Seen...spring arrives on the balcony

The Honeysuckle has been in leaf for well over 10 days now. With the incredible weather this past week, Jay got busy & cleaned up the balconies, installed the garden furniture, and re-oiled the teak dining table. And to finish it all off, how could he not resist a dollop of Spring colour. It makes the world a better place, don't you think?

Balcony Farming- still sputtering along!

We're a little surprised, but these little fire bombs just keep on going and going! It's hard to imagine they'll retain their enthusiasm after today's temperatures, but we'll be patient as long as they wanna stay and play! (photo from 2 days ago)

Late Harvest

A few more hot peppers are still on the vine struggling a bit to ripen up, so this is probably the last major harvest for this year.

The genesis of it all is covered in our previous Balcony Farming post here. We're already looking forward to next year, but meanwhile it looks like it's going to be a spicy winter!

Balcony Farming- AKA Green Acres on the 12th Floor

To be honest, we're mostly with Eva on this one. Nonetheless, we seem to have caught the urban farming bug!

We've grown herbs in pots for years, and have given tomatoes a shot a few times. While they've produced some fruit, we found that small pots made small tomatoes with thick skins. Our Beefsteaks ended up the size of Cherry Tomatoes! We've also been plagued with Blossom End Rot (black undersides) and skins that crack, both afflictions apparently due to insufficient regularity in their watering. We tried lettuce last year and had some good luck, and over the past couple of years we've had bumper crops of hot chili peppers.

So this year we are pushing it a little further. We've put in another crop of lettuces and they're doing extremely well, due mostly, we think, to the slow and steady June we've had, without too much blazing sun. The arugula seems to mature the most quickly; we've actually used it all up on several weeks' worth of Pizza Nights. By this past weekend the rest had grown so bushy that we had to do a major harvest. What a great salad that was!

 The two shots above are from early this month.

 These 3 shots are from June 18th

We're trying tomatoes again, Romas this year, and so far so good. They are flowering profusely, which means there should be plenty of fruit. Now the trick will be to maintain the consistent water they seem to so desperately need.

 ^May 31st

 ^June 18th

Building on past success with peppers, we're trying a couple of larger varieties. We've got some Shepherds- sweet red peppers with an elongated body- and more hot ones, but bigger- not the teeny little firecrackers. As you can see, they're already bearing fruit.

Finally, we decided to give string beans a whirl. We've planted several yellow bean plants, and lo and behold, we've got some little beans on the way! Who knows if enough will ripen at one time to provide even a single serving, but it's fun to see how things are developing.

And all this on a 4 foot wide balcony 12 floors up!! Look out, Oliver and Lisa, the new Green Acres has been born! Now, where's that pitchfork?...

 courtesy maggiore.net

Spot Prawn Dinner- Zombie's Delight!

Wild spot prawns are apparently amongst the most sustainable forms of seafood we can eat, due to the stewardship regulations that govern their capture. They are only available "in season", and this year that means you have a little less than two weeks left to enjoy them. We hadn't tried them before, so we decided to give it a whirl a couple of weeks ago. Off we headed to our favourite fishmonger, New Seaway, in Kensington Market, where we were introduced to our supper!

Some quick research on how to prepare and enjoy them led us to this nice little clip from Vancouver Magazine. (Where else to turn for expertise on the matter other than the folks who live where they're caught, right?)

As you can see, brain sucking seems to be de rigueur! You know what? We tried it and they're absolutely right! (Brain....must...eat...brain...)

We opted for a simple spring dinner. Above, the prawns ready to go. Below, more of our mis en place: local spring asparagus, parsley from the balcony herb patch, Canadian grape tomatoes and garlic...

...and a lovely array of greens picked from our balcony garden. (Since it hasn't been hot, June this year has been a sensational month for lettuce growing!)

 Finally, we selected a gorgeous NZ Sauvignon Blanc to tie it all together!

