This simple trellising project comes courtesy of Jeanette Richoux, a really fabulous gardener in Port Townsend, Washington. Jeanette and her husband Howard grow an astounding amount of food in their terraced hillside garden. They have raspberries, espaliered grapes and figs, and tons and tons of vegetables.

Like me, Jeanette loves to grow ‘Trombetta’—an heirloom Italian summer squash that climbs, or in the case of Jeanette’s garden, cascades. To make the most of their terraces, Howard built  this simple wooden frame and then stapled heavy duty plastic deer fencing over it. To install the trellis, they just prop it up against the terrace. The trellis provides support to the ‘Trombetta’ vines and makes it easy for them to scramble down.

I think this trellis would work equally well fitted with a triple layer of bird netting or even chicken wire and could be used to grow ‘Trombetta’, cucumbers, pumpkins, and winter squash off a rockery or out of a large container. This year, I’m growing ‘Trombetta’ up my fence trellis and onto a wrought iron obelisk. If you haven’t grown it before, be sure to put this squash on your list for next year. The apostrophe-shaped fruit dangle like earrings off the plant and have a really mild flavor. I like ‘Trombetta’ grilled, but you can steam, saute, and make zucchini pancakes with it, too. Yum!

Two weeks ago I posed a simple question: Why do you garden? I offered up the chance to win a free pair of gloves in exchange for your answers. And answer you did.

One hundred twenty one of you flooded my inbox with the most amazing, touching, funny, heartfelt, wonderful reasons to go outside and create gardens. Reading your replies was such a pleasure because it reminded me of all the reasons why I’ve chosen to make gardening such a big part of my life. If I could give all of you a hug, I would.

I feel slightly selfish, because I got so much out of my own contest, but I am happy to announce my three winners: Julie (comment #38) whose list of reasons is hard to argue with; Marguerite (comment 59), whose answer made me look at her garden, which is just a few blocks from mine, in a whole new light; and Alexandra (comment 67) who also appreciates the mystery behind what we grow.

Choosing just three winners proved to be really hard and the very nice people at Ethel Gloves agreed. So they are offering everyone a discount on gloves! All you have to do is go to their website and type in the discount code DigginFood10 and they will give you 10% off a pair of gloves from now until July 31.

Thanks again for participating and stay tuned. I’ve definitely got a few more contests up my sleeve.

My garden has suffered a few setbacks lately. Birds ate my beans. Three times. Raccoons stole into the garden during the night and gobbled up almost all of our snap peas, leaving the stripped pods dangling from the vines.

Two cucumbers inexplicably withered, a bunch of lettuce just bolted, and one of my chickens went on a mini rampage, scratching woodchips into the beds, uprooting a bunch of baby arugula, and generally making a mess.

Sigh.

Luckily, after allowing myself a brief period of despair, I looked around and found lots of things to smile about. Self-sown flowers are popping up everywhere, baby eggplants are emerging, our shelling peas are almost ready, the first zucchini will be ready this weekend, and my peppers, which I forgot to water on a hot day a few weeks back and almost killed, have made a surprising comeback. It turns out, life is good after all.

During the summer I love to linger outside with friends as the day makes its slow fade into night. A bottle of wine, a few good nibbles, and flickering candlelight sets the mood for lots of gabbing and laughing. I have a big collection of votive holders leftover from our wedding, but I’ve been wanting to hang candle lanterns around our deck.

Luckily, after I wrote about my Aunt Buffe’s lanterns, she offered to show me how to make them. Buffe has created quite a collection of these candle lanterns and she dangles them from the trees that ring her backyard. As dusk falls, the little lights swing from the branches and look like fairies dancing in the trees.

I took a series of photos as we turned some old jars into lanterns and thought I’d share them with you. They are really easy to make—my four year-old cousin was a wonderful helper—and very inexpensive. Have fun! If you need inspiration, check out the most recent Anthropologie catalog. They have a lovely (and pricey) collection of lanterns made from jars.

Start by gathering up a collection of jars. Short, squat jars are easier to get the melted votives out of, but you can use any size that you like. Mustard, jam, and baby food jars all work great. You can also stop by your local reuse store and search for old glass light fixtures if you want larger lanterns.

