look good.

Eggplants weren't actually on my plan in the beginning because I don't cook much eggplant though I like them. We ended up planting 3 of them because we had some space and I wanted to utilize the space than leaving it empty. I planted 'Black Beauty' kind, it was the only kind that was left in early summer at the nursery. I'd have loved to plant 'Rosa Bianca' which is an Italian heirloom and the best tasting and textured eggplant I've had. I simply love it. The flesh is firmer so it's easier to fry and it's sweat and mild. Next year I'll keep my eyes peeled for this kind. I am sure what I planted is plenty good. I just have to make sure it doesn't get too big.

Flee beetles are the major pest problem for eggplants in our community garden. They are these tiny little black beetles that jumps when disturbed, hence the name. They make tiny holes on leaves and the damage could be devastating. I've seen really bad case that it stunts the plant's growth. I get these on my plants, I have tons of holes on the leaves but luckily the amount of damage that I got so far doesn't seem to affect the plant, so I just squash them when I see them and that's pretty much all I do.

More garden update pictures

2008-07-27T14:07:00.008-04:00

Lots of basil

Green Peppers, I should have planted more

Snap Beans, I finally decided remove the row cover we'll see how it does

Lebanese Squash, I found this fruiting just today

I am so excited to see these finally fruiting especially since I grew them from seeds myself, except peppers ( I need to have a cold frame or something like that if I need to grow it from seeds)

One thing that worries me the most is of course, the snap beans. I might have mentioned it here. It's very hard, nearly impossible to grow snap beans here at our community garden because the Mexican Been Beetle damage is so severe. I am not kidding, everyone who's growing beans have been hit by this little critters and all that they have left is skeleton of leaves. It's that bad. There seems to be not a good way to prevent or cope with this organically. They produce several generations over the growing season which means there will always be a problem.

My strategy has been to protect them with row cover and it's been fine till now. I was really hoping I'd not have to uncover it ever but I think I might need to if I want to actually get the beans to eat. I have a hunch that somehow the row cover might be in the way of it fruiting. I've seen many blooms on the plants and they've been keep shriveling off, so may be the cover is building up too much heat for the blooms? This is purely a hunch but I'll have to try something. This means we have to be very vigilant about inspecting the leaves, and hopefully destroy eggs that it may lay. That would be the easiest way to deal with it.

I regret that I didn't plant more green pepper plant this year. I planted only one because I'm not a big green pepper eater but I forgot all about the red peppers. Green ones would turn red later. I love marinated roasted red bell peppers. You char them over the stove top and peel and cut into strips and put them in a jar with chopped garlic, olive oils and stick it in the fridge. They'll be ready to eat in a few days. It is great room temperature on grilled bread, they are good in numerous pastas.... glass of chilled white wine with simple salad and some olives, goat cheese sprinkle with some fresh thyme maybe. So summery, so delicious. Ah, next year I will defiantly plant more.

Garden plot now

2008-07-19T17:04:00.003-04:00

We are in the middle of growing season, and I think it's cool to see how much we've come in our garden plot. I loose sleep just thinking about it at night because I get so excited.
Early May

Mid July

Bird eggs

2008-07-19T16:46:00.002-04:00

I am really surprised to find the fourth egg in the nest today. She's been laying one egg a day and when I saw the third one the other day, I was quite happy to know that it would be a great year to raise young ones because that's how many eggs the bird laid last time. I couldn't believe there's a fourth one this year. The biggest reason for my surprise is that the nest is quite small. When there were three little ones, they eventually ran out of the room towards the end of their stay so they all started pouring out of the nest so I can't imagine how four little ones would fit there.

They might not all hatch, that's a possibility, but I really hope that they do. It's gonna be a lot of work for the couple to feed all those hungry, hungry chicks for sure.

Nest building in progress

2008-07-19T15:35:00.003-04:00

They start by scooping some soils out

after 2 days it's nearly complete, still a little shabby

A day more or two, it's completely done, it only takes about a week or less

Cucumbers

2008-07-18T22:43:00.002-04:00

Dave took this beautiful picture of cucumbers ready to be harvested. As we predicted before cucumbers are abundant this year. We've been harvesting couple of them everyday or two - good thing they don't seem to ripen all at the same time - I wouldn't know what to do with it. It is crazy how fast they ripen. They are delicious and juicy just perfect for the very hot summer.

Wren couples are back

2008-07-18T21:58:00.003-04:00

This may look like an ordinary hanging plant but look inside, there is a wonderfully amazing thing happening.

I am happy to announce that we are hosting a family of House Wren for the third time.

Couple of years ago, I put a Fuchsia hanging basket in my balcony and to my great surprise a Wren couple nested in there and raised 2 little ones. Next year I bought another fuchsia hanging basket, brand new because they don't over winter, another couple moved in, built another nest - I don't know if they are the same one or different one or the descendants of anyone- this time they raised 3 little ones. Last year, I put another new one out, I saw another couple checking it out but maybe it wasn't quite what they were looking for, they never built home there.

Just when I was wondering if we'll see any of them again, one early morning about a week ago, we were awoken by loud bird noises right outside our window, and there they were, a couple were busily flying in and out of this years hanging basket calling each other.

This year it must have been exactly to their liking they started to build a nest. This is really exciting for us although it also means early waking up loud bird calls and no more balcony for our cat. We'll manage. It is very special opportunity for us to witness and document the whole process once again beginning to the very end, as little intrusion as possible, of course.

Not On My Watch

2008-07-16T19:24:00.007-04:00

Today Dave wrote the Chronicle!

It should not come as a surprise that Suzi is the more experienced gardener of the two of us. Often, when we get to the plot to do some work, I will see something interesting (say, a pair of butterflies getting amorous on one of our cucumber leaves, which will inevitably lead to the laying of butterfly eggs, which will turn into caterpillars, who will eat all of our plants) and just sort stare at it for a long time. Eventually, Suzi will notice and tell me something useful I can do (like shoo away the butterflies). Still and all, every once in a while something catches my eye that causes me to spring into action.

You've already read about the teepees I built. They are my crowning architectural achievement, so, naturally, I keep a close eye on them. One day in early June (I know, I know), a little visitor showed up:

Uninvited Guest

The bamboo stakes I used have a little hole in the end just the right size for a solitary wasp to move in and set up a home. In fact, there were a few of them bickering over who got to live there. Technically, there was enough room for four wasps to each have their own nest, but I'm not sure how into neighbors wasps are. In any case, the wasp's plan was clear: lay an egg, seal up the whole, get lunch at a local bistro, forget about the egg until it hatches and stings Dave to death.

A strange thing about keeping the garden: I simultaneously have a greater respect for living things and a much easier time killing them. One of my regular chores is to find and crush squash beetles. One day, I killed so many that I stopped bothering to put them on a rock and step on them, and started just crushing them between my (bare, powerful) fingers. Even so, I've seen too many documentaries about wasps to think of them as anything but these terrifying little miracles that are a testament to trickery and survival at any cost. And now here one is. Trying to set up camp in my garden. For the first time in my life, I felt as if my own survival were being openly and directly challenged by another living creature, and damn it, I was going to win. I have never had such a pure feeling of wanting to come out on top as I did that day. This must be what it feels like to be the kind of man that men are often accused of being: single-minded, selfish, bent on being the best at the expense of others. It feels pretty good. Sort of terrifying, but good.

A problem like this could not be solved by mere brute force. Wasps can fight back. They are not squash beetles. This was to be a battle of wits. I had to find a way to outsmart a wasp. Two wasps, if you count the other one trying to get the spot.

