One of these things is not like the others.

I tried starting tomatoes again this year, with about a 4-percent success rate.

Everybody in this shot started more or less at the same time. The big guy in the middle took a strange detour. After not making the cut during potting up, I set him out in the real ground under a milk jug for about a week. When I needed to turn that bed over for the upcoming sweet potato experiment, I took pity on him and gave him a pot and brought him back in under the lights.

Meanwhile, the others went from initial sprouting in store-bought seed-starting mix to 2-inch cells filled with a combo of that mix and some sandy garden soil I bought cheap from some guy a couple of months ago. They were under lights 24/7 except for a few 70-degree overcast  afternoons that just seemed perfect for seedlings. Puny and yellow.

So what up with that?

I feel like there are too many variables in play to say for sure. The thriver has done great since I brought it indoors, so I think my lights are fine. The suspect soil mix doesn't seem too terrible to me -- pretty light and the plants have grown decent roots in it. The only other possibility is a feeding I gave them with a weak solution from a sample bottle of LadyBug liquid fertilizer.

Anyhoo, here's my plan for next year.

1. Wait to pot them up until the second leaves are good and sprouted. I yanked these as soon as they put out little nubs and I suspect they weren't quite ready for the move.

2. Go straight from there to 4-inch pots. I like the 2-inch cell tray because it's easier to handle, but I don't think it really helps the plants.

3. Stick with fresh starter mix the whole way through. I always get too smart for my own good and think a little garden bacteria will keep them healthy, despite the fact that every guide and expert says otherwise.

4. Play it safe with the feeding. Hold off until maybe the second watering after potting up and then keep it weak.

So maybe better luck next year. It's cool though. I've got at least one viable plant (a mystery variety that has done great every time I've grown it). And reinforcements are on the way this weekend.

Quick

Just upgraded from plastic to brass quick connectors on the backyard hose.

I'll try not to lord it over all you little people who knew me when.

Turkeymole!

I've been refining a turkey burger recipe over the last couple of years, but it's kind of hard to do any refining when you don't actually remember what you did from time to time, so here goes.

"Turkey burger" to me generally ranks up there with "bologna sandwich" ("baloney sammich") in the list of blah food concepts. If I'm going to go to the trouble of making a burger, why not buy beef and make something I really want?

So how do I ever find myself trying turkey burgers again? Normally, my wife will buy a package of ground turkey on sale and put it in the freezer. Later, over the course of 2 or 3 weeks, she'll mention during the "what do you want to eat tonight" conversation that "we have that ground turkey in the freezer." I will ignore this as long as I comfortably can until the day she adds "and we have some buns in there that need to get used soon" and puts the turkey in the sink to thaw.

Such was the case last weekend, when I did the following ...

1/3 c pumpkin seeds or pepitas (hulled or not). I used about half and half.

2 tbsp canned mole. We had Dona Maria brand, but it's nothing special.

up to 1/3 c of liquid, such as orange juice, stock or water. I used a Dole juice mix we had.

1+ lb of ground turkey. 1.2 lbs

1. Grind pumpkin seeds in a coffee grinder until no big chunks are evident. It will be a pretty fine powder in parts.

2. In a mixing bowl, combine ground seeds, with the mole and enough liquid to make a smooth paste. 

The idea here follows ATK's well-done burger recipe, which uses a panade of bread and milk to keep the burgers from drying out, which can be a problem with turkey and its low fat content. The pumpkin seeds add a little binding strength (also a turkey necessity). you might otherwise use bread crumbs, but the seeds are sturdier and a traditional mole ingredient, so I think they go well. 

3. Add the turkey and incorporate the mole with the meat thoroughly while squashing it all into goo as little as possible.

4. Form 4 patties. Right before grilling, sprinkle them with kosher salt and seasoning of your choice. (my choice is Ancho Mama's chile seasoning) Spray or rub the tops with olive oil if grilling and turn them onto the hot grill. Salt and season again before flipping.

5. Serve as you like, although sliced avocado is a good choice.

This batch was probably the best yet. Next time I'll probably bump the spice up a bit by mixing some chopped chipotle in with the mole mix.

Caprese!

The first handful of Sweet Millions,  one leftover bocconcini and a couple of leaves from a very young basil. It's not the most impressive interpretation, but not bad for May 18.

Checking in ...

This is one of those boring posts that only I will be reading this time next year when I'm trying to figure out what went wrong this year.

Actually, I'm allowing myself a bit of enthusiasm after the gardening disaster that was 2009.

 I've got perhaps 2 dozen baby tomatoes already on the vine. I got the tomatoes in the ground on March 7 which is a personal record. Of course, early tomato-planting isn't necessarily something to strive for. More often than not, you'll get rewarded with an early spring freeze or at least a few weeks of cool weather that turn the plants into helpless bait for the aphids and pill bugs.

Granted, we got both the freeze and the cool days, but otherwise the weather has been perfect and here it is the end of April and I've got tomato-achella (yeah, I'm proposing that) going on back there. Meanwhile, the artichoke is producing small buds and the squash are enjoying their time in the sun before the reapers appear.

And I just got in from some late pepper planting -- 2 jalepeños, a poblano and a red bell. Still to come: okra from seed.

Monster

This artichoke is friggin' huge! 5 feet tall, I'd say.

Also ...

