planting day!

There was much excitement in El Jardin de 10 Blocks this weekend. We got some major planting done! As you can see, the tomato plants were bursting out of their space in front of the dining room window. Its hard to believe they started from tiny seeds! I am very hopeful about this, though nervous as well. The seeds I directly sowed the day we had the soil delivered never germinated. I think I figured out that the beds soak up a LOT of water. My watering them every day with my simple watering can was not enough. Luckily Drew & I purchased a SWEET Dramm kaleidoscope rain wand from Ace (mine is purple, in case you were wondering) and it seems to be doing the trick. I put the plants and seedlings (tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers, cucumbers, okra, eggplant and Brussels sprouts) out on the deck to get used to the sun while I direct sowed some new seeds into the beds. I planted corn and zucchini next to each other (two of the three sisters!). Since the snap peas didnt grow, I think I will re-plant them near the corn to complete the trifecta. In the next few days I also intend to plant watermelon and kale as well as re-planting the lettuce, carrots, and arugula.

Once the seeds were done, I started to work the plants and seedlings in. I compost so I was really excited to be able to put some fresh, beautiful "home grown" soil at the bottom of each planting hole. This was the first time I've taken soil out of the composter this year and I was so impressed with how good it looks! I only decided to plant six tomato plants (three Rutgers and three cherry). It was hard picking my favorites especially since I'll be giving the rest away. These poor tomatoes had a TERRIBLE first day in their new home though. First, they were a bit unused to "standing on their own" since they spent their lives leaning against the window. They started out REALLY floppy. I know they'll eventually right themselves, but I am training and supporting them by using twist ties connected to sticks I stuck in the ground next to them. Yesterday also happened to be INCREDIBLY windy. In Denver, we got gusts up to 50 miles per hour. While it was warm and sunny, the wind did a number on the poor tender plants. Many of them had leaves broken or blown off. I hope they survive. In the next few weeks I'll get cages for the tomatoes and I also intend to plant marigolds around them. Just as the three sisters, they also have a symbiotic relationship, and the marigolds should help protect the tomatoes from pests! I planted the peppers next to the tomatoes and then planted the cucumbers, okra, Brussels sprouts, and eggplant in the next bed. Fingers crossed for all these little guys! The garlic patch is growing like gangbusters! Both the culinary and elephant garlic are getting huge, I cant wait for a great harvest from them this summer! In the meantime, I'm hoping to cook with garlic scapes sometime this spring!

My herb patch is also doing quite well. My chives are spreading and my lemon balm is already 3 times the size it was last year! Oddly, my mint did not return. This is funny since I hear everyone say how they become so overrun with returning mint, they actually have to pull it.

Finally, I know this isnt part of my veggie garden but I am so in love with my poppy patch that I had to post a picture anyway. They make me so, so happy every year but they only last a few short weeks. I have to enjoy them while I can.

Hooray! We're officially in business!

Boulder Farmer's Market

This weekend was a busy and exhausting one. I was home so rarely that I didn't have a chance to write at all! So today I am playing catch up.

Early Saturday morning, before I realized just how hectic the weekend would be, I decided that we would have a "Boulder day". My plan was to head up, have breakfast at Lucile's and then hit the farmers market. GOOD DECISION. The morning was glorious and easily the best part of my entire weekend.

The Boulder Farmers Market is nestled at the base of the flat irons and along the Boulder Creek right in the heart of downtown. It is one of the most beautiful venues I have seen for a market and is honestly the reason I wanted to make the trip that day. Because it is still mid-May, I wasn't expecting the market to be producing much and I thought we would be more people watching and enjoying the scenery. Boy, was I wrong.

