RIP seedlings

I'm sad to report that I've killed off the beefsteak tomato seedlings. I blame my dad for this one, but he doesn't know it yet (sorry dad!). See, the seedlings were delicate and fragile, but they were outgrowing their containers. So I transplanted them into larger containers, but then there was no room for them inside under the lights. Seeing as how our apartment is a dungeon and the porch gets little sunlight, I had little choice but to set them outside in the garden. I consulted my dad for advice, and he agreed. The seedlings lasted barely 48 hours. The eggplant seedlings are barely hanging on. Fortunately, the romas are warm and cozy inside and under the lamps.

So later today, I picked up an eggplant plant and I rescued a tomato plant from our garden's community seedling collection. I hope it perks up.

On the way home from the gym today, I stopped by the garden and came across the kids from the nearby day care admiring our garden plot (supervised of course). Well, to be fair, they were running around and admiring everyone's garden plot and they just so happened to be at mine as I walked up. But, they seemed impressed, and I distinctly remember hearing a kid excitedly shout "hey, look at this!" So, despite killing off some seedlings, we must be doing something right.

the first harvest

The garden, in case you're wondering (and I know you are!), is doing swimmingly. What does that even mean? I don't know, but I think it means that things are going well. So, even though our sunflower is wilting, the rest of the garden is doing well.

Today I got to harvest our first cherry tomato. Is it still a harvest if I pick only one thing? See that red cherry tomato? That's the one I picked. And subsequently ate. It was a bit tart, which probably means I shouldn't have been so eager to pluck it off the vine, but it was still good.
Pretty soon, I will get to pick this:
It's all very exciting, but I'm also a little nervous. See, I can handle picking and eating ripe veggies one or two or maybe even three at a time. But what happens when there's more than that to pick? I'm not so worried about the picking part, it's the eating and preserving part that makes me nervous. I mean, when I look at this pepper plant, on my hand, I'm amazed and excited to get peppers. But on the other hand, I think "holy crap, what will I do with all those peppers?"

Do you see what I mean? And we don't have just one pepper plant. We have 4 green pepper plants and 4 red pepper plants. I'm not really worried about the red peppers, because I have a plan for those (roast, marinate, and can). But I don't have a plan for the green peppers. And I know I should have thought of this earlier, but I'm not sure I like green peppers enough to warrant having 4 green pepper plants. At this point, you might be wondering why we got so many pepper plants. The reason is for insurance purposes, in case one or two died. It's the same reason that we have 4 eggplants seedlings, and 13 tomato plant seedlings.

Despite my mixed feelings, I'm happy with the garden and confident that we'll find a use for everything.

mount palomar winery

Temecula is known for its wineries, and we couldn't leave without visiting one.

Drew and I decided to check out the Mount Palomar Winery. He doesn't drink wine (except maybe dessert wine), but I decided to do a wine tasting. I tasted 6 different wines, choosing from a variety of white wines, red wines, and dessert wines. We ended the tasting with a rich dessert wine that had notes of hazelnut and caramel. It was really good, and we went home with a bottle.

The winery was quite pretty and we had a nice walk around the grounds.
The wineries are only a few miles outside of Temecula, but you'd never know it with these views:
Here is the wedding/special event section:


And the endless grape vines:
All in all, the winery had about 50 acres of land. (I know this because I asked, not because I'm a land surveyor or anything)

This was a great way to wrap up our mini-vacation. We got back to Irvine on Wednesday, and yesterday morning, Drew left for Beijing. He will be gone for 7 weeks to learn Chinese. He is enrolled at a language program at Beijing Normal University. I will try to keep you posted on his adventures.

temecula

We followed the winding road through Mount Palomar to Temecula. Temecula sits about 60 miles southeast of Irvine. To me, Southern California seems like one giant city that runs along the coast between LA and San Diego, and in contrast to that, Temecula seemed like a small town. But it's definitely not, not with a population of over 100,000 people.

