It's always so great to start off the new year eating healthy, delicious, organic greens.
My large half-acre outdoor vegetable garden is cleared, cleaned and put to bed for the winter season, but I'm fortunate to have lots of wonderful vegetables thriving indoors, in a special greenhouse located behind my Equipment Barn.
Here are some photos of what we have growing, enjoy.
This entire greenhouse is almost all glass. Most of the energy comes from the sun through giant windows, which can be programmed to open for ventilation or cooling when needed. This photo was taken this week just before a night of heavy rains.
We built 16 of these wooden garden boxes to fit the entire length and width of the space. Raised bed gardening allows good drainage, prevents soil compaction, and provides protection for those plants that may otherwise get trampled.
The beds are well-marked to indicate watering instructions.
These reminders are also laminated, so they don’t get wet during watering sessions – a helpful and time saving tip.
This structure uses minimal artificial heat, where many cold hardy crops, such as root vegetables and brassicas, can be grown and harvested through the winter months. I also installed grow lights specially designed to substitute natural sunlight, stimulating photosynthesis, and provide the right color spectrum for thriving plants.
This house is also equipped with fans for proper air circulation when needed.
Cilantro, Coriandrum sativum, is also known commonly as coriander or Chinese parsley. Coriander is actually the dried seed of cilantro. Cilantro is a popular micro-green garnish that complements meat, fish, poultry, noodle dishes, and soups. Everyone here at the farm loves the cilantro, but some don’t. Do you know… some even say it tastes like soap? For those, the issue is genetic. These people have a variation in a group of olfactory-receptor genes that allows them to strongly perceive the soapy-flavored aldehydes in cilantro leaves. Among those who strongly dislike cilantro – the late Chef Julia Child.
All my plants are grown organically and have no chemical taste at all. This is the celery – also great for my daily green juice. Celery is part of the Apiaceae family, which includes carrots, parsnips, parsley, and celeriac.
Here’s our parsley. Parsley is a flowering plant native to the Mediterranean. It derives its name from the Greek word meaning “rock celery.”
This parsley has round, curly leaves. In general, it is less robust in taste than the flat-leaf varieties.
This is our bed of arugula. Arugula leaves, also known as rocket or roquette, are tender and bite-sized with a tangy flavor. All our vegetables are planted at different times as part of succession planting, a practice of seeding crops at intervals of seven to 21 days in order to maintain a consistent supply of harvestable produce throughout the season. I am a big fan of succession planting. This dramatically increases a garden’s yield, while also improving produce quality.
The radish is an edible root vegetable of the Brassicaceae family. Radishes are grown and consumed throughout the world, and mostly eaten raw as a crunchy salad vegetable.
Radish greens are the edible tops of the radish plant, and are commonly eaten as a vegetable in Korea and China.
These are the leaves of beets. Beets are sweet and tender – and one of the healthiest foods. Beets contain a unique source of phytonutrients called betalains, which provide antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and detoxification support.
And these are the bold red beet stalks. Beetroot stalks are edible and can be eaten raw or cooked.
These are the leaves of turnips. The vegetables are not ready yet, but when harvesting, I always gently remove the surrounding earth first to see if the vegetables are big enough. If not, I push the soil back into place. Turnips are smooth flat, round and white vegetables that mature early and are best harvested young – when they are up to two inches in diameter. The flavor is sweet and fruity, and the texture is crisp and tender. Both the root and the leaves of the turnip are edible. The leaves have a taste similar to mustard greens but with a less intense spicy flavor.
Lettuce always grows so well in this greenhouse. These need to grow a little bit more before harvesting. It’s a real treat to have lettuce like this all year long.
I always grow lots of varieties of lettuce, so I can share them with my daughter and her children.
One cannot miss the gorgeous Swiss chard stalk colors. They are so vibrant with stems of yellow, red, rose, gold, and white. Chard has very nutritious leaves making it a popular addition to healthful diets.
The most common method for picking is to cut off the outer leaves about two inches above the ground while they are young, tender, and about eight to 12 inches long.
In the next bed, our kale. Kale is related to cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens, and Brussels sprouts. There are many different types of kale – the leaves can be green or purple in color, and have either smooth or curly shapes.
I use spinach for my daily green juice. Spinach is an excellent source of vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C, folate, and a good source of manganese, magnesium, iron and vitamin B2.
Basil, also called great basil, is a culinary herb of the family Lamiaceae. It is a tender plant, and is used in cuisines worldwide – in sauces and soups, on pizza and pasta, in salads, sandwiches, and a host of other dishes.
I am so pleased with my vegetable greenhouse and how productive it is every year. We’re looking forward to a winter filled with bountiful harvests.
It's always so much fun to see photos from others taken during their vacations.
