Hello, Herbs!

The tomatoes have certainly gotten a lot of attention on the blog lately, so I want to give a shout out to the other plants that are thriving out back.

When I used to receive herbs in my CSA boxes, dried or otherwise, I often put them in the pantry only to forget they were there. They were like the black sheep of each delivery, as I focused more on eating the veggies first and rarely planned meals that used the herbs in tandem.

All that changed when I decided to pick up some fresh herbs for the grand grow-food-on-the-back-deck experiment this summer. With visions of pesto dancing in my head, I purchased a basil plant.

Admittedly, I haven't made pesto yet. But I did make this: vegan tahini basil pasta salad. If you like simple pasta salads, you should make it too. Colorful and light, it's the perfect dish to bring to a picnic.

Sage came next. One of my favorite recipes to make is pasta with butternut squash and sage. Since this is more of a fall dish, I was interested to see what summer recipes I could pull off with it.

I found it a little trickier to find summer recipes with sage that I wanted to make, but I settled on this simple side dish, beans, tomatoes, and herbs, to go along with a sauteed chicken breast. Since I used canned instead of dried beans, it was quick and easy, and works any time of year, I think.

Now, with these herbs growing out back, needing my care, I no longer ignore them. I often incorporate these flavors into meal planning. Sometimes I even glance out the window as I think about how one or both might taste in this recipe or that.

What I find so interesting is how the grand grow-food-on-the-back-deck experiment has not only proven that I can grow food back there, but it has impacted what I decide to make. Flipping the "out of sight, out of mind" expression on its head makes me wonder what else I would eat more of if only it was growing on my back deck.

Great Expectations

Not to sound like an ad for Topsy Turvy, but the growth of our tomato plant has exceeded my expectations. We actually harvested one a few nights ago. The skin was starting to split so I plucked it off. Ryan and I shared it, and it was delicious.

Some of the others are almost ripe with two tomato clusters growing as I type. We've noticed a lot of blossoms too, which means more fruit is on the way.

The yields are quite small, and maybe we won't get enough for more than a salad, but I love the fact that I can grow food on my little deck. It's not as hopeless as I thought.

Red

3 1/2 Weeks

Inspiration

Food is a big inspiration for my photography, but probably the biggest of all is Karl. He likes to hang out in the living room, which gets southern exposure and the best light.

I often keep my camera on the coffee table for easy access when he looks especially cute.

For some reason, his left ear does not always make it into the photo.

Or his right one, in this case. Guess I will need to work on that.

Five Little 'Toes

Okay, I admit it. The photos that I posted yesterday of our Topsy Turvy tomato plant--I took them about a week ago.

Four new tomatoes have sprouted since then.

Four!

This is getting exciting.

Down and Out

My back deck has always been, shall we say, a little inhospitable to growing vegetables.

Anything that needs full sun will not find it there. Partial sun, yes. Shade, there's plenty. But sunbeams that cast a warm glow all day long, not happening.

Lately this has made me sad. Joining the CSA made me realize how good fresh-harvested veggies taste, and I have begun to wish that I had some green space to grow my own. Container gardening is popular in the city, but without much sunlight, I have always thought it would be a futile effort.

Well a few weeks ago, Ryan came home with Topsy Turvy (As Seen On TV!), a long hanging container that grows tomato plants upside down. Dubbed a new gardening trend by the New York Times, there are several purported benefits of growing tomatoes this way: less pests, fewer weeds, easier watering system, to name a few.

I admit, I was skeptical. First of all, he bought it at a 7-Eleven. Now I don't know a whole lot about gardening, but I know enough that 7-Eleven isn't typically the place to go to buy such supplies.

The thing looked pretty tacky, too, with it's shiny, plastic-like material, leafy pattern, and green plastic scalloped-edged lid with a hole in the middle for watering.

But after reading the Times article and taking my annual early-summer visit to the local plant and garden center--where I gamely select marigolds and the like for container boxes that hang over the side into enough sunlight to keep them perky for most of the summer--I decided to throw caution to the wind. I tucked in a sun gold tomato plant with my flowers and feeling uber impetuous, grabbed basil and sage plants too.

Aided by the sunnier space between the railing and roof of my deck and the nutrient rich worm compost that Ryan has managed throughout the winter, I think the tomatoes might have a fighting chance.

We put the plant through the hole at the bottom and used a circle of styrofoam with a slit cut to the center to secure it in place. Then we carefully scooped a few inches of potting soil around the plant, added a few inches of compost, and topped off with more soil.

I am supposed to water daily. Within a few weeks, I think I'll be able to tell whether I can add cherry tomatoes into my salads. Stay tuned.