We made up a simple salsa crudo with the tomatoes, some finely diced shallots, the parsley, sea salt, lemon juice and olive oil. Nothing cooked, just tossed together. We used that to dress some fine linguini. A super-easy aioli of Hellman's, garlic (made into paste with a mortar & pestle), and more lemon juice garnished the quickly blanched asparagus. Onto that we coarsely grated some fresh Parmesan. The greens were drizzled with a simple vinaigrette. The prawns were quickly sauteed till they just turned pink in some olive oil and diced garlic. And dinner was served al fresco.

So we shucked, and we sucked, and it was pretty good for the most part. Actually, it was friggin' delicious! But there was one small matter that seemed not quite right- some of the prawns had mushy bodies. So it was back to Google, where we discovered that once the little guys leave this world, they release an enzyme that turns their flesh mushy. Now that's a little vindictive, doncha think? 

So, the big lesson for us? Keep 'em alive till you're ready to cook. We apparently made a big mistake by leaving them in the wrapper in the fridge till the next day. Next time: buy, sustain, eat.

A new taste treat, a good lesson in food preparation, and a silky bottle of chilled white. The icing on our cake was a gorgeous evening outdoors chez nous watching the sun set and the moon rise.

Wall Flowers

Our three girls started out as uninhibited things, flowering away to their hearts' content. But as they've grown older they've become more self conscious, and we're not sure why. So we've decided to re-introduce them to their heritage to see if that will draw them out. We're talking, of course, about our orchids.

Friends in the Caribbean introduced us to the idea of strapping orchids to the sides of trees and letting them just do their thing. 

When in Rio de Janeiro a couple of years ago we saw it again. Outside apartment buildings people lash their plants to the trunks of the trees where they help beautify the street. Amazing!

It's rather remarkable, but orchids get their nutrients from the air, and they seem to thrive when left to their own devices in this way. Of course, a semi-tropical climate doesn't hurt, but our girls are only getting a summer crash course in going native, and let's face it, Toronto's summer heat and humidity are pretty close to that of the rainforest. Our only fear is that our evenings don't get as cool as orchids prefer, but surely the nights in Vieques aren't any colder than Toronto's in July. If it works there...

OK, tough-love time, you three! Enough apartment coddling, it's back to your humble (air) roots. We've strapped you to the trellis in a spot where you won't get a sunburn. Here's hoping you embrace the change and put on a pretty show for us. And if you don't? Well, let's just say that if it's cool nights you want, we can arrange that for you in a few months' time! 

Cross your fingers and hope for us that our girls flourish at summer camp. We'll keep you posted!

Hey! What Happened to May?

We're not sure if you're in the same boat wherever you may be, but here in Toronto we feel like May occurred over a 24 hour period on May 7th, and then again for the same length of time on the 21st. Prior to and after the 7th it was still April, and after the 21st it was suddenly mid-June. (with a hangover of April showers). What happened to our spring green season? We wait looooong months for that beautiful fresh effervescent green. Suddenly we're into that deep summer green. Everything is unbelievably lush!

OK, we're not really complaining! Things are absolutely beautiful, but we just wish we could have had a little longer to enjoy the transit from winter to summer. Oh, well- enjoy your weekend everybody (even though it may be another soggy one)!

Happy Holidays to All!!

 

Be safe. Enjoy yourselves. Over-indulge.

See you next week!

After the Bounty has been Harvested

At the peak of summer we had the good fortune to visit friends who live an hour outside the city, where they maintain a large and productive vegetable patch. It was a pleasure to experience the bounty of an Ontario summer right at the place where it comes up out of the soil. (You can share in our experience via a previous post here.)

But alas, the days fly by and the seasons turn and before you know it, the bounty's been consumed or put-up for winter and the garden stops to take a break. It's during this period of "repose" that we were lucky to have had the chance for a re-visit. The garden is still as beautiful as in late July, but with a touch of melancholy now in knowing that very soon it will all have come and gone for another six months.

Late July

 *******

The sure "knowlege" that their reproductive days are numbered must be spurring on the hearty squashes and chards for that final sprint to the finish line, as they squeeze out every last possible seed or photosynthesize like crazy before the inevitible first frost.