Red Bird Cabin

In my ongoing quest to find new ways to use up my tomato crop, I’ve created a simple breakfast that were really digging.  It’s kind of like a Croque Monsieur done all fresh and vegetarian.  Here’s the gist:  Cut a ripe tomato into thick slices, place them on a still-warm piece of toast & drizzle with a good olive oil.  Lightly rub the tomato and oil into the toast.  Top with a fried egg, crumbled feta, and a sprinkling of fresh thyme.

Croque Jardin a la Jen

Cooking the Perfect Egg: Rather than straight-up frying an egg, which makes the white kind of stiff and rubbery… I prefer to “fry-poach” to tender perfection. It’s a method that Adam’s mom invented, and I think it’s the perfect way to cook an egg. Get your pan hot, add butter or a dash of oil, crack the egg in and cook it for about a minute until the very bottom of the egg is white. (The yolk should still be raw, but intact.) Next, add a splash of water to the pan around the outside of the egg (about 4 tbsp if you want to get specific). It will start to bubble and steam. Cover with a lid. Check in another minute and lightly poke the yolk so you can see how done it is. Remove it when the yoke is at the “runniness” level you prefer. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and voila… all the taste of a fried egg, but without the rubbery texture.

This was my first year growing tomatoes from seed, so length of the process was surprising (I started on Valentine’s Day!), but the results were worth it.  We’ve had weeks of vine-ripe heirlooms ready every day for the picking.  In terms of taste, I think my faves have been the Polar Beauty tomatoes and Sungolds (which are always extra sweet).

My heirloom tomato bounty

In terms of yield, my Black Krim (Black Cherry) plant has been the most prolific… with the Polar Beauty coming in a close second.  Both of them reached about 6 feet tall, stayed deep green & bushy, and produced tons of well-spaced fruits.  The Green Zebras were also good producers.  My Valencia Orange tomatoes are really tender and tasty, but there aren’t as many of them on each plant.  The lowest producer was Pruden’s Purple.  Most blossoms dropped off the vines and each plant only produced one large tomato.  But man, they were good.  (That’s one of my 2 Pruden’s babies sitting proud in the base of the sundae dish.)  Ok, time to make another salad…

In the Spring, my partner-in-crime burned a small pile of brush in the middle of our “dirt circle”.  Since then, we’ve been trying to turn our dirt circle into a drought-tolerant lawn.  As soon as the grass started to come in, we noticed a distinct lush green spot in the middle right where we had the burn.  The wood ash-fed grass is much longer, thicker, and greener than everywhere else.

the super grass circle

In the past, I’d read mixed reviews about using wood ash as a fertilizer (because it tends to raise the PH of the soil making it more alkaline).  And different plants have different PH requirements, etc., etc.  But, if you’re trying to grow a new lawn (or any alkaline-loving vegetation), and you use a wood stove or fireplace, save your ash.  Grasses, and many other plants & veggies prefer a slightly alkaline environment (6.5-7), and a handful of free ash goes a long way.  For more detailed info on using wood ash, check out this Purdue U. article.

P.S. I wouldn’t recommend burning brush in your yard.  It’s not enviro-friendly, could start a fire, and I wasn’t happy about it when I found the burn pile in progress.  But, if you are using a wood stove or fireplace already, why not recycle your ash in the garden?

This ancient wildflower, also known as Bloody William, Our Lady’s Rose, and a host of other names was living in our yard when we moved into the cabin. I didn’t know what it was at first because it looked like a grayish-silver, succulent-like ground cover. But, then summer came around and it shot stems 2+ feet in the air and busted out deep pink flowers. I was an instant fan. I had to get some more of them from my neighbor down the hill.

Rose Campion at the edge of my yard

Rose Campion’s not a California native, but apparently it has been cultivated since the 1300’s. The flower most likely made its way here by boat from Southern Europe in the 1700 or 1800s. It’s very easy to grow as it reseeds itself, is heat & drought-tolerant, takes sun or part shade, and requires little to no maintenance. If you live in Zones 3-9, and like the wild-garden look, see if you can get your hands on some plants or heirloom seeds.

