Clever squirrel

Luckily, I live in a young neighborhood where we do not have developed trees and tons of squirrels.  My friend, R, sent me this picture from his garden a while back.  I finally got around to posting it.  We do have rabbits but they like to visit my neighbor, N's,garden so much more.  Truth be told, she is a much better gardener than I am.  There's always lovely flowers for the rabbits to see on the way to her fabulous garden. 

Planting the garden

Call us crazy but hubby turned over the soil on Sunday, March 17th, 2013 and we started planting radishes, spinach, and peas.  Please do not take garden advice from us.  I am married to a statistician so he has calculate the risk of planting $1 seeds this early.  Last year, we started to plant at the end of February.  Every year, it seems like we have less and less patience for spring to come. 

What is this plant?

I was helping a friend who is new at gardening to identify that come up as seed.   I am really bad at labeling my seed plants.  I plant flowers with herbs and vegetables.  Where there's space, a seed goes down.  I am a believer of survival of the fittest.  So, I am posting some pictures of garden plants in different stages to help indentify some beginning plants.

What is this plant?

Can anyone identify this plant?  A lot of my plants in my garden look like weeds.  My husband is not allowed to weed.  If you plant the plant in the sun, the leaves taste like cucumbers.  This is a great plant to have around so you do not have to run to the grocery store if you forget to buy cucumber?  Hint 2, it comes back every year. 

Garlic chives

My garlic chives are so tender.  I think that being is part shade contributes to it.   They are a commitment.  They come back every year.  You can eat and should eat all the garlic buds too.  Otherwise, the garlic chives will spread with the seeds.  The garlic chives will spread thru the roots too.  You have to love garlic chives to plant them in a garden.  Otherwise, they will take over.  They are good as a diet food.  They are great fillers and are high in fiber.  My Korean girlfriends keep telling me that they are good for husband's or boyfriend's sex drive.  I am not sure about the last claim.  I just know that they taste good.  Below are recipes that uses my garlic chives. 

Rice Paper rolls

Pork dumplings 

Chewy scallion and garlic scape pancakes

Look closer

 Can you see him on my hand?  Look closer...below.

I had not seen such a baby praying mantis  before.

Picking my first tomatoes this week

On Tuesday, Jun 21st, 2011, I was able to harvest my first tomato. I pick up garden advice whenever I can. A couple of weeks before Mother's day, I was observing a gentleman concentrating on picking his tomatoes pretty seriously. I asked him what he was doing. He was looking for the biggest tomato plant with flowers already on them. He said that he was able to have tomatoes two weeks before anyone else even though he planted them in containers. So I followed his advice and it worked. These tomatoes are better girls. I also stagger my tomatoes plants. I found some cheap tomato plants that were 3 inches tall so that I would also have tomatoes ripen later in the season. One of my cooking students had told me about propagating tomatoes from the suckers that grow from the tomato leaves. As long as you strip off the bottom leaves and stick the mini-plants tomato plants in dirt, they will root. This useful to know if you find a tomato plant and you want a clone if it.
My peas have gone wild.
The baby zucchini are just come in.