A Love Like Coriander

I have a tendency of making things more complicated than necessary. I do this horribly annoying thing that (understandably and without fail) makes the hero boyfriend crazy. I continue making the case for my "side" once he already concedes to whatever action/decision I've passionately argued for. If you don't know what this looks like I'll give you a quick glimpse...

Hero Boyfriend (HB): Do you want to do fish tacos for dinner tonight?
Urban Farm Girl (UFG): How about we make pizzas at home?
HB: Yeah, ok. Pizza sounds great, I'll pick up some vegetables and tomato sauce.
UFG: Yeah, because I figured we're having fish tacos on Friday with our beautiful Canadian friends and we might be all fish taco'ed out if we have them tonight, too.
HB: Yep. Do you want bell peppers and the honey wheat dough?
UFG: Yeah, thanks! Also, you know, I have that new chopper that I want to test out. I can use it to chop up all the pizza toppings and see if it's really as good as it looks on TV.

...can't. let. go.

So I can make things needlessly complicated much like prunes, typhoons, and cilantro. What do the above mentioned fruit, meteorological spectacle and herb have in common? They remain the same even when called by a different name.

This weekend the hero boyfriend brought down those two big trash bags that had been tied up high on a tree for weeks. Inside, were the beginnings of our next cilantro crop. BUT, also inside those bags was coriander. Coriander! What?!?! They're both inside the big trash bags?!?! I could not wrap my Urban Farm Girl mind around this. So, upon further research, I've learned that cilantro is really coriander leaves and Chinese parsley (which is different than flat leaf parsley.) Also, it is super annoying because it's like fish, the singular and plural spellings are the same. Please be more botanologically and grammatically complicated.

The process (for me) looks like this:
1. Cilantro grows it's delicate, citrus-y green leaves
2. The plant flowers, then dries out
3. The dried plants go into trash bags and hang on a tree where they continue drying
4. The dried plants then go into a large bin where I smash them (a la Lucy & Ethel) to break off the pods/seeds
5. Plant the pods for more cilantro or break open the pods and enjoy the coriander

Lastly, it is the hero boyfriend's endless patience along with his kind and encouraging words that often pick this Urban Farm Girl up after a failed bok choy crop and pulling up beastly/disfigured carrots. (The next blog post will explore these two moments of gardening defeat.) They say that variety is the spice of life and though more complicated than initially thought (or bargained for), I give back in different ways. Here's hoping I'm the coriander in his life!

Below are pictures of my first rendezvous with coriander.








Cilantro

This is cilantro once it goes to seed















Up you go cilantro seeds















Almost there...













Enter Urban Farm Girl. Stomp, stomp, stomp.

Dress: J.Crew (if you like this dress, don't even bother looking for it, it's at least five years old...er, vintage)
Hat: Style - Cowboy, Folsom Pro Rodeo 2011

*Always read with irony
















Cilantro seeds/Coriander

With a bok bok here and a bok bok there..

Here a bok, there a bok... Ok, you know what, why don't you go bok yourself? This is the first time the hero boyfriend will hear about my unhappiness with our bok choy. I know, it's not fair to blame my crankiness on the bok choy, it's not the vegetable's fault. Like most things, I am projecting. But, what the bok?!?! I sow, nurture, weed, water and even praise the leafy greens (yes, I proclaim their greatness out loud and tell them what a good job they're doing.) So you can imagine the crushing disappointment I felt after I harvested my very first crop and prepared it for dinner to have it all fit in one bowl. This was suppose to be a special moment for me, like a dance recital or spelling bee. No, I hadn't been practicing for months, but I had certainly been preparing for months and there was potential for interpretive dance. Mark this as my first official blog garden complaint.

I was going to do it right. I had the white porcelain bowl out, you know, so I could show off the rich greens in the bok choy and it seemed kind of high brow (something I imagined Gwyneth Paltrow would tell me to do. No, I don't think she would stop at telling me what to eat, I count on her to tell me what to eat it in, too.) And by the time I'm done typing this blog post an island nation will have been able to eat 7,000 acres of bok choy. I know, that statement makes no sense...Neither does growing bok choy. Here's my advice, buy it.

