I don’t think this is broccoli

Here is a perfect example of how I can feel like a total idiot in the garden. 

My friend very lovingly gave me two broccoli plants.  They shot up stalks and flowered, and now they look like this.  Nothing like any broccoli I’ve seen.  Broccoli should grow kind of like cabbage or cauliflower, kind of like this.  Right?  I’m really confused.  I’m wondering if I have an unusual variety.  Maybe they’re mutant.  I’m becoming a little impatient but I’m going to wait it out and see what happens.

Another thing about Cauliflower… this purple business

My c-flower is turning yellow in the sun. Call it sepia. Next year I think I’ll rubber-band the leaves to give them a little cabana so they can stay snowy white. Because we’re all about perfection.

But I also noticed a PURPLE coloration in between the curds. I thought it was a fungus or something. It’s not. Here’s one explanation. I guess it’s just harmless pigment, again, related to sun exposure. It doesn’t seem to be affecting the taste.

Stir Fry

Picked the first cauliflower today!

“Cauliflower looks like cancer,” my brother says. I can understand the cauliflower haters. It’s kind of smelly and funny looking. But the c-flower I cooked was sweet, crunchy and much milder than the grocery shelf version. Totally yummy.

Here’s a good recipe we used for a teriyaki veggie/tofu/meat marinade. Blend up these things quickly in your blender:

• Green onions
• soy sauce (or tamari) – don’t overdo it
• ginger
• jalapeno peppers
• an orange
• sugar (optional)

I threw in some early squash and some late (kinda tough) peas. Not too bad.

First Tomato

First tomato fruit!

It’s here! The first little green nubbin’ of a tomato. Actually, there were two, and I couldn’t resist picking one and taking a bite. It was bitter. What can I say, I’m tactile-kinesthetic. And orally fixated.

I have both determinate (bush-type) and indeterminate (viney-type) tomatoes. This season, my first in this garden, I’m experimenting with the indeterminate type. (What’s the difference?)

Steve Solomon says in his book “Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades” that you can grow indeterminate vines that are 8 feet or more in length, trailing up an over a tall trellis or support system. To do this, I’m following his suggestion to trim off all but two (I’m doing three) main leader vines on this plant. It is the one pictured, the first to produce fruit. Not sure if the first fruit is because of  the method of snipping all but 3 leader vines, or if it’s the variety (yellow pear).

I’ll do a subsequent post that shows my vine support system — an “A” frame support and twine.

My goal is to get these vines 7-8 feet long, to go up and over my trellis support.  Has anybody had similar luck getting long, productive indeterminate tomato varieties?

Everything blooms

Our neighbor passed away. I wondered if I could pull together an arrangement for the grieving family from just backyard flowers. The answer is… yes. Resoundingly yes. So many unexpected things are producing great flowers right now. Hosta. Broccoli. Yucca. Mostly stuff that I didn’t plant. When we moved in last November, I had no idea the blooms that these plants were going to display in the summer.

Our irises were disappointingly short-lived this past spring.  It is nice to be able to use the speared, green leaves from bloomed-out irises as a height-giving element to this arrangement.