To make the lanterns you’ll need 22- and 24-gauge wire and small pliers. You can use beads, vintage buttons, sea glass, driftwood—whatever you like, really—to embellish the lanterns. To make the wire hangers use the thicker 22-gauge wire. Start by deciding how far you want the lantern to hang down. From the wire spool, pull out a piece of wire that is that length, then add enough wire to wrap around the mouth of the jar, plus 5 or 6 more inches. Cut the wire with sharp scissors or wire cutters. Then cut another piece that is the same length.

Grab one piece of the wire a few inches from one end. Then wrap the remaining long piece of wire once around the jar at the base of the mouth. Secure this ring of wire by twisting the short end and the long end together two or three times. You now have one side of the hanger.

Repeat this step with the other piece of wire to make the second side of the hanger. To ensure that the lantern hangs straight, be sure to position the twisted joints directly across the mouth from each other. You can use little pliers to make sure the joints are really tightly twisted and secure.

Next, gather the wires together. About 3 inches from the top make a loop about the size of a nickel. Secure the loop by twisting the wires together. At this point, you’ll have a lantern that is ready to hang. If you want a plain lantern you can snip off any extra bits of wire sticking out from the loop or the twisted joints. Or, you can add embellishments.

Rather than clipping off the extra wire on the hanger, you can prettify it by twisting it into curlicues and spirals. To make them, just wrap the wire around something round. Chopsticks, pens, and bamboo skewers all make great curlicue tools. The bigger the diameter of your “tool” the bigger the spiral will be. You can add additional embellishments, by wrapping thin 24-gague wire around the jar or the hanger (see the photos below).

You can also add beads and buttons to the wire. Hold them in place by spiraling the wire at the bottom of the bead and crimping the wire at the top of the bead.

My first lantern looked a little funky, but I got the hang of it by my second one! It’s fun to get creative and it’s easy to undo the steps if you don’t like how your design turns out.

Today I’m so excited to introduce you to one of my very favorite places to visit, beautyeveryday. A collaboration of three Athens, Georgia based artists, Kristen Bach, Rebecca Wood, and Rinne Allen, beautyeveryday is a kind of online inspiration notebook. The talented trio behind the site work together at R. Wood Studio Ceramics—a pottery that turns out truly stunning hand shaped and painted dinnerware. Kristen, Rebecca, and Rinne post about the little bits of beauty they see everywhere. Each day brings a new vantage point. A photo of purple thistle against a bright blue sky. A look into a wonderful strawbale home. A recipe for strawberry preserves.

I love to visit because it’s a peek into a world so different—and more lovely—than my own. So I asked Kristen at beautyeverday if she would share a little inspiration with us, and she graciously delivered a batch of beautiful photos and her recipe for peach cobbler.

I can hardly wait for our local peaches to ripen. I hope you’ll have fun stopping by beautyeveryday. And enjoy the cobbler. I promise you’ll be back for more of both. ~ Willi

We are so thrilled to be posting today on DigginFood. Good food grows everywhere…  Today’s post is coming from the Southeast where the peaches just started to ripen.  Summer is officially here, the upper 90 degree temps have been hinting that too. I made a quick trip to the country where you can find peach stands by the dozen. I picked up a bucket of peaches that were picked earlier this morning and also walked through Thomas Orchards to see the lovely trees displaying the season’s bounty.

My visit to the orchard inspired me to make a cobbler, the true dessert of the South. You can use whatever fruit is in season and serve it up with some fresh whipped cream or ice cream.  Some make their cobblers with a crumb topping, but I prefer using a sweet biscuit topping. ~ Kristen Bach

Kristen’s Peach Cobbler

You’ll need:
6 cups peeled and cored peaches
1/2 cup sugar
5 tablespoons unbleached flour
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1 3/4 cups unbleached flour
6 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 tablespoons butter or non-dairy butter-cold
1/2 cup milk or dairy-free milk
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2 tablespoons butter or non-dairy butter
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon cardamon

Instructions:
Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees. Peel and core the peaches and put them into a cast iron frying pan. Mix in the 1/2 cup sugar and 5 Tbsp flour. Set aside.
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Mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt. Add the cold butter and milk and stir until mixed. Spoon the biscuit mixture over the peaches.
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Brush the melted butter over the cobbler. Mix the sugar and cardamon together and sprinkle on top of the cobbler. Put into the oven and bake until the top browns, about 45-50 minutes. Cool for about 20 minutes and serve with fresh whipping cream or ice cream

Be sure to visit beautyeveryday for more Southern seasonal recipes and beauty!

