June 28th Garden Update

It's been 2 month since the poly tunnel plastic has come off and the sun is in the sky longer. We've already had a couple of heat waves and for the most part, it's been quite dry. My garden is slowly chugging along.
I've learned a lot so far.
The heat waves has caused the broccoli to bolt and flower and it won't stop. Seems like even cutting the main stem did not cause the side shoots to grow. I guess it's just too hot :(
At least the leaves/flowers/stem are edible....So once it finishes seeding, I'll dig the whole thing up and eat it.

So far I've only found 1 more cabbage worm since I plucked off the original 3 and put pots of herbs closer to the cabbage. So I decided to try putting a pouch of Star Anise onto my broccoli. I had left over bags from my wedding and Star Anise is a very strong smelling spice. We'll see how it goes :)

Speaking of spices, it didn't seem cayenne pepper affected the mole...It just dug the whole again...But maybe it was the way I applied the pepper. I just poured it into the whole and then filled it with soil...so it probably just avoided the bottom of the original tunnel and dug close enough to the original.
So this time I decided to mixed 5 spice powder into soil before refilling the hole and so far so good...Fingers cross it'll stop coming back. 5 spice is also very strong smelling so I hope the mole won't like it.

An other plant that bolted so I have no idea what it is...is this one...I'm pretty sure it's my cabbage....what do you think?

Maybe bolted cabbage???

Cabbage

My pea is continuing to flower but probably less then a plant in a location with more sun. But this gives me hope that if I can build a trillis next year that has more room at the top for vines to climb and stay up, I'll be able to grow more! The bean that the rabbit didn't eat starts to grow faster once it reaches a certain height as it's getting more sun. I'm taking that as a sign.

Chayote is starting to climb as well. I almost killed this plant as I let it get to try in the pot. I'm happy it's finally growing and growing well. My house is pretty humid even in the winter, so the top of the soil looked moist. What I didn't know was that the inside was dry so eventually I almost killed it.

I would like to harvest 50 Chayotes. We'll see how that goes.

Mango Salsa

This is my go to recipe for mango salsa.
In Ontario, I only have access to 2 different types of mango. Ataulfo and Apple mango.
For the mango salsa, I only use Ataulfo mangoes. I find apple mango doesn't have the intense mango flavour I desire.
This is a simple recipe but it takes time to chop up all the ingredients. If you're fast at chopping then you'll get this done in no time.
This is actually best made to sit overnight so the flavours have time to meld together!

Mango Salsa

Ingredients

• 2 Ataulfo mangoes
• 2 shallots or half a red onion
• 1 Avocado
• 1 large tomato
• 1 tbsp chopped cilantro 
• 1 lime
• 1 tsp garlic minced
• 1 jalapeno pepper (optional)
• a pinch of sea salt

Directions

1. Peel the the mango and cut it around the seed. 
2. Chop up the mango and place into big bowl.
3. Cut the avocado in half and twist it apart. Use a spoon to remove the flesh from the peel.
4. Chop up the avocado and add it to the bowl.
5. Dice up the tomato and add it into the bowl
6. Finely chop up the cilantro, garlic and shallots and add to the bowl.
7. If you're using the jalapeno pepper, cut it in half, remove the seeds, then chop it up and add it to the bowl.
8. Press and roll the lime on the cutting board. Cut it in half. Stick a fork into the lime and move it around to squeeze out the juice. Do it to both sides.
9. Add the pinch of salt and then mix very very well.
10. Put it in the first and let it rest for minimum 30 mins. Best over a couple of hours or overnight.

Enjoy with chips , tacos, pork chops, etc etc :)

First Sugar Snap Pea

So excited to see the first Sugar Snap Pea of the season.
I was worried I wouldn't get any since it's sort of getting late and getting hot but the vines just started to bloom.
A couple of flowers here and there.
And it's finally climbing higher so it actually gets more sunlight.

Once it starts to get a bit more sunlight I found it grew a lot faster.
The couple of beans that were not eaten by rabbits are starting to climb higher. I hope the higher they climb the fast they'll grow because they have more sunlight.

