Enjoying last year's harvest...

Here's a reminder to use your canned foods. I had tomato soup in my cabinets from last summer that I'd nearly forgotten about. It's especially helpful when you are famished and don't want to run out to the store, but also don't want to slave away in the kitchen for hours.

I made a quick & delicious late lunch of tomato soup topped with fresh homegrown oregano along with a yummy arugula salad.

Pop open your canned soups and after just a few minutes on the stove you will have a perfect piping hot meal that will taste just as flavorful as the day you made it. The salad is just a mix of local arugula, a splash of olive oil & lemon juice and s&p. Add some parsley if you want a little kick. Then toss lightly.

We're in Pasadena now, so get excited for new restaurant and vendor reviews!

Our rooftop garden is now an idea of the past. Once all of these tomatoes are harvested we will no longer farm on the roof. Landlord interference.

We had a total of 6 tomato plants + 2 volunteers on the roof this summer.

All photos courtesy of D.

Accidental Wheat

Donny and I planted some wheat grass seeds in a small pot. I thought it would be cool to make our own wheat grass like at Jamba Juice, but he just thought it would be good decoration. Either way, the wheat grass has grown quickly and plentiful. What we didn't expect is this:

...actual wheat.

Local Pan-Fried Onion Dip Recipe

This Barefoot Contessa onion dip recipe has been a favorite of mine for a while now. I love to serve at parties and it will be a great snack for the 4th of July weekend. I am very excited to make this dish with our homegrown onions. For the next harvest we will probably store the onions or use for tomato sauce and salsa.

Ingredients

• 2 large yellow onions
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup good mayonnaise

Directions

Cut the onions in half and then slice them into 1/8-inch thick half-rounds. (You will have about 3 cups of onions.) Heat the butter and oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add the onions, cayenne, salt, and pepper and saute for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, for 20 more minutes until the onions are browned and caramelized. Allow the onions to cool.

Place the cream cheese, sour cream and mayonnaise in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat until smooth. Add the onions and mix well. Taste for seasonings. Serve at room temperature. Makes about 2 cups.

Local Q&A: Canning et plus

Q: So my girl and I wanna figure out the best, cheapest setup to can some vegetables over the summer. Mostly tomatoes, if that makes a difference. We don't have too big a garden. 10 tomato plants, 4 pepper plants, some beets and onions. We're not preparing for a zombie apocalypse. Just wanna avoid tossing what we don't eat fresh. Also, how are you?

A: Canning is a lot of fun if you make a day or evening of it. Open a bottle of wine and crank some good tunes...it is time consuming, and has to be done all at once. There are two main methods to canning. One is the "water bath" method. This can be done in a large pot (sometimes I use my biggest soup pot.) This method can be used for jams, pickles and other food items with lots of preservatives (salt, sugar, vinegar) Basically you put the goods in the clean jars, submerge them in water and let them boil. Tomatoes are high in acid and are not usually prepared in those preservatives and therefore need to be prepared with the pressure cooker method. I bought a canning pressure cooker at OSH for 40 or 50 bucks. This method increases the temps. Pressure cookers can be a little nerve wrecking since they can explode at any minute. But todays pressure cookers are pretty safe, as long as you use them wisely. I wouldn't trust the one my grandma used to use. The other really important thing to know is that EVERYTHING must be sterilized. Jars, lids, and canning tools should be clean and sterilized. I use a couple of other pots of boiling water. I also use clean towels so I don't have to touch the jars. There is plenty of info online about cooking times for various items. It really depends on the recipe. I recommend "Preserving the Harvest" by Costenbader and "Pickles and Relishes" (if you are into that sort of thing) by Chesman for good recipes. Both books also have chapters on methods and cooking times. Good luck man. That is awesome that you are growing some food.

I'm not sure when the last time we spoke, but we moved into a new house in Highland Park. We're renting, but the landlord is a friend and let's us do whatever we want to the yard. We've removed most of the grass in the back yard and are working on turning it into a large garden. We also just got 3 chickens. Should be sweet once [they] start laying eggs. Their names are Edith (black) Mildred (brown) and Prudence (blonde). We wanted to name them good Depression Era names. Here are a few pics. (see above) You can see how fast they have grown in only three and a half weeks. Hope all is well with you.

Local Aphid Resurgence

Donny checks the tomato plants every day. He waters them, makes sure the leaves are growing above the ladder rungs and if they're not he trains them to.

He is also on the lookout for aphids. Last season we had a bountiful amount of fruit, but just as many leaves covered in the green slimy suckers. Aphids can not only prevent your fruit from growing, but it can quickly kill your plant. Next to rodents and lack of sun, aphids are a burden to all gardeners.

