i brought over my blender because we planned on making some yeolmu kimchi (young summer radish kimchi). but we didn't have a large enough container to mix all the radish leaves we had, so we decided to do it tomorrow at the cafe instead.
i spent the rest of the day outside gardening. today was the big day where we plant all our raised beds. some difficult choices had to be made, like pulling up preexisting plants already in the bed (mustards, cilantro, scallions) to make room for new plants. here is a breakdown:
raised bed 0 (rb0): this bed has 3 bean trellises, including our tallest 6ft tellis. into that trellis we planted blue beans, while the two others were for long beans. in between the two long bean trellises we have a preexisting patch of cilantro. between the blue bean and long bean trellis i planted 4 thai basils. there's some space in front of the 5ft trellises (long beans), so i planted a large overwintering longhorn pepper and two more longhorn peppers i grew from seeds this season. since there's some space inside of the trellises, my father planted more cilantro in two of them while i planted dill seeds in the middle trellis. finally my father transplanted some scallions along the perimeter. rb0 is more accessible because it doesn't have a back trellis like the other raised beds. seeing how it performs this season, we may remove the wire back trellis for the remaining raised beds in favor of wooden bean trellises.
raised bed 1 (rb1): this bed has a single bean trellis where i planted long beans. my father said he prefers long beans over blue beans, but we have the hardest time growing long beans, they just didn't do well in our back-of-raised-bed wire trellises (not enough sun). so of the 6 bean trellis we made this year, 4 of them are for long beans. along the back trellis there are some fragrant peas i planted in april that never really took off. i added blue beans to the back row, and planted two hyacinth bean seedlings. the front of the bed has a row of scallions. one either ends of the bed are columns of red mustard; these are not for eating but rather for harvesting seeds. because rb1 gets a good amount of sun, i planted another large overwintering pepper right in the center. and then all around the pepper i planted 6 kabocha squash seedlings. our strategy this year is to produce squashes as quickly as possible. last year we were trying to grow them up onto the top trellis, but we squandered a lot of precious growing time, only for all the squash to succumb to pests (squash vine borer, squash bugs, potato beetles). this year, we're going to make sure we get some squashes first. only then, if the squashes want to grow up, we'll let them.
raised bed 2 (rb2): rb2 is very similar to rb1. red mustards on the ends, a row of scallions in the front, a back row of peas against the trellis (mostly gone because a rabbit had gotten into the raised bed a few weeks ago, eating a bunch of seedlings), planted new blue beans, planted two hyacinth beans. it also has a bean trellis, but this one is all blue beans. coincidentally an overwintering blue bean has already sprouted. this bed doesn't have any peppers but just 6 kabocha squashes. rb2 doesn't get as much sun and half of the bed gets shady by mid-afternoon because of the maple tree. there's also a daikon radish plant we're letting grow to harvest seeds.
raised bed 3 (rb3): half of this bed is a perennial plot for rudbeckias, foxgloves, and hollyhocks. that's the half that's mostly in the shade so the fact that we've never grown an vegetables there isn't a problem. the only half - the half that does get sun - my father planted 3 luffa seedlings yesterday. the back row also had some fragrant peas that never took off. i planted 4 moonflower seeds like i did last year; i think the seeds are bad because none of them germinated last season. there's still enough space in the sunny half that i might try plant some zucchinis.
raised bed 4 (rb4): this bed features the last of our bean trellis planted with long beans. the back trellis has some sugar snap peas - the only peas i planted this year that actually did well, but we probably can't harvest until maybe another week or two. to the peas i planted more blue beans, along with two hyacinth beans. my father planted 3 luffas yesterday, positioned at one end so when they start climbing they'll go above the basement staircase and onto some wire trellises. actually on either side of the staircase are additional luffas (3 on each sides, for a total of 6). this bed has some large red mustards we decided to keep for seeds. what available space there was i planted 4 tomatoes, a large overwinter pepper, and a smaller pepper seedling.
the raised beds are all planted, but work still needs to be done on the western bed AKA the bitter melon bed. originally we were going to leave it until next weekend, that would be the 15th at the earliest, which is pretty late for growing bitter melons. so we ended up clearing the bed at the very least, overgrown with weeds, violets, and a surprising amount of foxglove seedlings. i replaced some rabbit-eaten violets with new ones, and the rest i planted in the shady spot formerly the garlic chive bed. i also planted the foxgloves there as well, simply because we have too many and i didn't know what to do with them. if i get the day off on wednesday, i'll come back and plant the bitter melons. we have a dozen chicken wire columns that can be used to protect the seedlings from rabbits.
for dinner we grilled half a dozen corn, some sweet peppers, and two new york strip steaks. i salted them this morning, put them on a wire rack in the fridge. the t-bone steaks from saturday were cooked a little too much (medium to well-done), so i reduced the cooking time: 1-1/2 minutes then rotate, another 1-1/2 minutes before flipping, repeating the same steps, for a total of 6 minutes. we took a temperature reading, it was already 120 degrees, but we decided to put the steaks on the top shelf and heat it indirectly for another minutes. the temperature at that point read 135 degrees. in hindsight, we should've stopped at 120 degrees, since the steaks continue cooking even after taking off the grill. at 120 degrees, it would've cooked a bit more, to a rare doneness. the steaks we had tonight had a medium-rare to medium doneness, which is what i prefer.
the steaks were cooked well, not too salty like last time, but it was missing something. maybe because the steaks were old - i bought them on wednesday, we're only cooking them now monday. fresh steaks probably taste better. next time i'm also going to try montreal steak seasoning. the corn were okay, we ran out of korean barbecue sauce so on one of the corn i used nashville hot sauce. that turned out to a little too hot.
it was misting by the time i went home. nothing showed up on the doppler, but there wa a fog outside. i didn't bother waiting even though it meant getting a little damp. i rode gingerly, very much aware how slippery the roads can be when wet. there was a perfect motorcycle parking spot waiting for me. after dropping off my stuff, i came back out with a towel to wipe down the bike before putting the cover on it because there's going to be a noontime downpour tomorrow.
i finished watching predator: killer of killers. i like cgi animated movies. i thought it was pretty good, and the ending left open the possibility of a sequel.