Unexpected Gifts

I got a call the other day from my friend Victoria asking me if I would like a kumquat tree. I love calls like this! Among many other things, Victoria is an amazing food stylist. She has been working with a photographer who shoots out of his home in nearby Brooklyn. After their shoots they often have props that they can’t use or return. What is so great, is that Victoria thinks of me and asks me if I need…whatever it is. I’m so greedy, that I never say no.

Hopefully my little kumquat tree will survive the chilly ride in the messenger van! I also have 2 huge blueberry bushes in my backyard courtesy of Victoria. I know she’s happy that this stuff goes to good use, and of course I’m happy because I get to play with fun new things.

Last year Victoria’s son came over to pick blueberries with my daughter in our yard. It’s a funny urban/farming experience we bring to our children.

Update: I think that this little tree isn’t in fact a kumquat. I think it’s a calamondin based on looking through a gardening catalog. Their description is apt: It produces an abundance of round bright orange 1-1/2″ fruit. The fruit is easy to peel and has few seeds. The orange colored pulp is juicy and sour (this is an understatement!). It can be used as a flavoring or as a juice like a lemon or a lime. When sweetened with sugar it makes a delicious marmalade.

Trademarking “Urban Homestead”

I am getting so sick of greedy people trying to block others from using names/words they think they have a right to own. UPS has “brown”. Facebook is trying to get the word “face”. Seriously??

Well now someone is trying to own the term “Urban Homesteading”. That doesn’t seem to either belong to this one family, or be in the spirit of the whole movement. Read more about it here.

Blueberry Bushes

The other day I got an email from my friend Victoria. She’s a food stylist (she styled the cover of Omnivore’s Dilemma), cookbook author and generally interesting and curious person. She started a blog, which maybe she’ll continue if enough of us convince her to.

Anyhow, in her email she was desperately trying to find a highbush blueberry that had fruit on it. At the time mine only had flowers on it. I couldn’t imagine any plant in this hemisphere having berries and kind of chuckled about clients being so far disconnected from nature as to think they could get blueberries in early spring. Well, it is New York and if you can’t find it here, you usually know someone who has it. Sure enough, the photo assistant’s family has a blueberry farm in the Berkshires. A call was made and two bushes with berries arrived in time for Victoria’s shoot. Don’t ask me how they found a bush up north that had full-sized berries on it, but they did.

After the shoot, Victoria offered me the bushes. And being the scrappy (greedy?) gardener that I am, I walked to her house to pick them up. They were enormous and heavy, but I managed to walk home with one slung over each hip. I am thrilled to have these massive bushes because I have one with blooms and another very immature one that wasn’t able to help with cross-pollination. You can see the difference between the new bush with it’s huge berries and mine, which I don’t think will develop into berries.

Making Seedling Pots

Last night I pulled out my x-acto knife, cutting board and old newspaper to make pots for my seedlings. Neil and Lindsay gave me this nifty little tool called the PotMaker last year. You wrap 3 1/2″ wide (longer than 9″) around the base of the cylinder. Then you fold the ends under and press down on the small disc-shaped base. I had a lot of fun making them and got a kick out of the pictures that appeared on the outside of the pots. And, yes, I’m a little insane/ocd because I planned some of how the photos would fall on the pots.

Planning the garden

One of the bright spots of winter for me is when the seed catalogs start to come in. I can snuggle under a blanket and dream about the warm weather to come. I ordered 2 currant bushes and 2 gooseberry bushes to go along with the 2 elderberry bushes I already have.

Here are the seeds I just got. Who could resist the name Sugar Daddy peas? A friend is giving me some tomato and zucchini seedlings. I’ve never grown zucchini in my tiny yard and might regret the amount of space they take up. I am going to try and train them over my railing instead of the ground. The tomato seeds that I bought are Black Krim. I grew them last year and really enjoyed the taste.

What’s growing in your garden?

First and last harvest

One of the signs that summer is ending and fall has taken over, is when we have to cut down our basil. Neil always makes a huge batch of pesto that we freeze and enjoy all winter. On Sunday, we had friends over and made a batch of pesto pasta, from some of the last of the pesto. I also harvested the first greens in my garden for a salad. I planted the mache lettuce in the fall and covered the planters with a plastic tarp. There they sat all winter under snow and in the cold. It is amazing to me that anything could grow at all. But grow they did and the salad was delicious. I adore mache greens and have taken to growing them because they are so difficult to find in the store. I have found them at Trader Joes in my neighborhood.

Mache salad with pear and walnuts

Toast about 1/3 c. walnuts. Peel and thinly slice a bosc pear. Thinly slice a shallot. Use a vegetable peeler and shave about 1/3c. parmesan cheese. Add everything to the salad.

Dressing: Mix 1T dijon mustard with 2T sherry vinegar and 1/4c. olive oil. I put them into an empty jam jar and shake it until it emulsifies.

Happy Birthday Lindsay

6 card small

Our sweet girl turned 6 today. We used to count her age in days, then weeks, then months and now it’s hard to believe that she’s already six. She looks like a big girl with her skinny jeans. She acts like a teenager as she sings along with Lady Gaga and Beyoncé and begs for me to paint her nails. She is a graceful ballerina and a fierce warrior in Tae Kwon Do. She has an opinion on everything and is not afraid to share it with you. She’s smart, a gourmand (we’re going for sushi tonight on her request) and has a wicked sense of humor.

We joke that she was born with a top hat and a cane, but it’s pretty much true. It will continue to be an amazing journey seeing her grow up.

This beautiful card and package came from her godparents in Rhode Island, who are amazing artists and make beautiful metal kitchenware.