Don't call it a comeback ...

I've been busy making hay!

Hay is a popular choice for garden mulch. It makes a nice solid mat to keep in soil moisture, it stays dry on top to limit mold problems on your plants, and it decomposes well to add organic matter to the soil. You can get it by the bail from a local farmer who may have cut it from a field of Alfalfa or Coastal Bermuda.

But I prefer a more boutique variety that you don't see much at your local farm coop -- St. Augustine. Fortunately, I have two small fields of it growing very near my house, and this time of year, right as it's coming out of winter dormancy, is perfect for raking up last year's dried crop.

Load up the bails into your tractor.

Drive it out to one of your freshly-planted tomato fields.

And start spreading.

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Easy gardening

Is it unforgivable to have a gardening blog and not post for the entire month of April, or is it the other way around?

Given other commitments , I expected that I might not have much time for the garden this year. But truth be told, aside from some mowing left undone and some hoped-for projects unstarted, I'm about as set as I've ever been gardening-wise.

Mainly, I'm just not worrying about too much this year.

Once again I failed at tomato seed-starting , but rather than having a mid-March panic, I picked up some nursery seedlings and got the show rolling. I added a few more by the beginning of April, tucked them in here and there among the still-producing lettuce and they're looking great. I also haven't pinched a single sucker so far and don't plan to -- just to see how it goes.

That lettuce, along with the spinach and chard that the squirrels were going to town on in the fall, came back to life and provided plenty of salads. The chard is actually still going strong and keeping the un-thinned leeks company.

And while my struggles with the Squashbane are well documented, I'm trying a new approach this year -- the all-you-can-eat squash-vine borer buffet.

In the new in-ground bed I cut in the fall, I've got zucchini, tromboncino, crook-neck, cucumbers and canteloupe -- all cucurbits, plus a volunteer tomato and some garbanzos I planted as cover late in the winter.

Come get it!

Whew!

Man, I got so much done this past weekend, I can't even blog about it.

And they're off

After a wonderful 3-day rain last week, and temps back in the 80's this week, it looks like Spring may be here for reals. So let's get to plantin'!

Tomato seedlings, y'all ready to go?

Hmm. OK, not sure what the problem was this year, but I'll guess a combination of waiting too long to pot up from sprouts, sowing the seeds too densely, and maybe a weak grow light situation for the first month. Give me a break though, my attention was elsewhere .

If I'm lucky these guys may be big enough to plant out sometime in August. So, today after baby's first movie outing (The Watchmen is totally appropriate for a 6-week old, right?) we headed towards Great Outdoors, but instead stumbled across the very friendly and affordable PlantEscape Gardens, where I picked up some professionally-grown seedlings. You know, just to get things started.

That's Brandywine, Better Boy, Rutgers and Valley Girl. I've been meaning to try some hybrids, so I'm particularly interested to see what the Better Boy does.

So away we go. Tomato sandwiches are on the way. And hopefully my seedlings will put on a growth spurt and let me get them in the ground by April. I'll get seedlings figured out one of these years.

reBirth

Let me just avoid any seed planting, bean sprouting or fruit ripening cleverness and cut to the chase.

The Crazy Billionaire household got a new gardener on February 3. She's been a pretty good baby so far, generally scheduling her fussy awake times to mostly daylight hours. And she's left me more time than I expected for seed-starting, bed-digging and watering, if not garden blogging.

Her arrival has accompanied another tempting early Austin spring that has everything in the garden perilously sticking out stems, leaves and blossoms, and me, as usual, itching to plant with no idea where to put everything.

But those are minor problems. It's been, metaphorically, a long cold snowy winter, but here comes the sun and it's alright.

Wake up.

Mystery tomato. Seeded 1/19/2009.

Greens

It's demoralizing, y'all.

I was making a ham sandwich to take for lunch the other day and had layered on my meat and cheese and went to the crisper for something green only to find it empty. Any other year since we've lived in this house, I would just march out to the garden and trim some lettuce or spinach and be done, but not this year.

I've come close to declaring a total loss on the winter garden this year thanks to those fluffy-tailed rat bastards. Spinach -- gone. Lettuce -- gone. Chard -- gone. Beets -- a handful of survivors. And all this is despite my heroic security efforts.

On the bright side, the carrots have remained relatively untouched (except by drought, which is another story). But the primary saving grace has been the greens -- specifically the side bed patch of Chinese kale (aka Chinese broccoli, kai-lan, or gai-lan) and broccoli rabe.

We actually had enough that we didn't quite keep up and some went to seed.

Most of the time, it got a quick trip through a skillet with some hot bacon drippings.

That's the Chinese kale. It has a good broccoli flavor and even the stems are pretty sweet, they just need a little longer on the heat.

The rabe is a little tougher, but it found its way into several pasta dishes.

The ultimate winner, however, had to be kale with bacon and oven-dried tomatoes. It was a fine partner to the mac and cheese on the other side of the plate, although next time, we may just put them all together into one dish.

Sadly though even the greens have now come to an end, but I'm not mourning them too much -- I've got seed packets strewn around the kitchen and will be off to Callahan's shortly for supplies to get the spring crops started. That big wheel keeps on turning.

Nestled all snug in their beds...

Happy holidays everybody. Get your seed list together -- Spring will be here sooner than you think.