All From the Garden

All from the garden:  Ratatouille.

Onion, green peppers, zucchini, eggplant, thyme, cherry tomatoes.  Final product was topped with finely chopped basil.

Oh, and a few lima beans on the back burner.

#gardentotable  #spiritofthelimabean

Hard Working California Garden

While I have many winter items growing in my garden, some of my summer plants continue to grow.  I found this lovely little purple eggplant tucked under the massive leaves of this aubergine plant.  My hope is that we have just enough warm sunny days to get it to a decent size.  This plant is actually loaded with purple blossoms.  The weekly rains we are having are obviously working wonders.

Eggplant and Heirloom Italian Tomatoes---What can I make for dinner?

Ratatouille anyone?

Seriously, this eggplant can damage the fingers!

Ratatouille!  These two are the first of some very basic ingredients in this delicious French inspired dish.  I have two zucchini in the frig!  It's a plan. 

Your California Garden--Ready, Set, Plant Your Summer Garden

Yellow Tomatoes

Pole Beans

Eggplant

By now the seasoned gardener has poured over seed catalogs all winter and is ready to plant their summer garden (March to September).  Winter revelry will turn into baskets of late summer harvest.

For the newbie, you may have a little anxiety over your first garden and what vegetables will be grown.  Farmscape has put together a wonderful guide for school gardens (summer crop catalog) they help design, but it can easily be applied to the home gardener.  Their plan is for a 4' x 12'  garden and insures a balanced harvest.

The plan includes beans, cucumbers, eggplants, herbs, melon, peppers, squashes and tomatoes.

Farmscape will help you build and maintain your home garden or school in the Los Angeles area if you aren't able to manage your own home garden.

Amazing Eggplant

In the fall, the eggplant was still loaded with small growing eggplants. I couldn't bring my self to pull it from the ground. It was a good decision. Yesterday I harvested two good sized eggplants. The leaves have taken several hits from very cold weather in January and February but not enough to kill the plant.

Now I am deciding if I should take the pruners out and clean up any lackluster foliage with the hopes that this plant will continue to grow a second season. I think the decision will be made if I see a flourish of purple blossoms as the legnth of time the sun shines in the garden increases.

Eggplant Update

My eggplants are going wild. I counted atleast six eggplants growing. The daytime weather has chilled down considerably so I am not sure how large these will get. Still fun to be growing so late in the fall.

Autumnal Eggplant

When clearing my garden a few weeks ago to make way for the planting of cool season vegetables and lettuces, I wrestled with a decision to clear away the eggplant plant or not. Here was the situation. The plant was quite large and could make way for some additional cabbage or broccoli plants. However, it was choc-a-bloc with purple blossoms suggesting I just might get one or two more eggplants this season. Given that we were experiencing a toasty October, I opted to leave the plant in and see what developed.

It turned out to be a good decision because today I found some tiny eggplants growing.

Three Cloud Nines

This is the year of the eggplant. I have had great success with my standard eggplant, my Japanese eggplants and my cloud nines. We've friend eggplant twice and I think some ratatouille is in order for the weekend.

Here is a great English recipe for ratatouille. I like using aubergines, courgettes and tinned tomatoes in my recipes...instead of eggplants, zucchinis, and canned tomatoes!

Cloud Nine Eggplant

Cloud Nine is the perfect name for this creamy, lustrous eggplant.