Someone asked me the other day how much food I typically get from my Oakland orto. Of course it varies depending on the time of the year, but during the summer I typically pick enough for family dinner every night. As an example I thought I’d show you what I picked from my garden today, July 22, 2010.
I picked enough romano beans to cook and serve as a salad for dinner:
This handful of gorgeous zucchini blossoms I will save for my Saturday cooking class:
Lots of figs, both Adriatic and Black Mission, from my trees:
I also picked two cucumbers, three zucchini and two eggplants, which I will use in a pasta dish tonight.
Oh! I forgot! I even got a basketful of strawberries from our strawberry bushes:
and lots of sweet sweet Italian prunes. Take a look at how many are on just one branch!
There is a lot of satisfaction in growing your own vegetables. I hope that I have convinced some of you to give it a try, even if you have only pots on a terrace. In fact I extend my own garden by planting in pots; all my basil and hot peppers ended up in pots this year. I even put a cherry tomato plant in a pot, and take a look at it. It is the first one to have ripe tomatoes!
I also get eggs every day now. Here are the eggs just from the last three days. The beautiful blue-green ones were laid by Gelsomina, our Ameraucana chicken.
My family can almost live off our small garden during the summer months, especially now with the addition of those eggs.
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Oh! I do love all your photos. So inspiring. I planted by first “official” garden in SF this year. And it is so fun to gather lettuce, etc. How did you prepare your romanos? I love them. I am hoping you will do malfatti sometime as I’d love a recipe that works and your photos would help alot. I’ve never understood why to soak bread and then to squeeze it out afterwards. Perhaps you could elucidate! Very much enjoy your blog and glad your lovely girls are producing.
What a beautiful bounty! I am jealous of your figs, our fig tree had to be transplanted this year and it is still recouping. I agree, there is such pleasure in growing your own vegetables : ) Blessings and have a great weekend, which is not hard to do in beautiful California ; )
That’s when it feels really good — we’re not quite there due to a late bean planting and early kale pulling, but we’re close. Lunch was 100% homegrown today, and incredibly tasty and diverse.