Tiny Plot's Bounty in Action

What's the fun in gardening if I can't enjoy the fruits of my labor?  Flowers are pretty to look at but I'm more interested in eating the effort.  Since I don't have a balcony or a back yard in which I can grill delicious beef ribs, I broiled some of my mother's excellent galbi and used the perilla, mint, and lettuce from the tiny plot to eat ssam.  That's ssam as in farm, not ssam as in ham.

Ironic then, that today came about trying to be free from these people:




Meat still sizzling:

Mint just picked, piled high above baby lettuce:

Basil bounty, washed and just before being turned into pesto:

Excess mint means Moroccan mint tea.  Refreshing.

Something Old, Something New

The Old:
Oh dearie dear.  Poor communication and confusion have delayed the plot switch.  New plots were created in another area of the garden and some of the original members (including me) wanted to switch for a sunnier spot.  Getting this done has taken longer than necessary.  Now it's midsummer and unbearably hot with all sorts of tiny creatures biting me, and I have to weed my new plot then dig up all my not-so-little ones and replant them?  Are you kidding me?

The New:
Enough venting.  Today my mother came over and helped me pull out the lettuces and wrangle the out of control cukes that keep wanting to creep into a neighbor's plot.

Here's the last of the lettuce.  Not looking so good, but the final salad greens:

We picked two of the three eggplants that were growing.  They were sagging too close to the ground so my mom thought they'd be better picked and eaten:

The perilla were really abundant.  I hadn't picked any in weeks so there were plenty of large leaves.  My mother snipped while I held out the plastic bag for her to throw them in.  She counted 70.  Here they are after washing:

I took a few leaves and chiffonaded them to add to a nori omelet:

Recipe:
3 large eggs or 2 jumbo for a 10" nonstick pan
few tbsps dashi (homemade or powdered is fine, but it's optional)
dash mirin
dash soy sauce
salt and pepper to taste
few drops sake optional
chopped perilla (or scallions, mushrooms, or whatever veggies you have on hand - it really doesn't matter as long as everything is chopped or sliced fine)
1 sheet nori
oil for the pan
Whisk together eggs, mirin, dashi, sake, soy sauce, salt and pepper.
Heat the oil (I use a blend of vegetable oil and a few drops sesame oil for flavor) and add the vegetables to sautee for a few minutes.  If it's just perilla, sautee for a few seconds.
Add the egg mixture and use a spatula to stir as you would an omelet.  When the bottom is cooked but the top is a little wet, lay the sheet or nori, rough side down.  Pat it down gently and when it looks like it's adhered somewhat, start loosening the bottom on one side of the pan and fold it over.  It should be about 2" wide.
Scroll to the bottom for my link to Oxo's pancake turner.  I have this and it's infinitely more useful than a normal spatula.  That's because it's super wide, and you really need something as wide as you can get to easily roll the omelet.  If you don't have it, use the widest spatula you have, or use two to help roll from both ends.
Loosen more of the bottom and keep rolling and loosening, rolling and loosening.  You should soon have something that resembles a log (think Buche Noel or jelly roll - mmmm... jelly roll.... num num num).  The seam side should be down, and shut off the heat.  Let the omelet sit in the pan for about 10 minutes so all the loose egg inside sets.  Transfer to a cutting board and let cool for another 5 minutes or so before slicing on a bias.

It takes practice, but even if it comes out ugly it's still delicious.  Perilla, when eaten raw, is quite pungent like basil.  But when it's cooked, its flavors become muted and lends a more subtle fragrance.  It's delicious in eggs.

Flowers, Seeds, and General Optimism

As I write this, Wimbledon is on, my new ac is on full blast, and I'm examining the upside down Y's marked with dirt on my sunburned feet.  There was an early morning brainstorm session on the next stage of the hand-built compost bins with the Sustainability Committee, then I skipped over to my tiny plot to water the parched darlings.  I'm guessing it was a total of 10 minutes my un-sunblocked feet was exposed to sun.  I wish I didn't burn so easily.  I'm not looking forward to the bumpy rash.  My poor toes.

But I discovered a few gems to share with you here!  I'd noticed teeny purple buds on my eggplants last week but here they are in full bloom:

Here's another one:

Pretty, aren't they?  I'm not sure if the variety my mom got me are the bulbous Italian kind or the long skinny Japanese kind.  I just hope they produce edible eggplants of some sort.

Before I go on, an apology for the high contrast photos.  It was very sunny out (aforementioned poor toes), and I took these with my iPhone.