I think next year I'm going to try to grow squashes in the side that can climb trellis because once they get to a certain point they can get a lot of sun....as long as they get to that point that is...we'll see how it goes :)
I'll continue to experiment

Broccoli and moles

I know broccoli required at least 6 hours of sun and it's a cool temperature plant, but I thought, maybe if it has a bit more shade, then it can survive in hotter weather.
Boy was I wrong.
My side garden gets about 3-4 hours of sun if I'm lucky.
It's been basically a month since I planted my seedlings outdoors and the broccoli have gotten big, but 1 bolted early and the second one just bolted in the last heat wave.
I really should have been getting to a point where the head is growing but the heat caused the second promising looking plant to bolt :(
Looks like all I'll be able to get is broccoli leaves out of the plants.

I guess I'll try again in the fall but in the backyard when I get it back to see if I can grow it in full sun but cooler time.
The only issue is it'll take me at least a month to clear out the current beds of the trees, flowers and weed when I get access to it in Aug....
Which means I'll transplant in Sept, which is cutting it close to freezing temperatures....I guess we'll see how it goes :)

Other then that, besides the 3 cabbage worms I found and picked off, I haven't seen anymore so far.
I sprayed a mixture of cayenne pepper and castile soap on the leaves as homemade pesticide.
I also got strong smelling herbs and planted it close to the plants.
I got 2 mints (kept in pots), 2 thymes and 1 lemongrass.
Hopefully it'll be ok until I pull out these plants to plant something else.

Oh! and I believe I know what is causing the holes and caverns in my garden....we've concluded that I probably have a mole digging around somewhere.
That would explain why when I dug 1 foot into the soil, some areas had big cavities and why holes were appearing.
There's this 1 hole that comes out by my lettuce, that keeps on coming back day after day after I fill it again. It also explains why my bean collapsed in the last rainstorm. There was nothing underneath so when it rain heavily, it dropped the bean into the hole >_<
I think I'll have to throw some cayenne pepper into the hole before I refill it, but it probably won't stop it from tunneling around...I hope it doesn't cause too much issues around the roots and disturb my plants. I really don't want to have to get rid of it.

Steamed Minced Meat and Egg

In need of a quick small filler dish? This is an easy way to get an extra dish in with almost no effort at all.
This is almost like the egg custard dish but with meat so it honestly doesn't look as smooth since the meat underneath will affect how the egg on top looks.

I normally cook this with pork, but it can be done with chicken as well.
If the meat is too lean, it will be dry and tough. So it's good to go with a medium fat meat which is why pork is so good to use.
If using chicken, I would only use dark meat.

You can make this any size you want. This is perfect for steaming in your rice cooker when you're cooking rice if your plate fits.

Steamed Minced Meat and Egg

Ingredients

• 300g Minced Pork/chicken
• 5 Eggs
• 5 Egg Shells of Water
• Soy Sauce
• Sugar

Directions

1. Mix the chicken with the soy sauce and sugar.
2. Pour the meat into the bottom of the steaming plate and flatten.
   
3. In a small bowl, mix together 5 eggs with 5 egg shells full of water so it's a 1 to 1 ratio. When I crack the egg, I save half and use that as my measuring cup and add 10 of those egg shell of water. Almost the same ratio as egg custard but a little less water because meat juice will flow out as you cook!
4. If you want the top to be smoother, run the egg through a sieve. Can't have bubbles if you want that very smooth surface. If you really don't care, just gently pour on top of your meat.
   
5. Wrap the dish with cling wrap.
6. Pop it on top of your steaming device and bring water to a boil. Lower the heat to a gentle boil for 10 to 15 mins depending on how big your plate is. If it's in the rice cooker it'll be a little bit more cooked then it needs to be but it's definitely the easier way to cook this dish.
   
7. And you're done. Feel free to garnish with chopped green onion and a little bit of fish soy sauce.

Chipmunks and Cabbage worms

Gardening really is one thing after another. Especially since I'm avoiding use of any pesticide and herbicides.

It turns out when the chipmunks dug up my bean seeds, they left behind some random seeds behind. No idea what they are but they sprouted! I had pockets of sprouts like this all over the garden.
Since I had no idea what they were, I had to dig them all up. I really prefer not to trade with the chipmunks. They should just keep their seeds.

I also have this plant growing that I think is a bean but I'm not positive because the chipmunks dug up my garden and ended up moving things around.

So now I actually have to wait and see to be sure of what it is....I hope it's not a weed or something bad that will take over my garden. I looked up pictures of the different beans I planted but I can't really find a picture of plant at this stage to compare.