The market was packed to the gills. Somehow there seemed to be more vendors than even at the the height of summer last year! And the variety was stunning. There were farmers selling seedlings, flowers and herbs. There were local dairies like MouCo and Haystack Mountain selling cheese. There were many booths selling local pastured meat (including Wisdom's Natural Poultry!). There were several bakers including Udi's and the organic one from whom we purchased soft pretzels and a loaf of incredible toasted onion wheat bread. But the produce is what really stole the show. I could not believe what a huge selection of gorgeous seasonal vegetables there were- my expectations were beyond surpassed. Because I made a deal with myself that I will only buy what I KNOW I can use before it expires, I didn't allow myself to run wild and buy every delicious looking vegetable I saw. But we did manage to leave with an amazing bunch of purple asparagus, a bag of spicy mixed greens, and some walking onions.Unfortunately I forgot about my camera until we were well on our way to Boulder and Drew was unwilling to turn around. It is too bad because the pictures taken with my cell phone don't nearly do the market justice. I will definitely have to return once that market is in full swing with my camera in tow. The beauty and selection are just too good to pass up.
Boulder Farmers Market
13th St. between Arapahoe and Canyon, next to Central Park in Boulder
Saturdays 8am-2pm
Wednesdays 4pm-8pm

Pasta with Asparagus Pesto

Late frost or not, I'm still intent on enjoying spring. This weekend's forecast seems promising so in the meantime I've been keeping my hopes up by cooking. When I stopped by In Season Local Market a few days ago, they had local asparagus from Mauro Farms. Asparagus is one of my favorite things in the entire world so I bought a giant bunch. It made me think about an asparagus pesto I made last year that was fabulous so I hunted around for the recipe. The original is from Simply Recipes and is great. Mine is adapted from that- mostly because I love basil too and couldn't bear to leave it out. In addition to the asparagus, I found the spinach, basil and Gouda at In Season as well.

Pasta with Asparagus Pesto:
1 bunch asparagus spears, hard ends removed
1 big handful spinach leaves (grown by Osage Gardens)
1 small handful basil leaves (also grown by Osage)
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1/4 c Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 c Gouda cheese, grated (this is from Twin Mountain Milkhouse)
1/2 c pine nuts
1/4 c extra virgin olive oil
juice from 1/2 lemon
1/2 tsp ground sea salt
8 oz dried pasta (mine was local Pappardelle's Gourmet 5 Pasta Blend purchased at the farmers market)

Bring two pots of water to a boil, one for the pasta and one for the asparagus. While the water is heating, toast the pine nuts in a skillet until lightly browned, then set aside. Put the asparagus into one of the pots of water and cook for 2-3 minutes until bright green and then drain. Cut the tips off of the asparagus and save to later toss with the pasta. Cut the spears into chunks. Put the asparagus, spinach, garlic, basil, Parmesan, Gouda, and pine nuts into your food processor. Puree and stop occasionally to slowly drizzle in the olive oil. Add the lemon juice and salt and continue to blend until it is a thick sauce. Add the pasta to its pot of boiling water and cook as per package directions. Drain and top the hot pasta with asparagus tips and the pesto.I may be biased, but this was amazing and so pretty! Just what I needed to get me thinking spring again. The best part is that we had just enough left over to make asparagus pesto pizzas this weekend. I cant wait!

From the Shelves of Ten Blocks: Colorado Organic

I read about food a lot. It is almost an obsession. This ranges from cooking blogs to political news articles to books. And oh, the books. For some reason I can not bear to read them and give them back so I end up owning a ridiculous number of them. This is ok considering how often I reference them- whether it is to find a recipe or to remind myself of a particular fact or tip.

Because of this, and the fact that my food journey essentially began through a book, I decided it would be a good idea for me to occasionally write about books linked to this topic. Today I am writing about Colorado Organic.

Colorado Organic is a beautiful book imagined and photographed by Jennifer Olson and written by Cecily Cullen and Mindy Sink. Though it does contain incredible recipes, I almost hate to stifle the book through the description "cookbook". It is so much more than that. Olson takes us through Colorado, profiling many of our best farms, chefs, ingredients and restaurants along the way.

The tagline of the book is "cooking seasonally, eating locally," and I think that is the best way to describe it. The "chapters" are each of the four seasons and they contain stories and recipes directly pertaining to the foods we can find here at that particular time. In Spring, for example, there is Potager's Trio of Three Green Soups and in fall there is The Kitchen's Almond Tart with Slow Roasted Pears. It is like a mouthwatering local snapshot.

