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Thinking about 2010

cheese — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:37:43 +0000

It’s been a long cold winter here (relative to our usual expectations) but hopefully now we are near the end. I was out on the balcony last weekend and there are even signs of growth in places – raspberries and garlic come to mind. There were some carrots and kale that survived the freeze (fair play!) so I brought them in to cook:

The carrots were quite bitter so they didn’t make it all the way to dinner. The kale was great though.

Last year I had quite an experimental season, trying a large variety of food to find some that worked well for me. Some worked well and some didn’t. This year, I want to a bit a bit less experimental and more focused on efficiency. I really want to see how much of our food we can produce in our apartment. This means that I will be narrowing our focus, most likely to: herbs, potatoes, tomatoes, chilis and leaves (lettuce, rocket, kale). These were the plants from last year which were space-efficient, not too difficult or troublesome in our environment and of course ones we enjoyed cooking and eating.

I will follow up soon with a more concrete plan but for the moment I am concentrating on getting the balcony back in shape – repairing bits and cleaning bobs – so we can start planting in March-ish.

As this is my final year of my PhD however, posts to Eight Square Metres may be less frequent compared to last year but I will still pop from time to time with updates of our growing and, if I’m not here, I’m probably over on twitter .

Maximizing Tomato Yield

cheese — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:24:39 +0000

I had an interesting conversation the other day with the folks who are responsible of the Dartmouth Square Project and Edenbee about our upcoming talks at Electric Picnic. During the conversation their resident gardening authority offered a couple of tips to help put my tomatoes on the fasttrack to ripeness.

I followed up our conversation with a google to verify the claims. It seems there are two things required for the tomatoes to ripen:

1. The tomato fruit need access to light and so can’t be in shade.
2. The tomato plant needs to divert as much energy as possible to fruit production.

Luckily these two things can be accomodated easily by pruning branches, leaves and any fruits or flowers which are too dead or small to make it at this stage. Removing leaves reduce the amount of shade the fruit are in and also reduces the amount of effort the plants puts into leaf production and maintenance.

Admittedly, I should have been on this way earlier. As my grandmother would have said – I should have kept the amount of main stalks to 1 per plant (the Internet seems to think 2 is ok too) and remove any “suckers“. I haven’t been doing this. This is due to one part oversight on my part (read: laziness) and one part the difficulty in navigating around a microgreenhouse which is jam-packed with growth.

I removed as much of the plant as I could without disturbing the growth. Hopefully we will see some more ripe fruit beyond the 6 red tomatoes we have had so far. The plants outside are doing great – it certainly looks like bringing them out of the greenhouse was a good move!

The overgrown greenhouse, which as I’m sure you can imagine is difficult to get at to prune:

Below are our cherry tomato plants, post-pruning. Admittedly, you can’t see much difference to how they looked before. Rest assured that much was removed and it took a good while!

Balcony Garden Diagram: The Plan

cheese — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 00:53:00 +0000

As spring is springing around us it’s time to draw up the plan for the coming season on the balcony:

I have colour-coded the containers in the diagram according to depth to give a better impression of the layout. The darker green ones are deeper and the lighter green are shallower. I’ve taken particular care to get deeper pots for the plants that are more demanding in the root department such as potatoes, tomatoes and peas.

Breaking it down into sections we get:

There are still a few question marks on contentless containers. As well as that, I am planning a number of other plants (namely rhubarb, spring onions, marigolds, sunflower(s?), chamomile, nasturtiums, cherry tomatoes, more carrots and potatoes) which I haven’t allocated space for (yet). Some, such as the flowers and spring onions, I am hoping to grow amongst others. In fact, I have just sown spring onions in the centre of the trellised pea shoots, which are looking pretty good by the way:

Some of the other plants can be accommodated either on a high green house shelf or on our (as yet unhung) hanging baskets.

Another feature I am hoping to have on the balcony is table and chairs (a condition of my girlfriend in this whole business). I suppose what’s a square metre here or there!

Chili plants: The Pruning Experiment part I

cheese — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:57:00 +0000

Bringing two chili plants together after a 6 month separation shows a remarkable difference in progress. As if to further punish the weaker of the two plants, I pruned it right down to encourage some new growth:

After much googling, forum posting, book reading and general conjecture from asking around, I found that the results were inconclusive. It seems there is too much of an outdoor bias in what has been written online, not catering for us urban gardeners who rely on indoor growing to grow plants wholly inappropriate to our climes.

The two plants started off in the same batch but, as you can see below, are very different in appearance now. The chili plant I moved to the spare room last autumn is much more well endowed in terms of growth, leaves and flowers. I am puzzled as to why this is – answers on a postcard please. As far as i can tell, the spare room is several degrees colder on average and has less light than the main room. Either way, one half of the pair got the pruning treatment today and they will both be kept in the spare room from now on. We will check back in a while to see the results but in the meantime, below is a pictorial history.