To keep the chipmunks and rabbits out of my garden, I used a netting over the polytunnel tubes.
But now that the beans and peas are starting to climb, I had to lift it up. So the top is open by the side is still sort of covered to make it a little harder for them to get in.

I had to stretch it to go around the chayote area as well so the chipmunks and rabbits can't get in this way. I was originally going to buy chicken wire but I figured since I already had the netting, I might as well just use it. It's a little floppy so I have to get additional support to make it stand up. Other than that, it basically does the same job as the chicken wire.

One thing the netting doesn't do is keep the moths out....so I found the 3 cabbage worms this week munching away.

I found it because I noticed a cabbage leaf was looking weird and upon closer inspection I realized that half of it was gone and I found the worm....the sucker really blends in. It was so hard to find it.
I'm so surprised at how fast they found my plants considering it wasn't a vegetable garden before.

So this weekend I'll have to go get some herbs and plant them around the garden or leave them in pots around the garden to hopefully keep the bugs out.
My plan is to buy rosemary, mint, sage and thyme to help keep the moths away.
Here's a link to a really good chart on companion planting with herbs. herb companions

I'm torn about the marigolds cause they keep pests away but rabbits love to eat them....so I'm hesitant to attract more rabbits.
We'll see how things work with the herbs and then I'll go from there.

Tangy Green Papaya Soup

Once again, I would call this a base soup.
Once you get to know the flavour of different soup ingredients, you'll be able to play around mixing them up. Lots of soups are various of each other.

The reason why I call this the tangy green papaya soup is because of the use of green papaya and ginger. The ginger gives it a kick rather then focusing on the sweetness that usually comes with papaya soup.
Also, since green papaya is not ripe, it's not as sweet as a ripe papaya.

This is great for a smoothing soup with a bit of a kick.
It's pretty simple and easy to make too. :)

Tangy Green Papaya Soup

Ingredients

• 1 Green Papaya (4lbs)
• 1/2 cup red dates
• 1/4 cup apricot kernel (1:3 ratio for north 北杏 and south apricot 南杏 seeds)
• 1cm block of ginger
• 1 - 1.5 lbs of pork bone
• 4L of water
• Salt optional

Directions

1. Pre-treat the pork bone if it's not done already. Blanch the pork bone and then wash the bones.
2. Start heating the 4L of water while you prep the other items. 
3. Peel the papaya and cut it in half to remove all the seeds.
4. Cut it into 1 inch strips.
5. Rinse the red dates and the apricot seeds.
6. Wash the ginger and slice it up
7. Once the water is boiled, put all the ingredients in except the salt.
8. Bring it back up to a rolling boil and then turn down the heat to medium low so that it's at a soft boil.
9. Let it cook for 1.5 hours
10. Before you turn off the heat add salt and stir if you wish to add salt.

And there you have it. Simple green papaya soup with a kick.

My Spring Radish Harvest

Since I don't ever remember eating radishes and how they taste like, I decided to plant 2 rows of radishes just to test them out.
I learned a lot from the 2 rows I planted.

2 major things I learnt.
1. You can eat radish leaves!!
2. Can't be greedy with space, the roots will not grow until you give them lots and lots of space. I don't know how they know they're beside each other but they do.

Here's my final harvest of the 2 rows after thinning out one of the rows earlier.

1. Radish greens
I stumbled upon this by fluke. At first I honestly thought the greens were some sort of lettuce because I didn't label my plants and I had planted a lettuce mix beside the radishes. So for the longest time I thought that it was some sort of prickly lettuce and I couldn't find my radish....
It wasn't until I decided to pull up a plant that I realized that these were my radishes. LOL

I ate the greens raw in sandwiches but I find I like it best cooked!
The greens are prickly so a bit of a pain to wash. It's edible raw and you don't feel it pricking you but just to be safe, it's all nice and soft when you cook it.
Once I realized I had eaten radish leaves, I decided to look them up to be certain you can eat them.
That's when I realized how nutritious they are and the fact that they contain more nutrients then their roots.
The greens are a good source of source of calcium, iron, magnesium, vitamin A, C, K!
When I cook them to eat with noodle soup, I find they taste like Choy Sum. So great fresh substitute.
I tried baking them but didn't like it as much.
So far I like it the best blanched and eaten with noodle or congee.
The best thing about the greens is that it acts like cut and grow lettuce. So for the 1 month you grow the plant for the roots, you can continue to harvest the leaves the whole time for fresh greens.