The photography is stunning and the farmer and chef profiles made me feel like I was really getting to know these people and connecting on some level. Everyone profiled is committed to local, seasonal food as well as what they can provide the residents of Colorado.

Part of the reason I love the book so much, and something that made it particularly fun, is that it profiled one of my favorite farms and my very favorite restaurant. The farm is Wisdom's Natural Poultry and is where all of our chicken comes from. They are one of the suppliers of Rocky Plains Meats and once we heard about their commitment to humanely raised, antibiotic and hormone free animals, we were sold. It is the flavor, however, that truly steals the show. Duo is an incredible restaurant in the Highlands neighborhood of Denver. It is a place committed to the simplistic use of local ingredients. Everything I have ever had there has been amazing and something I wish I could replicate, and to me, that speaks volumes. Because they are only a few short minutes from us, we feel a neighborly connection with them and we especially appreciate that their ideals are so close to our own.

The back of Colorado Organic includes a resource guide which references the featured restaurants and farms as well as a list of local farmers markets, orchards, suppliers, and more. It is very helpful and comprehensive guide, one I have used several times.

The book is available at local bookstores as well as through Amazon.com. I highly suggest it for all Colorado eaters out there, and honestly- the recipes would be amazing regardless of where you live.

Colorado Organic

by Jennifer Olson, written by Cecily Cullen and Mindy Sink

Published by Jennifer Olson Photography, LLC

www.seasonalandlocal.com

Goals for More Sustainable Eating

Many people (myself included) set goals or "resolutions" every New Year's Eve. While I think that can be a good thing, because it allows you to look at the coming year with hope and fresh perspective, I am also a fan of setting goals throughout the year. This is especially important when you are aware that something in your life could use change or improvement.

This blog has made me think a lot about what I eat and how I live my life. While consuming the most ethical/ healthy foods has been a priority of mine for several years, I am fully aware that I get lazy and complacent at times, or that I try to convince myself that certain things aren't so bad for me or the environment because they are convenient or inexpensive or taste good. But I know that in the long run, the choices I make do make a difference for me and the world around me. So I really need to re-evaluate and focus.

Because of that, I have set the following goals for more sustainable eating. I plan to start my action plan tomorrow (for some reason I feel that turning a new leaf always goes well on a Sunday)and I will occasionally post about my progress.

1. I will cook most meals at home. (And by most, I mean we will only have 2-3 meals- breakfast lunch or dinner- out or ordered in a week.) As I've mentioned before, it's easy for me to get overwhelmed at the prospect of cooking because of my schedule. This is very dangerous though because the more you eat out, the less you are aware of what you are actually consuming. Not only are we more likely to make unhealthy meal choices while dining out, but the likelihood of finding restaurants with your ethical standards is usually very rare.

in order to help me do this, I will:

2. do weekly meal planning. Though I'm generally pretty good about designing dinners, I've realized that I need to plan breakfasts and lunches too outside of buying Amy's frozen pastas (as good as tasty as they are) or counting on leftovers. For me, this meal planning has to include packing lunch the night before, cooking in bulk on the weekends, pre-cutting veggies etc. Anything to make the task at hand seem less daunting when its actually time to do it.

this is crazy, but I'm also going to:

3. have Drew cook once a week. Drew is an amazing guy, but cooking is NOT one of his strengths. Because of it, we have adopted specific roles: I am the cook and he is the dishwasher. This usually works out fine, but I think being assigned the same role 100% of the time can get tedious for anyone. I think even if Drew is doing something simple like making pasta or tacos once a week and I take over the dishes that night, we will both feel a slight sense of relief.

4. stop buying what we don't need or learn to use what I do buy. I've noticed that I will buy loaves of bread that get moldy before they get eaten or bunches of kale that get slimy before I can cook them. Even though we compost vegetable scraps, this is still a huge waste- both of resources as well as money! Someone at work said last week that they almost never buy bread and only do so when there is a specific need that week for it. Because I have always considered bread and other things such "staples", I've never really thought about it before- but yes, unless we have sandwiches planned for lunch, I wont buy bread! And when I have purchased veggies that go bad quickly (before the week is up), I will commit to using them early in the week. Novel idea!

