"Sweet 100's" courtesy of Nature herself

The light from the window hits the skins of the tomatoes...
light just right to bring out their ripe vibrant red.

Just outside that same window is where they grew.

Little red miracles
planted by nature herself...
over ripe fruit dropped last fall
onto the waiting brown earth.
Winter and spring rain watered the forgotten seeds.
Morning sun coaxed the seedlings into being.

The first midsummer harvest yields much...
four whole cups.
Still more are left on the vine
to ripen a teensy bit
and ensure their juicy perfection.

The harvester is giddy.
He loves tomatoes more than candy.
To know how they came to be,
makes him all the more giddy.

As full of wonder and delight
as a six year old walking
the rows of a vegetable garden
for the first time.

I'm practically up to my eyeballs in lemons and loving it

Last week I stood and looked at boughs heavily laden with fruit full of liquid sunshine. This year our eleven year old Eureka lemon decided to produce a crop above and beyond it's "semi dwarf" status. Sacrificing thick green leathery leaves, it has poured all its energy into the fruit. The Eureka is an ever-producing variety that year-round has blossoms, developing fruit, and ripe fruit on it all at the same time. But never have we been blessed with such a bountiful harvest all at once like this year.

I stood looking at a branch ready to break after the added weight of waterdrops from a spring rain shower were almost too much for it to bear. I knew I couldn't put off the harvest any longer.

So despite dealing with severe bouts of spring-allergy-induced vertigo, I got out under the tree with my garden cart, green-waste can, and two sizes of pruning shears. The branch that was precariously close to snapping and jeopardizing the whole tree was cut off before it could do damage to the form of the tree.

I removed the lemons from the cut branch... but there were still so many lemons left on the tree.

I filled my harvest satchel... and there were still so many lemons left on the tree.

I filled a laundry basket... and there were still so many lemons left on the tree.

I filled my garden cart... and there are still so many lemons left on the tree.

Although I had dosed myself with plenty of sinus medication to reduce the swelling and fluid in my inner ears and keep the head-spinning at bay, it was still tricky having to look up over my head to pick each lemon. Silent prayer, wishful thinking and sheer stubborn tenacity kept me from pitching forward and landing in the pond or on the ground. After I had the cart fairly full, I decided I had gathered enough and the rest of the fruit on the tree could wait until another time when someone taller and less equilibrium-challenged could harvest them.

After a couple of days, I tackled the next task of processing the lemons. We chose to juice them all into 8-ounce freezable stacking containers Hubby found at a local restaurant supply store. My count for containers of fresh squeezed juice is now over thirty. They sit in neat columns of golden yellow in our large supplemental freezer and will be thawed as needed for various uses in cooking, baking or drinking. I still have almost a full 5-gallon buckets worth of lemons to go before the juicing is done.

Hubby and I have read together many times in Frances Mayes' books Under the Tuscan Sun and The Tuscan Sun Cookbook about the Italian limonaia (literally translated "lemon house") where this important staple is stored in various forms to be used to feed the family throughout the year when the lemons aren't in season. It's the reason I planted the lemon tree in the first place. I feel like we finally have our dreamed of limonaia (of sorts) in our freezer.

It's wonderful to imagine all the things that the juice will become in the artful hands of Hubby (my personal chef-in-residence). Some will go into savory entrees such as pan sautéed lemon chicken. Some will probably be combined to make homemade lemon-infused extra virgin olive oil. I will most surely want to use some to make my favorite dessert, Cheery Cherry Cheese Pie. And I am a lover of lemonade so most assuredly a lot of the juice will be used to make large pitchers of ice cold lemonade on hot summer days.

Now my mouth is watering.

Tis the season to harvest sweet and juicy mandarins off our tree

The delightful smell of mandarin peel oil has been on my hands all afternoon and evening. There's no way to hide it. I can't possibly sneak around pretending that I didn't eat the first fruit of the season harvested off our little dwarf Kinnow mandarin tree. I'm like a kid with chocolate all over her face after eating a Hershey's bar. There's no way to be sneaky or deny it with this sweet pungent goodness wafting from my hands.

I harvested the first mandarin and ate it right there out in the garden--tossing the peels in the iris bed at the base of the olive tree.

I was making sure the fruit was ready before picking any others. Honestly I was.

After I determined that the mandarins were ripened to perfection, I harvested the two largest ones and brought them inside for Hubby (he loves them).