I like to eat the greens fresh, so throughout the season I clip, wash and cooked right away.
But since I had to harvest the root to stop it from bolting, I quickly rinse and dried in a spinner before I rolled up my greens in newspaper to store in the fridge.
It'll be ok for a couple of days so I'll have to get on eating them. Make sure you dry and separate greens from the root before storage to best keep the leaves.

As of right now, I still haven't ate one of the edible roots I did manage to grow, but I'm thinking I prefer the greens then the root itself. But this led me to point 2.

2. Spacing the radishes.

The ones on the left are from the row that I did not thin out.
The bulbs from the right are from the row that I had thinned out from 6 radishes to 2. The smaller one of the 3 on the right is from the row on the left that I did not thin out. I really thought I had enough room between all the roots since they were spaced out more then the row on the right, but apparently I was wrong.
The roots on the left are not edible. I tried and it was....very bitter and woody.

What I realized is that if you are growing radishes for the greens, go ahead and plant them closer to one an other. And you can have a month long harvest of greens until it gets too hot and the plant starts bolting.
If you want the roots, you do have to space them out.
You'll still get your greens but maybe not as much as if you were to bunch them up.

Great learning, the radishes are fast growing and great for cool season. I'll plant them again in the fall.
For now I will let the broccoli/cabbages and beans take over :)

Eggshell Seedling Starters

I saw these on Pinterest and thought they were so cute I just had to try them.
First I tried with the beans since I wanted something I can bury without disturbing the roots.
But sadly my beans just didn't want to grow so I had no success there.
I but didn't give up.
I ate more eggs and did some planted other things.
My broccoli and cabbage are germinating at about 75%.
Although I did the cabbage and broccoli on different weeks it seems like the amount of sun they can get on my window sill is making them grow at about the same speed now.

I'll probably get them into the ground as soon as I know the beans I transplanted are doing ok.
I'll be putting these in front of the beans :)

To use the egg shells as planters, I used a very sharp knife to poke a hole at one end.
Then I used that hole to create a small crack and lifted a small piece out. Then bit by bit I widen the hole. The egg will want to leak out at a certain point. You can try to pour it out when it first starts to leak but the hole is probably still too small for the yolk to come out without popping.
Best to pour a bit of the egg white and then continue to widen the hole until the size you want and the yolk will easily pour out.

I boiled the egg so it keeps longer.
Poke a hole through the bottom so water can drain through. If you don't, you'll have to be careful how you water.

When you are ready for transplanting, just squeeze the eggshell so it can break apart so your roots can push through the cracks even before it decomposes.
It makes transplanting very easy as you're not really disturbing the root :)

Try it out!!

Rabbits in my garden :(

Here's the before and after picture of the part of the garden that wasn't under the net.

Before the rabbit got to it

After the rabbits got to it...1 night was all it took

The rabbits had a buffet...
It ate all the leaves and left the stem. I'm leaving it in in  hopes that it'll grow back, but at this point in time I really don't know what might happen. It was just transplanted so it's sensitive...and for the rabbit to eat all the leaves, it might be too much for the plant to handle.

Close up of the damage

Sigh, I'm so sad. I hope it'll grow back. I was so excited with so many seedlings, now I might not have anything :(

Since beans eventually will climb, I'm not sure what to do. I can't keep a netting over it forever. It was actually getting ready to climb soon so I need to get it out.
I have to figure out a way to block the rabbits from getting at it but still allow it to climb.
Any suggestions?
I have more pole beans planted and they're just starting to sprout. So it'll eventually get to this stage and I can't let the rabbit eat it too.

Me vs Chipmunk

What do you know, the first night I leave the polytunnel cover off, the next morning I find holes all over my little garden.
I swear it's that chipmunk I've seen around. I've found it guilty in my chayote pot when I was hardening the plant. It doesn't eat the arugula but it's digging up the garden and it ate my bean seeds. :(
I have no idea how it knew where I planted the seeds.
Those dents you see in the photo above is from the chipmunk digging. There were some deeper holes and it even got into my eggplant pot that I put outside for more sun. The funny thing is, it didn't eat the seedling, just dug up everything around it and pushed the seedling over......I don't understand at all. I just hope my eggplant will survive cause it just popped up! It doesn't even have true leaves yet and the chipmunk got to it.