My first impulse was tape, but this was a terrible idea. Tape would get wet in the rain, stop sticking, fall off. Besides, a wasp could easily lift the tape out of the way. And there certainly wasn't time for this. The wasp was settling in now. This problem could not wait until tomorrow when I could come back with modern supplies. No, a more primitive solution was called for: a stick.

I searched around until I found a twig of just the right size to plug the hole. Then three more twigs to plug the other holes. The stick would be too heavy and wedged in too tight for the wasp to move it, and it would last as long as the bamboo, so there was no danger of the hole opening back up to make room for other tenants.

The wasp spent a long time in the bamboo, and I began to worry that it would not fly away any time soon. I knew it was in there. I could plug up the hole with it stuck inside. It would be trapped, and I would be victorious. It would haunt me for a long time. I would think of myself as a man who was capable of trapping a wasp in a stick of bamboo and waiting for it to starve or suffocate. Luckily, it came out and flew away. I quickly plugged the hole, and I was saved. The wasp returned and tried to get back in, and could not. If a wasp could be frantic, this wasp was frantic. I did not kill this wasp, but I may have killed its young and I destroyed its home. I can live with that, because it is still just a wasp.

Baby fruits

2008-07-06T16:09:00.003-04:00

Some of the fruits are finally setting. Crossing my fingers and hope for the best. Peppers are completely recovered from yellowing - Nitrogen Deficiency

Everyday is an exciting day in the garden, never the dull moment. There's always something going on. Especially when the fruits are setting it is the most exciting days.

White cucumbers

Cucumber flowers. There's gonna be lots of cucumbers

Korean peppers

Tomatoes

Borage flowers, I think it's one of the most beautiful flowers.

Kenilworth Aquatic Garden cont.

2008-07-06T16:01:00.004-04:00

Here are some water lily pictures.

Kenilworth Aquatic Garden

2008-07-04T21:42:00.004-04:00

I have mentioned on the last post about Kenilworth Aquatic Garden. Like many Washingtonian I haven't been there until now although I've lived in the city for a decade. It is damn shame that I didn't. We haven't seen everything because it was getting really hot but we sure will go back.

We visited various water lily ponds, we took a walk on a board walk trail where it leads to the reclaimed Marshland. That's right, reclaimed and reconstructed because the green area you see in the picture used to be a dumping ground. And now it is restored to the land basically to what DC used to look like olden days in it's natural state. It is simply unbelievable how beautiful it must have been.

Washington DC as it would have been

It's low water level season so the plants are covered in mud. They are not dead.

Snakes

2008-07-04T20:52:00.009-04:00

We visited the Kenilworth Aquatic Garden in DC yesterday for the first time. I can't believe that this is the first time I've been there because I've been living in DC for a decade. It is one of the hidden gem in DC and I recommend it to anyone. I got some very wonderful pictures from there which I will post soon, but I just have to get theses awesome pictures out there first.

I am so excited.

We were just walking on a trail next to different ponds and one side of it was actually like a small part of a marsh. I found and told Dave "Isn't that a beaver den?" and next I realized there's a snake with the big fish on his/her mouth. It was really cool looking. Then next I see another snake coming to that one trying to steal it's fish and they fought and all went down to the lower ground. And these are the picture. I am so glad that it turned out great.

Original photo. You can see the second one coming on the upper left hand corner

Close up of the same photo, snake with the fish

Close up of it going down the stream after the fight

Freakish Radishes

2008-07-03T21:30:00.000-04:00

We have pull all the radishes out because I suspected there are something wrong with the seed source itself. While it was growing I noticed there are some unusually big plants coming out but no radish bulbs comparing to its size. First I thought it must be just couple of seed that got mixed- it can't all be perfect, but after pulling number of them more, it confirmed, the seeds that I got must have been all cross pollinated or something like that. I am not sure.

This is what Plum purple radishes are supposed to look like and see how mine came out.

Freakish, I say. I'll try again this fall. with different seed source of course. One thing I didn't know about radishes are they turn quickly from good tasting to bad while growing. That's what one source say. Well, you learn everyday.

We all love vegetables

2008-07-03T21:15:00.000-04:00

The summer is in full swing and vegetables are really taking off. Fortunately we haven't had major failure except Sugar snap peas. I wouldn't say it's a failure because I kind of expected this to happened, but all the same, we had to pull them out. Sugar snaps are cool season crop which means that they like cool weather and need to be planted while there's still danger of frost . I planted mine after the Last Frost Date around the begging of May. So I was very late to plant them and what happened was that by mid June and because of the heat it started to flower and start dying before it grew up to the certain size. It could have bore some peas but it would have not been really worth it because it would have taken up the space and I could grow something else.

This is not really bad because now I have planted some zucchini seeds which I really wanted to grow and bought seeds but gave up growing because I didn't have space for it. I don't know if the space I gave it would be enough - they takes up alot of space - but I'll just give it a try.

I had to cover the seedlings with the floating row cover. That's what you are seeing in the picture. The reason is because squash beetles are really rampant right now at the garden munching on everyone's zucchini so I think this will give good protection while it's growing. I am not too worried once it grows big enough to recover from the damage.

They are actually really pretty, I'd even say cute, but they do like to munch on leaves of vegetables in curcubit family - cucumbers, squash, zucchini, melons, etc. Surprisingly it it hasn't touch my cucumber plants and it is strange because they look so luscious. Maybe they are too busy munching on other people's big zucchini leaves. Hopefully by the time mine grows big it's peak activities are over.

I'd say I am pretty soft on the pest. I don't go nuts when I see holes in leaves. I even managed to keep it cool after discovering all the green bean seedlings' heads wore chopped off. I quietly hoped it'll recover from the damage when it seemed very unlikely and it did.

My attitude is somewhat like 'if it's looks good for me to eat everyone else must want eat, too.'

I somehow find thinking this way sort of makes me not be a super stressed out angry gardener . Sure I don't like my plants getting dismantled by bugs because I am in it for reward and I can't let all my toils go straight down to the garbage bag. I am just saying that damage can be somewhat managed with precaution and prevention and maybe I might lose the whole crop, which a lot of people do, even then it's not the end of the world - I am not a horrible gardener - just get that from a store.

The good thing about pests are normally, They all have life cycle. They don't have high activities throughout the whole season, most of them anyway. Depends on bugs it's high activity last for a while then they sort of comes down. You just wanna protect them during that time, especially if they are young - they have smaller sizes and number of leaves thus slower recovery or not at all. Another good option is to grow more heirloom vegetables. They have been around for a very long time generation after generation. So it probably means if it lasted this long, pest and disease probably isn't the major problem. This is not always true but I think it's sort of testimony through time and I guess I'll know when the years over. I don't really know much about hybrid vegetables because I am more interested in growing Heirloom varieties but they sometimes are bred to have pretty good resistance certain diseases.

It is amazing to think that to how these bugs and disease have their preference, knowing which one they are more attracted to. It really is beyond our human eyes and senses.

There are only three method I'd ever consider using if I have to deal with it.

First, squash them with your finger. This make many people feel uneasy but it is the best method if you have to get rid of them because you squash and it's over. You don't have to deal with insecticide, which by the way is very expensive and may not be that useful to some bugs anyway. Even if it's organic it doesn't mean it's always safe. You still have to use it with caution because some are basically poison. And come on, if you are willing to kill bugs with insecticide you can kill it with your finger. You really have to get over it if you are gonna garden.