With one in each outstretched sweetly pungent hand, I immediately said, "Look at what I have for you!"

He was appropriately dazzled by my offering. He didn't notice that I smelled of evidence of my "crime".  The mandarins were set in a place of honor on his cutting board in the kitchen to be enjoyed after dinner.

Later in the day I decided I wanted to photograph the two I'd harvested (they were so beautiful I couldn't help myself). When I was setting up to photograph them, Hubby had to make a quick run to the hardware store. While he was gone I finished my set-up and started shooting the photos. I couldn't complete my shoot unless I had pictures of a peeled mandarin. Without hesitation I peeled one of them and that wonderful aromatic oil squirted all over my fingertips.

Ahhh... heaven.

Of course I had to eat a slice that wasn't being used in the staging. I had to. Okay, it was two slices... or maybe three.

Hubby came home before I was finished and passed by my studio doorway. "It smells like mandarins in here," he exclaimed and peeked in to see what I was doing.

"I'm just taking photos of your beautiful mandarins, Honey," I said, "I had to peel one of them to get the shots."

I failed to tell him I'd eaten some of his precious mandarin--the loving offering I'd ceremoniously brought him just a few hours before.  I feel a bit guilty...

...but it was so good.

My tomato experiment: Yesterday's harvest of our weird and whacky tomatoes

I don't do well growing tomatoes from seed so when it comes time to put some in I go to our local nursery and buy a couple of cell packs of tomato seedlings with 6 plants in each. This year I bought a cell pack of roma tomatoes and a cell pack of cherry tomatoes.

I then conducted my own not-so-scientific experiment.

I planted one each of the plants in clay pots on our deck with morning shade and full afternoon sun in super-fancy-schmancy Miracle-Gro soil that's supposed to produce outstanding veggies. Flanked by separate pots of chives, Italian parsley and basil I expected these plants to do very well with the full sun all afternoon to sunset and the influence of the herbs around them.

I planted a couple more plants down in the ground off the edge of our deck with the same exposure as the pots. I built up a funky little planter around them from scrap concrete blocks (a former mow strip) and put some of the Miracle-Gro soil on top. A week or so later I mulched with some donated rabbit droppings and alfalfa as well as chipped branches from our own yard. I anticipated the green growth might bolt because of the added nitrogen from the mulch but figured it would be a good part of the experiment anyway.

I planted two of the plants in the front garden where mostly roses grow. I have a 4x8 foot planter box in front of our living room window that gets full morning sun from dawn until around 1 or 2 pm then there's shade for the rest of the day from the house. The soil in the planter box is just cheapy top soil from WalMart that we had leftover from another project and had dumped in there and let sit for a season until we planted something in it. I also planted a couple of parsley plants in between the two tomato plants that were at opposite ends of the large planter. I anticipated these plants would do poorly but I wanted them to go into the ground anyway.

Each of the plants, regardless of location, got their own dripper on the drip mist system for watering 15 minutes every morning at a slow drip.

None of my plants were treated with pesticide or herbicide. There isn't any need with companion planting because the good bugs and birds eat the bad bugs, and the proximity to tomato-friendly companion plants takes care of the rest.

Results of my not-so-scientific experiment

The two plants in pots haven't grown larger than about 10 inches high. Their leaves are sickly looking like both plants are on the verge of kicking the bucket. Both produced fruit true to their labeling. The romas (pictured above and below) were the expected size for that variety while the cherry tomatoes were a little on the small side. I was just happy the plants produced anything considering what they've looked like.

The two plants in the ground below the edge of the deck are pretty spindly with tiny leaves but lots of blooms and are about 2 feet high. The fruit is neither a cherry tomato nor a roma. Instead the fruit is shaped like a roma but is smaller than even the smallest grape. Some fruit is smaller than my pinky fingernail with most fruit being the size of my thumbnail.

The two plants in the front planter box were the biggest shocker. The plants are 3 feet high and cover the entire 4x8 foot box. I've had to cut trunks back that were invading the front porch and beginning to block the front door. The size of the trunks are larger in circumference than my pinky finger! The leaves are big and lush as well. I would expect plants with so much energy going to greenery to not produce blooms or fruit. But these plants have been prolific bloomers and were the first ones to produce ripe fruit over a month earlier than the others in back. Like the plants in the ground in back, the fruit is oddly neither roma or cherry but a weird hybrid of the two.

