Urban Garden Take 2 : The Beginning

The end of winter, the beginning of spring... it's time to stick those little seeds in the dirt and wait for them to grow. (Indoors that is, they're nowhere ready to fend for themselves in the brutal outdoors yet.)

2 weeks ago we began sewing some seeds for our plants that have recommended start dates of 4-8 weeks before the last frost.

I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and I'm so pumped up for our little backyard vegetable garden to sustain us through the summer. I know it will be nothing like her experiment, but I'm quite excited to have our table full our own homegrown goodness to supplement what we buy at the farm market.

Here's a bit of what we have planned for this year's containers:

- Tomatoes

- Ivory Pear Tomatoes (small cherry size)

- Morning Sun Tomatoes (also small cherry size)

- 4 types of Basil including lime and purple

- Oregano

- Parsley

- Catnip (gotta keep the kitties happy too!)

- Jalapenos

- Anaheim Peppers

- Red Bell Peppers

- Multi-colored Peppers

- Rocky Top Lettuce Mix

- Red Wonder Strawberries & Yellow Wonder Strawberries

- Pink Banannas (seriously!)

- Litchi Tomatoes (they are actually berries)

- Ground Cherries

- Two types of Carrots, Pariesienne and Little Finger

- Zucchini

- Amsterdam Prickly Seeded Spinach

- Okra

- Tomatillos

- Potatoes

- Onions

We're doing ALL of those from seed. We're also going to purchase these as plants rather than starting from seed:

- Rosemary

- Chives

- Lavender

- Mint

Holy cow, it's a lot, I know. I can't wait. 

Now I just need to sit and be patient. Grow, baby, grow.

Black Bean & Mango Salad

Hello loyal food blog readers, I have forsaken you and I am sorry! I have been so busy this past month (why the heck am I busy? I graduated!) that I’ve barely had time to post. But I’m back… and with a vengeance! I vow to be more consistent in my food blog posts and I’m kicking it off with a yummy recipe! (And lots of exclamation points!)

I went to Whole Foods yesterday with the intention of buying burgers to throw on the grill for dinner and stumbled upon a great (non-burger) recipe which I will now share with you. But let’s back up a moment…. That’s right foodie readers, I bought a grill. It happened over 4th of July weekend when I went to Home Depot with the intention of buying some potting soil. As you can see I’m an impulse shopper.

Anyway, Whole Foods has this awesome little flyer called “Meals for Under $15.” Since I just invested $1000 in a trip to LA for a writing conference I figured a less than $15 meal is just what I needed. Enter Black Bean & Mango Salad. Also, there is no actual “cooking” involved, it’s all chopping and throwing in a bowl. Score.

I think chopped up mango sort of looks like cubes of cheese....

This salad was so summery and delicious and I even got to use some fresh items out of my very own garden, including cilantro which has magically stayed alive! (Apparently, fourth time’s a charm when it comes to growing cilantro plants.) The salad was also a great accompaniment to the Au Poivre burgers, but I think it would also be tasty with some grilled chicken or fish.

Fresh cilantro!

BLACK BEAN & MANGO SALAD compliments of Whole Foods

Prep time: 20 minutes Total time: 20 minutes (aka, the whole thing is prep)

Ingredients:

• 1 (28 oz) can of black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 large mango, peeled and chopped
• 1 small red onion, minced
• 1 red bell pepper, minced
• 1 jalepeno pepper, seeded and minced
• 4 tablespoons fresh cilantro, minced
• 2 cloves fresh garlic, minced
• 1 fresh lime, zested and juiced
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions:
Mix beans, mango, onion, peppers, cilantro and garlic in large bowl. Toss with lime zest and lime juice, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve chilled. See how easy that was? Serves 4-6.

I also served mine with some taco chips. Yummmmm.

Happy summer, see you soon… I promise!

Urban Gardening Week 3 : Garden Expansion

I added a few plants to the little backyard garden! Things are really coming along nicely!

The full garden:

New additions:

• Purple basil
• Pineapple mint/sage
• Catnip (this sent Mittsy into a fit of crazy aka she tried to maul the plant immediately. Totally a hit.)

• Alpine strawberries

• Cilantro (looking very sad, I hope it will resurrect itself.)
• Arugula
• Mixed greens

Yummmmmm. 

Urban Gardening Week 2

So far so good. Mostly. I went out of town for a few days, and what blew through Massachusetts while I was gone? A tornado. Really, folks. And that tornado carried with it a storm that did some damage to my wee urban garden. But alas, all seems fine. Even if the board behind my plants fell over, causing the jumbo mint plant to fall on my small oregano plant, where it sat atop it -- crushing it -- for four days before I could come back into town to rescue it.

OREGANO STATUS: Surviving? Hanging on?

PEPPER PLANT STATUS: growing!

CHIVES STATUS: kitty loves them. She now has stinky breath.

MINT STATUS: growing great. I tried to feed some mint to kitty so she would smell better. She wasn't having it. Aren't cats supposed to like mint because it's a relative of cat nip?

TOMATOES STATUS: Looking plentiful.

Urban garden week 2 overall status: Great.