Second, if must, I make my own soapy water. I know there are recipes out there using dish detergent. I advise against it, it's more likely to burn the leaves. So I only use castile soap which you could buy at the health food store. Mix 1-2 tablespoon of castile soap with 1 qt. of water in a spray bottle and you are set to go. This will kill soft bodied insect like aphids, but pretty useless for hard bodied insects like beetles. I've only used it against aphids. It is not permanent solution. It'll only kill in direct contact while it's wet so it only works for like an hour. I think you could add horticultural oil to it to make it more effective.

Third, This is my favorite. use floating row cover as I did with my zucchini and green bean. It gives physical barrier between the plant and the bugs while it lets the water and sunlight in.

It is a loosing battle fighting bugs. There are just way the heck more of them than us. Sometimes I feel like the world belongs more to them than us, mathematically speaking.

And I am very greatful that they have been very good to me so far.

Pepper recovery

2008-07-01T10:34:00.008-04:00

This is really the first time that I am growing vegetables seriously. I am much more used to doing a lot more perennial gardening - meaning flower gardening. When I first started to grow vegetable here I treated it like any other flower gardening but stunted growth and yellowing leaves in peppers made me realize that I am not doing something right.

I knew right off it's not physical thing. I have aerated soil before planting with compost and the soil is very good, loamy so it has very good drainage. It's situated in full sun. There isn't any reason why it shouldn't grow. It was really puzzling in the beginning. Then I realized there was couple of things that I did and didn't do that might have caused trouble.

First, I have put down the wood mulch. Second, I may not be fertilizing properly. maybe too little. Wood mulch- I used wood mulch because that's what you normally use for plants and I put it down thinking that it'll rot and add nutrition back to the soil - which is true. What I didn't think of is that how much impact it'll have to a vegetable plant while it breaks down. When organic material breaks down they need nitrogen and they rob nitrogen from soil and put it back after they decomposed. Normally this isn't much problem in perennials and shrubs because they don't require much food. But it turns out it is a problem in vegetable plants because they are normally heavy feeders. So I think that the wood mulch was really sucking up all the nutrition from the soil.

That brings me to the second problem. Again, my practice was really coming from the years of growing flowers. Flowers really don't need to be fertilized much. maybe once or twice of year is enough. I have gone the whole year without any and they grew and bloom beautifully. Actually it's not good to fertilize flowers or shrubs much because they make them grow too well, too much - they get too big and they start flopping, falling. Also they make the plant too rush that it looks very attractive to bugs.

It may make the plants actually weaker because fertilizing is like food or steroid. When things grow too fast, too well normally it grows out of proportion -weak roots, tops heavy kind of thing, so roots have hard time supporting the top. This is why when you buy seedlings of plants at a nursery, you see them in bloom often times but have very small, poor root structure when you try to plant them.

All the nurseries use tons of chemical fertilizers to grow those seedlings so they look attractive to buyers - People are more likely to buy plants with flowers than just greens. And many times those plants would just sit in the grown and not grow for a long time and often time drop flowers and you wonder what's wrong. Of course they'll loose blooms because their roots can't support the blooms any more because home gardeners don't normally fertilize like the industry. So with only water it has to drop blooms. They take up most energy and start redirecting all their energy to grow roots like the nature intend it to do. They start growing roots and it looks like it's not growing for a long time above the ground level. It looks like it's just sitting there. When impatient gardener start worrying and start fertilizing and spray pesticides and over water and all that stuff It just makes the matter worst and now the plant really died.

Pepper plant recovering from yellowing

I have gone little bit off the track here but the point is unlike this example, my problem was fertilizing too little. I have always been against fertilizing unless I have to. So I guess this is one of the occasion I had to. I thought it would be enough to give some fish and seaweed fertilizer once a month or something like that, but I was completely wrong. They need lots of food, more than what I thought anyway because they started to come back to life when I removed the wood mulch and started fertilize once a week with fish and seaweed liquid with extra slow release ones like Planton on the ground. Of course over fertilizing is still big no -no, because all the things that I mentioned above still applies to vegetables.

This really made me feel like I am 'cultivating'. Most vegetables that we eat is as developed as something like buildings that we see around. They have been carefully selected and bred to bear more and more fruits, bigger fruits, resistance to certain disease and thousands new ones come out each year, slightly different to the next.

Most vegetables have their wild cousins and you can still find many of them in nature. Fruits are much smaller , spares, but self sustaining in their environment - they don't need any one's care. I enjoy cultivating these vegetables regardless it's irony, it's interesting, it's scientific and the reward is nothing you can compare to. But when I see all those wild raspberries at the Rock Creek Park, I can't help but feeling these unexplainable wonder, among those trees, full of vicious thorns and small tiny berries that are hard to get to, and how long way it's traveled.

Garden photos

2008-07-01T10:26:00.003-04:00

These are some of the progress in the garden now.

Rainbow Chard

Corn- Blue Jade

Cucumber- Miniature White

Lettuce

First Harvest

2008-06-18T14:32:00.002-04:00

Some of the quick growing vegetables like radish and lettuce are ready to be harvested.

I don't know what lettuce it is because it is given by one of my neighbour. He said it's one of the butterhead type but I think it's some kind of Romain lettuce. Nevertheless it taste good. The empty spot would be filled by another lettuce called 'Marvel of Four Season'. Lettuce is one of the easiest thing to grow. If anyone is thinking about starting to grow vegetable and unsure if they can do it or not. This is where you start. You can even do it in a pot very easily. It doesn't need full sun so it can be grown on the shady spot.

Something I learned about radish is that you never wanna harvest under size ones. I pulled three and they were different sizes. I thought they'll taste the same but I was completely wrong. The smaller it was the spicier it got. I couldn't even taste the smallest one because it was so spicy, I felt like it was burning my whole mouth and it really hurt. The larger one was what it was supposed to taste like- mild and sweet ( I planted Plum Purple) . Radishes are one of the easiest thing to grow and the fastest. If you are only used to the store bought red ones, try something else like 'Plum Purple' . You'll realize it's far more superior tasting than the red ones which is kind of bland and that's why you never think about eating one. Plum Purple is very sweat and delicious. I once tried the 'French Breakfast' I know it's a big deal in France. I might appreciate more if I was french or used to French food but honestly I didn't enjoy much. It was little too spicy for me. I like spicy food, but I am just not used to radish spiciness which is different from pepper spiciness. Maybe I'll love it more if I get used to it more.

Long Beach, Long Island

2008-06-17T10:48:00.005-04:00

We just got back from a wedding in Long Island. Although the wedding was very lovely and turned out to be once in a life time kind of entertainment experience, I found the Long Island be very odd place to be. The beach was nice, and we had pretty good time at the beach, but there's certainly weird vibe to the whole place, we kind of felt out of place.

OK, to be fare, I say this about the Long Beach, I heard that it gets better as you drive more to East although I don't really know what that means.

It's not just merciless developments that bothers me because I'm used to place like the Outer Banks or the Ocean City, that shouldn't come as surprise. What's odd about it is that it actually seems to be a regular city with a huge permanent resident population as opposed to place like the Outer Banks and Ocean city where most people are vacationers and the place gets pretty empty off season. That some how feels like it should be a better place to be because they are the 'locals' and the word is always used to refer to something good - they know what's up or the place have distinctive character.

What surprised me was how little character the city had. It pretty much felt like any town USA but it happened to be by the beach. So you don't realize you are at the beach half of times although our hotel room looked out to the sea over a block.

People are supposedly pretty rich because I saw a number of private beach clubs but that just made me feel uncomfortable because it's just heck tacky.

Dave described people at the beach and the town as relaxing with certain aggressiveness. I think this sums it all up. Maybe it's the 'New York ' thing and maybe I just don't like it.