I've spoken to other gardeners in our area that have said they've had some weird behavior with their tomatoes this year because of our wet spring, unseasonable June rain and cooler than normal temps. I feel better knowing I'm not alone. It was just nice to finally go out and get a harvest yesterday that consisted of more than just a handful of tiny tomato baubles. It's such a weird year for growing tomatoes.

A lizard named Scott: How he and his buddies help me grow strawberries, oranges and tomatoes

We have a number of lizards that live in the nooks and crevices of our garden. Over the last few years I've built raised planters made out of chunks of concrete that needed to be re-purposed (it was that or send it all to the landfill). The planters were built with the lizards in mind because the planters offer lots of "hide-y holes" to get out of the rain but are also great for sunbathing (something lizards LOVE to do). I also have various sized rocks stacked around the edges of the pond I dug. The lizards like those too because they can sunbathe close to the water and snatch bugs that come by.

If I walk through the garden with calmness, lightly treading the paths, I can often catch a lizard sunning itself like the one pictured above. The little guy (or gal) is a Coast Range Fence Lizard Sceloporus occidentalis bocourtii that is native to our part of California.

During the summer and into September, I will often see very tiny little lizards scurrying about. Those are the babies that have recently hatched. They are less timid than the adults and will often let me get very close to snap a photo of them, sometimes cocking their head in curiosity as I approach.

I love having the lizards as part of my garden. Why? Because these lizards eat lots of small bugs including crickets, spiders, ticks and scorpions. The lizards live in the raised planters that my citrus trees are planted in as well as my strawberries, tomatoes and other seasonal veggies. They eat the bugs and I get to grow pesticide-free produce. It's a perfect partnership!

And you may be wondering why the lizard is named Scott... well... when I showed this photo to Hubby he said, "That lizard looks like a Scott". That's why.

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a wildlife-friendly veggie and fruit garden
so you can grow your produce organically
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Click here to read more about the lizards at Rosehaven Cottage

Simply strawberries

Sometimes there's nothing more elegant,
yet so wonderfully simple,
than freshly picked strawberries from the garden.

Last Harvest

Today marked the last harvest of tomatoes for the year, as it was time for me to pull the plants out and get on with moving the dirt and planter box to a new location. The last harvest of the summer vegetables is always bittersweet, particularly when it's been a low-yield summer like this one has been.

Interestingly, the pole beans that gave us beans in fits and spurts throughout the summer had a sizable crop to pick. AND the vines are still sending out blossoms. Since I don't have to move the planter they are in, I'm going to leave them in and, hopefully, we'll get another nice crop in time for Thanksgiving in November.

The last cucumber was picked even though it is as huge as a zucchini. Left forgotten under a large leaf, the thing is out of control. I think Hubby may try to use it anyway.

And the current crop of lemons on the Eureka lemon tree are starting to ripen so we were able to put a couple in the harvest basket so they can be used to make the vinaigrette for the bean and tomato salad Hubby will probably make with this basket full of produce. I think we've got enough beans that we can freeze some to use over the winter. That would be really nice.

Tomorrow I'm going to photograph the latest garden wonder that I discovered while we were harvesting that has left me really scratching my head. Stay tuned...

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A Gardener's Surprise in Downtown San Francisco

Last Saturday Hubby, my mom, and I drove into San Francisco to see the Ming exhibit at the Asian Art Museum. The museum is located in the heart of the civic area of San Francisco, and one can see the beautiful historic San Francisco City Hall from the steps of the museum. As we drove by City Hall to park and go into the museum, my gardening sensibilities were intrigued by the sight of the pedestrian mall directly in front of San Francisco City Hall--it was blooming in sunflowers!

After visiting the museum, I told Mom and Hubby that I HAD to go and see the sunflowers in front of City Hall. So we walked the short distance and found that not only were there sunflowers, but there was an entire vegetable and flower garden covering the space. The garden was planted as part of Slow Food Nation '08. Hubby and Mom sat on one of the many burlap-covered hay bale benches while I slowly meandered through the garden with camera in hand.

Butterflies, honeybees, bumblebees, and birds all flitted about in the garden that felt like an oasis in the urban center of San Francisco. The juxtaposition of the large produce garden against the bustle of urbanity was striking. It made for some really fun shots. And it also drove home to me once again, that it doesn't matter where a garden is, nature will find it and thrive.

The following are some of my favorite shots from a delightful afternoon...