Not long ago, a member of my outdoor grounds crew, Pasang Sherpa, returned from a trip to his native Nepal. Nepal is a landlocked nation located between India and the autonomous region of China known as Tibet. Sherpas live in the most mountainous areas of Nepal, high in the Himalayas. They are renowned in the international climbing and mountaineering community for their hardiness, expertise, and experience at very high altitudes. It is quite a distance from here, but Pasang tries to go back regularly to visit relatives and friends, and to enjoy the many beautiful sights and delicious foods of his homeland.
Enjoy these photos.
If you are not familiar with Nepal, it is the country of Mount Everest, the highest mountain peak in the world, and the birthplace of Gautama Buddha- Lumbini. Several of my outdoor grounds crew are from Nepal and love to go back whenever they can.
Many of you may recognize Pasang from this blog. He is our resident tree expert here at my farm. Here he is at the airport in Nepal getting picked up by his nephew and his wife’s brother.
Boudhanath is a stupa in Kathmandu, Nepal. In Buddhism, a stupa is a mound-like or hemispherical structure containing relics that is used as a place of meditation. This stupa is one of the largest spherical stupas in Nepal and the world.
One of the first things Pasang did when he got to Nepal was enjoy a nice dinner with his friends.
While it rarely snows in the lowlands of Nepal, there is snow up on the mountains. Pasang took this photo of the snowcapped Numbur, a glaciated mountain located in the Rolwaling Himal mountain range. Winter in Nepal occurs at the same time as here – December, January and February. The lower elevations are very dry and cold.
When Pasang was small, he went to school in Nunthala, Sholukhumbu, nestled in the serene landscapes of rural Nepal.
Nepal generates more than 95-percent of its electricity from hydropower. Hydropower, also known as water power, is the use of falling or fast-running water to produce electricity or to power machines. This station was just opened less than two years ago.
This waterfall feeds the hydropower station.
This is Taksindu, a ward in Solukhumbu District in the Province 1 of north-eastern Nepal. It is a small village with a population less than three-thousand.
In this photo is the Taksindu Monastery, a Sherpa Buddhist monastery which sits on the cusp of the divide between Solu and Khumbu, Nepal. It is
a residential school for 60 monks and nuns and 20 lay people,
and is the primary religious institution for the surrounding community.
These are just two of the young students.
And these are some of the young graduates of the monastery who will go on to dedicate their lives to serving other people or leave mainstream society and live life in prayer and contemplation.
At the top of the Taksindu Pass is this temple, Taksindu La.
Pasang took photos up close and from away to show the picturesque views of the Khumbu region.
Here is another snapshot of Taksindu La before Pasang went inside.
And here is Pasang with his nephew’s wife. Although he traveled alone on this trip, Pasang was able to see many relatives and family friends.
And this is Pasang’s mother, Kanchhe Sherpa. She is placing flower petals in dishes of water outside the monastery for the Buddha. Flowers symbolize the Six Paramitas: giving, abiding by the precepts, patience, diligence, concentration, and wisdom.
Pasang also visited the Nepali hospital where his son was born. This is the Phaplu Hospital located in Solukhumbu. It was originally built in 1975 to provide medical services to the densely populated area. Pasang says he is happy to see how it has evolved and improved over the years.
From Phaplu, Pasang could see Numbur. Here is another view of the Numbur mountain, which is 22,828 feet high.
This photo was taken during Pasang’s early morning Pikey Peak trek. This trail is in the lower Everest region known as Solu Khumbu. From the summit, which is at an altitude of 4065 meters, or 2.5 miles up, there is a magnificent view.
Pasang was so happy to get these photos. This one was taken at about 6am.
He also saw yaks and naks. Yaks are also known as tartary ox, grunting ox, or hairy cattle. It is a species of long-haired domesticated cattle found throughout the Himalayan region of South Asia, the Tibetan Plateau, Kashmir, Tajikistan, and as far north as Mongolia and Siberia. The female is called a nak.
And here is Pasang with his friend, Temba. Pasang spent about three weeks in his homeland, but is already looking forward to his next trip. Thanks Pasang, for sharing your photos.
As serious and passionate gardeners, whenever Ryan McCallister and I have time, we always enjoy visiting botanical gardens.
During Ryan's recent holiday trip home to California, he blocked out some time to visit the University of California Botanical Garden, a 34-acre establishment that includes some of the most diverse landscapes in the world, with more than 10,000 types of plants, many rare and endangered species. First established in 1890 and laid out geographically, the UC Botanical Garden features nine regions of naturalistic plantings from Australasia to South Africa, along with a major collection of California native specimens.
Ryan took some photos of those plants that interested him, enjoy.
