Thank You, Kale

Last week, I returned from vacation to a very empty fridge. Luckily, there was still one plant left in the garden: kale. I had left it growing in the garden even as the weather turned cold, since I read that kale tastes sweeter after a light frost.

I sauteed the dark leaves and piled them on top of a hot bowl of sweet potato ginger soup. It's nice to be back home.

Thanksgiving Ephiphany

After 30 years of living on this planet, I think I finally get Thanksgiving. Not the part of being thankful... sure, that makes logical sense. But the timing and the big meal part. This little gem of insight was all thanks to my balcony garden.

There was a Risk Of Frost warning on the radio earlier this week. So I dutifully harvested all of my vegetables that night. If I didn't, there was the chance that the frost would kill the plants and I would have nothing to eat.

So I now I'm looking at a table full of freshly harvested vegetables, wondering how I'm going to eat all of it before it goes bad. Hmm, maybe I should prepare a big meal of some sort. Maybe invite lots of people, like a feast.

A-ha. The Thanksgiving feast. It's all about frost. Historically, Thanksgiving dinner was the freshest meal one would eat until the following spring. And because frost hits Canada before America, Canadians have Thanksgiving several weeks before Americans.

Let me savour this moment of ingenuity before you tell me you already knew that.

Tomato Love

My first tomato ripened last week. One yellow cherry tomato, to be exact. Though it's encouraging to see some edibles flourishing in the garden, I feel like a cheated a little... this tomato was on the plant when I bought it. In my own defense, it was small and green at the time. So I did bring it to maturity, I guess. I took about a zillion photos of the lil' guy... my own collection of tomato porn.

In case you're wondering, the tomato plants I grew from seed are a pretty pathetic lot. Most of them died some way or another, and of the 2 that I transplanted, they haven't grown at all in a month. To give you some persective, they are only about 1 or 2 inches tall as it is.

First Harvest

Today, I had my first official harvest: 2 arugula leaves. Okay, nothing really to celebrate. But arugula is definitely the head of the balcony class; their long, peppery leaves are the envy of all the other plants which I started from seed.

I also picked some red chard leaves from the seedlings I acquired and planted last weekend. One of the plants was already starting to bolt (going to seed). I read that when leafy edible plants bolt, their leaves turn bitter. So I figured better to chop that baby down and eat it.

These pretty little leaves will do well in a pasta with some oil, onions and mushrooms.