Sunflowers in front of San Francisco City Hall

The juxtaposition of pollinators (Tithonia Mexican sunflower) against the background of city life

The large round beds alternated with pollinator flowers and edible produce

California Poppies slipped over the burlap berms that formed the large round planter beds



A non-traditional pink California Poppy caught my eye because it was so striking



The round bales of straw that served as a fence around the garden were
a favorite of the birds looking for nesting material

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Adventures in Fruit Leather

After a failed attempt at making prunes over a week ago, it took a while for me to build up enough gumption to try and make fruit leather from what is left of the plum harvest from our tree this year.

Yesterday, I looked at the basket and two bowls of plums on the kitchen table and realized that if I didn't do something with them, they would go bad (I've had my fill of fresh plums this season).

So, as I approach many of my "projects", I had to dive right in while I still felt the nerve and drive to do it. I knew if I waited, that the mood would pass, and I'd still have the same basket and two bowls of plums as well as a nagging thought that I'd chickened out.

Following the instructions that came with our Nesco dehydrator, I pureed the pitted plums (skins and all) in the blender until smooth. I sweetened the mixture to taste with corn syrup (apparently granulated sugar will make it brittle). Then I poured the mixture on the one plastic tray for making fruit leather that came with the unit. I had quite a bit of mixture left over in the blender and didn't want to do only one trayful, so I used another tier of the dehydrator as a template and cut out a "tray" out of parchment paper (I was feeling adventurous).

The dehydration took a little longer than expected (probably because my mixture was poured out a little too deep), but the result is exactly what I wanted! Believe it or not, the parchment paper tray was done in far less time. I liked the result better too.

I've now successfully produced my favorite flavor of fruit leather--plum! Now I am much more confident with the process and plan on turning the rest of the plums into fruit leather as well.

And as an endnote... I thought of my friend Emiline over at Visions of Sugar Plum the entire time I did this as well as when I was taking the photos. So, Emiline, this plummy post is dedicated to you!

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Rosehaven Cottage's Winter Garden Is In!

The winter garden is in and doing quite nicely after a few days of chilly nights and no late autumn rainfall. We are looking forward to buttercrunch and romaine lettuce (see above photo), celery (see above photo), red Stockton onions, chives, Italian and curly parsley, spinach, two varieties of broccoli, and snow peas that have already started to adorn our salads with their sweet green pods of "yummy". There are little munch marks on the edges of many of the leaves, which is to be expected (don't know if it's birds or critter mouths that have munched on the greens). That's okay. There's enough for everyone in our backyard wildlife habitat. We plan for that eventuality in the garden and everything always works out fine. We always have enough to harvest and the critters also munch on the bad bugs and pests that we don't want around our garden so I don't have to use pesticides on my produce gardens (haven't had to for about 5 years now).

The sunflowers that were in their golden glory back in late summer are now stalwart stalks of goodness for the birds that will winter-over here. Like natural bird feeders, their abundant heads feed the oak titmouses, finches, and other seed loving birds. Their acrobatics get extremely creative on the down-facing sunflower heads. It's quite entertaining to watch them extracting a seed at a time, flitting to a nearby perch, cracking open one seed to get the delectable center from within, and then start the process all over again. Such tenacity has to be admired!

Our dwarf mandarin tree gave us quite a bounty this year, as I was able to fill up my harvest basket with wonderful orange gems of sweetness just a couple of days ago. Now the mandarins are inside in our counter top citrus bowl, and we eat one or two as a little snack in the chilly evenings as we warm ourselves by the fire. After peeling one, the smell of fresh picked citrus on my fingers is just heavenly. It's a heady fragrance that reminds me of Christmas mornings when I always had an orange in the toe of my stocking. The mandarin oil is such a pick-me-up, I almost wish I had a perfume made from it.

Our lemon trees are loaded with lemons that still have a while to go before I can harvest them into my harvest basket. I'm excited for the lemon harvest (I always am). There's so much that Hubby uses the fresh lemons for in the kitchen. He makes wonderful lemon chicken pan sauteed in olive oil. It is so simple and so mouthwatering. I always enjoy being able to provide fresh produce from our garden for him to make his culinary creations. And this year we have a new addition to his gourmet arsenal in the form of seasoned olive oil from Corning, California. We bought an assortment as we passed through a couple of weeks ago coming home from Lassen, and it's been a real treat as Hubby has used the various flavors in his cooking and his homemade vinaigrette on salads. Yum!

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