A Zenith of Sorts

Some more bike trailer stuff!
Bass and drums.

Here I am loaded up to head down to the Avila Beach Farmer’s Market for the Cal Poly Organic Farm.

It’s a pretty nice spot to work.

So that was probably the biggest and furthest unassisted haul I’ve done. It was a doozy for sure, but fun (especially in retrospect).

Well now I’ve got this sweet electric motor kit from E+ Electric Bikes on my bike, which is a whole nother story. It’s a trade-off in many ways, but overall I can definitely do a lot more work with it. And though it has its fair share of unique frustrations, mostly it’s a much faster (funner?) ride. Here it is loaded up with veggies from Wormy Acres Farm.

Time Laps’d

Here’s another garden update, you know you love them!

Looking backwards.

That barley turned out pretty good.

Also I got a sweet new bike trailer! I’ve been using it like crazy, continuing my weekly voyages up to Wormy Acres Farm. Just today I did my first bike delivery of CSA shares for the Cal Poly Organic Farm. My co-worker Theo took some pics.

I liked this one:

Side-view:

Action shot:

Also, sourdough cheeze pizza.

Update Regarding Artichokes & Other Things

Yum!! I’ve really been enjoying artichokes this year. I just boil them with garlic, salt, lemon juice, and a bay leaf. I leave on as much of the stem as possible and dip them in some kind of sauce. So far I’ve eaten them with Goddess dressing, spicy peanut sauce, and my popcorn sauce mixture (sriracha, nutritional yeast, shoyu, and melted Earth Balance) all of which were pretty darn good.

Let’s see what else…
Oh here is Uno, he has been doing just fine.

I’ve been using my bike trailer like crazy, making weekly trips up to Wormy Acres Farm hauling compost one way and veggies the other. I’ve also been doing restaurant deliveries for the Cal Poly Organic Farm.

And here I’ve got it loaded down with musical stuff.

I’ve got a 5 foot Heavy Duty Hybrid Cargo trailer on the way from Tony’s Trailers. It should be here on Monday, I’m very excited!

That’s about it for now, until next time.

Gardening Spring ’10

Alright here’s another garden update. Things are getting better and better!

Here’s one of the artichokes and some lettuce which I’ve eaten a lot of.

You can barely see the little flower here.

I’m really stoked about this long planter I made by pulling the old beds away from the fence so you can walk all around. Bottom to top there are; chives, sage, kale, beets, popcorn, a tomato, and random beans and stuff mixed in.

Here are the the other artichokes and the banana tree, understandably suffering a bit in their new conditions. Sorry guys I know it’s rough, you just have to tough it out!

Here’s another planter I made from the old popcorn bed (last Fall). Now there is some some stevia at the top, strawberries at the bottom, with beans and summer squash planted in the middle.

Here you can see the main attraction where we moved the bricks around to make some paths (as opposed to here a year and a half ago). There’s all kind of good stuff planted around there: broccoli, kale, collards, beets, carrots, potatoes, squash, beans, tomatoes, herbs, flowers, we really packed it in!

Our little compost are got an upgrade as well. Pretty simple, just some hardware cloth connected with zip ties. But it seems to be working pretty well, definitely better than before.

And here’s the barley I planted in the front yard in February. Barley makes beer!

Cast Iron

I embarked the other day on what I hope will be a wonderful lifelong journey with my new skillet, courtesy of a family member the X-mas holiday. What better way to kick things off than with a scramble? This baby had broccoli, beet greens, carrots, onions, garlic, etc.

Here she is on a nice fluffy tortilla with salsa. I added avocado as an afterthought, definitely the right move.

Burrito’d!

Spring Cleaning

Well needless to say, that patch of lettuce in the front yard from the Fall didn’t survive. The ground was so hard and gravelly, the little sprouts were washed away with the first light rain. I hadn’t done nearly enough to prepare the soil, having not even purchased my first digging fork at that point. Well this year I’ll probably try again with something else (probably more like cover-crop style), but first I had to try again to break up that compacted soil. Here’s a short video clip trying to demonstrate just how hard it is. I swear some of this stuff was so tough there was no way I was going to break it up with just a digging fork.

Bound and determined, I brought home the broadfork I recently purchased from meadowcreatures.com. This is one of the most amazing pieces of equipment I’ve ever owned or even used, and I’ve been using it like crazy up at Wormy Acres Farm, the large garden I am starting for my senior project up in Atascadero.

Here are two clips (1, 2)of the broadfork in action (sorry, my camera only takes 10 second video, and only that if I’m lucky!)

And finally a clip of the finished product. I apologize the video doesn’t illustrate better, but seriously this was pretty amazing!

So here is a picture of the whole thing, I think I might separate it into two smaller beds or something.

And the backyard, pretty much a blank canvas as well.

Except for the pak choi and this artichoke.

Pretty boring post I know, sorry! Check out the Wormy Acres Farm blog, it’s funner right now!

the Restaurant Business

Another long break there, sorry blog! I had to deprioritize you to ensure all my classes got passed. They did!
But also, the lady I work for has just recently (as of three weeks ago) opened a new restaurant in downtown SLO called Vraja’s Kitchen. It is in a pretty sweet location right next to the Mission and is the only exclusively vegan/vegetarian place in town! For more info, the website is vrajasvegankitchen.com and for even more info (daily menu specials, fresh baked bread days, customer reviews, etc.) you can join the Facebook group, just search for Vraja’s Kitchen.

I’ve been making jumbo Tiramisu Cupcakes there, they’re a hot item!

Also, I’ve been busy working on a quarter-acre garden at my parent’s house in Atascadero. I’m hoping to be able to grow some produce for the restaurant there, bring back the compost, all that good stuff! More info to follow soon.

Tropical Getaway

I visited this rad farm the other day in Los Osos and got to pick some horn melon and passion fruit right off of the vine and tree, respectively. I had never seen either of these crazy things in person before (or not in person for that matter!).

Inside shot.

I whipped up a nice islandy smoothie for lunch today with the passion fruit, horn melon, a banana, strawberries, blueberries, OJ, and some Vega Smoothie Infusion (I am a big fan).

Impromptu Alfredo

I almost didn’t MoFo today because I was feeling a little busy (school and work, you know how it is), but this recipe came together so nice and easily that I just couldn’t resist. I just decided to make a quick pasta dinner, inspired by VWAV‘s  Fettuccine Alfreda (I freaking love that book, it’s definitely my go-to). I boiled some pasta, then sauteed some onion, summer squash and bell pepper in a separate pan. After the pasta was done and drained I added in about 1/4 cup nutritional yeast, maybe 1/8 cup of Braggs, a nice slug of olive oil,  some garlic powder, Italian Seasonings, and the sauteed veggies and stirred them up good. I’ve made some bad impromptu cheezy sauces before, but trust me this was a good one!

Spanakopita

We had a bunch of spinach from the farm at the house this week so I decided to to remake what might very well may be my favorite recipe from VWAV, Spanakopita!

I pretty much followed the recipe, except I didn’t have walnuts so I added mushrooms, bell peppers, and some soy sauce to make up for it. It totally worked for me.

Plated.