So this is what I'm trying to fight against the chipmunk.
I brought this "bird" cover which is basically just netting and I'm putting it over a section of the garden that have low growing items. I'm using the same hoops I used for polytunnel for the netting. I've had the netting up for 4 days and I haven't found any new holes. I think it's discouraging the chipmunk for the time being. I really hope it doesn't figure out how to get in to give my seeds a chance to grow.

So apparently I had 1 seed that survived the chipmunk raid.
It just popped up today so I hope it'll continue to grow.

I also transplanted the beans my mom's friend gave me. She gave me so many, I hope a good amount of them will survive the transplant since I've been told beans don't like to be transplanted. My fingers are crossed. I don't know how she got them to grow so well in the small space when the peas I planted indoors before the transplant were so weak!! The roots on these are so much more developed then the pea I had indoors. These are outside of the netting, I hope the chipmunk will leave them alone.

And here are the peas.
The right one was from indoors and the left one was direct sow. Such a big difference. The direct sow can stand on it's own even though it's much taller now. The leaves are bigger and the stem is stronger. The transplant is floppy and requires support to help it stay up.
I wonder how much light I need indoors in order for the seedling to grow better. I can't imagine the glass to block light that stops plants from growing when people build green houses out of glass.
At this point in time I'm pretty stumped.

I hope the peas will get taller soon to start climbing the trellis. The higher it climbs the more sunlight it'll get.

Base White Fungus Soup

This is the base soup for white fungus. By adding in other veggies and fruits it'll modify the flavour and make it sweeter. Depending on the fruits/veggies you used, you can interchange figs with red dates and honey dates and pork bone vs chicken.
For the base soup, I specifically use pork neck bone because I found that pork back bone or chicken shell is not enough flavour. Since this is very basic with very little ingredients, the base is very important. Pork neck gives a lot of flavour and will help make your soup richer.
If you want to use chicken, you'll have to use several shells OR buy a mature chicken to use for the soup.

This is pretty much the bare minimum I would put into the white fungus soup. That's why I call this the Base White Fungus soup.

I'll post other variations of it later. :)

Base White Fungus Soup

Ingredients

• 1 White Fungus
• 5 - 7 Dried Fig
• 1/4 cup Apricot Seed mix (1:3 ratio for north 北杏 and south apricot 南杏 seeds)
• 1lbs of Pork Neck Bones
• 4L of water
• 1 tsp salt

Directions

1. Soak the white fungus for half an hour to an hour to soften and wash.
2. Rinse the apricot seed and the figs.
3. Cut all the figs horizontally in half so more flavour can escape into the soup when you cook it.
4. Pre-treat your pork bone by blanching it for 5 mins and washing the bones after the blanch.
5. Once the white fungus is soft enough to wash, gently wash any dirty that may be trapped.
6. Use a knife to dig out connections.
7. You can cut the white fungus into 4 pieces before you boil it or cook it whole and break it into pieces to eat when you're about to drink the soup.
8. Bring the water to a boil.
9. Add in the pork bones and bring the water back to a boil.
10. Throw in the apricot seed, figs and white fungus.
11. Once the water is back up to a boil, bring the heat to low or medium low (depending on your stove) so that it's at a soft boil. Let it cook for 1.5 hrs.
12. Add your salt, stir and you're done :)

May 20th Garden Update

It's finally the May two-four weekend, the big gardening weekend in Ontario where everyone goes out to buy things for their garden and get started on it this.
Why is this the big gardening weekend? Well, last weekend we got a sudden drop in temperature and it even flurried a little in the city. So anything that really doesn't like the cold and wasn't properly protected would have KOed.

I was very lucky to be able to build the mini hoop tunnel to start my season a month earlier so I can start enjoying the lettuce while other people are just getting started. Probably an important thing too since the hours of sunlight is affecting the rate of which my plants are growing.

One thing I noticed is that due to the 3-4 hours of sunlight the garden gets, the days to maturity seem to be off based on what's on the package. The first set of lettuce to be fully mature by now, but it just started getting bushier.

Same with the Sugar Snap Peas that are supposed to nature around 40 to 50 days. It looks way behind schedule. I'm hoping the peas will grow faster as it grows taller as it may get an hour more sunlight then the ground level plants.

An other thing I noticed is that the pea I transplanted seems weaker then the one I directly sowed.
The leaves are smaller and the vine is thinner as well. I have a hard time figuring out if this is due to the transplant or the fact that there was little light. Or the sunlight is affected by glass as I was trying to use sunlight to start the seedling. I'm surprised because the side garden only has 3-4 hours of sunlight which is about the same as my window sill so I'm not sure why the direct sow one is better.
I just hope both will continue to grow and get better.
I want peas and for it to help feed the soil.

