fill the house with flowers

 last year at this time i was moving, cleaning, packing away--i started moving in to this house just over a year ago. it didn't leave much free time for my usual obsessive spring routines: seed starting, prepping the soil, trying to control the weather with my mind-powers. this year i'm settled and ready to experience ALL THE SPRINGS.

 the ladies are one year old at the end of this month!

 the other day i ran into an old friend of mine who i hadn't seen in six years. turns out we live just a few blocks away, work across the street from each other, and we both have chickens! (and we're both named emily...but that's always been the case.) similarities end there, though, we're pretty different people. she came over one night to catch up. talking to her was such a trip. familiar/unfamiliar.

 i added another pet...actually, a few hundred of them. a couple weeks ago i SUDDENLY, DESPERATELY *NEEDED* sea monkeys. like no one has ever needed sea monkeys before. i can't explain it, it just happened. so i called every store that might possibly sell sea monkeys and no one had them. instead i went to an aquarium store and bought a packet of brine shrimp. they've been living happily on wheat flour and nutritional yeast.

 my mouth is already watering for spring salads. i have a pot of mixed lettuces going, and four of the five dwarf tomato plants i started mid-january are growing baby tomatoes already.

 yummy herb pot, basil and parsley mix.

 doing lots of cooking lately...this is one of the best things i've ever made:

 egg pizza! homemade down to the crust. topped with vegan pesto (fresh basil, cashews, pistachios, nutritional yeast, garlic, olive oil, salt), basil-tofu ricotta (tofu, fresh basil, nutritional yeast, salt, pepper, olive oil), sauteed mushrooms and zucchini, kalamata olives, eggs, and some seasonings.

 i'm making another one tonight, but this time with regular marinara sauce, just because i'm lazy. my mom's coming over--my parents are getting major renovation work done on their house so it's all torn up, and my dad is in maryland for a few days, so my mom's joining me for dinner and dropping off scout. i'll be pugglesitting until tuesday. three pups! madness!

 this is gyeran jjim (korean steamed eggs). i used olive brine in place of salt, topped with scallions, toasted sesame seeds, garlic and chili powder. the texture is a lot like silken tofu.

 basil-tofu ricotta stuffed manicotti, with sauteed asparagus and spaghetti squash, and spinach.

 spaghetti with vegan pesto, tomatoes, garlic bread, and a poached egg on top.

 hard boiled eggs marbled with beet juice. i didn't use enough beet juice so the coloring is pretty faint. i'll try again. the eggs peeled nicely though--i left them in the fridge for a couple weeks, because fresh eggs do not peel well at all.

 i made a fritatta-ish dish with tons of delicious veggies for crafting day with cam last week--she got a glass cutter, so we were cutting glass bottles and making drinking cups and self-watering planters, like this one:

 we made dozens, it was lots of fun. we had another fun time this weekend, involving much creative cooking and seed starting, and she informed me that "the internet needs to know about this"...and it will, but that'll have to wait for another post.

 this is happening! i am so excited! neutral milk hotel has been my favorite band for the better part of a decade. i never thought i'd get to see jeff mangum live. he's playing at the egyptian theatre:

 i was there wednesday night shooting photos at a reading (firoozeh dumas, author of "funny in farsi"). it's a fabulous venue.

tasty tasty photo assault

i hardly have the energy to write so this will mostly be pictures. it’s amazing what a difference july makes, in the garden and elsewhere. suddenly summer’s flying by.

lettuces stuck around longer than they reasonably should have given the hot temperatures. i started covering them with some light cotton cloth during the day which added probably two weeks to their lives.

i finally harvested the last of the red oak leaf on july 5, and as of the 10th i’m all out of home-grown lettuce.

damn good while it lasted.

now all that’s left in the salad bed is super-tasty sorrel. i seeded the empty space with cumin, black cumin and five types of basil.

it’s fun having seedlings back on my windowsill. the one on the far right is a weird story. it’s a type of ornamental eggplant called “pumpkin on a stick,” and the seeds literally took a month and a half to germinate. i figured they were duds, i wasn’t watering them and the only reason it was still around is because i’m lazy.

i stuffed some squash blossoms with rice, veggies and my first black hungarian pepper, then tied them off with chives and sautéed.

i’ve gotten three zucchini now...

a couple dozen tomatoes, favas, ground cherries and strawberries,

and one eggplant, picked july 8. i sliced it up with the zucchini and used them as pizza toppings, along with some kale, chard and parsley. the rock-ish thing in the photo is an accidentally-harvested purple majesty potato.

there’s already another eggplant ready to pick. this plant’s making me so very happy. every flower sets fruit.

same with turkish orange. there are over a dozen alien-looking little orbs swelling on its decorative, spine-free branches.

in a lot of ways this variety is more like a tomato than an eggplant.

tiny tim is an odd plant. the one i stuck in the ground is much shorter and more sprawling than container-grown, one of which is probably twice as tall but a third as wide. the fruit varies greatly in size, from about a quarter inch diameter to an inch and a half. most are around 3/4in. they started ripening at the beginning of the month, and they’re so delicious.