25 Tuesday Sep 2012
Posted in Fun in the Garden, Vegetable garden
REMEMBER ME, THE LITTLE SEEDLING THAT VOLUNTEERED IN THE FIRST WEEK OF AUGUST?
ONE month later it is taking over. I’m certain that it is a pumpkin so I pulled all of the other squash volunteers since they would have crowded out all of the new vegetables. Not much of a chance to see any fruit at this late date, but has been fun to watch it grow so much in just a little more than a month – I’m amazed!
05 Wednesday Sep 2012
Posted in Planting, Vegetable garden
Tags
Buttercup squash, food, lettuce seed, mustard greens, plants, radish, Rescue Pear, seedlings, solarizing soil, Spartan Apple, vegetable garden, vegetable seeds, volunteer seedlings
ANTICIPATION IS SOWN WITH EACH SEED THAT GOES INTO THE GROUND. With the first sign of germination is the hope that success and sustenance may be in the offing. No seeds deliver like those of the radish family, pushing up through the soil within three days of planting. Carrots, onions and celery on the other hand come with hand wringing and second-guessing since they can take up to 21 or more days to pop through the soil.
MY vacation from gardening now effectively over, soil prep and direct seeding began the first week of August as there is plenty of time here for late fall-early winter harvesting of many vegetables and many overwinter nicely around here.
When I put the garden to bed before our long trip I used heavy black plastic to keep the weeds from taking over. And so far, the only unwanted seeds that have sprouted are squash, melon and tomato seeds from the compost that I laid down for the fall garden. Weeds are blessedly absent!
Although it is really late in the season to see any productivity from these volunteers, I have left a few of the squash (melon? cucumber?) seedlings to see what develops.
The volunteer(s) 28 days later and still an unknown.
Arugula seedlings, like radishes up quick!
Carrot seedlings, germinating over a period of 8 to 21 days
Direct seeded: Beets (3 types), turnips ((2), carrots (3), radishes (5), fennel (2), kohlrabi, kale (3), chard (3), arugula, dill, Chinese/Napa type cabbage (2), radicchio, Asian type mustard greens (3), Walla Walla onion (for transplanting in February), and a big mix of a lot of lettuce seed that is anywhere between 10 and 2 years old (kind of my own mesclun mix to see what actually germinates.) In my experience lettuce seed seems to have the shortest viability of all vegetable seed.
Red cabbage start from the nursery
I also started a number of brassicas, some chicories (endive, escarole, etc), and a few lettuces in six-packs just now ready for transplanting. Thankfully mornings are cool this time of year, perfect for transplanting. I also purchased a six-pack each of purple cauliflower and red cabbage a couple weeks ago that had a big head start on my starts.
Buttercup squash
I planted some squash seeds when I set out the tomato plants and this buttercup squash is the only one to have germinated and survived in our absence. It is happily crawling up the tomato trellis and there are three squash so far. And the half-dozen tomato plants have produced tomatoes in spite of the lack of regular water and pruning for seven weeks. Hurray, all is not lost.
The vegetable garden, week five–anticipation rewarded!
Rescue Pear
The pears are lovely and large again this year even without thinning. The Akane apples are a total loss due to the apple maggot but we have lucked out with the Spartans which are sweet-tart, crisp and picture perfect!
Now all that’s left to do is harvest some tomatoes, apples and pears and plant garlic and fava beans next month.
16 Wednesday May 2012
Posted in Vegetable garden
Red cabbage blossoms
LITTLE BY LITTLE MOST OF THE VEGETABLE GARDEN is headed for a long nap. Nearly all of winter’s plantings are gone now.
Only a few ‘Fizz” kale plants (above and really good kale), some endive, escarole, and volunteer lettuces remain. The garlic won’t be ready to pull until mid-July and we should be back home within a week or two after that.
Celery ‘Red Venture’
Last spring I planted Red Venture celery. The leaves have a strong celery flavor and were useful in soups, herby pesto type mixtures and a few leaves chopped and added to winter greens salads. The stalks were slightly bitter. Now the plants are bolting. When I cut the bolting stalk, it seemed tender and I sample a slice–sweet and tender!
I cut a few, peeled and sliced them and added to a salad. They add a sweet note paired with bitter greens and a robust dressing of garlic, anchovies and red wine vinegar. A revelation in that most bolting stalks of lettuces, etc. are tough and woody. Always something new to learn when you grow your own vegetables.
I have five Arrowhead cabbages just now maturing so have to figure how to use them. Not enough time to make sauerkraut before D-day, I think.
Our weather has been fabulously warm the past week so yesterday I planted the seven tomato plants purchase at the end of April at Christianson’s Nursery in Mt. Vernon. I pulled a whole row of fava beans to make way for the tomatoes and pulled off the string bean sized pods. Planning to cook them as green beans and see how the taste. That will be a first!
So that I will have something to look forward too upon our return I also stuck some squash seeds in the same bed as it will be the only one watered in our absence. And, I couldn’t imagine being without brussels sprouts this coming winter so I dropped some seeds in a few pots; with luck they will have germinated and be ready to plant before our departure. I had wonderful luck with these varieties last year: Roodnerf, Oliver and Bubbles, the best I’ve ever planted.