Late last summer, first fruit:

Last autumn, just before the winter:

5 minutes ago, pre-pruning. Spare room plant on left, main room on right:

Pruning. Just above the growth node, or so I’m told. Was obviously hoping for a secateurs for Christmas.

Impulse Buying @Newlands Garden Centre

cheese — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 02:41:00 +0000

I went to a couple of garden centres this morning before the Six Nations to check out what deals for containers were on offer and I came away with a bush and a tree.

I’ve been asking around about the droopy lettuce seedlings on the GardenWeb and Irish Allotments forums. The general consensus seems to be that it is lack of light that is causing the dearth of enthusiasm. With sun on the balcony only until late afternoon, and their position indoors, perhaps lettuce germination has been a little premature. On the plus side, broccoli, chili and tomato all look good. (Admittedly I’ve little frame of reference here but at least they stand up on their own.)

In the meantime I thought it would be a good idea to take stock of what’s on offer container-wise in the nearby garden centres (doesn’t that sound interesting!). In short: Most containers were either too small, too ugly or too expensive but we got some around 25-30cm deep for 12-15 euro each in Woodie’s on the Naas rd.

In other more interesting news, I made two dubious purchases at Newlands Garden Centre:

Dubious purchase #1:
5 Raspberry bushes (or more accurately, a bunch of 5 canes/stumps which I am assured will mature into raspberry bushes)
Pros: Raspberries taste nice and are easy to grow.
Cons: Not many people on the the Internet recommend them for container growing. Even then, I’m not sure what to do with the other 4 (stumps on left in photo). Anyone who wants one is welcome to arrange to pick up before I find a home for them elsewhere.

Dubious purchase #2:
1 olive tree
Pros: Olives are nice and the tree is pretty (in the manliest sense of the word).
Con: Olive trees grow in countries where it is frequently 40 degrees Celsius. Our balcony hasn’t topped 10 degrees in a while. Indoors is warmer but even then the olive tree needs needs extensive light. We don’t even have enough light indoors to enable 5 cm seedlings to stand up straight (see above). The garden centre girl says I needed lemon (citrus?) compost. I ignored this and transplanted into multi-purpose compost. Someone please tell me if this is silly.

Anyway I guess this wouldn’t be fun if there were no risks so what’s the worst that can happen, right?

Seedlings: Tomatoes, Broccoli, Chilis and Lettuce 9 days in

cheese — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 05:25:00 +0000

Taking stock of the seeds I planted 9 days ago, already there are varying degrees of progress.

I had a bit of a rookie scare with white mold (which I now know was in fact a fungus) on the lettuce seedlings but thanks to the folks over at the GardenWeb forums my concerns were allayed.

Here is a summary of the current seedling status:

Lettuce

Height: 7 cm
Variability: Significant deviation in angle, colour and height.
Characteristics: Floppy, unenthusiastic, probably jealous of the broccoli.

Broccoli

Height: 7 cm
Variability: Quite consistent.
Characteristics: Upright, sturdy, a good example to the lettuce.

Tomatoes (Harbinger & Cherry)

Height: 5 cm
Variability: Lots. Short, tall, floppy, open, closed. You name it.
Characteristics: Bit of a slow grower but with larger leaves than the others.

Chilies

Height: 0 cm
Variability: None.
Characteristics: Invisible. Maybe check back in a while.

The last chilies I grew had quite a long germination phase so I won’t write them off just yet. There are some others I bought from Lidl a few weeks ago that are a little further along, so for the moment – here’s some I made earlier (note hint of aforementioned white fungus):

Basil Wars Part II: Lidl vs. Superquinn

cheese — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:28:00 +0000

Though attentions have been turning towards the new season, a rare snowfall in Ireland gives me chance to check in on some indoor growing, in particular the two basil plants from Superquinn and Lidl I have been pitting against each other.

It’s now just over ten days since the basil plants were purchased. I’ve been harvesting them both equally in an effort to maintain an even playing field. I’ve also made every effort to give them the exact same light, temperature, compost, pot and watering.

Lidl (right in picture): €1.69
Mid to large sized leaves: 34
Price per leaf: €0.05
Bonus marks for: leaves generally are healthy, evenly coloured and not withered

Superquinn (left in picture): €2.99
Mid to large sized leaves: 20
Price per leaf: €0.15
Bonus marks for: plenty of stalks that are self-supporting and not droopy

I was going to compare the two plants in terms of calories per euro but I discovered that basil doesn’t actually have any calories rendering such a comparison a bit of a pointless exercise.