Also exciting is that my cilantro have gone to seed.  I didn't know this until I googled to find out why my cilantro started to flower and didn't look like all the other gardeners' cilantro.  Apparently, I'd not harvested it properly.  Since I had no recipes I wanted to cook just yet that needed any, I decided to leave the flowers alone.  Many have now turned into coriander seeds:

I picked one to taste and it was deliciously pungent!  This might be a better shot of my thumbnail than the seed, but here it is split open:

This is what the cilantro looked like a few weeks ago, haphazardly growing with little white flowers on top:

The basil also flowered:

What were once cute little perilla seedlings now have strong thick stalks:

The lettuces look like they need some chopstick and twist-tie therapy.  I had no idea they'd get so weirdly tall.  Here they are flopped over, bowing to the mint:

And speaking of mint, they've gone crazy, as I'd expected:

Here's the whole thing as of this morning:

From the other side:

It looks like a crazy jumble of green now.  Remember when it looked like this?

Lettuce is my Wool Sweater

When I was very young (let's say seven or eight but don't hold me to it) I watched a film on Sesame Street about how a wool sweater is made.  It had a charming narrative: two little girls on a farm tell their mother they want sweaters.  The mother has the father shear sheep, she spins and dyes yarn, and knits them cute little sweaters.  At the end, the girls are wearing their sweaters and are are very, very pleased.

The reason I still remember that film is because I was struck, even now, at how it was all done at home, from start to finish.  The girls simply said they wanted sweaters and the farm, their home, produced them.  They could actually point out the sheep the wool they're wearing came from.  If I had wanted a banana, the most I'd have to do is walk to the kitchen and peel it.  The most my mother would have to do is walk to the store and carry it home.  Which reminds me - there was a commercial in the 80's for Bermuda tourism... or was it Barbados?  Maybe it was neither, I don't remember.  Anyway, it was about a two second shot of a little girl, reaching out from her school bus to pick a banana off a tree and the voiceover said something like, "...grab breakfast to go..." to demonstrate how simple and lush the surroundings were.

It's examples like these that make me wish what I wore or what I ate, or any object touching upon my quotidian activities was more basic, closer to its origins.  Having said all this, I've been racking my brain for the last hour trying to write an elegant transition to what this whole post was supposed to be about, which is, if I'm making a sandwich or something, it's kinda cool to just go downstairs and pick off a few leaves instead of having to buy a whole damn head of lettuce.

Here they are pre-pick:

Here they are pre descent into my belly:

WTF?!

Gardening is supposed to be relaxing.  But when you are dealing with portioned out spaces among a group of people, inequalities and liberties taken are inevitable.  So far, I haven't had any problems... until now.  Someone put rocks in my plot.  I think I know who did it but I won't dwell on that.  All I'm going to say is I would never, ever put shit in anyone else's plot or touch their plants.  I'm really careful to avoid any misunderstandings that I refrain from even storing my tools in the communal storage bins.  Not happy with people putting things on my side of the border.  Enough said.

To end this post on a positive note, here's a picture of some lettuce I picked over the weekend.  I washed them and made a salad:

Five Weeks Later

These pictures were taken two weeks ago when we had a super hot weekend. I don't like hot weather and I usually cheer on clouds and rain when they're in the forecast, but like a baby (sort of), my little plot has changed me (sort of).

Anyone who knows me, not even well, knows that I love cloudy weather. I just don't like bright sunlight shining down on me causing me to squint, even through dark glasses. I especially don't like bright sunlight shining down on me when it's particularly hot. I can't understand how people like it, unless they enjoy turning their skin into brown leather. A few years ago, I even developed a bizarre sun allergy that creates horrible blotchy little red bumps that itch like crazy if I've been in the sun for more than five minutes.

But now that I have my little plot, I don't hate bright sun so much, because I want it to shine down on my seedlings and help them grow. These pictures were taken after I'd come home from a sailing lesson that hot weekend (another long story, but in a nutshell I'm trying to be more outdoorsy - it was uncomfortable as hell baking in the sun on that sailboat) and I was surprised to see everyone doing so well, especially the lettuce. So although I cursed the hot sun that burned my shoulders through my dark navy shirt (!) I also thanked it for helping my little ones grow.

The lettuce in particular were looking quite healthy:

Next to them are two strawberry plants. (I had some room after I'd given some perilla away.) When my mother brought them to me, they had tiny berries. Then the evil squirrels got to them and won't give a chance for more to grow. I have to get some sort of sticks and bit of wire mesh for protection.

The perilla grew nicely as well. Since my first planting in late March, I gave away six of them to my friend Christine who's got a lot more sun in her back yard. I'm curious to see how they do compared to mine.

And the eggplant are also nice and tall.

I didn't take any pictures this weekend while I was helping with the compost bins but I did notice that my cilantro and basil are doing quite well too. I was worried about the basil because he's not getting as much sun as he should, but the leaves are coming in nicely, if not as nice as the organic raised bed plot next to me. Even the sad little rosemary seedling I bought has grown noticeably.

Incidentally, I received an email from the person in charge of the gardening club saying that some of us had ignored the original plans, not making enough of a walkway between plots. I was careful to leave some room, but probably not enough so I'm going to have to replant this week. I don't like digging these guys up too much - that may stress out the roots but it has to be done so I'll take more pictures and post them here so you can see their progress.