Arugula Pesto

Our first Arugula. Has grown quite a bit, right?

Little has been said about our arugula since October's Arugula Follow Up. Our first plant has been growing and growing. It's now at the point where it will flower. We made a delicious salad for Thanksgiving with some of its leaves mixed with some lettuce (as we have mentioned before, arugula has a peppery flavor and ours is quite spicy so we can't use it by itself). We have also managed to grow one more arugula plant. Both plants have lots of leaves.

Because its flavor is so particular, arugula is also frequently used cooked as a vegetable. In this form it is used in pastas or even in pizzas, added just before the baking period ends or immediately afterwards, so that it will not wilt in the heat. Similar to basil, it combines really well with mozzarella cheese and sun-dried tomatoes and is good for pesto. Unlike basil, it is considered an aphrodisiac.(Editor's note: It seems Jessica is throwing out a hint to all of our female readers. Gentlemen, if your wife starts using arugula instead of basil, "It's on!".)

The process of making arugula pesto is not too different from the one described on our Basil: Yucky, Yummy Edition. Our previous recipe yielded pesto for about 6 to 8 people but I edited today's ingredients to make a dinner for 2.

Ingredients
(Mickey is the salt and pepper)

Ingredients:
- 1 cup packed fresh arugula
- 1/4 tablespoon minced garlic
- Salt and ground pepper
- 1/4 cup pure olive oil
- 1 tablespoon pine nuts, toasted
- 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Directions:
The secret for making pesto with arugula is to blanch the leaves. Plunge the arugula into boiling water for about 15 seconds. Next, plunge the leaves into ice cold water to stop the cooking process. Shake off the excess water and drain well.

Pesto with extra pines nuts

Squeeze the water out of the arugula with your hands until very dry. The rest of the process is quite similar to basil pesto. Chop the arugula and put in a blender or food processor. Add garlic, salt and pepper to your liking, olive oil, and a tablespoon of toasted pine nuts. Blend for at least 30 seconds. Add the cheese and pulse your blender to combine. You're done.

Prepare a meal and let us know about your experience with arugula in the comments section.

New Seeds on the Block

New seeds on the block

It's that time of the year when I go crazy and purchase a bunch of seeds that I probably shouldn't have. But who's there to stop me? *Insert maniacal laughter* I was interested in growing some peppers which I couldn't find locally so I took my talents online (Insider joke for our basketball enthusiast readers). After a few days of research I settled on genericseeds.com (reserving final judgment on the site for now but so far so good). I ordered the following seeds:

• Chocolate Beauty Pepper
• Golden California Pepper
• Horizon Orange Pepper
• Purple Beauty Pepper
• Scarlet Nantes Carrots
• Beefsteak Tomato
• Garlic Chives
• Sage
• Red Burgundy Onion
• White Sweet Spanish Onion
• Yellow Pear Tomato

This will be our first time trying out onions and carrots which has us very excited about these seeds. Not to mention the possibility of having four different pepper colors available for stir fries, and tomatoes for salads, sandwiches and burgers. *Yum*

As mentioned in our previous post (our first product review) we planted the seeds in Jiffy's Seed Starting Mix®. After almost two weeks everything but the sage, and the golden and purple peppers has sprouted. Not bad considering we usually plant a single seed per tray location. I'm still hopeful that the remaining peppers will sprout since the reason I purchased the seeds online was to get a purple pepper plant. Yesterday I (Jessica is sick so no "we" this week) transplanted the tomatoes and the peppers since the Jiffy mix doesn't contain any nutrients and these have a tendency to grow quickly in our warm weather. Lesson from our personal experience: Leaving fast growing seedlings in the mix too long will cause stunted growth and poor yield. In a few days I plan on transplanting the onions, carrots, and chives. If everything goes well we should have carrots and peppers in two months, tomatoes in 3 months, and onions in 4-5 months. Stay tuned to monitor the progress of the new seeds on the block and for more on container gardening in Puerto Rico.

Product Review: Jiffy Seed Starting Jiffy-Mix®

Our 10 Qt. Jiffy bag.

Welcome to our first ever product review! Here we will either be praising or bashing a product we've used in our garden. The first victim product to be reviewed is Jiffy's Seed Starting Mix®. This is a very popular brand that is widely available in Puerto Rico. This light, loose, soil-less mix consists of peat moss and vermiculite and is designed to promote fast germination and root growth. It doesn't contain any nutrients so this is only meant for germination not for long-term growth. It comes in various sizes including 4, 10, and 16 Qt. bags. The larger sizes are excellent for planting a good number (35-50) of seeds at once.

Let me get this out of my system first. I initially hated this product. Why? Because when I took the stuff out of the bag and watered it it became a swamp. Literally the stuff would not absorb water. It seemed impermeable. And I wasn't alone in this predicament. Several reviewers in Amazon and other websites had suffered through the same experience. Was I was supposed to put my seeds in this stuff? No thanks.

But being as stubborn as I am (did I just admit that?) I wouldn't give up on the product. I first started out trying to grow a few peppers, a couple of tomatoes and some herbs. We had previously used these same seeds on Jiffy pellets with great results. Success rate with the mix was lower than 25% (*Insert sad face*. Side note: blogger should have native emoticon support available for posts. They actually direct you to external websites for your emoticon needs. Sigh). After that I tried my luck with a few lettuce seeds. Success rate increased to about 50% but I still wasn't satisfied with the product since it still wouldn't hold water properly (and 50% germination rate is not good anyways).

Left - Jiffy mix out of the bag, Middle - Swampy Jiffy mix,
Right - proper Jiffy mix after stirring with water

I let the product go unused for a few weeks since I was both frustrated with it and waiting for a seed order I had made with genericseeds.com (good prices, reserving a final verdict on quality until we use more seeds). We went to a local nursery on an unrelated trip to pick up a palm tree for a neighbor and the attendant was using a similar product. He told us that he uses the mix but that it bogs down unless you know the trick: Water and elbow grease. He told us to add water to the mix and stir it continuously until it becomes mud-like. Then it's ready to use. Excited with these news I anxiously waited until the seeds arrived. When the time had come I stirred and mixed until a mud-like consistency was achieved. Success! Then we deposited the mix into our germination tray and planted close to 30 seeds. As of this writing we have a germination rate of 85% and climbing. Nice!

Verdict: If you're looking for an alternative to pellets or are looking to germinate a large number of seeds we recommend this product. Follow our advice and you should have no problem obtaining great results with this mix.

Disclaimer: Container Gardening in Puerto Rico is not affiliated with the company that makes this product or any of its affiliates. We did not receive any free products or other compensation for this review.