In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

Jan 14

Jan 14 In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

Snow pea blossom Source: Susan Bell from my garden — Snow pea blossom
Source: Susan Bell from my garden

The lovely snow pea blossoms have produced the first peas; only a handful but a welcome addition to last night’s salad. I began growing ‘Golden Sweet’ snow pea over 20 years ago and have saved the seed each year. The seed is very well-adapted to my coastal San Diego garden. Recently, I shared seed with San Diego Seed Company for trials in their garden.

You can order ‘Golden Sweet’ snow peas from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. Use the search option to see other posts featuring the snow peas growing in my garden.

Broccoli season has begun and six of the twelve plants are nearing harvest. ‘Premium Crop’ is my favorite and most reliable variety. The heads are very large, side shoots are abundant and the stalks tender. I traded one head for some neighborly assistance in moving a seven foot tree trunk from our backyard to the driveway. We all thought it a good trade.

During harvests of strawberry guavas in 2018 I did not always have time to process the puree into jam. It freezes well and last week I made three batches of the jam. I have enough puree for another twenty jars or so. Each year I like to have about a hundred jars of guava jam and orange marmalade on hand to give away to neighbors, friends, family and others who come my way.

I snatched a few off-season strawberry guavas from the tree this week. I like them best warmed by the sun and popped straight into my mouth.

Tangerines, limes, kumquats and an orange

A citrus sampler shows what we continued to harvest this past week. Lots of orange juice, tangerines at lunch and soon there will be kumquat marmalade.