Donny learned from the head gardener at our local nursery, that when you find aphids you can clip the leaves and put them in a plastic bag. These leaves should go in your trash and not in your compost, which risks infesting all future fertilizer.

And last night, Donny found that the aphids had returned, so he made an emergency run to Anawalt

for a container full of adorable little red ladybugs. The directions advise you to present the ladybugs in colder weather and that if you do not have aphids, the ladybugs will just leave. If the aphids have taken over, then the ladybugs will sit on the leaves and eat the slimy suckers.

Ladybugs are a great non-toxic option to chemical repellents. It also doesn't hurt that they are pretty adorable to look at and see roaming around your garden. They definitely can't hurt your plants, so I suggest giving them a try.

All photos featured here - by Donny Martino Jr.

1st sign of Summer Flowers

In my mind the best kind of summer flowers are that which turn into tomatoes. In the past week almost all of our tomato plants in the rooftop garden have begun to produce fruits. I've seen maybe a half dozen of the tiniest tomatoes you could imagine. The rest of them are little flowers that almost look like marigolds. Any day now they will all be that gorgeous red color. It is very uplifting to know this year's crop is likely to do really well. We are already looking into canning options.

Taking stock of our Local Urban Garden

Last weekend Donny and I spent a good chunk of Saturday & Sunday planting more and cleaning up our garden.  We are preparing for a light spring harvest and a plentiful summer feast!  See down below for a taste of whats to come AND here is what we have growing:  

FRONT GARDEN

BLUE BERRY BUSH Ω

DILL *

LEMON TREE Ω²

MINT ^

(9) WHITE ONIONS °

(2) PARSLEY PLANTS

(2) ROYESTA TOMATO PLANTS **

(2) SAN FRANCISCO TOMATO PLANTS ** 

(tomatoes & onions in raised bed / everything else planted right into the ground)

ROOFTOP GARDEN

(2) ASPARAGUS PLANTS ^ 

(2) SPICY BASIL / SWEET BASIL Ω 

(8) BEETS *

BUNCHING ONIONS Ω

(4) WHITE ONIONS ° 

(2) PEPPERONCINI PLANTS *

(2) SALSA HYBRID PEPPER PLANTS *

(2) ROSEMARY * 

(2) CELEBRITY TOMATO PLANTS ***

CHERRY GRANDE TOMATO PLANT ***

(2) ROMA TOMATO PLANTS ***

SPRITE TOMATO PLANT ***

(2) "VOLUNTEER" TOMATO PLANTS ▲

(containers only)

KEY: 

 ° from bulb

* from seed

** indeterminate / from seed

*** determinate / from seed

² transplanted from last apartment

^ continuing to grow from last summer

Ω started as seedling from nursery / farmer's market

▲aka "the others" / unknown plants that sprouted in other pots

Beets soon to be harvested.

President Obama's Local Garden

This story has been out for a little while, but it is still no less inspiring.  If you have not heard already Michelle Obama has begun the process of setting up a vegetable garden at the White House.  The space and weather conditions are pretty ideal, not to mention the greatest impact will be what it says to the rest of the country.  More and more I am hearing friends tell me about their own small herb or vegetable gardens.  People seem to be really excited at not only eating the "fruits" of their labor, but also having a project they can watch grow.

Spring Seedlings

Tomato seedlings: Fog, Sprite, Royesta, Celebrity 

Tomato seedlings: Fog, Royesta, Celebrity 

Pepper seedlings: Salsa, Pepperocini

Tomato seedlings: Roma

Beet seedlings (large pot)

Onion seedling

(all 2 weeks old)

Living Locally returns to Los Angeles

I am not ashamed to say that at the core, Donny and I are lazy when it comes to cooking and preparing food.  While we do like to make our own food and create homemade dishes our natural instinct is to go out to a restaurant or get something delivered.  Last night was no different.  We had not "thought" about what to make for dinner, which translates to "we think" there is nothing to eat.  Of course there is a small mountain of local chicken, bison, turkey and beef in the freezer, but that would need to be thawed and thawing takes time.  Time that you don't have when you want food that second.  For a moment I unknowingly mislead Donny into thinking that we had salad mix.  When he found out that we didn't (my mistake), he was briefly let down and then realized, wait, we have our own salad mix!  Donny went up to the rooftop garden.  In barefeet and pajama pants he went grocery shopping for fresh lettuce.  