Ok, it's not all bad. It did make enough for dinner and two lunches the next day and it did taste like all kinds of healthy. Since I didn't get around to writing this blog before the hero boyfriend went to Home Depot I now have at least one other bok choy harvest coming my way. He picked up more bok choy seeds which I have already planted and have begun to sprout. The blog garden comes full circle in the pictures below, enjoy!

Bok Choy beginning to flower












Urban Farm Girl


Bikini: Mara Hoffman
Yoga Pants: Victoria's Secret
Flip-flops: Crew Cuts by J.Crew (yes, I wear kids clothing. You should see me at Target. Kid meet Candy Store.)

*Again, please read with irony




Bok Choy on its way to becoming dinner
























Clean and prepared, almost ready for dinner













Bok Choy all over again...




("Asian Vegetables" = Bok Choy)

From Seed to Table

(Mom, Santa Monica beach 1970-something)

The first thing I recall planting are tulips with my mom in the front yard when I was 7 or 8. What I can't remember is whether or not they ever grew... My mom was the city girl to my dad's little bit of country. He has a remarkable green thumb (he manages to grow organic starfruit in California), which I not so secretly hope I've inherited, while my mom's gardening adventures once led to the emergency room. BUT on Mother's Day I remind her of only her strongest qualities.

Before the hero boyfriend and I made the Saccharin-y Hallmark holiday pilgrimage to see my 365 days a year wonderful mom, I reluctantly made my first attempt to harvest arugula seeds. After a minor concussion, late night soccer game and baking up two batches of homemade brownies just a dozen hours earlier I was feeling like a cranky (though not hostile) martyr. Since the world needs another martyr the same way it needs more particulate matter in the air I had no choice but to say, "Suck it up Urban Farm Girl."

Arugula. The President likes it. Who doesn't love the vitamin C and potassium laced peppery tasting leafy green? (I'm not sure about the statement regarding the President, it's just a vague campaign trail memory at this point, kind of like universal health care.) Arugula seeds come from arugula seed pods which grow from the arugula plant. So basically what I don't eat goes to seed and I'm guilted into efficiency. I mean, it's a recession (I don't care what you say National Bureau of Economic Research, it's still a recession) and I can't allow the next arugula harvest to go to waste because I'm desperate to go to the beach, surf and have a rum drink, right? RIGHT? Waste not, want not. Below, you'll find the abridged process in pictures. Being the lucky Urban Farm Girl that I am I have amazing help from the endlessly patient hero boyfriend and the chickens...even Kevin.

Lastly, my mom said, unprompted, at lunch today that she loves my arugula and continued to criticize iceberg lettuce for its lack of nutrients. She's been doing this my whole life, supporting my interests by educating herself on whatever silly, quasi-viable adventure I was embarking on. For almost 30 years she has encouraged me to fight for the things I believe in and chase the things I can't live without. I feel the most beautiful when I catch a glimpse of her in me. Thank you, mom, for bringing this seed to the table (without being a cranky martyr.) I'll be paying it forward my whole life. I love you.

Harvesting Arugula:


Sidewalk Garden Update:




Bok Choy









Mixed Greens










Red Onions









Tomatoes

Who are you?!?!

This Urban Farm Girl has an older brother. I've been told, on more than a few occasions, that we're like night and day. When people say to me that I should let cooler heads prevail, I want to borrow his. He's calm, deliberate and plays a sweet guitar. When I was younger I would have chased stray balls into the street just to play baseball with him and his friends. It was a pathetic yet wonderful existence, like I was everyone's little sister. I never had to look far for a piggyback ride, staring contest or someone to put Ken's head on Barbie's body (I was sufficiently horrified by this.)

My brother has always humored my adventures no matter how asinine they seemed. He was at the finish line when a 14 year old Urban Farm Girl ran the LA Marathon and I once devoted hours to cleaning the toaster oven (yes, I was that kid.) In college I became a vegetarian after a Spring Break trip gone awry and I went the vegan route for an entire year once. Since then he has always kept a veggie burger on hand for me at every barbecue.

