Friday, June 8, 2012

Garden Food

Photos and text by Trina



In the last month or so, the garden has seen many seasons: leafy greens and sweet pea season, thinning of apples and grapes season, brambles blooming and turning into berries season, tomatoes' first flowers season, infestation of pests season, which kicked off with an outrageous bloom of aphids on the cherry tree. And with the arrival (and squishing) of the first squash bug of the year, we're now officially in the season we know best as the War of the Squashes. Summer. Game on, bugs.


Bok choy and broccoli raab




Young apples still shedding blossom petals




Apple leaf




Triple Crown blackberry






Lady bug eggs among aphid infestation




As of yet unidentified worm thingies (which look more like nudibranchs I'd expect to see in a tidepool than crawling around on a cherry tree) with aphids and a ladybug larva which, incidentally, was doing push ups




Relocating ladybug eggs, pupae, larvae and adults after removing aphid infested cherry tree branch tips where they were previously residing






Ah, the season's first squa(i)sh bug




Thinning Honeycrisp apples






Eensie weensie baby praying mantis




Tulameen raspberry




With the early summer harvest that we managed to pull from the jaws of the many voracious garden pests, I threw together a pasta with bacon, garden peas, garden kale, parmesan, bacon, cream, lemon and bacon.



A recipe to use as a guideline is here.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Cool Green



by Greg

Those who adhere to a strictly astronomical definition know that summer will start on the Solstice later this month. But it doesn't take much astronomical knowledge to realize that in our desert valley, summer is here now. How do we know? It's too hot to ride in the middle of the day. Instead of trying, we headed up one of the local plateaus and found ourselves in a cooler place. Green meadows. Narrow trail. Splashy little creeks. Exotic wildflowers. Cloudy weather and a few sprinkles of rain. Just about everything we needed to contrast with the heat and dust nearer to home.