Irene

Here are some shots from my window post Irene.

Leaves remaining flipped over.

 People venturing out.  This lady was taking pictures of the tree that was blown down.

It's hard to see but this is the tree that snapped in two from the wind.

Also hard to see but the plots with the tall sunflowers and tomato plants were all blown down.  I really need to get a zoom lens.

Here are some pre-Irene pics.

Nasty squirrel.

Gorgeous basil.

 Cinnamon basil flowering.

It's hard to see where my neighbor's plot ends and mine begins.  I don't know what he/she is growing but it's intruding into my cukes and perilla.

More healthy basil.

Baby cukes growing.

Purple basil turning green.

Perilla getting taller.

Sunday evening after Irene's worst has passed.

Lights on.

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?

Perilla Recipe Experiment

For my 3'x3.5' plot (in a previous post I might have said it's less than 3 sq feet but I measured it today - I'm not so good with eyeballing measurements) I have an abundance of perilla.  When I started planting my mother brought over the cutest little seedlings and we kind of ignored the fact they'd grow to be about 4' tall and they really should be given 8" to 10" from each other.  I later gave some to a friend in Brooklyn with ample garden space, and some more to another friend in Jersey City also with a garden that gets plenty of sun.

Perilla leaves, depending on the variety, can get to be about the size of a medium sized hand.  Mine aren't there yet but I've been getting a lot of recipe ideas from creative food blogs and I came up with something I thought would be easy to make using ingredients I already have.

Here's the filling:

Stuffing each leaf:

Break two large eggs into bowl and season with salt and pepper:

Heat up a little oil in a skillet and dip each stuffed leaf into the egg before laying out in pan.  Here they are sizzling away, my kitchen smelling delicious:

Finished:

The result was golden half moons of deliciousness.  Use more soy sauce than you think to get perfectly seasoned meat.  Try to resist eating them right out of the pan, otherwise you might get squirted.

There are variations of this recipe I want to try next week when more leaves will be ready for picking.  Try replacing the beef for pork or chicken, and adding Thai curry spices and nam pla to the meat.  I'm also experimenting with home-infused perilla soju.

Wine Box Experiment

Last week I discovered some db had put rocks in my plot.  Well, I had planned on putting a border between my neighbor's plot and mine anyway, since there's supposed to be a small pathway between us.  Still, no need to do it for me, thanks very much.

It meant I'd have to move my strawberries and a few other things, which was very well, since I was going to do some wine box experimenting.  A friend and former colleague of mine from my last job at a wine company told me he was using wooden wine cases to grow herbs in his Brooklyn backyard.  I had a few, so I thought this would be a good way to do mini raised beds (my ambition next year is to turn my whole plot into a raised bed).

These are the boxes I had to work with.  Two single magnum boxes, perfect for herbs.

And this one, a 6-bottle case, I decided to use for the strawberries.

It was not easy.  First of all, to make room for the path, I had to remove the lettuces, both strawberries, and three perilla.  Then it took me a while to decide where to place them all.  Should I rearrange everything?  Strategically place those I would access more than others closer - but how would I know when they'd get big enough?  Plant based on size?  This was hurting my brain.  I think I must have stood there for about two hours staring, shuffling, bending down, until I decided fuck it, I'll only move whatever I have to, replant the strawberries and herbs in boxes and call it a day.  By the time I was finished, I'd worked up a good sweat.

Here's what it looks like now:

I kept some of the rocks the offender left, except I placed the tops of my magnum cases, essentially flat wooden boards, below the rocks to provide more of a straight guideline.  I moved the cukes to the corner next to the criss-cross border (bottom left) so they could climb it as they grew.  The strawberries are now in the 6-pack Sassicaia box, and the herbs, rosemary, cilantro, and basil are now in the Monfortino case, leaving a little bit of room for some mint I'm getting from my friend Jennie who in turn will receive some of my perilla.  My lettuces are now next to the chives I planted in the Finca Dofi box, although I fear, a little too close to each other.  The squirrels have already gone at the newly moved eggplants, digging little holes where they shouldn't.

Only problem now is there's a huge gap in the middle.  I was going to scatter the perilla there, but I just didn't have the lower back strength.  If I can give away enough perilla, maybe I can do find something else to plant.  I've been thinking of getting more herbs: sage, chervil, marjoram, thyme, tarragon.  I do have one more 6-pack box, and I ordered some organic gardening soil on Amazon I'm still waiting for (see link above).  Maybe I'm getting more into this than I expected, but I'm (foolishly?) optimistic about my little plot.  Here are some more pictures.


I did a bad job replanting the chives but they are so hard to hold down!  Either the roots are sticking up, or I'd have covered all the green parts.  It was hard to line them up straight.  I think the lettuce is too close.

Strawberries in their new home.  I left room on one side in case I get more.

A close up.  It might be easier to have them in a box when I wrap wire mesh around them to protect them from the squirrels.

Herb box:

Cukes repositioned:

Evil squirrel holes near my repositioned perilla.  It's hard to see here because of the shadows but trust me, they're evil I tell ya!

The rest of the perilla are doing just fine: