Garden Evangelist...

I have said before, "Everyone should grow something..." And I really think this is true. A few years back I started having "Seed Planting Parties." The parties started as a way for some gardening gals to prep their seeds for the season. But each year I invite a few new folks. I tell people, you can have plots (a dedicated garden area in the ground) or pots (simple container gardening on a patio). I invite whoever I think would enjoy it. And some say "I don't garden," and I say, "Come anyway for brunch!" And it never fails, they end up finding the seed preparation process enjoyable and going home with at least an herb or two to try out their gardening skills for the first time.
Plus, we eat! This year I had a Fall Seed Party for the first time. And AZ had record temps for the first time since 1980 (107-degrees). So, I may just stick to my Spring parties from now on.
But this year was great! We shared our successes and challenges from last years growing season—"What does a broccoli flower look like?", "My peppers just did not do well this year, did yours?", "Did you know, that if you let arugula flower, you can harvest the seeds pods for next year?" We all share tips and tricks, and advice for the new gardeners in attendance. Everyone goes home toting their seeds bags full of a treasure of seeds just waiting to burst forth into a bounty for the table in just a few short  months.
I have shared my menu below—maybe it will inspire you to host a seed planting party, and gain some gardening coverts in your community.

Make your own menu, or be inspired by the one below.
What we enjoyed for brunch:

• Minted apple water (pitcher of flavored water with apple slices, lemons slices and crushed mint)
• Homemade chocolate granola with homemade yogurt.
• Garden greens salad with shaved honeydew melon, shaved ham, sun dried tomato and peach vinaigrette.
• Cracker crust pizza topped with homemade pesto, artichoke, pickled onions and Parmesan cheese.
• Garden plot cupcakes (inspired by Hello Cupcake cookbook.)

Some of the cupcake pics for fun...

Gluten Free Spring Brunch and Seed Party...

(All recipes are at end of post...)

I love to grow things. If you read my blog, you know this. The excitement of coming home each day from work to see what has pushed up through the earth and is emerging and growing is exhilarating.
Every spring, I host a Seed Party to get my garden planned and prepped and get all my fellow gardeners excited about this year’s seed sowing. Now, we are not master gardeners, some have plots of ground, others just pots. Some veggie gardens, other English gardens, but whether pots or plots, it works for all!

The recipe is simple:
• A handful of seasoned gardeners
• Usually 1 or so new gardening recruits
• A delicious brunch
• Stir in some lively plant discussion
• Sprinkle with tips and tricks, and you have it!

Here is how I host mine, scale yours back if you want to. No matter what, its fun!

Menu: (Recipes at the end)
• Strawberry-chocolate smoothies
• Garden salad (truly, everything was from the garden!) with fresh pear vinaigrette
• Herbed potato strata
• “Dirt-clods & mud” for dessert
• Strawberry water to drink

1. Everyone gets a bag to tote their seeds home in.
2. Everyone gets a garden layout to plan their garden or pots (this helps you to see what you have room for, and what to plant where).

3. Then, share, exchange, and organize your seeds!
4. Have guests bring seeds to share and exchange.

If you love this idea, but just need a smaller scale production, do a Flower Pot Party (think cookie exchange, but with flowers).

1. Have each guest bring a 6-pack of any flower from the local nursery, and their own pot.
2. You provide the potting soil.
3. Then each guest pots a beautiful pot full of a variety of the flowers each guest brought.
4. Have a simple dessert and refreshing drink to go along with it, and that is a fantastic spring party!

Everyone goes home with a beautiful mixed-flower pot full of flowers.

So the scene looks like this: children dig joyfully in big pots of soil, the gardeners chatter and laugh and share their gardening successes and disasters, the dog steals someone's napkin and runs off, the bees buzz the flowers on the table...

So, pick a warm day, some good friends, and just enjoy a few hours on a saturday of dirty hands and doing something that makes you feel good and alive–like growing something.

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RECIPES FOR THE BRUNCH | This brunch is nearly allergen free, and is all gluten free.

Strawberry-chocolate Smoothies | Makes 8 6-ounce servings.
Creamy and yummy!

• 2 pints of strawberries, stemmed removed
• 1.5 cups (or more) coconut milk (this can be any soy, milk, or almond)
• 2 very ripe bananas
• Agave nectar (to sweeten to taste if needed)
• 3 tbs cocoa powder

Put all ingredients into a blender and blend well till smooth. Adjust the milk to make it thinner, add ice if you like it thicker.

Garden Salad with Fresh Pear Vinaigrette | Makes about two cups

Salads don't just have to be lettuce; add whole bunches of parsley, dill and basil in like lettuce leaves. I added raisins and peaches too.

• 1 fresh pear, halved and cored (no need to peel)
• 1 tbs pomegranate molasses (or use honey)
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• ¼ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp pepper
• 1/3 cup white wine (or apple juice)
• 4 tbs olive oil
• 3 tbs chopped fresh herbs of your choice (I used dill, thyme, basil, scallion, curry herb, sage)
• 2 tbs apple cider vinegar

 Put all this into a blender and let it whirl! You need to taste it and adjust. If too tangy, add more fruit or honey, of too oily, add more wine or juice.

Our truffles and chocoalte sorbet made up our 'dirt-clods' & mud.

No one can do chocolate sorbet better than Ina, so this is her recipe. Use any truffle recipe you find, they are all the same basically.

New options on my blog...

I was pretty excited to find that I could change a setting on my blog that was allowed people to comment without registering! So now that is fixed, people (should be) able to comment freely! (Sorry it took me so long.) Test it and see!

I also now am able to index all my recipes on a recipe page. Up top there are two links, HOME, and RECIPE LISTING, visit the recipe page and you can see them by category, all the links at a glance. Hope that is easier for you all!

That is all for today's post, but I posted a picture of my lettuce patch! It is arugula, mizuna and other various lettuces, that have gone to bolt (seed) and are flowering. Did you ever think a lettuce patch could be such a gorgeous field of flowers?

I suggest when your weather warms, that you grow lettuce, anywhere! Then let it flower! It promotes bees, which is good for other crops, and you can also harvest the seeds for next year (plus, you get to eat all the lettuce it produces!)

Grow sunshine, bring bees...

 

The bad weather is over here in AZ. Record rain ever for our state. The wind put some of my sunflowers sideways, and they are still that way! But they are also still looking up to the sun and happy. I planted them all over the yard last season, instead of just in one or two spots. I was trying to promote bees in the yard to encourage pollination and produce more veggies. Its working! So far we have seen great things from everything this year, better than last. …And we’ve had about 6 bees off and on in the house when we've left the back door open to enjoy the sunshine days, so I would say they have a definite presence.

I've included lots of pictures today, because I couldnt decide on just one for this post. I encourage you, when the weather permits, to plant sunflowers. They are unbelievably easy to grow, and will grow really anywhere at all. Just buy a packet at your local grocery or nursery, poke them into the soil and wait! You will not be disappointed, I promise. They germinate quickly, and just grow and grow. Grow a lot...that way you will have plenty to bring inside in a vase, and plenty to leave outside.

 

There are many varieties, but I recommend a cutting variety, to cut and bring indoors, and I also recommend a seed producing variety. These are tall and grow large heads that produce the sunflower seeds we all know. When the heads are ready, you can dry roast the seeds yourself for eating, or simply lay them out for the birdies, they pick them right out of the head! Any brand of seed will do.

Everyone should grow something...

Really, everyone should. It is a beautiful thing to watch something grow and then to harvest and eat from it. For the new gardener and the not-enough-time-to garden gardener, I think two easy-successful things to start with are potatoes and snap peas.

Potatoes are quite possibly my very favorite thing to grow. Harvesting is like digging up treasure! You have no idea how many perfect little smooth presents are going to be under the soil, and every time you come upon one it is like a little surprise!

Here is why I feel these two items are an easy and good place to start...
You can grow potatoes in a large deep pot…no yard needed. The plastic terracotta-look pots at the garden center are inexpensive. It takes about one bag of soil to fill it and you are ready to go! Simply buy a potato at the grocery, and set it on your counter until it begins to grow ‘eyes’. Cut the eyes off, then plant them (green shoots up) into the soil so the little eyes barely peek. Then water. And wait…but not for long. Potatoes grow fast! Then they begin to grow their new potatoes attached to the roots under the soil.

I grow them in both winter and summer in my climate in AZ. Potatoes near the top of the roots will begin to peek out of the soil. But there are also plenty down below! I will dig around and harvest and leave the plant in the ground for more to develop.

Snap peas are another great place to start. These grow great in a deep pot as well, and believe it or not, can even be grown indoors in a bright sunny warm window. I grow mine outside in the ground at my home. They climb the poles and have pretty flowers, then like magic, these white flowers become these sweet crisp snap peas. I also harvest the leaves of the plant and eat them in salad (no need to waste a perfectly delicious green!). They are a mild, sweet pea flavor and are tender and amazing in a salad.

Peas do take a few weeks to germinate and sprout, so there is patience involved on the front end, but the growth and harvest is wonderful to watch! Just place a teepee of bamboo poles (from the garden center) or tree twigs from your yard to have them grow on.

First Harvest…

So, I garden. I love gardening. To me it is the most elemental cycle of life when I can press a small seed into the moist earth with my finger, and with little, or sometimes no tending, it springs forth something that lives and grows and becomes something I can pluck from the earth to sustain life with. Food sustains life. The cycle that God created is amazing to me. It really makes me appreciate the grand design God made.

The first thing I do when I get home each day is pat the doggies on the head and then head straight out to my little plot of homestead in this urban place I call home. Here in AZ we can garden pretty much anything, nearly all year round.

I plant in late September for winter harvests, and then again in late February for summer harvest. I planted what you see in my garden the last week of September.

My favorite time of day is inspecting the yard to see what new little surprises have sprung forth while I was away working in my corporate cubicle all day.

Today, to my dismay, seven little, green caterpillars munched hungrily on my mint ravaging it to nubs. But then, as I made the way to my fenced garden, I see two little bobbins peeking out from the earth, shiny, and red and happy, waiting for me to pluck them from the earth!

My first harvest of the season! Two French breakfast radishes may seem like a small harvest to some, but it just means there is much more to come very soon!

I have a philosophy of food being from its source...and while I know not everyone shares that same philosophy, I really encourage everyone to try to grow something. There is something amazing about watching the cycle play out, and being a part of it that is wonderful.

My Top Two Picks and Tips for Beginners are:

• Radishes
• Sunflowers

They can be grown in pots, in the ground, or even in paper cups! I like these seeds, by Botanical Interests. They germinate very quickly (in only a few days) and produce very quick results, thus giving you gratification and confidence to keep it going!
Follow directions on the seed package, and grow them indoors if your climate is too cold, and keep them near a very sunny window.