Local Pennsylvania Edition: Living Tree

This holiday season my mom and her partner opted for a live Christmas tree. This tree (pictured) was purchased from Mostardi's Nursery in Newtown Square, PA, but I'm told you should be able to find them from most local orchards or nurseries. Depending on where you go the live tree can range anywhere from $50-$180. Call ahead to be sure.

The tree my mom bought is about 4 ft. tall and comes in a pot. Some come with the root ball wrapped only in burlap. In that case you would provide your own pot. To care for it properly the tree should remain outdoors when it is not being used for decoration.

It must be nurtured into the indoors. About 2 weeks before the holiday put it in a garage or covered area for about 5-7 days. Less than a week before the holiday you can start to enjoy it inside your home, but only for another 5-7 days.

Once you've celebrated the holiday, reintroduce your tree to the natural elements, which means another 5-7 days in the garage. After that time it goes back outside to a year of full sun with continuous watering. The tree can go through this process of inside/outside for 3-4 years of holiday cheer. Be prepared with a larger pot after a year or two, as the root ball could outgrow its original home. You can then plant it in your yard. If you don't have space, consider donating it to a local park or school.

If you can find a live tree in your area, I think its a great idea. I hope to get one for our house next year.

Local. Reuse. Grow.

Local Ghostwriter checks in about Rooftop Garden

In addition to being too busy to write about my Thanksgiving, I have also been remiss in taking care of the garden.  News from a ghostwriter about the rooftop garden.

I was just up on the roof.  I gave the plants a once over.  I think the siberia that split may give some fruit after all.  I think we could end up w a hundred tomatoes total.  The only one suffering from the recent cold seems to be the grape.  Thankfully its bearing now.  I think we can safely say that operation tomato is a success.  I'd like to start prepping the next crop before xmas. But this time I want them all from seed.  Let's order some of those Martino Romas over the weekend along w some others.  I think mail order is the way to go. And there is a nice red grape tomato w your name on it.  You can grab it in the morning. ;) 

I put that lettuce in with its bigger brother too.

I'm just hangin on the balcony with a beer and a gardening book. You should come over.

October Weekend Harvest

Rooftop garden pickings.

Tending to Horsetail

I think our horsetail is dying.  Although it is a weed and it is still breeding, it is definitely getting dry and brown.  As you can see from the pic it still has many pretty green stalks, but there are just so many brown, dead ones too.  We purchased the horsetail at the very begining of summer and immediately split it up into 2 equal size containers.  It was sort of an experiment to see how quickly it could grow. It doesn't come cheap here in LA, but we love the look so much. It started multiplying almost immediately. At that time it had full sun and we watered it very little. Donny said he read that the horsetail should be watered weekly.  In just a few short months our rooftop garden has grown considerably. We now have over 25 containers up there.  To make it more pleasing to the eye, I recently moved the horsetail to a different spot. This area probably has more wind and a bit less sun.  We've also watered it a lot more. Since the move the horsetail has not responded postively. Most of what I've read online is contradictory.  Some say it needs a lot of water and sun, others say it is fine in the shade.  I am going to cut back the brown stalks and see how it responds. 

Moving plants

The reason for planting veggies is to harvest and eat them. I feel like we spend way more time tending to them, which isn't so bad because we love our free time together up on the roof and in the sun. Today was half harvest, half moving day for some of our plants. Donny noticed the tomato and pepper plants outgrowing their pots. We ended up moving the 2 tomato and 2 of the pepper into larger 14 in. pots. Moving the peppers opened up new real estate, so I planted more garlic cloves. We also have 2 other pepper plants and are experimenting by planting them right into the ground. However the front garden has limited sun, so we are taking a risk. When I first started planting in the front garden I littered it with tons of different seeds. It was covered with carrots, but they had been in the ground for almost 4 months. This was way past their harvest. Unfortunately it seems that my first attempt at gardening was met with a bit of my laziness. The carrots probably could have grown to full size, but the soil was so compacted there was no more room for them to grow. As you can see these carrots are piddly, but so cute! Donny tilled the ground so that planting anything new will have a better chance at life.

And back to the old times of gardening out front. Our neighbor caught us and convinced us to plant her own basil plant. Since she's had it sitting in the tiny plastic container it came in when she bought it from Trader Joe's, we took pity on her. She actually told us that she and her partner had been talking about how I'd been neglecting the front garden. Awesome.

