Flower Update Week 3

This week we planted a few more things: Emerald and Silver Falls Dichondra, most of the coleus, the first variety of petunias, and the second batch of Salvia. So far everything is going according to schedule. The photos are not very interesting, all we can really see now is growing media and small green leave. That will certainly change as the weeks go on.

The seed geraniums are starting to grow quickly, most varieties have started to put out a second true leaf, and by now nearly all of the slow pokes have sprouted.

Here's the Dichondra just coming up. Just think, in four months it will be trailing over three feet.

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The Ptilotus Joey (right row) and strawberries (middle two rows) are now visible, but the helichrysum (left row) is still hard to make out.

Flower Update Week 2

It's Monday, and it's been a week since we started with our flower planting, so it is time for our weekly update.
We are still in our grow room, we haven't planted anything new since last week, but everything that we planted last week has sprouted!

The first photo is of our seed geraniums. The cotyledons (seed leaves) are fully open now for most of the varieties. Germination is very uniform except for Horizon Orange Ice (you can see them on the right side second flat from the bottom). If you look at the enlarged image (click on it), you can see that HOI is smaller and not all of the seeds have emerged -don't worry, that's normal! Germination is probably 102%. Geraniums seed is sold with 4% extra seeds, so a package of 100, actually has 104 seeds.

Next we have Salvia. So far, so good.  Salvia seed is tiny, so it is planted in rows.

Here is rosemary. It grows slowly and the seeds will germinate over the next three weeks.

There are four rows of plants in this flat. On the left is helichrysm (commonly called 'Licorice Plant'), the leaves are so small you can barely see them even on the enlarged image! The middle two rows are strawberries -again, the leaves are very tiny. On the right is Ptilotus Joey.

Simi's Chilli Paneer Recipe

One of the closest restaurants to our house is Bombay's Chutney, just down Walkers Line at Dundas St. We've been there a number of times exploring what is a new cuisine for our family. One of our favourite dishes is Chilli Paneer. To our delight a colleague of Wendy's just happens to have a great recipe. It turns out it's easy to make, doesn't take long, and uses three ingredients that we grow on our farm. What more could you ask for!

Simi's Chilli Paneer

1 tbsp  oil

1 tsp  cumin seed

1 large  onion

1 tsp  turmeric
1 tsp  garam masala

½ tsp  ginger (powdered)

1  jalapeño chopped

1 quart  tomatoes chopped fresh (or canned minced)

Salt to taste

400g  paneer (1 pkg) cubed

Heat oil and cumin seed over medium heat in a sauce pan.

Add onion, cook 5 mins until done.

Add turmeric, garam masala, ginger, jalapeño, and tomatoes, continue to simmer until fresh tomatoes are soft (10 - 30 mins depending on how thick you want the sauce to be).

Add paneer, reduce heat to low, cover and cook for 10-15 mins

Serve with rice

Tofu can be substituted for the paneer (makes this a great vegan dish).

Jalapeños can be substituted with any chile, or left out for a non-spicy version

Paneer

The first time we ordered chilli paneer we really had no idea what it was. The dish had these yummy cubes of something best described as the curd part of cottage cheese. Well, it turns out that's the paneer, and paneer is an unaged cheese similar to cottage cheese or queso fresco (its Mexican cousin).

So, where do you get it? We haven't seen it in our Burlington grocery stores (YET! I'm sure it will appear one of these years).

 

In Burlington you can get it at:

"Indian Grocers" 

1450 Headon Road, Burlington

(that's just south of the Shopper's Drug Mart at Upper Middle)

And we're off!

It's the beginning of February, and that means we started planting today! It is a welcome job at this time of year. It may be bitterly cold outside, the city may be closed down due to a blizzard (not this year), but inside our grow room it is warm and bright; the air is moist, and in a couple of days we'll have thousands of lush green plants to look at.

Our first photo is of our grow room -it's in our basement. The plants don't take up too much room right now, so we don't need to use any greenhouses just yet. Everything has been cleaned and sterilized and I'm ready to start planting. Today I mainly planted our geraniums that we grow from seed. We'll be growing over 3,000 of them, and the seed, which is the size of ½ a grain of rice, are planted by hand one at a time. Once that's done (it takes a couple of days), I'll plant some rosemary, salvia, and a few pots of greens that we might get to eat in a month!

In the second photo you can see the geraniums all planted -in 14 weeks we'll have the first blooms and you'll be able to plant them in your garden. I'll do a blog entry about once a week, and you'll be able to see how they're coming along.