Simplicity.

Just at a Black Prince tomato. It was utterly delightful. Brushed it off on my shirt and ate it like an apple in the garden. Juicy. Gorgeous. Sweet and Complex. Growing them again for sure.

Peppers take a walk

The tomatoes are too tall. The Marigolds are too darn bushy. The potatoes are done. Liberate as many spuds as you can find. Work the clayey soil. Mutter to yourself for the fact you might have gotten 20lbs of spuds. Haven't weighed it. Either a 2-1 or 3-1 ratio. Thinking to yourself whether you had to fertilize more or water, or the heavy soil. Shrug it off. Dig up the various peppers being enclosed upon and give them a new home. Moist and call it a day.

Aerial - Pepper Movement | Tomato encroachment

Hmm... I'm not sure what happened.

Need a better camera. Spices.

Ok, So here is what I was working with. I do hope there is an asian/Indian Market somewhere in your respective villages. :)

MDH Baingan mix box : Coriander, salt, dry mango, cumin, red chili, pomegranate seeds, musk melon, fenugreek leaves, black pepper, mint leaves, dry ginger, cardamom, amomum sees, nutmeg, cloves, cassia, mace ( I would suggest simply buying the mix unless you happen to have access to all of that stuff. It's not cheating.... its just spices premixed right? )

The other bags are cumin, coriander (powders) and mustard seeds. 

Here we go : Chopped up the tomatoes of your choice. maybe a cup or two. Your choice on this. Nothing wrong with yummy tomatoes. Depending on how many potatoes you want, chopped them into small chunks. Too many potatoes means less saucy dish. Having to add liquid etc. Take your eggplants and chopped them up into cubes as well. Dice up a medium onion to the size you enjoy in dishes.

All the amounts of tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplant are relative to how much you wish to eat etc. You can tweak the amount of spices later on if you think you needed more or less because of how much you added.

Take the potatoes and boil them in a different pan. I think it works best to get them to a firm state just before you would make mashed potatoes. That way you do not have to wait forever trying to cook them in the sauce. Instead you can let them mix at the end. 

In a pan, pour a bit of oil in then add the mustard seeds. Hmm, maybe a pinch or two? ~ half teaspoon? They add flavor, however, too many and they become bitter.

Toss in a teaspoon of the cumin, coriander. I'd prolly use a table spoon or two of the Baingan Mix.

Heat that in the oil for a minute or so with the onion You just want to bring out the flavors in the spices. Please do not burn your spices! ;) It would be yuck at that point. *eek almost forgot to add that you should add a dollop of mince/chopped/grated ginger to this as well!*

Then add in your chopped tomatoes and one of those small cans of tomato sauce. I add a bit of water to it as well to bring it to a saucy consistency. At this point it is basically similar to making a marinara. 

Cover it and let it reduce down a bit. As the tomatoes break down, use your 'stir stick' to mash the chunks down to more of a chunky mashed tomato. What you are looking for is the point at which the oil starts to separate from the sauce and pool on the top. 

Then you can add your eggplant to it. If you wish, you can saute the eggplant a bit prior to adding it. It tastes great that way as well, or you can just toss it into the sauce, cover it up and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes while it breaks down. 

Somewhere along the lines here the potatoes reach a point of being 'al dente' ie firm enough to add to the sauce and eat (breaks apart in your mouth) but is neither mash potatoes nor a brick. 

Once you get to that point toss them into the sauce (I'd wait till after the eggplant is cooked) Mix it up well. If it is too dry for your tastes, add a bit more water, if saucy then good to go. :)

Aloo bindi tastes great over fragrant basmati rice or as a dish alone with bread. For ease, if you do not have naan then just toss a buttered tortilla in a pan and heat it up until it just turns golden, fold it over a couple times and toss onto the side of the plate with a heaping mess of the aloo bindi in the center!

That should do the trick!

Ingredients : Cumin/Coriander/Mustard ETC

MDH Brand 'Baingan Bharta' Spices

Long days of summer.

Note : As delicious as Okra is when it gets to six plus inches, it is much better to pick them at half that. Although both sizes are perfect for straight off the plant fresh eating.

First Bells with First Okra (Friday)

Second Okra with First Tomato (Monday)

436 Grams of First Eggplant (Baingan Bharta)(Tuesday)

Helping Hands

Quick posting :

Over the weekend a neighbor friend of ours asked if I could help him make order of his tomatoes. Turns out the Baker Creek heirloom brandywines we gave him all decided to germinate. After  adding 6 cherry tomatoes purchased at Lowes now there are 42 indeterminates needing order. In keeping with the 'Gallows' in our front yard I went over to help him build a few for the raised beds he added this year.

