Garden Progress and The Best Potato Salad Ever

It's been two weeks since I last took some photos of our garden progress and now that we finally have some nice weather again I thought I'd share a few more! Things are progressing pretty well except that we seem to have a problem with slugs this year. It's mostly affecting the plants in the covered bed so maybe they like that it's warmer at night. I was reading that they don't like to cross sharp or gritty things, so I'm thinking of lining the edges of the bed with some gravel and egg shells and see how that goes.




The uncovered bed isn't doing quite as well - I'm not sure if it's too cold or if the starts just didn't transplant very well. The peas are having a tough time, but I'm still hoping they'll rebound. Same with the delicata squash plant - and I reeeaaallly hope that one bounces back because I love delicata squash! The fava beans and the carrots and onions are starting to sprout though, so that's exciting!


I need to think of a few more things to plant in the little space that we have left - any suggestions? I also need to start my herb garden but the planter I used last year is currently in use for the radishes and spinach - I think a trip to Bi-Mart is in store for tomorrow.








But now on to the good stuff - potato salad. I've always thought mayonnaise was gross and when I stopped eating eggs it wasn't even an option, so I've never actually had a typical potato salad. Then one time while browsing through Parent's magazine in a doctor's office waiting room I came across a recipe for a different kind of potato salad - one with a vinaigrette dressing and corn and red onions, all things I love.

I think my search to find this recipe on the Parent's magazine website is what lead to the internet assuming that I have children (Have you tried searching for information on yourself? It can be quite entertaining.) Anyway - I finally did find the recipe and after making a few modifications for personal taste ended up with what I think is the best potato salad ever.

Red Potato and Corn Salad
1 lb red potatoes
3 ears of corn
1/2 red onion
1/3 c. olive oil
3 Tbs cider vinegar
1/2 Tbs fresh thyme leaves
2 Tbs fresh parsley, chopped
salt & pepper

1. Boil the potatoes in salted water for 15 minutes or until tender, drain and set aside to cool.
2. Boil the ears of corn for about 5 minutes, then drain and rinse with cold water. Cut the corn off of the cob with a serrated knife into a large bowl.
3. Dice the red onion and add it to the corn.
4. Cut the cooled potatoes into bite size chunks and add it to the corn and onions.
5. Whisk together the oil, vinegar, and herbs - add salt and pepper to taste.
6. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and toss together with your hands - I think this is the most effective way since the potatoes are a little bit delicate.

This salad works with all kinds of potatoes, but red potatoes are classic. I think my favorite are the purple viking potatoes but I can only find those at the farmers market (and hopefully in my garden shortly)!

Garden Progress

For some of you it might already feel like summer, but here in Oregon we're still on the weather roller coaster. Some days are beautiful, sunny, and 70 degrees, and then other mornings we still have frost on the ground (I'm hoping we've moved past that now though).

Last year when we moved into this house we built two 4x8 raised beds. Since we moved right about this time of year we got a bit of a late start on the garden - I don't think we had finished the raised beds until the first week of June. It ended up working out ok because we had a terrible spring and probably couldn't have planted much before then anyway.

This year Jonathan decided to build a hoop house over one of the raised beds to help us get started a little earlier on the garden (plus if we end up with more terrible weather we might actually still manage to get some tomatoes!). I'm really excited about this hoop house because we already have tomatoes, peppers, and corn planted!

We also have kale, potatoes, brussels sprouts, and something that looks like a mini tomatillo plant that is apparently called a ground cherry (or so Jonathan tells me) planted in the covered bed. The last few days it has been much warmer out so we've been opening up the hoop house during the day. I'm not sure if you can read the temperature on this photo, but it says it was 95 degrees in there even with it open! I'm not sure I quite believe that, but it definitely keeps it nice and warm.

Our other raised bed is not looking quite as exciting yet, but we do have peas, swiss chard, and a delicata squash planted, as well as the seeds in for fava beans, onions, and carrots. In my planter box that I usually use for herbs I have radishes and spinach planted - no photos of that since you can hardly see the radishes starting to come up and it mostly just looks like a box of dirt still!



This whole gardening thing is still quite new to me so I'm hoping some of it works out! It's fun to learn about but since it's a whole year before you get to try it again it kind be a little overwhelming! I suppose if nothing actually grows the way it is supposed to at least we will have our CSA Harvest Box to feed us!

-C

Gardens and Pixel

Jonathan thinks we are really far behind on getting our garden going. I keep trying to tell him that the planting chart says we're fine. I don't think he believes me. He's got the soil test kit out this morning so we can start some of the outdoor plants today.

Last weekend we planted our tomatoes, peppers, and snap peas inside - it's always a bit nerve-wracking for me to start things from seed, until they finally sprout and then I am super excited! We should start seeing something within the next week... I hope! I suppose we do have some planting we can do today - actually we can probably do a lot: fava beans, garlic, kale, broccoli, brussles sprouts, onions, potatoes. First we need to mark out where everything will go though.
I'd also like to put together a drip irrigation system this year, but for some reason that seems really overwhelming to me!

I was looking through some photos of our garden from last year for inspiration and though I'd share a few. For having a pretty cold start to the summer and a short growing season I think we were pretty successful!





But now on to more important matters - yesterday was the 5th birthday of the love of my life. And I forgot it! I think I owe him some new toy mice now. Oh - was that confusing? Yes, he is a cat. Here he is when I first got him:

 He was a gangly awkward looking thing when I first got him. In fact, my friend and I weren't even really interested in him and his sister but the lady who worked at the rescue center insisted that we at least take a look at them. These cats won us over in an instant - they purred and snuggled and let us hold them for at least 20 minutes. Now the only time Pixel lets me hold him is when I've been gone for a long time and he's excited to have me home, and even then he only cooperates for about 2 minutes!

Here he is now - five years old and more handsome than ever (well I think so at least)!

Garden Planning

I have great news for those of you who love to grow your own vegetables but really have no idea what you are doing (like me!). There is this seed company nearby called Territorial Seed. I get their emails now since I signed up for their catalog and on Friday I received an email about this new tool they have to help you plan your garden!

It is amazing - you can draw out the area that you have to plant, they have just about every fruit and vegetable you can imagine, and you drag and drop what you want to plant. Each plant takes up the amount of space it needs and you can drag to expand each plant into rows or blocks. Also? It will remember what you planted from year to year and warn you where not to plant the same things next year so it helps you with all that crop rotation stuff!

Then, once you have laid out your garden you can go to your plant list and it will tell you (based on where you live, no less!) when you should start plants inside, when you should plant them outside, and when to harvest! Amazing, right? Well I really love it because my attention span for reading all those gardening books is pretty short plus they are never quite relevant enough to the exact climate I live in.

You can check it out here: Garden Planner. It's free for 30 days if you just want to plan your garden for this year, or you can pay an annual fee for continuing access and the ability to plan your garden year after year! Here is what our garden will look like this year (or at least I think...):

We took a mini road trip down to their store in Cottage Grove this weekend to pick up the seeds we needed and got a few other things for the garden. I can't wait to get started! Most of the stuff needs to start indoors still and a few things will go outside next month. Jonathan has been building a hoop house over one of our raised beds, so hopefully even if we have a cooler start to the summer again we can still get a decent crop!


If you have your own vegetable garden how do you go about planning and deciding what to plant? I'm still pretty new to this, so any suggestions would be wonderful!

-C