Can we have a moment for the flowers that spawn our garden vegetables?  I mean, we give so much lip service and attention to the final product… our delicious heirloom tomatoes, beans, squash.  While the modest little veggie flowers go somewhat unappreciated.  And they’re so self-sacrificing… living this short life just to be pollinated, shrivel, and die giving birth to the vegetable or fruit that’s coming through.  So today I decided to snap some shots of my blooming garden and pay tribute to the flowers of vegetables.

Starting top left: heirloom tomato, french bean, sugar snap pea, blackberry and thai pepper blossoms

One of the benefits of having a perennial herb garden is that you can make this little treat on the fly for guests.  All you need is goat cheese, a handful of herbs, and salt & pepper.

The simple ingredients

The Basic Recipe
Spread 1/2 of your goat cheese into a loose circle shape and sprinkle with salt & pepper on top (see above).  Then chop up your herbs.  I like to use thyme, lemon thyme, oregano, and a touch of sage.  (Both oregano and sage are pretty intense, so I use less of them than the thyme.)  Spread the herbs over the goat cheese.  Next, crumble the rest of your goat cheese on top and press it down lightly.  Your herbs should be sandwiched in between the 2 layers of cheese.  Finally, sprinkle a few more herbs on top and finish it off with a touch of pepper or smoked paprika (if you have some).

Herb & Goat Cheese Paté

You can get a whole lot of love out of a Perennial Herb Garden.  Even if you don’t have a yard, you can grow herbs in a container pot on the deck or front steps.  For mine, I don’t mess with the delicate ones like basil & cilantro.  I grow hardy perennials… french thyme, lemon thyme, sage, oregano, rosemary & mint.  (They’re not going to die off if you go away for a week.)  And, they’re handy to have for so many recipes.  I stuck a few snap dragons in my herb garden as well just for color.  (Don’t eat the snap dragons, we’re just talking flowers here.)

my perennial herb garden

My latest crowd-pleaser from the garden is a goat cheese & herb paté.  It’s so easy to make and puts your herbs to good use!  Soon, I plan to make a herbed olive oil as well.  Stay tuned.

NOTE: I let one of my sage plants flower (the tall purple spikes).  But, when you let an herb flower, the flavor of the leaves goes bitter and funky.  So, I like to keep one sage plant for eating and let the other one flower for show.  To stop an herb from flowering, just pinch off the flower buds as soon as you see them developing.

IGNORE THIS: Ok, this is random, I have to post this link in order to have my blog “verified” as mine by Technorati.  And I don’t know where to put it… so I’m just going to put it here. Technorati Profile

The old English fairy tale about “magic beans” is no joke.  I planted Sugar Snap Peas (in the bean family) for the first time this Spring… and they’ve already climbed over 7 feet tall.  Being an “early crop” (preferring cooler weather) the stalks started flowering and producing peas in mid-May.  They’re a beautiful addition to the garden because of windy, vining way they climb an the flurry of delicate white flowers. ( If you don’t have much room, you can also grow them in a large container pot.)

All of the vines are sugar snap peas (w/ the exception of the round green leaves in the middle). Those are climbing nasturtiums. They'll bloom in the summer providing color and edible flowers!

How to Grow Sugar Snap Peas
I started my snap peas from seed indoors in late February.  When they were about 4 inches high, I transplanted the seedlings into the garden underneath a large structure I’d built out of sticks and twine (above).  Whether you grow snap peas in the garden or in a pot, you need to be sure that they have some sort of trellis or support structure to climb on.  For mine, I made a “coppice craft” trellis. I took two sturdy sticks and dug each one into the earth opposite one another. Where the sticks crossed each other, I tied them together with twine.  I repeated this process about every 2 feet.  Once I had a row of these 2-dimensional tepees, I tied them all together with rows of twine… creating a new horizontal row about every 10 inches or so.  (Using netting attached to stakes is also a popular way to go.)  It’s totally ok to make it up as you go as long as the structure feels fairly sturdy and offers multiple levels for the pea tendrils to grip on to.  The peas will find their way!

If you’re a beginning gardner, I’d suggest also reading this article on how to grow snap peas.

Snap Pea Flower

TIP: If you have a lot of birds in your area, especially robins, you might want to surround your peas with netting until they’re about 1 foot tall. Some birds have a bad habit of decapitating seedlings.