Garden Series: How To Plant Big Seeds

Here is a simple trick to improving germinating rates with seeds

Garden Chronicles - Tomato Harvest

Yellow Pear Tomatoes

Brandywine Pink Tomatoes

Updates - From The Garden, About The Blog and A Preview into 2016

Life has been all sorts of hectic lately. Which is a good thing. It is what I want. It is what i have been working towards. However, in order not to get completely overwhelmed and lose track of absolutely everything, I have had to take a step back. To plan things properly. 

I am very excited to say that after 3 years of registering a domain and renewing and doing nothing, we will actually go live with our website in 2016. The goal is to launch by the end of the first quarter at the latest. The website will have a section for the blog and so much more. All things 'From Uzo's Food Lab' related. This is a roundabout way of apologizing for the sporadic posts. Its also manic season for the bakery which leaves very little time to post. 

Exciting and busy times ahead. One of my major dilemmas is finding the right person to design the site without mortgaging my future children. Any recommendations will be very helpful.

Before we go all Idris Elba and Common sexy with the blog, here are a few updates from the garden:

Pepper harvest - sweet banana, cherry bomb, green bell, jalapeno and  Hungarian hot wax varieties

Ripening cherry bomb pepper

Tomato harvest - large cherry and striped stuffer varieties

Spider plant. I am making an effort to introduce inedible plants into the garden

Brussel Sprouts forming. Its been trial and error but i have it right. Finally 

Begonia plant. Its so pretty i think

My very first beef steak tomato from the garden

Black truffle tomato coming in

With the Christmas season here, I would love to know what will be making it onto the menu this year?

Enjoy!!!

Garden Update

The garden is doing so many wonderful things. Its all so very very exciting. Here are some things that got me dancing this week:

 



 

Sweetcorn. If you have been following my garden posts, you will know I have had no luck with growing sweet corn in the past. Corn needs to be planted close to each other so pollination can happen. Seeing as I live in a concrete jungle....I decided to try something radical and try to grow corn in the largest pots I could find. Success. Beautiful super soft and sugary sweet corn. I have planted a few more pots so a few lucky people will get to buy some

I got these seeds from a special aunty. It looks like an apple right? Its a cucumber. A lemon cucumber. Simply gorgeous

Ginger. Yes. I grew ginger. Look at how beautiful these rhizomes are. So soft and the flavor is insane. It will be so hard to go back to buying the shriveled stuff from the markets.

There are some more interesting things happening in the garden and there just might be a giveaway pretty soon...

Enjoy!!!

From The Garden Of Uzo's Food Labs...

Our garden is doing all sorts of  wonderful things. What started out as a hobby in January this year has become  a growing business and another part of the Uzo brand. We sell our produce once a week and we now have 2 garden sites expanding everyday.

 

Here are some of the gorgeousness from our organic garden over the past few weeks

 

 

 

Sweet banana and jalapeno peppers

Turnip greens

Curly kale - the variety available in Lagos, We offer vegetable pots for sale like this kale pot so you can have a steady supply of kale for a few months

Forage premier kale

Experimenting with growing cauliflower. We have a head forming. Fingers crossed

Fresh basil dried and stored

Lima beans

Long rod okra

Curly kale pot on the way to its new home

Harvested lima beans

Cherry tomato coming through

Yellow pear tomatoes

Green bean flowers

Italian basil pots

Butter crunch lettuce

Black beauty egg plant

Carrot ready for harvest

Dill

Green beans ready to be picked

Sweet basil

Broccoli florets

Mixed produce basket for a client

Green beans

Interesting white and black speckled moth on zucchini leaves

Purple tomatillo plant growing

I am putting together a series of videos for the Youtube channel on gardening which will be fun, fun, fun.

 

I would love to hear from you - questions about the garden and produce. Please send emails to uzosfoodlabs@gmail.com

 

 

Enjoy!!!

Garden Update

As a gardener learning everyday, the rainy season has been interesting. A lot of seedlings died. Plants tilting in all sorts of directions. Some pots waterlogged. My blood pressure has risen and crashed so many times, I cannot even begin to count.

 

There is some stability now though. I asked questions, did research and made a few amendments. I have also made my peace with the fact that in this growing process, there will be all sorts of wins and losses. I will just take it all in stride especially as we work to expand the garden and offer more produce for sale.

 

 Here a few things we have growing:

 

Red Russian Kale

Curly kale. The kind commonly found for sale in Lagos

Forage Premier Kale

Cherry belle and white icicle radishes

Hungarian hot wax peppers

Prize head lettuce



From Uzo's Food Labs - #Gardentotable

 

I cannot begin to explain how busy we are on this end. Its a good thing however, the blog has obviously not been updated in a bit - one of the reasons is we are working on getting www.uzosfoodlabs.com up and running which means migrating all the content on this blog to the new site as well as adding all the other sections to the new site.

 

One project that has taken off in ways I did not quite expect - the garden and produce has gone into over drive mode and we now offer straight from the ground harvests for sale. The demand for the organic produce and people using the hashtag #gardentotable on social media has been overwhelming. This means we are expanding the garden so we can offer tasting bags for pickup once a week. Here are a few of the orders we filled in the last few weeks. 

 

 

I was also very privileged to sit on a panel with some amazing women talking #redefiningfinance on April 26th. It was a wonderful experience and I dare say life changing for some women based on the feedback we received.

For more information on the garden and produce and if you just ant to say hey or ask me any questions, send an email to uzosfoodlabs@gmail.com

Enjoy!!!

Early April - Garden Update

I am a little worried now that this new hobby of mine has become an obsession. However, this is one obsession that I figure will not hurt anyone - I mean there is virtually no space left in my house - but hey - who needs space.

 

It's exciting times in my garden with harvests and flowers and all things sprouting. At this point, the only cause for concern is my green zucchini pot. There are 2 plants in the pot producing lots of leaves and no flowers at all anymore. I am watching closely but just to be on the safe side, I have replanted directly in the ground and hope for better luck.

 

On to the updates:



 

 

Cylindra Beet ready to come out of the ground

These bean pods will be golden yellow when ready for harvest

Not really a fan of peas but I will be forced to make interesting things for the family as  these plants produce like mad

Swiss chard. I have been harvesting the outer leaves and adding to smoothies

Jalapeno pepper a few days away from harvest

Right on time and ready for harvest. My butter crunch lettuce is all done now so its good to have more lettuce ready

Okra pods. I have harvested quite a few pods so far

Giant spinach. This plant is spreading so much. I probably should have done research before planting

Sugar baby watermelon. So exciting. This variety of watermelon does not get as large as regular varieties ad even though it spreads, it has not been as scary as I thought

Early morning harvest: Butter crunch lettuce leaves, cylindra beet and forage premier kale

The okra plant produces this beautiful hibiscus looking flower which falls off to reveal an okra pod

Cucumber plant beginning to flower - all male flowers usually come through first - anxiously waiting the female flowers

 

Happy Gardening!!!