Let me offer a little piece of advice: if your spinach looks like this, don’t eat it! Spinach likes its days short, its soil moist, and its temperatures cool. So, at this time of year when our days are long, and warm, and dry, spinach tends to go to seed, or bolt as the process is sometimes called. This is bad news for you because bolted spinach tastes very bitter and develops a tough, unpleasant texture. Trust me on this. I took a little nibble of my bolted spinach this morning, and let’s just say I did not pick more leaves for breakfast.

The development of pointy, arrow shaped leaves is the first sign that your spinach will soon bolt. As soon as you see the merest hint of a pointy leaf, harvest all your spinach before it has a chance to turn bitter on you. If, like me, you weren’t paying attention and your spinach shot skyward before you noticed, it’s best to just pull the plants and throw them on your compost pile because the leaves are inedible at this point.

I’m going to take out my bolted spinach today and sow dino kale in its place. Beets or Swiss chard would be a good bet, too, becuase they grow quickly and stay tender and tasty even in the heat.

Mustard greens, spinach, arugula, collards, black kale, Swiss chard, bok choi and pak choi all find a place in my garden because they are so easy to grow from seed and they make a quick, healthy addition to all sorts of meals.

Pak Choi from Our Garden

The recent heat wave that struck Seattle inspired a stir fry kick at our house as we hustled to harvest our cool season greens before they sent up flower stalks. We’ve been tossing big bunches of greens into our wok, dressing them with peanut sauce and serving the fast, flavorful concoction over rice or with noodles.

Fresh Picked Spinach

Stir Fried Noodles with Spicy Peanut Sauce and Asian Greens
Our friends Alison and Matt  served Jon crispy tofu, spinach, and rice smothered with peanut sauce a few weeks ago and he’s been raving about that meal ever since. I made up this recipe to help satisfy his stir fry craving and to use up our bumper crop of greens. It’s super simple and should really be in every vegetable gardener’s repertoire because it takes less than half an hour to prepare and you can add an endless combination of fresh vegetables to the stir fry, including carrots, peas, asparagus, summer and winter squash.

You’ll need:
3 tablespoons peanut butter
1 tablespoon cilantro, minced
1 tablespoon chives, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons light coconut milk
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 teaspoon chili oil
Sriracha hot sauce to taste
Big pinch of sea salt
1 8-ounce package of wide rice noodles
1 package extra firm tofu, cut into ½ inch cubes
2 tablespoons peanut oil
6 cups mixed greens, well washed and roughly chopped (I used mustard, spinach, and pak choi)
¼ cup dry roasted, unsalted peanuts

To make the peanut sauce, whisk together the peanut butter, cilantro, chives, garlic, coconut milk, rice vinegar, chili oil, and salt. Stir in a couple tablespoons of water to help loosen up the sauce.  Then, give it a taste and add a little Sriracha if you want to amp up the heat.

Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil and cook the noodles according to their package’s directions. When cooked, drain the noodles, run them under cool water, and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat the peanut oil in a wok or large skillet over medium high. Add the tofu and cook until it is golden on all sides, about 10 minutes. Remove the tofu from the pan with a slotted spoon and set it on a plate lined with paper towels. Add the greens to the pan with about a tablespoon of water (you may need to cook the greens in batches). Cook until they just begin to wilt. Then, toss the noodles, tofu, peanuts, and peanut sauce into the pan of greens and cook until everything is heated through (1 to 2 more minutes). Serve immediately.

Peanut Sauce Ingredients

I’m excited to announce DigginFood’s first ever contest! The very nice folks at Ethel Gloves have offered up a free pair of gloves to three lucky winners. So how do you win?

All you have to do is leave a comment telling me the one thing I’ve been dying to know: why do you garden?

I’ve been thinking about this question a lot myself, and I think the reason why I garden is ridiculously simple. It makes me believe in the impossible. Take seeds. I love that inside every single one there is a little plant just waiting for the right time to break out of its shell and grow.

But no matter how many times I plant seeds, I always find it unlikely, ridiculous even, to think that they might grow simply because I have buried them and sprinkled them with water. So when I see a bean seed pushing aside a lump of soil or the tiny round first leaves of arugula appear it’s almost like a faith experience. Maybe that’s silly. But it keeps me coming back for more.

Now it’s your turn. Tell me why you garden! The contest will close on June 23rd and I will announce my three favorite comments on June 25th. The three winners will each receive a pair of Ethel gloves. Check out their website. Once you see all the stylish gloves they have, you’ll definitely want to enter. Now guys, I know these gloves are really cute, one might even say girly. Don’t let that stop you from entering! Think how much fun it would be to give a pair to your mom, or your sweetie, or a friend.