This is going to sound a bit crazy, considering a recent post, but although they are gross and live in a smelly trashcan, I think I am starting to like the maggots. They eat our food and turn it into compost so fast - its amazing. We still don't have our replacement composter and with the full day of gardening, I had to make a lot of trips to that maggot-filled can. I won't say I enjoyed myself, but I am getting to be quite fascinated with the maggots and have managed to move past the terror. I am pretty happy with myself about that. I had actually thrown away food last week just so I wouldn't have to go over to that can. I am glad to be beyond that so all composting at our house can continue on with business as usual.

We hope to use these carrots, along with our caribbean red peppers for some homemade hot sauce. I'll pass along the recipe after we make the attempt.

Rooftop Gardening continues

I would like to say that our rooftop garden is flourishing, but that is only partially true. Our neighbor's cat as continued to cross over onto our part of the roof and do his business. Donny even called him an expletive at dinner last night, so you know its getting bad. This cat is a real menace and will do anything it takes to squat on our veggies, even if he gets a little metal fencing up his butt. He has now officially killed a pepper plant and I'm pretty sure he has deterred our 5 garlic cloves from sprouting. I'm hoping that our recent additions of oregano and green onions don't encourage to him to hang out in our area more. Donny is going to great lengths to keep this cat out. I'm not sure if we will ever truly win this fight. It is exciting, however that the asparagus are growing like gangbusters and if anyone is looking for a habanero pepper, we've got a half dozen already. Also, we moved our english mint to the front garden, which goes right into the ground. The mint has been looking quite sickly for a while. We took it out of the pot this weekend and realized that it might have just outgrown the pot because the bulb is huge. Hopefully it will spread out under the ground next to the lemon tree and live a healthier life.

In other news I wanted to let everyone know how easy Naturemill has been to deal with, regarding our broken composter. They are sending us a replacement, giving us a pre-paid UPS sticker to mail back the old one and letting us pay the difference to upgrade to the Pro edition. Although we keep our composter up on the counter, the foot pedal will still be useful for those who don't want to get too close to the mixture. The Pro also comes in a variety of colors, so we ordered the new one in Slate, which is a dark grey. I'll let you know how different the Pro is from the Plus once we've used it for a few weeks. Until then we will continue to use a metal pot for all of our scraps.

Tonite I am going to make some homemade bison lasagna. Lasagna feels like one of those very American home cooked meals. It is definitely not something my mother would have made for me as a child. It doesn't look pretty and its not that hard to make, but it is so delicious. I found this recipe and I will just add the bison to it. My favorit part of this recipe website is that you can control the servings and it will automatically adjust the quanity of ingredients. I think it is a nice tool when you are cooking for a specific number of people.

Maggots

Warning!

If you gag easily, then I urge you NOT to read the rest of this posting.

Maggots have taken over our compost. I knew this already, but seeing it by myself today made it a little more real. I have to be honest. I have a problem with small creepy crawlies. My definition of a creepy crawly is usually a mouse, a rat or even something as large as a possum. Something that I feel has no problem biting me or crawling up my arm. Those things all scare me. I’m actually stressing out right now. My boss’s daughter has 2 pet rats and I am absolutely freaked out by them. However, I usually have no problem with insects, like spiders, cockroaches, flies, etc... I don’t like them in my house, of course, but I can easy squash them with my hand, my foot or a fly swatter. And now maggots are on my list of things to get used to. I’m not talking about a few maggots. I’m pretty sure there were millions of maggots in that bin. The entire contents of the bin were practically moving in unison. I’ve read many articles that say maggots are good for your compost and that they will reduce the size of your compost at a rapid speed. All of that aside, maggots are just pretty nasty. I couldn’t even make breakfast after I got a glimpse of them. My brain immediately went to that visual of all the maggots moving around. For a moment I thought they were going to climb out of the bin and grab me. I want to get used to the maggots. I really do. At this juncture, though, I will keep my distance and let Donny be the front line. Sorry buddy.

Rooftop Gardening

Yesterday was a successful day in continuing our rooftop garden. Donny already planted a caribbean red pepper, 3 regular red peppers, 2 kinds of basil, 2 tomato plants, and a mint plant. Together we planted 4 cloves of garlic and an asparagus plant. And for a few weeks now we’ve been breeding horsetail. It’s on the expensive side, so Donny thought it would be a good idea to split up one container into two and let them grow. Horsetail is really just a weed and it’s been multiplying pretty rapidly. (see picture)

Our neighbor's cat has spent a bit too much time near our plants, and by that I mean he thinks our plants and our roof is his bathroom. In defiance of him we spent the day making custom fencing around each pot with a big roll of chicken wire-type we bought at Home Depot. All of the pots look so uniform and hopefully will keep unwanted animals out.