It looks like the Lidl basil has edged it so far with 34 medium to large sized leaves. The Superquinn basil with a measly 20 leaves so it has a lot of catching up to do. The Lidl plant might have an unfair advantage as I suspect that it is in fact more than one plant underneath it all. I’ll check back in a while to get an update on the competition but knowing my history with basil, the winner of this particular battle will be the one which dies second.

Planning Germination and Photos of Dirt

cheese — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:46:00 +0000

Winter is fizzling away (the snow this morning aside!) so it’s time to look at what needs to be germinated in February.

A reliable source informs me that last frost (hereafter: “F-Day”) is the first week in April for Ireland and that in Dublin it’s a week before that (on account of the sea and concrete). Working backwards from F-Day it would seem that some plants need to be germinated now in order to make it out in time. I went through what I have in my seed arsenal and did a bit of research. My findings about germination and various other tidbits are below. This is all secondary research and not from my own experience so send on any suggestions or corrections!

It now being the start of February means that 6 things need to be done – potatoes, chilies, lettuce, broccoli, peas, tomatoes.

Four of the above require seed trays. The tomatoes are covered in cling film to help retain moisture during germination. The pot on the top left is a mystery to me – girlfriend won’t tell me what’s in it.

Here are the Charlotte or salad potatoes ready for chitting – this is in the cooler room in the apartment. The egg cartons help the chits, or sprouts, to grow freely while keeping the potato upright. Takes 4-6 weeks.

The trellis for the peas I fashioned out of bamboo. If there are too many shoots, I may supplement the trellis with some taught twine or wire for the shoots to grow up. You have to be careful not to use anything with too big a circumference as the shoots’ tendrils are quite small. Apparently.

Sunflower Seeds – Gathering, Cooking, Eating

cheese — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:50:00 +0000

Growing sunflowers have two great advantages. The first is that they are pretty. I don’t think anyone will contest that.

The second is that they produce sunflower seeds if pollinated sufficiently. As well as being convenient to eat, they also possess an array of health benefits.

Towards the end of last season, when the head of the sunflower looked decidedly downbeat, we decapitated it and stored the head in newspaper to dry out. (No more personification I promise!) Upon opening the newspaper now, the head is dry and disintegrates allowing the seeds to be picked out easily.

There are a number of ways that the seeds can be used in cooking but my personal favourite is toasting them. The seeds can be toasted under a grill, or even in the oven, but I find the best way to keep an eye on them is to have them in a frying pan on the hob. The main danger is in burning them as the time between toasted and overdone can be very short, depending on the heat.

So, the method is:

Put seeds in dry pan (optional salt, no oil).
Cook on a lowish heat, tossing occasionally to ensure all round toastiness. This usually takes somewhere around 15 minutes, depending on heat.
As soon as seeds are evenly golden, remove from pan.

More ambitious (read: “impatient”) people might want to toast on a slightly higher heat though you have to be pretty sharp with getting the seeds off the heat as soon as they are done. The same technique applies to most nuts such as pine, peanut (a legume I know!) and cashew.

After toasting the kernel must be removed from the black and white husk (colour may very for different types). Alternatively, the husk can be removed before toasting. The toasted kernels can then be used for example in salads or stir-fries. Toasting seeds before adding them into another dish helps bring out their flavour. I find that nuts added straight into, say a stir-fry, end up tasting a bit bland. They can also be eaten as a salted snack where the eater removes them from the husk much like a pistachio.

Cheese Making Part I: Mozzarella

cheese — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Having procrastinated cheese making for a while, I got cracking on it today and have a great batch of homemade mozzarella to show for it.

I followed the recipe from Home Cheese Making for “30 minute mozzarella”. I used pasteurized (but not ultra-pasteurized) homogenized milk, almost 4 litres of it. I didn’t have any powdered citric acid so I substituted the juice of 3 lemons – which came to about 120ml or one half cup. The rennet was one I ordered from Moorlands Cheesemakers.

The Cliffs Notes for the method are:

1) Sterilize equipment

2) Mix lemon juice and and milk

3) Heat and add rennet solution

4) Heat more and then cool

5) Drain whey, knead, heat and repeat

6) Eat or store refrigerated in whey.

I found the whole process relatively straightforward. Being a cheese making virgin, I reckon I was a little too careful and overcautious at some stages but I would say you could definitely do it under the 30 minute barrier.

Other than a thermometer, there is no equipment out of the ordinary required so the only real expense is the ingredients. Disregarding the rennet (one bottle goes a long way), the only ingredients needed are milk and lemons. From the batch I made today, I would say that the juice of one lemon (or maybe less) and 1 litre of milk would produce one supermarket ball of mozzarella.

My parents are coming over for dinner on Wednesday so I hope they are looking forward to mozzarella and tomatoes to start, mozzarella-topped lasagna for main and then mozzarella ice cream for dessert. Well, two out of three ain’t bad.

Below are some photos of the process. And here are some more.