So I am also that girl, the one with persistent pastime/project wanderlust. A recent conversation with the hero boyfriend made me realize that I've never collected anything. Probably because it required too much commitment to one enterprise with a goal that seemed to repel closure (says the neurotic academic in me.) All of this is why the urban garden is an exercise in all things I need "work" on...patience and dealing with the uncertainty of success (among others, let's be real.) I am currently marinating in both of these.

I admit it, there are days when I just refuse to water or plant. Even the thought of doing such things will make me cranky. On these days it's difficult to rationalize why it makes sense to use the limited energy I have after work to grow things that I can easily buy down the street for a couple dollars here and there. Then the people...

After preparing a glorified and inebriated version of meals on wheels with the hero boyfriend for a dozen of our favorite people I felt such satisfaction I must have been glowing. I used the different kinds of lettuce from the backyard to make a giant salad and the friends arrived as I was pulling chocolate chip cookies from the oven. Oh, I was on domestic cloud nine when my beautiful, Canadian ginger friend asked in sweet, sincere shock, "Who are you?!?!"

The home grown lettuce in the salad had friends concerned about people stepping through the sidewalk garden and a couple devilishly handsome guy friends have encouraged me to put up a little fence to protect it. There are even rumors about other urban gardens making their way into these homes, too. This side project has been giving back in a big way, it just might keep going. Wanderlust be gone.

Daughter, Sister, Friend, Athlete, Student, Believer, Dreamer, Follower, Leader...Urban Farmer.


One day I'll be picking bell peppers and tomatoes for the salad, too.

Kevin!

An open letter to that great ball of hot gas:

"Dear Sunshine,
You lift my spirits. I can't fight it. I've tried. I've thrown my toughest, crankiest, bossiest, bad day, bad boss, painfully hungry, hungover, sleep deprived, jet lagged, unwarranted angry moods at you. But once I feel that warm hug..."

So, as you might gather, the longer and warmer days have begun to work their Pollyanna brain washing, mind control magic on me. Now, on most days after work I skip through the front door, drop my bag on the couch and continue my frolic into the backyard where the hero boyfriend is sometimes found tinkering, sweeping, or grilling. The other day, as I neared the conclusion of this merry routine, I saw a fairly stoic looking hero boyfriend. As I skipped closer he said, in an angry whisper, "I am so mad at Kevin!" Enter my favorite chicken of them all...

Kevin, beige and chubby, eats too much and doesn't lay enough eggs. She, along with the other chickens, had recently entered some kind of conflict (which I had not been taking seriously) with the hero boyfriend over their food. The hero boyfriend won't drive 40 minutes to get them their favorite food and they won't eat their new food. So, what's a hungry, stubborn chicken to do?

Kevin made her way into the little backyard lettuce patch. She, impressively, jumped the chicken wire fence (like any experienced thief might) and went to town on the romaine. There she stood, indignant in her Tiananmen Square lettuce patch making it known that if she wasn't given her food then she would eat ours.

Right, so maybe there wasn't so much of an activist chicken there as a hungry one, but I'll let you guess who's playing the North in this civil war.

As of tonight nothing is resolved.

Tomorrow, I encourage the hero boyfriend to take a surfboard to the beach, soak up the sun, maybe do a little jig in the sand, and buy some chicken crumble...

A Proper Hoe

If you were in LA this weekend then you know it's been the kind of "beautiful" that we get on only a handful of days a year when the sky is clear and blue in spite of the oppressing carcinogens (which I hope I'm building some kind of immunity to at this point) and the winds are calm and cool not resembling the Santa Ana's at all. It's the kind of "beautiful" that's too big to dream, that makes me want to bathe in it and I pray that some of it stays on my skin and sticks to my soul.

