Pics from a spring walk in the park

I recently had about an hour to kill before a kiddie concert I had to play, so what better opportunity to explore the nearby park than that? It was in a city (well, more like a village) that I'd never really seen much of before, so I was curious to look around a bit and was up for some fresh air that morning.

I went off on a path behind the concert hall and first came upon this: a windmill!!! Cool! I don't know if it was still in operation, but if it were it would have been cool to buy some flour ground with it!

Around the corner from that I walked a bit and came across a river with some nice walking paths:

 There were some pretty flowers planted along the river bank:

daffodils

???

you know this one! :)

 ...and lots of little flowers showing their colors in the grass:

And there were a few man-made structures, as well as some kiddies playing outside the concert hall before the concert!

a nice wooden playground!

real classy...not

My little nature get-away! :)

Cherry Blossoms abound!

One of the first trees to bloom here in northern Germany is the Japanese cherry tree! Its beautiful, lush, soft pink flowers are a definite sign of the arrival of spring!

These non-fruit producing trees can be spotted from afar (especially and are very symbolic in Japanese culture, and are thus celebrated in many different countries, even here in Germany! Hamburg, for example, has a big firework display put on by the German-Japanese society near the Alster, a lake-like body of water downtown, very beautiful and festive!

We even have a cherry tree for our own enjoyment right outside of our work building - here are few pics (taken from my phone) - Happy Spring!!!

Update on water-/soilless kitchen growing...

So I decided to go with the flow after realizing that my kitchen is a great place to sprout aging vegetables! Guess it's the not-too-hot temps and shade that promote growth, but I wanted to share how things are looking as of today (they've been "maturing" for maybe about 2 weeks now):

coriander

coriander (close-up)

napa cabbage

napa cabbage (close-up)

onions

I love it! Who would have thought that the napa cabbage would started blooming at that size! There is some root growth, too, so with a transplant it might actually go somewhere. And then such pretty little yellow flowers on it! The way the flower shoot is growing kinda reminds me of agave plants, which also grow a huge flower shoot out like that. Memories of warm weather and sandy beaches!

Looks like only some of the coriander is really "taking" to its new container...I may try to plant it outside soon to get some more root development and (hopefully) more stems and bigger leaves. That would be awesome to actually get another harvest from these plants (which I bought from the produce section of the Asian market, by the way).

And last but not least, the onions! They are also doing very well. The bigger one is getting a bit yellow (gee, I wonder why!), so I may have to use it as a green onion soon before it wilts again. The upper one has a nice strong stalk!

So, just a little kitchen fun and experimenting! Happy weekend, everyone, and don't be afraid to have fun once in a while, too! :)

Mystery Vegetable: Yellow Turnip

yellow turnip

While admittedly really *not* the best picture at all, I think you can still get an idea of what this round little root vegetable is!

It's about the size of a beet, but harder, and is a pale yellow color, not as intense as a lemon. It's a....

Yellow Turnip!
Or that's at least the closest name for it that I could find, so unfortunately no latin name this week (although it is a member of the Brassica genus)! It was labeled in my CSA box as "Rübchen, gelb", which means "root vegetable, yellow", so based on the consistancy and some photos after searching for the official German name for it, I stick by my name for it!

Similar to a turnip and a rutabaga, you can eat a yellow turnip raw with some dip, steam it as a side dish, or cut it up and fry it in a pan, stir-fry style, my favorite! I've only gotten these little guys once so far. They do have a pretty mild flavor, so you can use them in a variety of ways - oh, they'd also be great in a soup! 

Turnips have some great natural fibers and more importantly are filled with Vitamin C! Who would have known? One medium-sized turnip has half of your RDA of it, so load up!

"Let food be thy medicine ... " - Hippocrates. Smart guy. One of my favorite quotes these days, it's so true!  

Who needs a balcony when...

...you have a kitchen counter!

My kitchen appears to be the ideal climate for vegetables to sprout - probably because it's shady and semi-cool, check out what's sprouting:

Onions - the obvious! But how well - this one's developed a nice sturdy trunk!

Napa cabbage! After I cut it in half it started to sprout after a couple of days!

And that's all without any water or soil. I've also recently had ginger start to sprout, as well as some tops that I cut off of parsley root! Geez! Maybe I should just throw all my seeds on the kitchen counter and see what happens! :)

Windowsill Compost

...well, not *exactly*, but along those lines!

As it's finally warming up and the below-freezing temps at night are starting to subside (and are hopefully now old news), I've been preparing some homemade and recycled nutrients to mix into my soil in my pots and planters for this seasons garden! I'd mentioned wanting to do this in this previous post, in which you can also get some more info on soil and composting.

my window sill compose

As you can see, I laid out a paper towel to let the items dry on their own. My kitchen seems dry enough that the banana peel is not molding, just shriveling up. I also washed some egg shells, which I will crush up before adding to the soil. I also have some old loose tea leaves (left) and coffee grounds drying as well. Not pictured are some other vegetable scraps left over from cooking (and I've been cooking a lot of vegetables lately!) which I will also dry and add to the soil.