This is also the weekend I'll wash and put away the frost blanket and the plastic cover for the mini tunnel as it shouldn't be necessary anymore.
I'll also be sowing and transplanting additional items.
I need to build that trellis for the Chyote because I don't want it taking over the fence. Initially I was going to let it grow on the fence but after reading about how it takes over and climbs everywhere, I decided it needs to be contained on it's own.

At least I won't be battling it out at the nurseries since I have almost everything I need for the year :)
Happy gardening weekend.

Seeds vs Seedlings

This is probably the most common question beginner gardeners have. Should they buy seeds or should they buy seedlings.
Both have their pros and cons.
At a very high level, seeds have more variety and they cost less but are they are also riskier as it can be harder to grow. It can also be discouraging for beginners like myself when germination rate is low.
Seedlings on the other hand can cost $2-$5 per seedling depending on the plant, but if you transplant them carefully, they're almost guarantee to grow.

Honestly, for first year gardening, I didn't want to spend a lot of money on something I wasn't sure about. So this is how I went about getting seeds for cheap or for free!

1. Buy off season!
Urban Harvest has a pop up store from April until late June. Last year, I found them and went their last week when they were having a closing sale. I got seeds at half price! So pay attention to off season nursery sales or the weekly sales.
2. Asking family and friends - I got 2 Chayote plants from my aunt in law, my brother in law gave me some random seeds, my mom's friend is giving me a string bean plant. This is a great kick start to my little garden
3. Trading at Seedy Saturday/Sunday events - Google the words Seedy Saturday or Seedy Sunday and your location. You may find some local seed trading events where you can potentially buy home grown seeds for a cheaper price if you don't have anything to trade yet.
4. Seed Libraries!
I'm very grateful to the Markham's Seed Library and the Toronto Seed Library.

I first learned about Seed Libraries when I saw a weird display at the Milliken Mills Library several years ago. They were just starting out and only had 4 different types of seeds. I was wondering what they were doing so I searched it up and it turns out this initiative is part of Markham's sustainability plan. The idea is that everyone should have access to fresh food.
The Toronto Seed Library was founded before Markham's but their vision is also around food sustainability. The Toronto one is not run by the Toronto Public Library so there's no need for a library card to sign out seeds.

I loved the idea of borrowing, growing and giving back into the library.
I also found this to be a great way to try out new food (if it grows properly) relatively risk free. If I had to buy everything I wanted to try to grow, I would never try anything new.

The Markham seed collection has really grown this year. There's a lot more choices but they still run out very fast so you have to be really on the look out every week to see what they have.
I found that the 2 locations in Toronto I visited had a wide variety of choices and had more items on hand then the Markham ones.

If you're in Markham, definitely check out Milliken Mills Library or Cornell Library for the seed library.
Toronto has 20 active locations which all carries slightly different items, so be sure to check out the latest place near you.

Really excited to try these different seeds.
I'm so surprised to learn that Tatsoi is an Asian veggie and it looks so much like a Bak Choy but I've never had it before O_O
I hope it grows well so I can try it :)
I plan on planting that in late summer for fall/winter harvest since it seems to do well in the cold.

Braised Pork with Preserved Mustard (梅菜猪肉)

I remember the first time my dad made this dish, I was very very skeptical of the preserved veggie. But after tasting it, I was hooked.
He use to make this with pork belly, but I've discovered that pork picnic shoulder can be used as well for a leaner choice. It's not as soft as pork belly, but when braised, it'll fall apart like pulled pork. Just not as moist. But since it's braised, when you eat it in the liquid it's quite good.
It's easier to cook as well since you don't have to precook it like you do pork belly to cook out some of the oil.

Also, it's honestly better prepared in advance so it can sit and the flavours have more time to meld together. So you can cook this at night, leave it overnight and throw it in the fridge the next morning. Then skim the oil before you reheat to eat.

All you need is a big pot to throw everything in. Once the pork is soft it's ready to eat.