When I was growing up we used to go to a beach during summer vacation every year. We always went to kind of developed ones because we were no camping sort of people and we had to find lodging. In those days although we stayed in a building - sometime a motel sometimes upstairs room of a restaurant people rent out, my mom had to cook, we might eat out couple of times but we always eat like we were camping, that's what people did, nobody could afford to eat out all the time.

We always went to a small village dock/ fish market because every village had one because if you lived by the sea you were a fisherman. We spent every morning buying fresh fish from a fisherman's wife selling the fish in front of their boat and my mom would cook. Sometimes they'll cut the fish right up and we'd have instant sashimi ( raw fish ) as breakfast. Sometimes if we happen to be playing in the water where clams were living under the sand, we'd dive right in and gathered clams. If we were lucky we ended up with plastic bagful and we'd cook them up right on the sand and that was lunch.

Me and my sister spent countless hours gathering seashells, attempt to dry couple of star fishes and stink up the whole car because they don't get fully dried in couple of days, we poked around sea anemones on rocks and watch the tentacles get sucked in, picked up sea urchins and watch my dad eating one, well, you eat the row - we couldn't get over the prickliness.

Going to a beach always brings all these memories back. I keep wanting for the things to be the way it was and I'll have the happiest time in my life as I used to and nothing else matters. I hate the feeling of being a grown up and becoming more and more conscious about myself and my surroundings, especially times like this, when my heart turns into that little kid but my head still has eyes of a grown up. But somewhere in there I am also very happy to find these among the tubby men, leathery women, shopping mall, mini golf and seaside condos.

Tomato scare

2008-06-11T17:02:00.002-04:00

Many people might not realize how bizarre the recent tomato salmonella outbreak is because we are so desensitized by occasional reports of these kind of incidents time to time. Last time it was the spinach E.coli, this time it's the tomatoes. Then the news gets to be replaced by something else and we go on with our lives and we'll have a good scare in a near future about some other produce with some other problem - meat or vegetable ( vegetables are not any more safer than meat these days, who would have thought)

This is a guarantee, it's not some freak accident that will never happen because in fact these reports happen all the time, we just don't hear about it all the time. While we go on with our daily lives the problem remains.

While I was trying to get some sense of what is going on and why, I couldn't believe how no one is talking about why it happened. This is the only sort of explanation I was able to find.

I mean, salmonella bacteria, which essentially is found in animal feces is found inside of vegetables nationwide. How did it get there, Wouldn't you think it's the most peculiar and demands answer? This is highly abnormal. Wouldn't you wanna know why? I know I do. Everyone says they don't really know. BALONEY. These people spend their whole life studying these cases. Of course they know. You don't have to be a specialist to figure out why. It's either the land it's infected with the pathogen so it entered while the plant is growing in the field, or it happens while it's getting transported one place to the other. In other word, until they arrive to our plates. So it's either there's a huge problem with the farming practice or a huge problem with the distribution of the vegetables. Either way you look at it, it's a huge problem with this kind of factory, conventional farming and the way of doing it's business. Properly grown, handled produces, meat or vegetable shouldn't have these kind of problem all the time. It's no secret. Once again we are not talking about the real problem.

Sometime I am so dissatisfied by the way the world work. How most people don't give a shit about anything unless they put some money in their own pocket at any cost.

Who wants to eat garbage?

2008-06-10T23:13:00.006-04:00

As a citizen of one of a small, powerless country in the world, I am deeply angered and sadden by the whole beef free trade deal with the US. But at the same time it's my proudest moment to hear the news of monumental protest that's happening right now in Korea.

Here's the summery of it. With the breakout of the Mad Cow disease from the US in 2003, Korea has banned it's really cheap beef import- beef is traditionally the most expensive meat in Korea because we don't have much land. I am not sure if it's just from the US or the rest of the world. Then the new president reached agreement with the US to start importing beef again. This angered many citizen and it reached the point that thousands of people are protesting, rallying as I write this right now and it's becoming so serious that tones of the new cabinet members are stepping down. Here's more comprehensive article. and another one.

This has so many layers of problem written all over it. I am actually quite overwhelmed even started to talk about it. Many ignorant people would said "What's the big deal? We eat those cows and we are fine. Oh, that mad cow disease, it's really rare. you are just being paranoid. Why wouldn't they want to get beef cheaper? They are just being a protectionist towards their farmers, too."

I got lots to say to that. First of all, the Korean people don't want it. End of the story. You can't force it down upon the people. We have a word for that. It's call 'bullying' - doesn't matter how likely or unlikely you'll get mad cow or not. It's besides the point.

People have different idea of the value. Quality might not be the best value many people seek when it comes down food or many other things, but most Koreans do. Cheap doesn't mean good, especially when it comes down to food and health. These days people are more than happy to pay extra money for Organic produce. This is not just for the wealthy people in Korea. Many people might not be uncomfortable to eat beef that's might have been fed with other cow parts. But to many Koreans it's equivalent of cannibalism. Doesn't wanna eat those cows even if the chances are slim. They believe cows should eat grass. This is not just Korean peoples concern, Many Americans, other people in the world are terrified by this practice.

Of course we are being protectionist. Why shouldn't we be? Of course we should protect Korean farmers. It is peoples livelihood. Thousands of farmers around the world commits suicides when things like this happens and they can't support the family anymore because they can't compete with the cheap imports. Every country has right to protect it's own people and economy. This is one of the reason why we have such global food crisis right now because those countries failed protect it's own farmers and their own farming in the face of cheap imported government subsidized foreign food. That's how you end up depending huge amount of country's food on imports. And when the supplies goes low in the exporting country, there you go, all of sudden you don't have enough food in your country. Actually this is not the main reason because the root of the problem is in the failed US farm policy - subsidies. That's why cheap imports exist to begin with. But this is the whole another story.

I understand international trade is extremely complex mechanism, it's hard to simply just point fingers at certain things. Well everything is. And fixing, dealing with anything, anyone is very difficult because one's loss is always another one's gain. The modern global world is such tangled bunch of strings where everything is connected in a one big mess. So we give up. We live with injustice and feel helpless when it happens especially if you are a citizen of a small country who doesn't have much muscle in the world community. Getting bullied by the jocks of the world becomes ordinary, way of life. This is why I am extremely proud of the Korean people to stand up and say that we are fed up and demand our own government to take responsibility and take its citizens needs seriously. This is true democracy in action. Take that.

Strawberry picking

2008-06-05T17:29:00.004-04:00

More and more years go by living in America I realize that there isn't a good way to get great tasting fruits anywhere. I am used to have huge consumption of absolutely delicious fresh fruits just around the corner growing up. We eat fruits as snacks and dessert, throughout the whole day, everyday, anytime, so you can imagine how important it is to have really great ones.

We used to run down to a fruit store more like a stall around the corner and got whatever was in season really cheap. Fruit wasn't a kind of thing you bought in a Supermarket. That was the sign of getting mediocre, and expensive fruits. Oh, no you can't trust them.

Everyone got their fruit from a neighbourhood stall. I used to get like 2o small clementines for a dollar and sat in front of the TV finishing the whole bag in the winter under the blanket. It was like that whole year - Strawberries in spring, watermelons, grapes and peaches in summer, apple and pears for fall. The most remarkable thing was that it was they were almost always great. Sweet and juicy as it should be. This didn't happen because I lived in a land where it magically grew, it happened because these stall owners had to get up every morning at the crack of dawn and go to a whole sale market or auction. They had to taste the batch they are planning on buying. They had to get the very best for their customer because their business purely relied on the reputation. There are a lot of stalls in a neighborhood and if you didn't have a great fruits, people just wouldn't come. And boy, people would let you know if the fruit they got wasn't tasty. It gets to the point that it is totally normal practice for the owner to cut a small part of the watermelon he's selling to a customer and the buyer would taste it and buy IF, only if it was a good watermelon.