I'm not going to overload the planters with these items since I'm not yet sure how much they will decompose, attract insects, or more importantly smell once they're doing their work fertilizing my growing plants! I don't think my neighbors would approve of a garbage pit next to their balcony, ha! If things go well, I may add a bit more later in the season, or next year.

Excited to see if my vegetables grow even more healthily and productive this year!!

Indoor Seedling Progess (with pics)!

So, after about 2 weeks in my little greenhouse, sitting on warm windowsill with full afternoon sun, my seedlings are taking off! Have a look (see this previous post for what the plants are / before pic)!

As you'll notice, some of everything has come up so far, so I'm excited about that. You can't see it due to a big zucchini leaf hiding it, but the upper right corner also has a little chili seedling growing there - just came up a day or two ago. The chilis (everything to the right of the zucchinis) did take the longest to germinate, but I don't mind waiting...as long as they show up I'm happy!

As you can see, I also have a cherry tomato and a large tomato sprouting their second leaves already,which is also happening on the zucchini plants. It better start warming up outside soon so I can get these plants out! Otherwise may have to re-pot them indoors, since especially the zucchinis are running out of room (and overtaking everything).

I also thought that since I planted 2 seeds per hole and both sets came up, I would try to save the extras and give away to friends (since I probably won't have enough space on my balcony for them), so here are the "leftovers":

I just carefully wiggled it out of the moist soil when it was a few inches tall from its hole partner and stuck it in a little shot glass with some water - wasn't sure if there was too much root damage for it to survive, but I figured it was worth a shot! At it seemed to work! The second one (in the background) is trying really hard to recover being half-eaten by a certain cat that dwells here.... :)

The season has now officially begun

sprouted zucchini plant, a few days old

I would just like to announce that the edible balcony garden season has now begun!!!

The winner of the germination challenge is: zucchini! It sprouted within days!

A close second goes to: the tomatoes! One of each kind has showed itself.

And a few days later, the jalapeno plants decided to come up, much sooner than I'd expected. Germination on the other chili plants was described to be 10-14 days, so they're a whole week ahead of the game.

As soon as it starts to warm up (not really a start in sight, and it is still below freezing at night here, ugh, when is winter gonna be over?!), I will start some seeds outdoors, such as radishes,  (red) onion bulbs, and lettuce.

Will also get a few new herb plants to fill the holes in my one planter - sorry, not growing herbs from "scratch" this year, it just takes too long and the warm season here is pretty short! Luckily it looks like several of my herbs have survived yet another winter, such as my already-regrowing chives, rosemary, parsley (!), thyme, sage, and oregano. Great! Don't know if my lemon balm made it through the wintery past few weeks, but if not, I would like to replace it and get some basil and some mint. I have a hard plastic separator that I use to keep the mint roots from taking over the whole pot - basically just a piece of plastic that separates the soil.

Hope it starts warming up soon!

Seeds started, no April Fool's joke!

seeds started in my mini greenhouse

I hope everyone had a nice Easter weekend! I did - finally got some seeds started a few days ago, and here are the results!

• #1 and #2- cherry tomatoes
• #3 and #4 - tomatoes, bottom one is actually a variety made for pots
• #5 and #6 - zucchini
• #7 and #8 - "white lightning" habanero chili peppers
• #9 and #10 - purple jalapenos
• #11 and #12 - jalapenos

So excited! I had ordered a few kinds of chili pepper seeds last summer from Amazon, but since they came late I decided to hold onto them until this year. Am looking forward to seeing how they do - I have had a fair amount of luck with chili peppers on my balcony in the past few years, so I am excited to try a few different kinds of fresh chilis - the taste of the actually pepper is amazing!

I decided to forgo and cucumbers or squash this season for two reasons:

1. I haven't had any of my squash plants bloom, ever!
2. I think I need bigger pots for squash and cucumber, but I'm not sure that I want to sacrifice the space for a plant that may not produce again!
3. It's too windy on my balcony for vertical gardening, so there is little space for the vines even IF they had bigger pots

zucchini flowers (front in a box)
sold at Campo de Fiori outdoor market, Rome

Nonetheless, I am going to try zucchini again - not giving up on that quite yet! I did get a few to come last year, but were very small (like 3-4 inches long), but I got lots of flowers.

My thought is that if I can tell that the vegetables aren't going to get bigger, I can just eat the flowers! On my trip to Rome with my mom last May, we got to try fried zucchini blooms, a local specialty. I've heard of them served filled with cream cheese, but what we tried were just lightly dusted with flour and deep (or pan?) fried. We even saw where you could buy them with the mini zucchini still attached - at the Campo de Fiori outdoor market in Rome. They look to be about the size that I have produced on my balcony.

A special treat! Here's a recipe from About.com to try, or a stuffed version from food & style. Can't wait!