Labor Day Weekend: My Psycho Garden + If You Grow It, They Will Come

Happy Labor Day Weekend!!  Here's what's happening in the garden:

MADNESS!!!

The garden has turned wild, crazy, out-of-control!!  This weekend and probably the rest of the week will probably be my clean up/prep-for-the-fall week.

Perilla Kimchi

I LOVE perilla!!  It's great when eating grilled pork belly saam!! Mmmmm....pork belly. Instead of using lettuce to wrap the pork belly, I just use straight perilla. This year, I grew way too much, which isn't that hard. I recently killed 3 of 7  plants because I was picking tons of perilla on a daily basis.  I ended up with a ginormous bag...

Napa Kimchi with Fish Sauce

Early in the summer, I was able to grow three decent napa cabbages. They were really chewed up by slugs but decent regardless so I decided to make kimchi.  And do it the old fashioned way.  :-P 

I used a recipe found here: Maangchi. 

Desert King Watermelon

This season, I grew a yellow fleshed heirloom watermelon called Desert King.  I had very high hopes since I don't care for the typical red fleshed varieties. I'm not a big watermelon eater especially the conventional variety that's sold in grocery stores because of the strong watermelon flavor.  This year, I was a bit disappointed.

August 2013: Garden Update + Hugelkultur

It's AUGUST!!  AUGUST! This summer is really going by fast!  I've been trying to get all my fall crops in before Sept.  I sowed mustard seeds and lettuce seeds but of course, it's become a buffet for my slug population.  Thankfully, some have survived and sprouted but I ended up having to sow more seeds, which sadly were eaten within a day.  So, I decided to start mustard seeds indoors using wet paper towels!!

This is the komatsuna.  They germinated in a day and this pic is from today, DAY 2.  I'll be able to set these guys out tomorrow morning.  The Korean mustard is being started using the moist paper towel method, too.  Apparently, carrot seeds can also be germinated this way if germination is an issue.  I've never had a problem with carrots but it's good to know!