For many years here in America my only fruit source was at the Safeway - I don't even wanna think about how horrendous most fruits are. That totally sucked. Then there was the Whole Foods opened number of years ago. Little better, but still I'd say mediocre. I am not saying these because I have some refined pallet, I am saying these because I know how tasty they can be. Last couple of years the farmers market movement really took off as this viable thing and ever since then my life as a fruit consumer has dramatically improved. They don't all have great fruits sadly, but most stalls sell great tasting fruits. The only way it could get even better is if you pick it right off the plant and eat it right there and when we bought a car I knew this will be exactly what we'll be doing.

This time every year strawberries are at it's peak and we go to a farm to pick our own.

Now, this sounds like really fun, but in my opinion strawberry picking is no picnic. I mean, it could be fun in a way you are not at work and you are outside with the kids and they are having fun. Maybe some people genuinely enjoy the activity itself - I don't know the ways of others.

But to me the truth is that it is a back breaking hard work that you do it because of the reward.

You are in 85, 90 degree outside in the blazing sun, squatting in a tiny row because they are all on the ground, trying to get to berries through weeds ( some has thorn) and pick the decent looking one ( they are not in all great state, you have to pick through the rotten and under ripen ones). You constantly get head rushes because you've been squatting, your back hurts because you've been leaning forward.

Of course you could stop anytime you want and go home, but seriously, I didn't drive an hour to get a tiny box of strawberries. I am here to get 15, 20 pound of strawberries that I could eat as much as I want fresh and make jams for the rest of the year. So this takes about 2 hours, maybe less. It is definitely a work than fun. I have said here before. I don't get much satisfaction of hard labor. I don't have that Protestant thing in me. Hard work is hard work.

I do feel really bad for the strawberry pickers out there. How much money they could possibly make doing this is scary to me. You'll think that such protestant nation as America that values and glorifies hard labor so much would pay more for it - Just a thought.

Then why am I doing this? Well, that's simple. I do it because I love strawberries and I wanna eat lots of it. All love comes with some sacrifice and this is it. 2 hours labor, it's not really a bad deal. I was never complaining. I was just saying it like it is. One important advice - if you are picking your own, never pick the ones that's too red, in other word too good in the field. This will be an instinct but you must fight it off and get the less red ones. Because once you come inside these dark red ones will look black and they are over ripen ones and they taste bad. They just looks perfect outside because it's so bright out there. More I pick my own, more I realize the strawberries in the fields are very different from what you get from a grocery store. The strawberries that you pick are more fickle- meaning they seem to have very short period of time of having that perfect taste. So naturally not all the berries you pick would be great. some will have no taste at all. But when you eat that perfect one that made it to your box will be a heaven in a single bite.

I really can't wait till I make some glorious strawberry short cake, strawberry pavlova, maybe some pie with fresh berries, ice cream, Jam....I could really go on.

My Aunt, the plum tree

2008-05-31T17:33:00.004-04:00

Ever since I went to the National Arboretum, memory of my aunt has been on my mind so I decided to write about it. When I was walking through the Japanese garden I found this Japanese plum tree in the garden and underneath it there were all these fruits that are fallen.

The first thing that I said to Dave was " All these perfectly good food going to waste, my aunt used to make the most delicious plum tea". Now, Korean plum teas are not exactly what you think about when you think 'tea' because they are not dried, They are rather like steeped in sugar so it's more like fruit preserve and you mix them with hot or cold water and drink. We use lots of different fruits to make these fruit teas and they are all delicious. I think they are very simple to make too. I don't know the exact steps but it's basically chopping the fruits and layer it with sugars in a jar and let it steep like that for weeks or months... It's very traditional and also lost art, therefore no body makes these at home anymore unless you have a grandma.

My aunt, actually a step aunt because her mom got remarried to my grandpa, was somewhat unusual that way. She was a very good friend of my mom and had a great love for traditional Korean things. She was the reason how my mom got involved in studying a traditional tea ceremony. Together they traveled many Asian countries basically to study tea culture. She was also kind of progressive for her generation in a way that she ran some sort of organization benefiting low wage factory workers in Seoul when no one ever recognized their existence and welfare. And she made all these traditional food, that people just don't make anymore at home. In the middle of summer you make yourself a drink with her homemade plum tea, it quenches thirst like nothing else. I still dream about having one every summer, seriously.

When I was growing up in the 70s and 80s South Korea was still super fast growing developing country. The Korean War in the 50s basically destroyed the entire nation, burn to ashes, and after the war, we found new allies in the West and things start to pick up real fast. I don't say this negatively. A lot of good thing came out of it. Korea was getting modernized. Everyone said it was a miracle. But at the same time, this meant we let a lot of things go. It was never forced down up on us but the world was changing fast and we were just so eager to join the rest of the world and say we want to be a part of it. And somewhere along the line traditional things, practice, rituals, the very thing that kept the society together for 5000 years had to get chucked out real fast. Many more people bought into Christianity as opposed to keeping Buddhism or shamanism. We stopped doing elaborate rituals for our ancestors or deceased parents. More and more people stopped farming and left their small town and migrated to big cities so they can make money in hopes one day they'll visit their old village in a car, fur coat and pair of sunglasses. In modernization, people who held on to these old things were perceived as uneducated, unsophisticated and uncivilized as if they are a big embarrassment to the whole nation.

Luckily things are changing now. As people become more affluent, people naturally have time and energy to look back and actually think about the quality of life than just try to survive. People start going through identity crisis. The memory of their pristine old county stream they enjoyed so much as a child keeps coming back. The grandparent's traditional house with uneven floor heating and draft looks all of sudden like the best looking house in the world against their tiny apartment on the 13th floor. So many people are moving back to the county, mountains for the first time. Traditional things are becoming more fashionable and now it's viewed as you are cultured. More people are going to the Buddhist temples to find peace of mind although they might praise the Lord on Sundays.

It's been couple of years since my aunt passed away. Later her life her life turned somewhat sour. She went through a divorce. Her tea shop failed. Worst of all she had cancer. Final days of her life, she moved to a Buddhist temple permanently and passed away quietly, by herself.

Holding the tiny green plum in my hand I can see her great love for all the good things we had in our very unique culture, way of life and also the loss of it in the turbulence. We all enjoy many things that modernization brought us. The pluming, the medicine, the electricity, bounty of food, cars.... But sometimes I can help but feeling the distance from it all.

Our way of life have changed dramatically in such short time almost unrecognizable but we as people haven't changed much after all. We are still the same people who ran on the hill in the country side playing with beetles and catch frogs. We still have it in our stomach the best food you can ever have is the ones that you picked yourself. And we know it in our heart the morning at the Buddhist temple is much more convincing understanding of life than a Jesus Christ on a cross in a church.

I never knew my anut very well besides the things I mentioned here because I only saw her as a kid and teenager. But her death somehow made a big impression on me because I always thought she was a different kind of person. So here's the tribute to her - the big plum tree whose fruit is still on my table.

Sprouts, sprouts!

2008-05-28T20:33:00.006-04:00

Lettuce mix sprouts

Radish sprouts

Sprouts are coming up. Thanks to the warm and sunny, perfect weather we've been having some of the seeds that we planted are starting to come up. It is just amazing. They know exactly what to do when they hit that water. I don't understand it.

The most important thing now is watering. Too little will kill them, too much will kill them even faster. It the hardest to know that delicate balance.