5. we will become as self-sustainable as possible. This includes my garden (which I'm REALLY hopeful about this year), our potential chicken flock, and making more things from scratch. I am really interested in learning how to can, dry and pickle. I also have plans for designing a root cellar this summer!

6. For those things that we HAVE to buy (meat, milk, flour etc) I have always tried to buy as local and sustainable as possible. My optimal products are local, organic and humanely raised. Sometimes small farmers can not afford the organic certification and in those cases, I prefer local and "just outside of" organic- meaning they take the steps necessary to protect the environment and their consumers. In order to do this, as well as to truly support our local farmers and merchants alike, my goal is to avoid most chain supermarkets such as King Soopers or Whole Foods. I know there will be times when it is physically impossible to find something I need otherwise, and I will use them in those specific circumstances. But I really believe that it is easy to be seduced by prices, selection etc. at chains and compromise your ideals.

7. I will post on my blog at least 3 times a week! Lately it's generally been twice a week, and usually limited to the weekends. Again, this is because of my schedule. But I've found that I enjoy doing this and it keeps me on track so I think I have a better chance at sticking to everything if I'm writing about it!

a place of our own

I can't even begin to explain how exhausted I am. But its a good feeling. An accomplished one. We completed my garden today!

It started with our soil delivery. Discount Landscape Supply dropped off 3 cubic yards of premium amended topsoil around 11 am. We decided on this soil because it is a screened soil/compost blend good for all types of garden projects. This was a MUCH bigger job than we anticipated though. The delivery truck was HUGE and was too tall to make it under our neighbor's tree. This meant that instead of having the load dropped right by our back fence, it had to be dumped in the middle of our gravel driveway. 3 yards also ended up being too much soil. I did the calculations and thought it would be enough for the two 4x8 raised beds plus a little left over for other projects. Unfortunately, there was a LOT left over. Drew and I spend the better part of the day moving soil into the beds, around trees and into containers and we still have a huge pile that we relocated to the back fence in case we think of anything else. All I can say is THANK GOD for the little wheelbarrow we bought yesterday. I don't even know how many hundreds of trips it made today.

Once the soil was moved, we built a little fence around the garden. The dogs are great, but they are fast and clumsy- not the best combination around delicate plants. The sides are pretty much secured chicken wire with a black iron gate as an entrance. I LOVE it. Not only will it keep the dogs out, but I feel like I have my own secret garden- an area just for me. It adds so much beauty and character to the back yard as well. I keep looking out the window at it, it makes me so happy.When the big steps were complete, I was able to start the fun part- planting! I started with the Rocky Top lettuce blend, arugula, and Danvers carrots. My snap pea seeds needed to soak for 24 hours so they will go in tomorrow. All of the other seeds (corn, zucchini, watermelon, kale etc) need to wait until after last threat of frost. In Denver, we have an 80% chance of no frost after May 18 so I'm going to wait until then. As far as the seedlings, I want to wait until they are bigger and stronger with more adult leaves before I start the hardening process. I now have baby okra, cucumber, Brussels sprouts, and hot peppers joining the tomatoes, peppers & eggplants. Its so funny how attached I am to these little guys. I want them to have as good a chance as possible before transferring them to their new home.

On top of everything else, Drew and I planted two Spruce saplings in the side yard. We got them for free from our neighborhood Ace Hardware for Arbor Day! They are adorable and we hope they are able to mature into beautiful trees! Yesterday we were considering buying a peach tree to go in the yard. Though we still want one, we were MUCH too busy to deal with that today so we've put it off.

Though I'm achy, tired and sunburned, I can't get over this feeling of pride and accomplishment I have for the amazing project we have completed. I also, for a moment, have to compliment Drew. Gardening is not his thing, and honestly he's not even really a fan of vegetables. But he has been working so hard on this garden, from design to implementation because he knows it is important to me. This weekend we celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary and this garden to me is such a testament to our relationship. We both worked so hard to grow something together. It is the best gift I ever could have asked for.

Springtime is Lovely in Denver...

