Jenmenke

Road Warrior

how to plant

How much of a good thing is too much?

Garden Tomatoes.

Can you ever have too many?

Yes and no, is what I say. Yes, if you are buried under mounds of work and untended-to yard and garden chores. No, if you have all the time in the world. Like my kids seem to have…

nevermind.

I am told it is a bad year for tomatoes in these parts. In my little corner of the world, it isn’t so bad. Better than last year for sure, but not as good a a few years ago.

I think all the rain — records smashed here in Minnesota– has made them get the blight sooner for most people, though not for me. I struggle with that particular problem every year, no matter where I plant them, what they are mulched with, or how much rain we get. Blight just seems to be my lot in life.

I accept that.

Right now though, I’ve got tomatoes coming out my ears. I picked a full bowl yesterday.

And left at least that many more on the vine. Making salsa is out of the question. I have no time. Hopefully I will soon, but even if I did have the time, there is something about preserving garden surplus that just doesn’t sit well with me in August.

Why is that? The most I seem to be able to do is chop and freeze. Or, on a really good day, roast, puree and freeze.

One thing I meant to write about earlier in the season was the strange way the plants were sold by the nursery this year. I bought them from a different place than usual since I was so behind schedule and had to pick them up when I could find them. Sadly, I had no time for a special trip to my local grower. I found my main-stay Brandywine in a fairly large sized pot while shopping for flowers and bought two pots. Oddly, this nursery had allowed several seedlings in the same pot to grow. So instead of having one sturdy seedling, there were about six. My understanding has always been that this is a huge no-no, so I asked one of the people at the nursery and they said not to pinch any back, but to let them all grow. I’m still not sure if they knew what they were talking about, but at the very least, because I also planted a pot with a only single seedling, it would prove to be a fun experiment.

With pretty much no conclusion.

At this stage in the game, when compared to my single-seedling plants there isn’t much difference. I can’t even say for sure if the multi-seedling plants were more susceptible to the blight or not. That was my hunch, but I would guess, from looking at them planted all together, that blight damage is more a factor of proximity to another blight-damaged plant than to multiple seedlings in a single planting.

This is a very boring post, isn’t it.

Anyway, getting back to the title, “how much is too much”, it really didn’t refer to the harvest. It pointed back to the eating. How much is too much?

Is this too much?

Because that was my lunch yesterday. I decided to eat the split tomatoes before the fruit flies (curiously absent so far this year) found the leaking fruits. But there were three (!) split tomatoes.

So I ate them all.

Is that too much?

Is that gluttony?

I tempered it with some fresh moz. I love fresh mozzarella. Sometimes I think the tomatoes are just an excuse.

I also heaped the rest of my quinoa salad on the side. Which I thought I had already posted here, but I apparently did not. Or did I? I can’t find it. Can anyone help me resolve this burning question?

Anyway, this salad is SO GOOD! Make some today or as soon as the temperature starts to melt you. It keeps in the fridge for about 3 weeks.

I’m kidding. Not three weeks. More like 1 or 2. Just smell it for gawd sake. Everyone is so flipping freaked about about things going bad! Just SMELL IT! If there isn’t anything funky growing on it and smells the same, eat it and stop being so paranoid. I’m still alive. That should give you some confidence.

Or not.

Quinoa Salad with Fresh Anything

  • 2 cups quinoa, rinsed (skip the rinse if you are lazy like me)
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 1/4 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice (more or less to taste)
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • various fresh veggies diced: onion, cucumber, tomato, sugar snap peas, asparagus, sweet peppers, fresh raw corn, etc.
  • 2T chopped fresh herbs: any combo or single addition of basil, mint, cilantro.
In a medium saucepan, add a film of olive oil and toast quinoa over medium heat for about 5 minutes it starts to smell good. Again, if you are über lazy, you may skip this step. It just adds a dimension to the flavor. Add 3 cups of water and 2t salt to pan and bring to a boil, then turn to low, cover and simmer about 12-15 minutes. Fluff and cool.
In a large bowl, whisk lemon juice and olive oil together. Add add quinoa and diced veggies. Stir in chopped herbs. Salt and pepper to taste. A stunning additions is — of course — diced, fresh mozzarella. Another thing I tried was left-over strips of warm flank steak. It was yum!

When Will I Ever Learn?

I keep notes, I write this stupid blog. And still, I make the same mistakes over and over.

What, pray tell, was I thinking in March when I created this mess?

Actually, I know what I was thinking when I planted shelling peas two rows wide followed by sugar snap peas weeks later, three rows wide. I was thinking: “Shell peas are planted earlier than snap peas. Therefore, it shouldn’t be a problem telling them apart because the shelling peas will mature a lot faster. This will be great!”

Pea Fail.

I planted the shelling peas a full three weeks earlier than the sugar snap peas.

The sugar snap peas are ready now.

The shelling peas are ready now.

I can’t tell the damn difference!

See? Here is a side-by-side comparison:

Yes, yes, the pizza crust is somewhat easier to identify. The shelling pea compared to the sugar snap pea though? Not so much.

So we’ve got a big bowl of them on the counter. I offer them to guests and say, “Just bite into them. If the shell isn’t juicy and sweet, here, spit it into this bowl.”

But keep the peas!

And now, some useful gardening information:

How not to plant sugar snap peas.

Gardening books will tell you various things about planting peas. I don’t consult books very often anymore unless I have a real problem, but I am quite positive that I read this in a gardening book: it is a good idea to plant peas in wide rows (meaning instead of a single row of individual pea seeds, you plant 3 or 4 rows of pea seeds closely) since the vines will help hold each other up. I have done this religiously every year. Because:

1) it makes sense, and

2) it allows me to plant more peas in a smaller space.

It is 2010, I am writing this post so that I remember NEVER to follow that advice AGAIN!

Here is the mess planted that way:

Half are falling down (thanks to Lola, the pea-loving dog. She’s like a migrant dog, working her way from crop to crop as they ripen):

Now, I finally know better, because this year, in addition to planting them that way, because I had leftover sugar snap pea seeds, I stuck them in a single row along the back fence behind the garlic. You could say that was a bad idea too, since the tall vines now shade the garlic more than I’d like (let’s just forget that part for a minute), but I prefer to think of it as a surprise success.

Because, these peas, planted in a single row, are a dream to pick. Easy. Fast. Healthy. Not falling over. And in the end, I bet I’ll harvest more from them, too, since I can actually find them.

Lola can find them too. She camps outside the fence and pulls them through the fence holes. But at least that way, she can’t pull the whole vine down, which is another bonus.

All I have to do now, is to remember this for next year…ha!