Sugar snap sprouts

Some disappointments - Sugar snaps had pretty poor germination rate ( this is well know fact). I'd say it's about 50% in my plot. This might be due to over watering. I really thought I didn't water much but I guess they do rot that easily. So next time I'll water even less and see if that makes difference.

Due to unusually cold night temperatures we had in May, two of the tomatoes transplants are looking questionable. one definitely, other one maybe. Tomatoes really can't take much cold and sometime their leaves turn yellow, get stunted in growth. These might be slow to recover if at all. They are not dead, but it might be wiser to just pull them out and replace them with a new plant. I heard my CSA farmer actually lost his tomato plants - (sorry to hear that, Randy)

Munching on the radish sprouts

The more I garden, I realize that it is all part of it - the loss and the bounty. It is hard learn lesson that you will always loose some. Some will fail, some will surprise you like nothing else by thriving over your expectation. I really don't know what will happen tomorrow when I get to my garden.

National Arboretum

2008-05-26T17:11:00.004-04:00

National Arboretum is one of the place that I really enjoy going. It's quiet, spacious, lots of interesting plants... it is quite amazing that place like this even exist in place like DC.

It is a vast amout of land that is dedicated to education and agricultural scientific research.

Just like most gardens out there, the place is divided into different exhibition - Asian, Fern, Azalea, dogwood, herb, perennials etc... it even has a youth garden. One of the exhibiton that makes it kind of special is that they have a big Bonsai collection.

Japanese white pine since 1625

Most people look at bonsai with such a marvel, wonder and awe. There is really nothing you can compare to when you look at a bonsai. There's certain magical quality to it - sort of ' I can't believe what I am looking at, how it's possible' kind of feeling. Now I get that, being a grown up and so far from my native culture. I didn't always see it that way, because ironically I grew up with tons of them in my house. I never thought they were something special. They have always been there as long as I remember, and the very same ones are still there now.

My mom's been doing bonsai ever since I was born, that make it over 30 years. I must say that she is the best gardener I've ever known. Self taught, she just have the 'magic hand' - she just knows how to make things grow even when every one says you can't. She is incredibly gifted, I mean like the way that some people are genius. So naturally our apartment always had a fantastic minature garden in the sheltered balchony completed with hundreds of bonsai trees ferns, mosses, orchids and even a little pond. It is really a wonderful place and you just don't see anything like it anywhere else.

Of course, I didn't see it that way growing up. To me and my sister it meant extra chores that we didn't wanted to do when my mom was out of town, once in a blue moon. We had to take every one to the bathroom and soak them in the water, and bring them all back, luckily they were manageable size and this just need to be done once in a while. But all the orchid had to be finely misted one by one with water twice a day. We had to do both to ferms and mosses. It really took forever even when we were doing sort of a half ass job. I didn't understand how my mom could carry on like this, what for, why, why, endless question of why. We were just typical children.

Going to the bonsai exhibiton always brings me those memories and feelings back. Maybe it's the opposit. Maybe I seek to go there to get those memories back time to time. I don't know.

We all need something that's just our own where we can find a sanctuary, peace of mind, where we can dream a perfect world that never cease to exist. Wherever it might be for me I hope that it's every bit as beautiful and inspiring as hers.

Cat Grass

2008-05-24T17:44:00.005-04:00

I can't really say she likes to eat vegetables in general but she sure enjoys her cat grass salad. It's supposed to be good for their digestive system too, but mainly it's really funny to watch her munching down on this. I recommend this to anyone who loves to be entertained by their own cats. It's so easy to grow and it grows super fast. I find the easiest way to grow is

1) fill up the pot with potting soil

2) cover the entire surface with the seeds in single layer

3) cover them with 1/4-1/2 soils

4) water them well and set it in the sun

It should start sprouting in only a couple of days and ready to be served in only 5 days.

As a cat munching down on these a lot of time she'll pull them out and it'll just fall on the floor. I used to think that she just liked to pull them for fun, that maybe, but I do think that they genuinely lose them because they can't pick them up with their claws. When that happens I just pick the leaves up and hand feed it to her which has it's own fun. She really loves it.

Vegetable lists

2008-05-24T09:11:00.005-04:00

All the vegetable seeds and transplants are in. The temprature is finally picking up, still chilly at night but we can't really afford to wait longer. It's already the end of May. Lucky for us I guess, things are genrally delayed for everyone by about 2 weeks due to the cold, rainy May.

Here's the list of vegetables that we are growing this year for now.

*Vegetables
Swiss chard - Five Color Silverbeet
Corn - Blue Jade
Bush bean - Blue Lake 274, Cherokee Wax, Purple Queen
Sugar snap pea - Cascadia
Cucumber - Miniture white
Tomato - Cherokee Purple, San Marzano, Yellow pear, Lemon boy
Korean perilla
Melon - Eden Gem, Charantais
Lettus - Von Viant , Von Viant Spicy, Butterhead
Carrot - Scarlet Nantes
Radish -Plum Purple
Red Onion

* Herbs
Oregano - True Greek
Thyme - French
Alpine Strawberry - Mignonette
Parsley - Italian Giant
Basil - Genovese
Dill - Grandma Einck's
Sage - Green
Rosemary - Arp
Lemon Balm ( Bee Balm)
Borage

As the season goes I am planning on growing other cool season vegetables such as leeks, rutabagas, turnips, scallions, Broccoli Rapini, maybe Napa cabbage, Korean radish......We'll see.

Teepee building

2008-05-20T18:59:00.012-04:00

The biggest ambition I have this year on the plot would have to be growing melons. I am actually kind of afraid to do it because I've never done it before and given the amount of space I have for it I think it'll be a big challenge. They are vines that'll grow big and will bear big fruits and I have a very small area ( about 3x4 at the most ) dedicated to it. The only way to grow it would be to build a structure that they can climb thus growing upwards.

I chose two kinds - Charentais and Eden Gems. They are one of the small fruiting melons about the size of grapefruits and about a pound. I chose these in hopes that small fruiting plants may have smaller vines- It's a hope. I am not sure if it's true.

There are number of structures that we could build - some are more fancy and extensive than others and we basically opted out for, again, what seems to be the cheapest and easiest one to build - It's called teepee or tripod. I have no idea if it's gonna work but I saw a picture of melons growing on one in a garden book over the weekend and I thought to give it a try. It's really what it sounds like. Number of poles tied at one end and spread out the other end and driven into the soil. You could use as little as 3 poles to as much as you like. We went back and forth with 3 or 4 poles and ended up with 4 poles for I thought it'd look neater, easier and more stable maybe. Dave might be right. It might not matter 3 poles vs. 4 poles.

   Melon teepee
   Cucumber teepee
   Wires around

Here's how we built. Surpringly very easy- I wouldn't have it anyother way. You basically

1) mark 4 points that the poles would be driven on the ground

2) drive each poles in each marked points in an angle so all the 4 poles would gather up in the middle.

3) you can tie the gathered poles at the top with garden twine or wires and that's it.

Just remember to really drive poles in the ground with rubber mallet so it's firmly in and pick the poles that are longer than what you'll see as a final product because good chunk of it will be driven to the ground. I have to give Dave credit having done all the leg work. He has very good craftmanship. We also went around the teepees with thick garden wires so the vines would have grip to climb up. I am very happy about how it turned out.

Rhubarb cake and Spring pasta

2008-05-16T23:26:00.004-04:00

There are people who never care much about eating in general and are happy with eating anything they can manage to find in their fridge in meal times. Cheese and crackers, chips and salsas, burger patty with nothing but the buns.... Theses are all good when I am really tired and don't feel like cooking at all but I've never been one of those people who could eat this way more than once in a blue moon. I like eating three proper meals a day and I love cooking them, most days anyway. Of course what you love could also makes you sick- I do get sick and tired of making food, mind you, making three meals a day takes quite a undertaking, and that's when I call it off for the day and close the kitchen. Then I always come back to it and enjoying it more than ever. Everyone needs a break once a while.