Today was a perfect day. Drew and I had a leisurely breakfast at DJ's Berkeley Cafe (our Saturday tradition) before running a few errands (including the purchase of our very own wheelbarrow. Exciting, I know). The rest of the day, however, was spent outside. We did some yard work, built our second raised bed, went for a run, and then just enjoyed the weather. At one point mid-afternoon, I sat in the back yard with the sun on my face, smelling our lilac and crab-apple tree blossoms and I felt immensely lucky. These are not days to take for granted.

It is already May 1st. Before we know it, we'll be sweltering in the summer heat and then somehow it will be winter and we'll wonder what we did with these perfect days. As it is, Drew and I missed opening day of the Cherry Creek Farmer's Market! To make sure that doesn't happen to you, I've compiled a list of some of the fun things to do around town during the month of May. (and save those indoor ideas for the rainy days or cold snaps!) I've already got some of these other event's on my calendar:

May 1:
Cherry Creek Farmers Market opens: today and each Saturday thereafter (8a-1p, 1st & University)

Boulder Farmers Market: open every Saturday (8a-2p, next to Central Park- downtown Boulder)

May 1 &2:

Denver Rose Society: rosarians at Echter's answering questions & giving advice (10a-4p, 52nd & Garrison- free)

May 2:
Kitchen Medicine: Culinary Herbs as Healing Herbs: review the uses of herbs, includes designing a healing garden (9a, 10200 Smith Rd, $90, register here)

May 6:
Omega 3 Cuisine class: speaker, demonstration & tasting (6pm, Arvada Vitamin Cottage 7745 N. Wadsworth- free)

May 7:

First Friday Art Walk: Art District on Santa Fe 6-9 pm

Tennyson Street Art Walk: Between 38th & 44th 6-10 pm

May 7&8:

Denver Botanic Gardens Spring Plant Sale: fruit, vegetable, flower, container & rock alpine plants including rare and unusual breeds (10-6 Fri, 10-4 Sat- Denver Botanic Gardens, free admission)

May 8:
Grow Local Colorado's Volunteer Orientation: help inspire Denver citizens to grow edible gardens through demo plots (11-12:30, 3222 Tejon, free)
How to Plant Herb Containers (2:30p, Denver Urban Homesteading, $25, register here)

Heirloom Gardens open house & seedling sale (4-6p, 4460 Winona Ct.)

May 8 & 9:
Cinco de Mayo Festival: largest Cinco de Mayo celebration in the US! (10a-8p, Civic Center Park- free)

May 13:
Sensational Summer Soups and Salads: cooking class, dinner and materials included (6pm, Denver Botanic Gardens, $39 member, $44 nonmember register here)
Corks and Cuisine: local artisans and wines (5:30, Four Mile Historic Park, members $25, nonmembers $30, RSVP by calling 720-865-0815)
Natural Healing through Ayurveda class (6 pm- Arvada Vitamin Cottage 7745 N. Wadsworth- free)

May 14:
Growing our Urban AgriCULTURE: community potluck for those involved in urban agriculture (6p, Denver Urban Homesteading, free, RSVP to pompomdana@comcast.net)

May 20:
Fiesta in Lucinda's Garden with Lucinda Hutson: part of the The Feast in the Garden, Edible Landscapes and Regional Food Traditions series at the Denver Botanic Gardens (6pm, $20 members, $25 nonmembers, $10 students RSVP here)

Third Thursday: featuring live music, food, art & shop specials in the Highlands neighborhood (32nd St. 5-8 pm)

May 22:
Slow Food Denver tour of Windsor Dairy (10a-2p, $20 member-$25 nonmember, RSVP to rsvp@slowfooddenver.org)

May 26:

1st Annual Highlands Farmers Market Benefit: paella dinner (6:30, Lola, $35 per person, call 720-570-8686 for reservations)

May 27:

Dirt! The Movie: a film examining the relationship between humans and soil featuring eco/food thinkers (7:30-9:30, Eventgallery 910arts)

May 28-31:
Downtown Denver Arts Festival (Denver Pavilions- free)

** these are just a FEW of the events you can find locally this month. Let me know if there is something I should add to my list!