One of the first things we noticed about Temecula is that drivers actually abide by the speed limit. Sometimes they even drive 5 under it. And nobody seems to be particular bothered by this. There weren't those annoying drivers weaving through traffic. It was quite a contrast to what I'm used to in Orange County.

We first hit up Temecula's old town, which was bigger than Julian's, but less tourist-y and busy than San Diego's old town. These are good things. It also didn't hurt that old town had a lovely view of the mountains.

Old town had your usual assortment of shops, restaurants, and antique shops. Drew and I stopped off at the Root Beer Company...

...which was filled with quite a selection of root beer and other kinds of sodas.

It was warm outside, but we cooled off with some root beer.
We continued walking around, ducking in and out of shops.
And then we went to the Temecula Olive Oil Company, a locally owned business.

There is a tasting bar, and we enjoyed tasting the varieties of olive oils and vinegars. It was awesome, and we left with quite an assortment of oils and vinegars.

It was a great way to end our day.

palomar mountain

Next up, Drew and I headed up to Palomar Mountain, which is situated between Julian and Temecula, more or less. I had heard that when you head inland, it doesn't look anything like "typical" Southern California. This couldn't be more true. Instead of endless people and freeways, there is this:

And this:

And this too:

Can you handle it? I can't. The drive was absolutely beautiful and the views were breathtaking.

And I suppose an advantage to being in Southern California is that we can enjoy this year round. True, but can you imagine how cool this view would be with snow blanketing the mountains and trees?

apple pie & julian

Last week, Drew and I headed inland and south for a quick mini-vacation in Julian and Temecula. Julian is a small, rural town known for its apple orchards and apple pies. I'm not really sure if its known for anything else, but we headed there for apple pie. There are a few places that purport to have the best apple pie, but we went with the Julian Pie Company, which ranked the highest on yelp.

After driving 2 hours to get to Julian, we were looking forward to stretching our legs, walking around, and of course, eating pie. We had the original apple, served with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream, and the caramel apple.

It might be a bit crazy to go out of the way for apple pie, but this isn't just any apple pie. The crust was super tender and flaky, and the pie was among the best I've ever had (and my grandma makes pretty good apple pie).

After gorging on pie, we walked around Julian's old town, which spanned only a few blocks. Of course, no old town is complete without an old time candy shop. Because of this, I have come to the conclusion that back in the day, everyone just ate candy. We couldn't resist stopping, and we picked up some caribbean rum pecans and apple butter.

Julian's old town was mostly little shops and restaurants, and even though we didn't stop in any, we still enjoyed walking around.


After stretching our legs, Drew and I headed north to Palomar Mountain.

mint, basil, tomatoes, peppers!

Drew and I replanted our garden a few weeks ago, adding loads of manure and compost to our clay soil. We must have done something right, because our garden is looking pretty good! Our plants are green again (they used to be yellow), and our once sickly tomato plant is thriving. We almost lost a different tomato plant while transplanting it, but it seems to be doing fine. I don't want to jinx things, but we seem to be okay gardeners. We're getting compliments on our garden, and friends are asking for gardening advice. Wait, I lied there. Only one friend has asked for gardening advice, but that's because I offer it up to anyone who comments on our garden.

Here's a near-aerial view of the garden:

So far, we have basil, red and green peppers, tomatoes, sage, beans, and a jalapeno plant. Let's have a closer look, shall we? Here is the crazy, out of control mint. Good thing we planted it in a pot:

Our tomato plants have little tomatoes!
Our first jalapeno pepper:

Remember the pot with the mint? You probably do, seeing as how you saw it only 3 pictures ago. Well, the pot originally had a tomato plant in it, and we rescued it and the pot from the dumpster. We planted the tomato plant, which almost died, but now it seems to be doing okay (it's the one with the little tomatoes on it). Then we planted mint in the pot. After a couple weeks, we noticed some mystery plants growing in the pot. We thought they were weeds, but we weren't entirely sure. Drew transplanted them to a different container, and after some sleuthing, we think they're tomatoes. Here they are:

What do you think? Tomatoes?