It is February, but feels almost as if spring is in the air. I suppose it is time to start thinking about what I want to plant in my garden this year and order any seeds that I want to start.

Since I haven't posted in a while, here are a few late findings from my garden las fall.

A persimmon tomato

Hungarian Oxheart tomato

Beets from my garden that I shredded for a salad.

I mixed them with mandolin sliced spinach and tossed them with some dressing.

A tomatilla from my garden.

They never really got any bigger than that before frost, so here are some I got at the farmer's market.

I am thinking maybe some Hungarian Oxheart, one yellow tomato plant - perhaps persimmon, San Marzano for sauce, and a Snow White cherry tomato this year, and maybe one Japanese Black Trifle, if I can find one, I don't think I'll start it myself. Some red peppers, I made a most delicious Roasted Red Pepper Spread last fall, and I want to try it again......... More planning is in order.

Peeking Beneath the Leaves

The garden as it looked this evening. Currently I am enjoying a radish sandwich. If you are a fan of radishes, you should be disappointed that you didn't stop by this evening, because I was kindly sharing my radish harvest.

I have also enjoyed lettuce and chives...

For lunch today I had a cucumber

And this evening I even picked a green pepper.

Some other sights among the leaves....

Many Cucumbers to come.

Hungarian Wax Peppers

Tomatoes waiting to turn red.

More Peppers

Brussel Sprout nodes.

Cayenne Pepper

Radishes, Beets, and Swiss Chard

Spring Sunshine

The verdict is in, I have officially decided that this is parsley and the oregano never bothered to spring forth from the dirt.

However, I fixed the problem by buying some new seed, so eventually I will be able to enjoy some dish with parsley and oregano.....oh and basil, the seed was near the oregano, ...yeah and dill, I am not sure what sort of impulse buy that was, ......oh yeah, and rosemary - it just smelled good. My own little window herb garden, they may one day outgrow their pots but for now it adds a nice touch of green.

The new oregano seed making a welcome appearance beneath the parsley.

Enjoying watching those little plants jump up out of the soil....

and watching them grow....check out those zinnias.

Uhh, yeah, I didn't plant this tomato, it was a gift from one of my patients, she didn't tell me exactly what kind of tomato it was, but she was thinking cherry tomato.

Another experiment....I am hoping a success, some would sa

y it is an easy thing to do, but it is new to me and thus a new sort of challenge.....but it has led me to have some fear....fear that my worms will die. Yes, I am drying out some vermicomposting.

A view of my worm bin after the worms have entered their new home.

A blurry pictures, but you can kind of see one of the worms.

Feeding my worms some chopped up broccoli found in the back of my fridge. (Perhaps I should get a veggie board like my sisters - at inkspotsandcoffestains.blogspot.com oh well, this way I have food for my worms).

The Tomatoes are Turning Red...and yellow...and dusky purple...

It seems I have been delinquint once again, I will make a quick post here, but really there is much more I can say. I will focus a little on my tomatoes, I made one small batch of sauce 6 pts of very thick sauce...well actually I juiced the tomatoes, proceeded to get sick, and my mother finished the sauce...I was "watching" it cook down and fell asleep, making it a very thick sauce.

A collection of tomatoes ready to be juiced.

Purple russians ....

... making an interesting colored tomato juice ... but it tastes quite good.

Tonight I made Lok Lak, a dish I learned from Kimsin and Sina my Cambodian friends. It was very good.

The Ill Effects of Beetles and Hail (.... a post long past due.)

Well, it appears I have been delinquent...that is in keeping up this blog page so I will try to remedy that a little today. We will start with my tomatoes. I did so well in starting them and keeping them alive to plant out and then to have them nicely situated in the garden I felt quite pleased ...that was until I went to check on them.

Here is a fine specimen of a Potato Beetle...however it is not welcome in my garden.

And you can see the results of his visit. I must say it was an unfortunate state of affairs. I am not mean and cruel by nature (at least I don't like to think so), but I must admit I squished every one I could find with my bare hands and then sprinkled my plants with Sven, well at least any of them that looked like they had any chance of survival - unlike the one pictured. If I remember correctly they effectively destroyed 7 out of my 12 plants.

Around the same time we had a bout of hail, but truthfully my plants made out much better against the hail than against the beetles. I had only one or two that I remember thinking "what happened to that plant...it doesn't look good...but it doesn't look eaten either..."

Don't worry though I managed to come up with replacement tomato plants ... and they faired much better.