Braised Pork with Preserved Mustard (梅菜猪肉)

Ingredients

• 1 bag of Preserved Mustard 梅菜
• 1 Pork Picnic Shoulder
• 1 big chunk of Rock Sugar
• 2 tbsp of Soy Sauce
• 1 cm thick block of ginger, sliced
• water

Directions

1. Use a bowl to wash the preserved mustard. You will want to go through several bowls of water to wash off the dirt and as much salt as possible. The picture to the right is after 4 bowls of water. The first bowl is quite scary to look at.
2. Once it's all washed, cut the veggie. I cut them into 4in long pieces.
3. Wash your pork and cut the pork into chunks. The smaller the chunks the faster it'll cook. So pending on how much time, you can decide how big to cut it.
4. Slice your ginger.
5. In a pot, heat up 1/3 pot of water until boiling.
6. Add the soy sauce, sugar and ginger.
7. Add the pork and vegetable. 
8. Add more water so that it just covers everything in the pot.
9. Bring to a boil. Keep the pot at a soft boil until the meat is soft and cooked.
10. Then it's ready to eat or save until the next day. The flavour gets better and better when it has more time to sit and meld .:)

May 9th Garden Update

As you can probably tell by now, I'm so excited with my first year garden.
I think gardening posts might take over my blog.
Temperature right now is still around 3 degrees at overnight.
During the day it reaches the mid teens.
So it actually gets quite warm and can be steamy inside the polytunnel during the day.
I've started to lift the tunnel during the day to vent it so I don't cook anything.
On days I work from home, I wait until the sun is shining on the space to uncover completely.
On days I'm not at home, I try to uncover just a bit on a day where temperature varies or I take it completely off on a day where I know it'll be hot. Still need to use it over night, but I should be able to pack the frost blanket away now after I wash it next weekend.

A week seems to make an impact on the growth of things.
The first row of lettuce I sowed in mid April is starting to sprout it's real leaves this week.
The things I sowed on April 24th is starting to pop up.
The most noticeable is the second row of lettuce at the bottom of the picture to the left.

The carrots and beats are slowly coming. I'm still having a hard time figuring out if something was from the garden previously or my seeds in the areas I've been planting. I'm pretty sure I accidentally pulled out a beet seedling today...oops.

There's also something growing that seems suspiciously like bean sprouts. It's almost like some of the beans I used last year as fertilizer is actually growing...which is weird cause what I brought should have been boiled and blended up....so I'm at a complete what these are and where they came from.

The sugar snap pea is growing much slower then I had hoped.
In the picture below, the one to the right is the one that was transplanted. It's only grown an inch since it was transplanted.
The little bud on the left of the picture is the seed I directly sowed. It looks like it is starting to come up. So if this works out nicely, I'll have one plant after the other giving me peas :)

I'll probably transplant some more this week and try to start up some more seeds indoors.

Baking Bread - Dried Milk vs Fresh Milk

I love the smell of fresh bread. I especially like crusty bread but when I want the loaf to last an entire week, I prefer making a soft bread.
When I make soft bread, I add in milk, butter and honey.

Milk is a tricky ingredient to use in bread making. I noticed that bread recipes usually call for powdered milk and not fresh milk. I always wondered why. After some research, I found that there's an enzyme in milk that affects the gluten and weakens the bonds.
But, if you boiled the milk it should deactivate the enzyme and your bread should be bigger.

I decided to put it to the test. (Sorry I forgot to take pictures of the other bread)
With milk, I found that it can be a hit or a miss. If I didn't boil it enough it can cause the volume to be smaller. But sometimes it also rises to the amount I want but with bigger gaps inside the bread.

For the last couple of loaves, I used dried buttermilk powder. I found that it rises more consistently and the volume of the bread is generally bigger then the bread make with fresh milk.

I chose buttermilk because it was the "dried" version and not the "instant" version.
Instant milk isn't heated as hot so it may or may not have the enzyme still active.
Dried milk may not be available at the grocery stores. You'll usually find instant milk there rather then dried milk. You can find dried milk online or if you're lucky, there's a local baking goods store that carries it.

When I was looking for dried milk, I found Medallion Milk in Canada.
I emailed Medallion to see if they have any local stores that carries their product they informed me that Bulk Barn carries it. I was very lucky to have someone local that carries dried milk and not just instant so I can use it for my breads. Bulk Barn had dried buttermilk or instant skim milk so I grabbed the buttermilk powder.

I found that using buttermilk added a little sour smell but the flavour is wonderful.
I'll definitely be using the buttermilk powder going forth.

Happy baking.