Welcome Onion!

Remember my garlic plants?  They died like most of my other plants in the backyard.  I planted my garlic in a big pot with lots of soil because it's supposed to bear fruit underground.  Well that's double edged in a place with limited sun. It must have suffered root rot with all the accumulated water.  Oh well.  I've since replaced that garlic with Cat's Whiskers.  Quite a different experience, Cat's Whiskers thrive with heavy watering.  Instead of getting root rot, it's growing out of control.  But that's a different story.

It just seems right that after talking about garlic, I should talk about my new onion plants.  I didn't mean to plant onion but Jean (who adores my worms) had some onion from the store that grew shoots.  And so she gave it to me for planting.   Why not I figured.  I'm not sure if they bear fruit underground though.  I haven't done my mandatory research.  But anyway, look at them now.  It loos like they're thriving in the sunny yard (near the Gotu Kola).  Then again, my garlic looked like that for a while.  I plan to add more soil to that pot anyway; perhaps when I harvest my vermicast.  

Anyone with tips on raising onions?

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Baked Potato Wedges

Since it was father's day over the weekend, Jean and I flexed our cooking muscles once again.  Naturally though, I selected something that made use of our favorite herbs.  At the same time, I also wanted to cook potatoes since they're high in potassium and are good for gout.  Besides, I recall how much I liked baked potatoes from Wendys and how strangely rare it was that I ordered it.

I was pretty excited when I got the basil and the parsley leaves from my backyard.  I used a bottled dried oregano since my Cuban Oregano doesn't really smell like oregano.  How weird is that?  As for the garlic, it'll be months before my plants bear fruit.

Anyway, here's a recipe I ripped and adapted from the Internet

# 4 large baking potatoes, wedged shopping list
# 1/2 cup quality olive oil shopping list
# 2T fresh Italian herbs(basil, oregano, flat leaf parsley, etc), finely minced shopping list
# 2 cloves garlic, minced shopping list
# A couple of slices of grated Parmesan cheese and I added a generous amount of Quick Melt cheese as well.
# fresh ground black pepper
# A tinge of salt 

* Boiled the potatoes for 5 minutes and then quartered them
* Combine all ingredients except potatoes and cheese in a large bowl.
* Dipped the potato wedges in the bowl.  In my opinion though, potato halves might have worked better since the garnish kept slipping off the wedges.
* Place on baking sheet .
* Place potatoes on tray in single layer.
* Top each wedge with Parmesan and Quick Melt cheese
* Bake at 425 for about 15 minutes.

For next time though, I think I'll boil it for 10 minutes first and then I'll bake it for another 10 minutes so that I don't overcook the garnish.  But then again, it was fun eating the crusted cheese too. I'll also be more generous with the herb usage. 

Anyway, in my rush to serve and eat it, I forgot to take pictures after baking.  So the before-shots will have to do.

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How to Care for Garlic

It's been a couple of weeks since I attempted to grow my garlic plant.   For a while, I was afraid it wasn't going to germinate.  But hey, now I have three little plants in my big pot.  So I did my mandatory research on how to care for my new plant.  Then again, I read about caring for lavender, but it died anyway...tsk.  It's supposed to be low maintenance!  Tsk.  Bitterness aside, here's how to care for your garlic plant:

Give it at least six hours of full sunlight.  Prepare your soil at least 10 inches deep with lots of organic matter.  As the plant matures, it will grow better with a hot and dry environment.  This is supposed to make your garlic more flavorful.  It also needs fertile soil so give it some fertilizer every two weeks.  Some compost would be great too. The soil PH should be around 6.5 - 7.0 and make sure has excellent drainage.  Harvest after about four months...wait and see.

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How to Grow Garlic

You know it was bound to happen. After talking about pesto, thyme, and rosemary, the garlic part became inevitable.  And so I did my little search on growing garlic.  Amazingly enough, you just put a clove in the ground and wait for it to grow.  No seeds.  No stem cuttings.  Hey, why not?  Plant a clove and get a bulb.  That's not a bad deal.  Except that in my experience (a week's worth), it seems that not all cloves germinate.  I planted like five of them in this pot, and so far, only one has germinated.    And if you see, the pot is almost topped with soil.  That's because garlic grows underground.  I can only hope my pot is big enough.   How do you know your garlic's good?  Well, the plant is supposed to wither and die.   Once that happens, it's your cue to harvest your garlic and dry it.  I'll tell you all about how it happens a couple of months from now.   By the way, I've been wondering why my pesto's taste had too much garlic.  I've been mixing up cloves with bulbs all this time!  Tsk.

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