This time was different. It was unintentional. I didn't get tired of cooking. I've been so busy and tired physically that I haven't had time or energy to cook therefore I've been very itching to get back into the kitchen for last couple of days. When we declared today was going to be 'the day off' I knew I'd make some fantastic meal.

These are wonderful spring time dishes and I just love it when you making something that brightens up the season and according to the weather.

First, I don't much follow recipe - how much of this and that needs to be in. It's a good thing to do but I often find that home cooking so much of it is about utilizing what and how much you already have that measuring for the recipe often times isn't so realistic. I often adds and subtract ingredients as long as it makes sense and still goes together - I hate when people just dump everything and make something that is just strange. This in itself has it's own place, but it's not everywhere for sure.

These is the meal that has spring written all over it.

Spring Time Pasta (for 2 people)

Asparagus- bunch, chopped- I personally like lots of veggies in them.

Onion - chopped, 1 small or 1/2 medium or according to taste

Peas- a hand or two ful - frozen is fine, in fact, do not use fresh peas unless it's picked same day

Scallions- chopped , optional.

Lemon- optional- a wedge or two and some zest

Pasta - half of a box , any shape you have probably, I'd discourage any tubes because it might not be the best shape for this particular pasta but if it's all you have, please, use them.

White Wine - use it if you have them to deglaze or completely fine without it.

Olive Oil, Salt and Pepper

1. Boil water and drop the pasta.

2. In a pan, saute onions then add asparagus in olive oil. saute until soft, then deglaze with the wine or if not use pasta boiling water- use ladleful or two

3. Add peas and scallions

4. Add cooked pasta to the pan and stir/mix for a min. until the liquid mostly disappear but still moist, salt and pepper.

5. Add lemon juice and zest at the last min. and mix to combine.

6. Plate and Enjoy

* Inspired by Lidia's Italian cooking

* I have used fried prosciutto as a garnish on the top in the picture because I had some in my fridge. if using fry them with little oil in the first and take it out and garnish at the end.

beware with the pasta seasoning, prosciutto are very salty itself.

Rhubarb Cake

Thanks for Martha Stewart, Here's the recipe.

I love simple cakes like this. I actually used rhubard for it because I had plenty in my fridge but it seems like you can use any kind of fruits instead. So versatile.

* I usually don't have buttermilk in my fridge so I just substitute it with some plain yoghurt and milk mixed together which I always have. This means it'll be richer and more flavorful because buttermilk you buy in a store these days are non fat or low fat and I always use whole milk and yoghurt. I don't like the whole non fat business.

* Leave the cinnamon or not. I think it'll be good either way. or no sugar topping at all.

* Unfortunately I didn't get to it , but it'll be just fantastic with a scoop of ice cream while it's still warm.

Eastern tent caterpillar

2008-05-15T18:06:00.006-04:00

We are very lucky to live in a very nice part of DC right off the Rock Creek Park and I get to walk in to the woods whenever I please. Ever since I had the horrible cold couple of weeks ago I haven't done any strolling around in my neighborhood. This is the picture I took couple of weeks ago and they are called ' Eastern tent caterpillar'. You see them quite a bit around here this time of the year and I've notice them a lot more this year so I took some pictures. Maybe this is their good year. Well, good for them ( I shouldn't say that as a gardener????)

I've always been interested in pests and disease as long as I've been a gardener. Not so I can destroy them because they are enemy but I just have fascination towards them. To me, they have such different kind of life that is almost inconceivable. I see people in other country living so differently from us and some of the stuff just blows I mind and we are all people. I have a cat who shares no common goal/ground with me in life whatsoever. In fact we are so far from each other that I understand nothing that she does and we are both mammals. So try to take that to the level of bugs and even farther down to microorganism, fungi and spores- It is as alien as it gets. The weirdest thing is that they have their own world. They live by their own rules and incredibly organized, efficient, elegant and they are very successful at it. They are the true survivors. The earth could go haywire today and they still will be here tomorrow. So I look at them with quite a fascination.

Plants are in

2008-05-14T21:15:00.006-04:00

Thanks to last two warm sunny days we've been able to make some good progress on the plot. Now all the transplants are in- Tomatoes and peppers are the only ones that I had to buy as seedlings. I am growing most vegetables from the seeds. This is the reason why I've been fretting so much about being behind. I'd love to actually grow these things from the seeds as well but it's too late this year. I also got to plant most of the seeds so all we have left is to plant some of the real warm season crop seeds such as squash, bush beans, corns etc. and they will be planted when the night temperature stabilizes more.

I've planted seeds many times before but it never stops making me antsy till I actually see the little sprouts finally comes out.
It's always a new experience for me no matter how many times I do it. I can never really believe that these small seeds will grow. I mean some of the seeds are so tiny, like a speck. I know it's crazy but I always have a doubt in my mind " Can it really work? look at these seeds, they are so tiny , so... insignificant. I'll call it a miracle if it actually works"
Now all we is wait, just wait ever so patiently until we see that miracle, like a clock work that has mind of it's own.

Black earth

2008-05-12T22:41:00.003-04:00

It's raining all day today. In fact, it's been raining all day everyday last couple of days. It annoyes me to think those small drops of water right now.

The clock is really ticking because we got a phone call from the community garden committee couple of days ago. By the rule we were supposed to plant things by the very beginning of May ( I forgot the exact date) and we didn't appear to do much in plot so they were wondering if we were still interested in gardening. She was really nice about it and I had to go on explaining how we've been sick for like 2 weeks and had to be out of town and now it's raining. She said she just needed to find out and I just need to show some progress by the 15th, another inspection. I was glad to see them actually checking these things because they appears to be pretty organized, mind you there is long line of waiting list to get a spot there, but it was a bit embarrassing. I am very conscious about appearing as irresponsible, good for nothing rule breaker to others. This couldn't be farther from the truth because I like rules and hate rule breakers. I simply can't stand lawlessness.

This means only one thing. We need to make things happen. We have no choice. We have to work with the wet soil. You really shouldn't work with the wet soil for the number of good reason. It's harder to work with. The water is suspended between soil particles meaning it's clumpier, mushier, heavier. It's very easy to actually compact the soil because the ground is softer- the soil would get pushed down easier. This is bad because we are trying to do just opposite - crumble the soil in to kind of powder and fluff it off. This is a huge challenge but we just have to work on it as long as the soil isn't completely water logged and it's not pouring rain.

So we headed to the plot Saturday afternoon. It started with rain in the morning but it slowly stopped by 2 and at least we had to check and see if we could do it. I am not giving up that easy right now. Luckily the plot does appear to have pretty good drainage and from what I saw it was surprisingly not all in disastrous state. It wasn't good by all means. In normal circumstances I'd at least wait 3-4 or more sunny warm days till even touch it, but desperate times calls for desperate measure. We decided to work on it and possibly finish it. We just need to be a bit more careful.

I can't believe how much work we got done by the end of 4 1/2 hrs hard labour. After the trip to a nursery twice and no break we are done. we are done digging. all we have left is to lay down the pathway like a stepping stones in the middle of it so we don't ever walk on the soil - that's the plan, we actually had a lot of option designing the garden bed but we decided on the cheapest solution for this year because I can get the stones for free. Then we'll be basically set for the planting. There are little odd works that needs to be done until then, but right now the hardest part is over. With any luck we'll be able to get garden marking done and plant some seeds and plants by this Wed. if it doesn't rain next two days as they say.

