Finally, finally heard the first one of the season today.  They are late! Usually here a few days before the equinox, so at least 2 weeks late, and I only heard one. WHERE ARE THEY ALL ..read more

I see I didn't post much last year; this year I intend to keep our records of various breeding projects here, and since I intend for us to make some serious progress, let's get started. Feb 2 2024 - we planted 2 pots Pusa Meghna original seed, 2 pots Pusa Meghna our own saved seed, 3 pots di Jesi, 4 pots Goodman, 3 pots All-the-Year-Round, 3 pots Early Snowball, 3 pots Macerata (green), and 2 pots Romanesco (green). This is about 2/3 of intended early spring plants but remaining seeds are still in the mail.  The hope is that by planting them indoors, very early (I do wonder if this is ear ..read more

  I took these photos almost 2 weeks ago and they already look so completely out of date. These zucchini are at least twice as large now, and are starting to look like they will form some buds shortly. They are from the interspecies cross that I have been mentioning off and on for a few years now. In particular, they are from 2 plants grown last year, both of which were probably f2s of the original Lebanese White Bush x Tennessee Sweet Potato squash crossed with another zucchini, in both cases probably Caserta. I thought they were the best of nearly a dozen grown out. I crossed them both ..read more

Our blueberry harvest is slowing down; but we have been picking berries ever since the beginning of June. This year we have finally had a very respectable harvest - at least twice as much as last year, and last year was a huge leap forward over previous years. I figure we will have picked somewhere between 10 and 12 litres of berries this year by the time they are over. Two years ago we picked only about a single litre. So, what has changed? The bushes are finally getting fairly mature, and that helps, but also three years ago we changed our growing methods, from stick 'em in the ground and h ..read more

    It seems I lose a week every month in reviewing the garden. Oh well. It is definitely moving along, losing that mid-summer lushness and letting some of the cracks show. We've been having some insect problems, and have been spraying with a mixture of neem oil and insecticidal soap. It does seem to help, although it is certainly not a miracle cure. I don't know how there are all these photos of Mr. Ferdzy applying it by himself. Mostly he sprays, while I come along behind carrying the bottle and pumping at the same time, or trying to anyway. Bickering ensues. I guess that's why I ..read more

I said I would likely keep doing some garden posts, and so I am. I like to go back and see how things change. This year's big change is that Mr. Ferdzy has put up insect-proof cloth over 3 beds. These 2 beds have the cabbages, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflowers. There are also some rutabagas, from them having gone to seed in this area last fall. They have been providing some truly excellent greens. The cloth has made a huge difference. The brassicas have never looked so good. On the right, melons. On the left, peppers. Both looking pretty sad. The mild weather that has made the bra ..read more

Well. Here it is, the 10th of June. I've been thinking about this date for the last couple of months. It's the 15th anniversary of this blog. Fifteen years is a lot in blog-years. We still owned the apartment building, and we were having work done on the terrazzo staircase. I had to decide for the day - in or out? I opted for in, got bored, posted a few recipes and the rest is history. I needed a better way to organize them than in an excel spreadsheet, and I figured a few people might stumble up against the blog and the recipes could be useful to others as well. Then, I did get a few readers ..read more

The first of the strawberries have been picked! They seem a little early to me, but in spite of some persistent cool weather there have also been some hot days where things have leapt forwards. It's exciting to see them but a little daunting to think about all the picking in my future, when the weeding is so far behind.  Really, though, this recipe is about the sponge cake fingers, aka lady's fingers. They are designed to be okay on my "better carb" diet, and incidentally they can be gluten free as well. I may fiddle with the recipe in the future; they were not more exciting than lady's ..read more

Well, I'm going to confess; I made this in the winter with frozen peas and saved it for now. In a funny sort of way there are lots of things that can be made in the winter but late spring and early summer are difficult. I'm also a little ahead of things here; the peas are starting to form but are not yet ready to pick. Soon, though! And I think things are a tad later than usual this year.    Snow peas will be ready before shell peas, and they would work well in this recipe. I do see snow peas used in Turkish cooking regularly, so there's that. It's hard to come up with recipes for sn ..read more

  Hello! It's time, more or less, for an end-of-the month look at how things have gone in the garden this May.    I spent the winter watching the constant freezing and thawing with dismay. Indeed, a number of the biennials I hoped would over-winter and produce seed have not. Just to confirm it's not just that they were too tender and I was wildly optomistic about their survival, it has become clear we will have no blackberries this year, for the first time since they were planted. All the second-year canes - the ones that have the fruit - were killed over the winter. So, in the ..read more