In a prior life I would have called a friend, rode my bike to the beach, and enjoyed an Americano (with room for milk, thanks) with my toes digging into the warm sand. BUT that's not the life of the Urban Farm Girl. The problem with that comfortable and appealing scene these days is that there's no farm involved at all. So instead, on this Saturday that was so beautiful I could have drank it in (yes, I choose you brilliant and delicious Saturday over an Americano all day everyday) I went to Home Depot with the hero boyfriend.

Walking into Home Depot I was knocked over by virgin garden envy. It was strong, uncontrolled and I felt the deep desire to throw my arms in the air and sing something glorious while impulsively buying everything. I was convinced that we had room to grow watermelons, cucumbers and strawberries alongside my illusions of Urban Farm Girl grandeur. I was also feeling certain that I absolutely had to buy the ranunculus plants, all of them.

...I walked away with none of those things. The hero boyfriend came sweeping in on his white horse of frugality and reason and, really, he was just in time as I was hiding in the corner staring at a magazine rack of seeds.

We walked away with another $7 bag of soil (again, please be magic), bell pepper and strawberry plants and red onion, bok choy and carrot seeds. Best of all, the hero boyfriend bought me a proper hoe! Just so I can give him a hard time I'm announcing to everyone that he bought me the cheap hoe...Ah, sweet love. I'll think of him every time I use that hoe.


Top: H&M
Pants: Forever 21
Belt: Miranda Parkin
Flip Flops: Target
Sunglasses: RayBan - Classic Wayfarer

Chicken: Plymouth Barred Rock

Hoe: Home Depot

*Please read this with irony





Homegrown Compost
(This, to some degree, still offends me)

The new class: bell peppers, jalapeno and habanero peppers, red onions and bok choy.

Oh, won't you be my neighbor?

So I'll admit it, LA's Urban Farm Girl is a bit of a myth ("lie" is a little strong for my ego.) Pull back the curtain and I'm not so much"girl" as 30 is knocking loudly and I grew up in the Valley (which by its own admission is a suburb of LA.) The Girl Scout in me would like to call this blog Adventures with the Valley's Suburban Farm (Almost) Woman.

A Brief History:
The San Fernando Valley stole water, thank you William Mulholland, to farm and build a community from nothing. A million things, ideas and people would get their start in this Valley including orange groves, Hollywood and this Urban Farm Girl. Growing up, I had the most amazing neighbors and someone's kitchen always smelled like cookies. We played baseball in the streets and rode bikes between pool hopping escapades in the summers. I can smell the peanut butter and chlorine now...

Present Day:
So the hero boyfriend and I live next door to these wonderful, domestic partnership-ish and possibly foreign (Italian?) middle age neighbors. They are sweet, type A folks who like to sweep the streets with borderline neurosis. This past Sunday the neighbor woman and I were chatting about the trees/bushes that separate our lawns and how she has plans to trim or reshape them soon. She was decidedly unsure of how to manicure her yard and, believe me, I was of absolutely no use in this conversation. However, I did share her sentiment on one thing...cubed bushes. While I was trying my hand at diplomacy she observantly shouted, "they don't want to grow that way!" I couldn't have agreed more and secretly cheered as she defended shrubs and bushes everywhere. That's right, real foliage have curves. I bonded with the neighbor, success.

Moving right along, the neighbor woman was witness to the sidewalk sowing that went down on Sunday and saw me again yesterday after work in the same spot where she had left me the day before. But now more than 24 hours had passed and my little patch of sidewalk looked unchanged. You see, the sidewalk soil is clumpy, it has the consistency of clay and the scent of failure. It seems there's no amount of chopping, hoeing, or stomping that will break it up. The ensuing conversation went like this,

Neighbor: "Wow!"
Urban Farm Girl (UFG): "Yeah, I know. The soil isn't so good here."
Neighbor: "No, it's not. It's ok, you can always try again."
UFG: "Yeah...Thanks."
Neighbor: "Good luck!"

End Scene.

So, she's wishing me luck (and offering some doubt) and I'll certainly take it. Thanks neighbor!
Below are pictures of me attempting to make the patch of sidewalk dirt into something vegefruitful.




Dear $7 bag of soil,
Please be magic.






















Confused, frustrated and saying a little prayer.