Things That I'm Into: Padron Peppers

So you are supposed to eat Padron peppers by frying in olive oil then sprinkling with sea salt, and eating them whole.  SUPPOSEDLY they are generally pretty mild but wikipedia says that about 1 in 10 can be spicy.

I don't know if it is the climate here compared to spain, but our experience (and the friends we have subjected this painful experience to) is that maybe 1 in 10 of the ones growing in our garden is mild. The rest are painfully, painfully spicy. But still delicious. 

(C before she was in pain.)

(V in pain. Lots of pain.)

Things That I'm Into: Community Garden/Lunch Spot

This community garden is somewhat near* my new work. I've been eating my lunch here occasionally, and I'm pretty into it.  I wish we could get a plot here, but unfortunately (though it makes sense) you have to live within five blocks, which we certainly do not.

 

I like having good outdoor options to eat my lunch, especially after last year working in LA in a building surrounded by no sidewalks.

* I say near because the exact physical location of my new job is a SECRET not just from the internetz world but also from my friends and family. Apparently I can talk about it generally, but not the exact address. Seems a little overkill, but they are worried about security and they probably know what's up, so...

Things That I'm Into: Container Flower Gardens

Some from the neighborhood. 

Things That I'm Into: Ugly but Delicious Food

Ugliest quiche I've ever made.

Still delicious though. (Mark Bittman's Cheese Quiche + Garden Pesto).

Things That I'm Into: Balcony Garden, Week 6-7

So we ran away to the west coast for two weeks and left our garden. Pretty much worst garden parents ever. Friends stopped by and watered every once and a while, which meant our plants stayed alive (hooray!), but since it was chicago and summer and they were very thirsty they were a little worse for the wear when we returned.

Thus, our tomatoes developed (dum dum dum) BLOSSOM END ROT. (Obviously I had to google the symptoms to find out the disease. I am not a plant doctor.)

Pictorial evidence of the plague:

So sad, right?!?! But don't worry, there are a gazillion more tomatoes in line to take those rotten tomatoes' (ha!) place.  AS WELL AS delicious serrano peppers, which we have been eating a bunch of lately:

So all is not lost in the garden. We've been eating peppers and lettuce and basil and chives and waiting patiently for tomatoes. On the next edition of Balcony Garden (you can think of your own theme music), I'll share how our upside down planter was a total bust and how we're going attempt to salvage that tomato. I'm giving it a 20% chance, but we'll see.

Things That I'm Into: Balcony Garden, Week Five

I feel like we've got to the jungle stage with our garden. It's growing fast, and all these storms we've been having are sweet because it means we don't even have to water the plants!

Check out that Thai Basil. HUGE!

A small green tomato, along with our makeshift stake (a hanger.) (Again, only classiness around here).

Ate our first pepper- delicious. Now hopefully the garden with survive weeks six and seven without us, since we'll be WEST COAST BABY.

Things That I'm Into: Balcony Garden, Week Three & Four

I took pictures last week but failed to post them, so here's week 3 & 4 in our balcony garden. As you can see, we added a new plant: Padron Peppers, which my Uncle Bill dropped off two weeks ago (he had seeded a lot of starters after falling in love with them on a trip to Spain). We didn't have anything to plant them in so they made it into this classy home depo orange paint bucket with some holes drilled the bottom that we found in an alley. Nothing but class around here. 

SO. Week Three:

And Week Four:

Everything seems to be growing well, still a bit skeptical about our hanging tomato. We have basil (normal and thai) and chives galore, and some baby tomatoes on our early girl plant.  Lettuce is coming in slowly but surely.

Things That I'm Into: Balcony Garden, Week Two

Things are growing!

The tomatoes grew a ton this week! We even got a couple flowers on them. The lettuce sprouted (though you probably can't tell in the picture). I used some of our "thai basil" in cooking this week, and it was pretty awesome. I've always just used normal basil in asian food, but the thai basil is much more lemon-y and tart.

The upside-down soda bottle tomato seems to be growing, but I am still skeptical that it will able to produce fruit with such a small amount of soil. We'll see!

Things That I'm Into: Succulent Wall

A block away from my BFF's house in San Francisco is this awesome succulent installation.  I walked by it when I was out there for her baby shower in March and thought it was one of the coolest things I've seen.

How awesome??

Now, two months later and post-due date, it is time for that baby to GET OUT of her comfortable womb and MEET HER MOM AND DAD!! (And her sort-of-aunt Lucy).  Why wouldn't she want to come out when she gets to see this sweet succulent wall only a block from her house?

Things That I'm Into: Balcony Garden, Week One

Well, this is actually a picture of our plants at near the end of week one. And they have grown a lot already!
We've got: three tomatoes (one cherry, two normal sized), one anaheim chili pepper, one serrano chile pepper, two normal basil plants, one thai basil, one chive, one cilantro, and four heads of lettuce (which were from seed and not starters, so they haven't appeared yet).

Our containers are from all over the place: one we found in our backyard, one we bought from target, two we bought from home depot, and our "raised box" we repurposed - it used to be the top of a target console/entry way table that had worn out its welcome in our home.

Then we made the upside down tomato container according to these instructions, motivated by this article.

 So far so good. Hopefully we'll have lots on delicious vegetables in 45-75 days.

Things That I'm Into: Vermiculture

We have worms!

About 500 of them, living in our house, in two sweet rubbermaid containers. They are going to eat all of our fruit and vegetable trimmings and poop out wonderful nutrient rich soil for us to put on our balcony container garden.

The highlight of getting our worms was getting an ilicit tour of Rick Bayless's super sweet backyard garden/kitchen/generalfoodtopialand. We gave the money, his gardener gave us a large yogurt container full of worms. Awesomest weird exchange ever.

After one escape attempt, they seem to have settled into their new home in the corner of our sunroom well.

We keep our veggie and fruit scraps in this (bottom right) interim home that has a filter to keep any smells out, and move it to the compost once a week.

So far so good in worm land. Will have an update after we actually harvest some compost.