The amount of progress we made, this truly deserves celebration in our book which normally means going out to Korean restaurant for dinner and eat delicious barbecue. Dave said it probably wasn't the rib kind of occasion - ( it's more expensive and fatty = more luxurious) I agree with that. So we ended up getting bulgogi which has more like common party feel to it.

It was really delicious. It tasted like victory.

I am so glad all the pain in the ass hard work is finally done. I know it'll pay off. I know you can't skip this part. It's the very foundation of gardening and it would have been highly unethical for me as a gardener to cut it short. This is what we strive for - the excellency of the black earth.

Rain, but we must go on

2008-05-08T17:42:00.009-04:00

We had a huge plan today. We were supposed to finish at least half of the tilling and incorporate compost and possibly more so we can finally start planting seeds and seedling this week. We are already looking at the mid May soon and we are so unbelievably behind.

No matter how hard I've try to comfort myself and keep positive attitude I've been keep falling in to a huge pit fall of feeling huge annoyance and anxiety.

So today was gonna be the day. The day that a huge progress was gonna be made and it'd put a huge smile back on my face. But surprise, surprise- It started to drizzle in the morning. I knew about the rain. It wasn't supposed to rain until the night! and here's the real kick - it'll rain pretty much for the next couple of days. How can life be so cruel? What have I done to anger it? Does it not know how important today and next couple of day is? Can I pray God to spare me this one time - more importantly would God answer the prayer of a skeptical believer? This is no joke. I am seriously down.

We can't really afford to take the entire day off even in the rain. If it's in the condition that we could sort of push through we have to get something done. So we set off to the nursery. We got some vegetable seedlings - things that are too late to start from the seeds such as peppers, tomatoes - we can't plant them yet but today is good as any day to get them, and we got 6 bags of leafgro which is leaf compost that's made by the Maryland Extension Service I believe. I am a big fan of it.

There are lots different compost you can use. Horse or cow or chicken manure is a good choice but I should have applied it last fall so it could breakdown over the winter. I'm actually not a huge fan of it because somehow it makes me nerveous to go get a bag of composted animal stuff from a store, god knows where it's from. Compost industry from my knowledge is hugely unregulated. If they were doing what they are supposed to do- if it's properly heat up and if manures are coming from good clean source, that'll be one thing but I am too cynical / skeptical to think that it' done right when the stuff alot of times appears to be untraceable.

Maybe I am wrong on this, maybe I am just being paranoid but I'd think that it's reasonable question to have if you are planning on touching and eating things that's grown out of, you know, basically shit.

So I just use leaf compost ( leaf mould) - keep it simple. I know the source, who's responsible,

and support the government's great program.

I haven't really had much idea how many bags it'd take to fill up the plot properly -the plot itself is low on soil to begin with and to incorporate reasonable amount of it into the soil. Obviously more is better but my wallet is not bottomless. We started with 6 1.5 cubic feet bags because it's probably the maximum amount we could fit in the car trunk. Luckily it was on 20% off sale so we ended up paying a little under $6/bag.

Now we have some decision to make. It's still drizzling and Dave's been refighting cold ever since we came back from St. Louis and still has to go to work at 5 today. The trooper that he is we decided to start working on the plot. What we did was pretty simple actually but it could be back breaking. You basically break up the existing soil with shovel and turn them with compost, mix them up. Some disagree with tilling for some good reasons - it may disturb soil structure, it may disturb or hurt earthworms, it's really hard on body, etc.... I agree on that. I think these are good reasons but I also do believe in huge benefits of it. I think it's priceless to have good loose soil full of organic matter - it provides good drainage, water holding compacity, bring tremendous amount of oxygen, especially in the beginning of the new plot like ours although it's been cultivated because the previous owner doesn't appear to have done much to soil.

My hope is that we do this once this year and from next year all we have to is just rake compost in on the surface level every year.

After working on this for an hour I realized it'd need heck more than 6 bags of compost. 6 bags only fill up about 1/3 of the plot. we'll need at least 12 more bags.

The work itself wasn't too hard. It sure is backbreaking and leg breaking by Dave, but the soil itself was pretty loose meaning it was still clumpy but not hard clay. Having 2 people working on it is so much easier than 1 person. I've done about the same size plot my myself before and it was no picnic. We could have used motor / gas run tiller - We didn't just do it by hand for fun or some kind of crazy ethics. I have bad back. I don't get much satisfaction out of hard labor. We simply didn't use the machine because it would have cost us $80 to rent it. I've used it once lifting up the lawn, much credit to my friend Jen. She's somewhat a queen of these things and also the strongest woman I know. And let me tell you, it is pretty fun.

So at the end we got soaked wet by rain, filthy as 5 year old in a muddy yard. The only thing that I was glad was that we are done for the day and we have old car to drive back.

I still wish we could've done more. I still wish that it wouldn't rain tomorrow. I am still not over the anxiety of being tremendously behind - it'll follow me until I see it done.

I must live with these and many more things that are completely out of my control. It is so easy to forget in the world I am living in, where I just go to a store and get veggies from piles and mounds, unlimited amount, year around. It seems all so easy. Too easy because I struggle right now. But it probably isn't so easy after all because these are also directly produced by the nature, the same nature that I feel so out of control, without much promise and guarantee. This must be somewhat close to how people must have felt through centuries except I don't rely my life on it. The desperation, the unknown, someone to turn to, someone to blame on. This is why people held rituals , prayed, made sacrifice. It was serious business. How people coped with it is beyond me. I do this leisurely I don't go hungry if it doesn't work and yet I feel like the end of the world or something. I am glad that it is not my livelihood in my feeble mind right now. What a luxury having this kind of choice.

Finally we have started

2008-05-05T16:42:00.003-04:00

After waiting for about 2 years we've finally got a plot at the Melvin Hazen Community Garden in Washington DC. It's not big- about 8 by 20, lots of sunlight and most importantly 5 min. ride from where we live. We really should have started working on the plot at least couple of weeks ago but we've been fighting nasty cold for couple of weeks and had to make a trip to St. Louis for about 5 days so nothing has been done until today.

I regret that I didn't bring my camera to take a photo so I could sort of compare before and after, but anyway, basically the plot was in a mess. It was covered in alot of weed and there were some trashes that the previous owner have left although in her defense she said it was compost and I could have it - I have checked. Sadly it's not composted.
I thought the worst part of it was that it was covered in leaf piles from last year. I thought it might have blown off the woods but I think it's intentionally put there because my neighbour at the plot have mentioned that some times they just pile them on and turn them in early spring.
This sounds like an OK idea, but I think maybe it would have worked better if she mixed in dried leaf and turned the soil right away after the season but I think it's actually a bad practice if you just pile the leaves and let it just sit over the winter. The reason is that first the leaves won't get composted - it'll just dry up and second leaf piles makes nice little sactuaries for pest and disease.

So what we did today was to clean up this mess before we incorporate actual compost. Every thing is going to dumpster except dried leaves. That, I could use to compost my kitchen scrap back home. I will post about kitchen compost some time and that should be interesting.
I would have composted weeds if I had big compost bin - if I could get the internal temp. hot enough to kill the seed, but I don't and they are flowering which means they could seed in my bin. So trash.

I hate to say that we are actually tired and our body kind of hurts because either of us haven't done any physical work in a long while. I won't go on about " connecting to the land" and all that rant because it's annoying. I am just happy that we finally started to work on the plot so we are one step closer to having delicious fruits and vegetables. And we are sure to sleep well tonight.