Let me introduce you to ‘Ruby Streaks’.  For me and Ruby, it was love at first sight. I just couldn’t resist a lovely little mustard green with chartreuse stems and lacy burgundy leaves. But her flavor sealed the deal. Big mustard taste—but not too much spice—with a hint of wasabi. My only complaint? She up and bolted on me when the weather turned hot. But that’s okay. She spiced up my life for a few weeks, and that’s just what I needed.

‘Ruby Streaks’ is available from Botanical Interests (full disclosure: I picked up this seed for free at the Garden Writers Association conference back in September). One packet comes with more than enough seed for several plantings. I’m putting some more in this weekend and will share a recipe for Stir Fried Noodles with Peanut Sauce and Asian Greens next week. Happy Friday!

Yesterday evening we drove across the lake for dinner with my Aunt Buffe and Uncle Ace at their house. When we arrived my aunt had the patio table all set, a bottle of wine chilling in the fridge, and a collection of adorable lanterns she’s made hanging from their dogwood tree.

I thought I’d share a few photos of the lanterns Buffe made. She got the idea from her friend Maren (who kindly shared her wonderful lentil soup recipe with me earlier this year). Maren made dozens of the lanterns a few summers back and hung them from the eves on her porch. When she and her husband Mike spent a few months in Paris this past winter, Maren collected glass yogurt jars and brought them back as gifts for her friends. The lantern pictured up top is made with one of these jars, but any small jar will do.

All you need to make your own lanterns is thin gauge wire, a collection of jars, glasses, or old light fixtures, and beads or button for embellishing. I want to make a few for gifts, and when I do so, I’ll post a step-by-step. In the meantime, check out the photos. You’ll see how easy these lanterns are to make and how pretty they look hanging from the trees on a lazy summer evening.

p.s. I couldn’t resist including this shot with our dog Domino relaxing under the candlelit tree. Isn’t he so cute?

I’m attempting to grow corn for the first time this year. Corn is a bit of a gamble in Seattle because we don’t exactly have hot summers or soil that warms up quickly in spring.  What we do have is a thriving population of corn-snatching urban raccoons.

I decided to hedge my bets and sent an email to Bruce Swee, who I used to garden next to at the Interbay P-Patch. Bruce is a seasoned corn grower and he kindly shared some very helpful tips that he learned over the years from another Interbay gardener, Fred Nollan. Even if you don’t garden in the Pacific Northwest, this is great advice!

1.    Build Rich Soil. I dug in a 2-inch layer of compost into my soil and then followed Bruce and Fred’s recommendation of working in a good granulated fish fertilizer into the soil before planting.
2. Pre-sprout the seeds. Corn likes to germinate in warm soil, so Bruce recommended pre-sprouting the seeds before planting them, because once the seeds sprout they can handle cooler conditions. He sprouts his by soaking them in water. I sprinkled my seeds on to a paper napkin, soaked the napkin in water, and then stuck it in a plastic bag. They formed roots in just 2 days!
3.    Plant in a furrow. Gently place the sprouted seeds in the bottom of a 4 to 6 inch deep furrow, space them about 3 inches apart. Cover the seeds with an inch of soil, water them in well, and then place clear plastic over the top of the furrows (the plastic should be 1 to 2 inches above the seeds). Bruce and Fred recommend the plastic because it builds heat and humidity around the germinating seeds. They leave the plastic in place until the seedlings are well-established (just don’t forget to water under there), then they pull it off. As the corn grows, you can backfill the furrow with soil to help support the plants. You will also need to thin the seedlings to about 8 inches apart.
4.    Hand-pollinate. Bruce says its best to pollinate by hand if, like me, you are only growing one or two rows of corn. When the corn’s tassels begin to shed pollen, cut off a tassel or two and brush them against the silks on each ear, making sure that you get plenty of pollen on the silks.
5.    Install Critter Protection. Bruce and Fred protect their ears of corn from sneaky  raccoons, rats, and possums by placing what they call a Corn Cozy over each ear. A Corn Cozy is basically a cob shaped sleeve made of ¼ inch hardware cloth that they slip over each ear when they are close to maturity.

I just got my pre-sprouted seeds in the ground last evening. I’ll report back on their progress throughout this growing season!