garlic Allium sativum

Chop up the kamo kamo.

Remove seeds. (Save these to grow for next year)

Leave skin on.

Roast with sprigs of rosemary at 180C for about 40 minutes (until soft) It's okay to do this the day before

Remove skins (easier if the kamo kamo is cool). place in pot with chicken stock and garlic. Puree with a stick blender until smooth. Heat slowly on the stove. Pour over pasta.

For extra points, serve with steamed pūhā

Today I transplanted the cabbage and onion seedlings outside and planted seeds for: arugula, garlic (well, cloves, not seeds--forced in the fridge), mesclun salad mix, kale, cauliflower, and beets. Some of these (cauliflower, beets, mesclun) will have later succession plantings.

You can just slightly see the cabbage seedlings at the far end of the left bed and the onions in the middle of the edge of the far right bed.

Also, I checked on the fruit trees. The apple trees are starting to wake up! They have little green shoots starting at their bud points.

The cherry are getting ready to blossom. Well, the ornamental already has, but the fruiting cherries haven't yet.

We were really worried that the peach tree might not have survived the winter due to a rabbit gnawing on it, but I did a little scratch test toward the top of the trunk, and it's green in there! (That means it's still alive) Since peach and almond (and plum? not sure) have a warmer range than apples do, I'm not concerned that they're not putting out new shoots yet.

I've got seeds either on-hand or ordered for just about everything I'm starting from seed this year. I've been working out what I want to plant, and this is the plan I've come up with for the 72 square feet of my backyard raised beds:

Key:

• 00: arugula
• 01: basil (sweet)
• 02: beet (Detroit dark red)
• 03: cabbage
• 04: cauliflower (Early snowball)
• 05: cucumber (pickling)
• 06: eggplant (black beauty)
• 07: eggplant (long purple)
• 08: garlic
• 09: kale (vates)
• 10: lettuce (buttercrunch)
• 11: onion (evergreen bunching)
• 12: oregano
• 13: parsley
• 14: hungarian wax pepper
• 15: bell pepper
• 16: Mesclun salad blend
• 17: zucchini
• 18: yellow summer squash
• 19: butternut squash
• 20: sweet potato
• 21: tomato (Opalka)
• 22: super sweet 100 tomato

Beets are fast enough (only 2 months) that I figure I can safely interplant them with the squashes.

I also picked up some chamomile seeds yesterday. I like chamomile tea, and it'll help attract pollinators. I have what I intend to be a food forest further back in my yard, past the raised beds, and I think it can go in there, around the berry bushes I intend to plant this spring.