The UC Botanical Garden is in the Berkeley Hills, inside the city boundary of Oakland, with views of the San Francisco Bay. It has more than 20,000 accessions, representing 324 plant families, 12,000 different species and subspecies, and 2,885 genera. Outdoor collections are arranged geographically and nearly all specimens were collected in the wild.
In 1976 the Mather Redwood Grove was dedicated in honor of Steven T. Mather, a graduate of UC Berkeley in 1884 and the founding director of the National Park Service in 1916. Ryan sought out these redwoods, saying he had to find some during his trip. These were first planted in the 1930s.
Walking around, one can see how they tower above all the other plantings. Sequoia sempervirens is the sole living species of the genus Sequoia in the cypress family Cupressaceae. Common names include coast redwood, coastal redwood, and California redwood.
These trees are long lived evergreens that can thrive for 1,200 to 2,200 years or more.
The wood color can range from a light pinkish brown to a deep reddish brown. Sapwood is a pale white-yellow. Curly figure or Redwood burl (sometimes referred to as “lace” or by the name Vavona) are occasionally seen.
Elsewhere at the Botanical Garden – Encephalartos eugene, maraisii a species of cycad in the family Zamiaceae. It is endemic to South Africa, where it is limited to Limpopo. It is known as the Waterberg cycad. This plant grows in the sandstone hills of the Waterberg Range at almost a mile in elevation. The habitat is grassland and savanna.
Deterocohnia brevifolia, also known as Abromeitiella brevifolia, is a terrestrial bromeliad with small rosettes of fleshy triangular leaves with toothed margins and a sharp tip. It grows up to 6 feet in diameter, forming large compact rounded mats of hundreds of rosettes.
Nerine undulata is a species of flowering plant of the family Amaryllidaceae and native to the eastern Cape of South Africa. it is a bulbous perennial with narrow grasslike leaves that are almost evergreen, and umbels of 8-12 slender, crinkled pale pink, dainty flowers.
Pachypodium lamerei is a species of flowering plant in the family Apocynaceae. It is a stem succulent, photosynthesizing mainly through its trunk, and comes from the island of Madagascar. It has large thorns and leaves mostly just at the top of the plant, and large, fragrant flowers.
Welwitschia mirabilis of namibia is unusual. This plant has large, strap like leaves that grow continuously along the ground. During its entire life, each plant produces only two leaves, which often split into many segments as a result of the leaves being whipped by the wind.
Lithops is a genus of succulent plants in the ice plant family, Aizoaceae. Members of this genus are native to southern Africa. The name is derived from the Ancient Greek words for ‘stone’ and ‘face’, referring to the stone-like appearance of the plants.
UC Botanical Garden has a collection dedicated to Southern Africa. It includes plants from South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, and Namibia. The plants of this region are famous for their diversity of flowers and forms. Many species are found nowhere else in the world.
Ryan also saw a small pond of newts. A newt is a salamander in the subfamily Pleurodelinae. The terrestrial juvenile phase is called an eft. Unlike other members of the family Salamandridae, newts are semiaquatic, alternating between aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Adult newts have lizard-like bodies and return to the water every year to breed, otherwise living in humid, cover-rich land habitats.
The plants of Australasia are native to New Zealand, the mediterranean-climate and subtropical regions of Australia, and the high elevations of the South Pacific islands. The islands of New Zealand have year-round rainfall and a temperate climate. Ferns and conifers are prominent in this flora and are featured in the collection.
This is called Loropetalum – a genus of four species of shrubs or small trees in the witch-hazel family, Hamamelidaceae, native to China, Japan, and south-eastern Asia.
Its leaves are vibrant and range from a bright lime green to the deepest, darkest of purples.
Ryan stopped to take a quick photo with it.
Look at the large leaves on this plant. Gunnera tinctoria, known as giant rhubarb, Chilean rhubarb, or nalca, is a flowering plant species native to southern Chile and neighboring zones in Argentina. It is unrelated to rhubarb, as the two plants belong to different orders, but looks similar from a distance and has similar culinary uses.
The anchor plant is a South American shrub, Colletia cruciata, of the buckthorn family, having flattened green branches and yellowish-white flowers. Look closely, it is nearly leafless, but grows slowly up to nine feet tall with flattened two-inch wide triangular spine-tipped gray-green photosynthetic stems (called cladodes) arranged in opposite pairs, that somewhat resemble a ship’s anchor.
Acacia pravissima, commonly known as Oven’s wattle, wedge-leaved wattle, and Tumut wattle, is a species of flowering plant in the legume family Fabaceae. It is an evergreen shrub native to Victoria, the South West Slopes and Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia.
And this is California poppy, Eschscholzia californica, also known as golden poppy, California sunlight or cup of gold – a species of flowering plant in the family Papaveraceae, native to the United States and Mexico and Ryan’s favorite bloom. Thanks for always taking such interesting photos, Ryan.
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