Yesterday I finally got around to adding a second level to the cages around two of my tomatoes, who have already outgrown their 3′ first-level cages and were dangling over the top. Luckily the cages I have are stackable! (And, collapsible when not in use!) They’re from Gardener’s Supply, and I love them. Eventually I’ll need to add second levels to all the other tomatoes as well (and maybe the eggplants), but for now, only two needed them.

While doing this, I noticed that many of my leeks are big enough to harvest! I pulled a bunch of them up, including all eight that I had transplanted into grow bags <link to transplant post in Garden and/or Living>. I’m not sure what I’ll use them for yet (maybe I’ll give potato-leek soup a try!), but figured I could harvest, clean, and prep them in the meantime. I do know that leeks can be used like onions in a variety of recipes (just be sure to always cook them before eating!), as well as used for flavoring in stocks, and in fact, the French use them in most every dish!

Leeks are VERY dirty within their leaves – it’s because of the nature of how they grow. They grow deep in the soil, and in order to get a longer white (edible) part, you can hill up around them as they start to grow taller, and through this they get even dirtier. So it’s important to wash them well before preparing.

I read online that it’s easiest to first cut off the dark green tops (which are inedible but some people use them to flavor stocks), then lay the leek flat and cut in half almost to the root end, turn 1/4 turn, and to the same again. You end up with a nice fan of leaves, which you can swish in a big bowl of water a few times to remove all the grit.

Once they’re cleaned, you can just chop them up and add to recipes. Or, freeze for later use.

I ended up cleaning and chopping them, and bagging them. I think I’ll use some tonight and then probably freeze the rest. I might add some to a stir fry of squash (from the garden – I have TONS of baby squash right now, already! <link to update post in Garden>), green beans (also from the garden), and whatever other veggies I have in the fridge. We’ll see how ambitious I am after work tonight.

After harvesting leeks and adding second-level cages to my tomatoes, I decided to check out some random tomato-looking plants that had popped up in the unfinished section of the Back40 <link to discovery post in Living and/or Garden>. They’re still doing great despite minimal watering (whenever I think about it, probably a couple times a week). I smelled their leaves, and sure enough, they’re tomatoes! One of them also has two tiny tomato blossoms forming. Awesome!! The birds must have carried seeds over, and somehow they sprouted without hardly ANY water (I wasn’t watering in that area until I noticed them, so they must’ve just survived on what they found in the soil – their root systems must be super strong already!). I popped a couple spare tomato cages over them to wrangle them as they grow – the larger ones with the blossoms was already growing across the ground, and its side shoots were growing skyward to compensate. Hopefully they’ll straighten themselves out now that they’re caged. We’ll see how the two surprise tomatoes do! Hopefully they’re grape tomatoes, since I discovered that the two grape tomatoes I planted here <link> are growing large tomatoes instead. (Boo! I love grape tomatoes! Popping them straight from the vine is soo satisfying!)

My husband came home from work having been to the county to check out the original floor plans of our house. He said that when they pulled out the plans, they were on a large sheet of barely-holding-together paper. When the woman came out with the plans, she asked him to confirm our address, and then said, “You’re the one with the fallout shelter?”

Obviously we had no idea that our backyard contained a fallout shelter!

The woman said that it was most likely constructed, but there are definitely plans for it in the original property plans. We do have a manhole in the back part of our backyard, which we always thought was connected to a sewer line that maybe was constructed before our house was (in the early ’60s). The cover has an “S” on it, and a couple holes in the top for lifting. We figured “S” stood for “sewer,” but maybe it in fact stands for “shelter”? We did wonder why we never smelled anything, if it was in fact a sewer access hole.

So of course, we had to know! My husband came home, and we set out trying to find a tool that could help him lift the heavy, thick metal cover off the manhole. Turns out a mattock pick was the right tool.

After much pushing and pulling and heaving and ho-ing, we eventually got the top off. And what did we see? An old metal ladder going down, and two streams of flowing water intersecting.

Bah! Looks like a sewer after all. But maybe it used to be a fallout shelter? I like to think so. Maybe after the danger of the war was over, they decided to add a sewer access where our fallout shelter was conveniently located and already excavated.