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Pretty simple to do. His beds are a standard 4x8 rectangle. Using 4 full length 1x2s @ 8'. The two sides are side screwed into the raised bed. The center is side screwed into a brace in the middle of the bed. Its strong enough to hold up the tomatoes without sagging. In keeping with wind mill tower principles we wrap a string around the cross member and then tie it off to a screw on the raised bed. Creating a 'pyramid'. Now when the wind comes rolling in and pushes sideways on the gallows it keeps them from flexing too far in either direction. Only thing left to do is create a loose loop around the stalk of the tomato and then gently wrap it around the center, tying off the end to the cross member. As the tomato grows up you continue to wrap it up the string. If you wish to keep them from being too unruly, clip off the suckers occasionally. Tomatoes grow stalk, leaf, cluster, stalk, leaf, cluster etc. In the crook of the stalk and the leaf below the cluster will grow a sucker.

Take care everyone!

#23 It's a Wonderberry

updated w/Video - Fast Runnings.

Did a number of things recently. This morning planted out all the 16 plants of yellow strawberries grown from seed. Had to really dig up the soil with a fork near the fence. It was hard as a rock. It is no wonder why the tulips previously there (Dug up to be moved to another location... probably around the "unknown" tree) didn't have a very extensive root structure. I wouldn't be happy stretching my legs out either.

Finally growing tired of seeing a practically dirt filled bed allocated to solanums, did something about it. Couple days back we planted out the eggplants from the basement. A couple that were previously planted in the bed are shooting new leaves but a few died as well. Started up a seed tray of more tomatoes, hot peppers, and sweet peppers. They are doing excellent. Sitting out in the sun they are really shooting out in only a week or so. These peppers will replace all the carnage in the solanum bed aside from the one that did survive.

The Okras are just blah. Although as in the video, there is a sprouted seed coming along. I sworn there was another by the other Okra stick, however, it could honestly be just a simple weed.

The rabbit eaten yellow and red Chard are making their way back to being pretty.

Oh, the english garden rocks now. All the plants have filled themselves out and are working on flowering.  Forget what they are called.... broad flat leaf plant.. anyhow, it has gorgeous violet flowers atop of a very long stalk. (Once I get the video up one of you will have to re-learn me what exactly is it again. I happen to like them.)

One last thing! On sunday built a pea trellis/string teepee. I really enjoy the look of it over a regular fence trellis. Gives the garden some depth to look at. Planning on creating a few more to go in the empty space left in the front yard. I'll use it for the sagami hanjiro cucumbers and training the costata romanesco zuchini to do acrobatic things.

Speaking of which.... and I guess this really is the last thing. Still need to plant a number of herbs and the melons, zukes, cukes, and hmm a few other things. Perhaps I will do it on tuesday morning or evening. Lately I've been working third shift and while I enjoy being in the garden at sunrise after work, it is quite a toll to wrap your head around it. *digress*

Enjoy your day everyone!

- Cloud

Fuzzy Ipad 2 Photos - Violet flower in English Garden

Pea String Trellis | Teepee

#18 Run 'em Through! March 14th, 2012

Breakfast

This mornings home-made breakfast. Consisting of several garden pickings. It is a yukon gold hash with green onions. Topped with parsley. Sauteed kale with mushrooms using a wild mushroom infused olive oil and lemon infused vinegar. Sliced tomato. Radish. Side of oranges and a hot cup of PG tips with cream and sugar.

Things from the garden :

Red Russian and Curly Kale, Radishes, Green Onions, and Parsley.

Sometimes you just feel like making breakfast worth being eaten.

Day in the Life - Pictorial

Front Overview - East

Front Overview - West

Cabbage | Brussels #1

 

Tomato | Eggplant | Pepper #2

Potato #3

Greens - East #4

Greens - West #5

Maggio Onion | Elephant Garlic #6

Chard | Peas | Beets #7

Radishes #8

Onions | Leeks #9

Broccoli #10

East Garden- South

East Garden - North

Ups, nope, downs. Definitely Downs.

:/

Planted the solanums the other day. Then it snowed. All good. Everything happy. Then I forget to remove the cloches or at the very least the caps.... I may have inadvertently murdered a tomato or two.

Well Damn. This is gardening. It wouldn't be unless you shamelessly forgot something and left it to die.


Side note (found my new shirt today) :

This is from the internet, hence, not me. Well not yet. Give me time...