19 Thursday Apr 2012
Posted in Spring, Vegetable garden
Flowers of broccoli sessatina
WHEN BRASSICAS GROW UP THEY BLOOM! This year the winter garden is slowly being deconstructed and made ready for some fallow time.
Budding Chinese cabbage
I usually leave a plant or two go to flower to attract pollinators into the garden as few other plants are blooming in February and March.
Blooming kale 'Fizz'
This year will be a little different in the vegetable garden. We are planning a two month camping trip. Translation: no spring/summer garden this year. The thought of it makes me kind of anxious. For the first time in 17 years I have not started tomatoes, peppers or eggplants. I have not seeded anything directly into the vegetable garden since late last fall. Sad.
All bloomed out!
A spring palette of green and yellow in this afternoon’s rain. Clearing out the veg garden is taking a back seat to the rest of the garden here at BackyardFarm. Weeding, pruning and general maintenance chores abound and the goal is to have all tidied up by mid-May so Gardening Gal can have an easy time of it every other week. Besides, cleaning out the above is all about pulling, chopping and into the compost bins. I’m researching the best way to keep the weeds at bay in the veg beds while we’re away.
Blooming favas and bolting arugula!
There are still happy notes and with luck, we’ll have a harvest of fava beans to leave with.
Pear blossoms
The pears began blooming while we had dry and sunny weather so there is hope for a nice pear crop.
Oodles of volunteer red oakleaf lettuces and purple potatoes, so all is not lost!
06 Sunday Nov 2011
Posted in Canning & Preserving, Harvest, Tomatoes, Vegetable garden
RETURNING FROM OUR TETON trip, these were waiting for me, all 26 pounds of them! Not to mention 10 pounds of pears, peppers, eggplants, and more.
AND THE TWENTY POUNDS OF AUTUMN LADY peaches that I bought from Red Sky Orchards just west of Ellensburg on our way home. What was I thinking? They were big, ripe and sweet. I couldn’t resist after the last box that never fully ripened.
SO, I got to work. The bulk of tomatoes went into a roasting pan along with onions, basil and homegrown garlic and then into a slow oven until the onions were soft. A brief straining to separate the juice/broth from the solids and then through the food mill. Yield: 4 quarts of sauce and 3 ice cube trays of tomato broth for later use.
With the tomatoes cooking in the oven I chopped up a colorful mix of tomatoes for Tomato Basil Jam (My Little Corner of Rhode Island) that was mentioned in a Food in Jars post. Yield: 6 half-pints
ON THE LAST DAYS OF AUGUST I used some peaches to infuse wine vinegar and make some peach liqueur. Time now to decant, strain and bottle.
After adding sugar syrup to the infused vodka I have a quart that needs time to sit a few more months before transferring to smaller bottles for sharing.
I wrestled with tossing all of the fruit that had soaked in the vinegar and the vodka–but I couldn’t do it. I made peach chutney. I added some onions, hot peppers, garlic, sugar, vinegar and spices. Yield: 8 half-pints
Autumn Lady Peaches: 5 pints of Peach BBQ Sauce from the Williams-Sonoma book of preserving recipes borrowed from my neighbor. About 5 pounds made their way in to a batch of Peach & Rosemary Preserves. Yield: 6 half-pints
Two Peach Galettes from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s site; one for us and one for the neighbors.
PEARS: 4 pounds of the pears became Pear Vanilla Thyme Preserves with ginger and lemon. Yield: 4 half-pints
I caught a break the following week and we took a 3 day trip to Walla Walla with some friends to celebrate a birthday–so no canning! Had to make a stop on the way home in Bingen, WA at Dickey’s Farms where I picked up some big, beautiful Honeycrisp and Buckeye Gala apples. Soooo good! I indulged my yen for Tarte Tatin with some of the honeycrisp apples.
Nearly every night during October we ate a tomato salad of some kind. Yum! We’ll be sorry when they’re gone.
MORE TOMATOES: Mid-month as more tomatoes became ripe I picked another 16 pounds and combined a lot of them with 3 pounds of peppers for 10 pints of Tomato -Chile Salsa.
I picked all of the remaining tomatoes a week ago Thursday since the weather was cooling and we were headed for New Orleans on Saturday. All of the cherry tomatoes became 8 pints of pickled green tomatoes the day before we left. All of the other tomatoes are either green or in varying stages of ripeness and will have to ripen inside. We will savor every last one–maybe up until Thanksgiving if we’re lucky. It will be many months before we buy a tomato. Total tomato harvest must be close to 80 pounds.
I got on a bit of a baking jag. I had to refresh the sourdough starter (since it had a vacation while we did) and I picked the last of the zucchini and baked off six loaves of zucchini bread and into the freezer.
PEPPERS: All of the peppers were picked and the plants pulled to make room for the garlic. The remaining anchos, Anaheims, jalapenos, serranos became 3 quarts of chile verde sauce (into the freezer); the ‘sweet’ ones and a few hot peppers became 11 pints of pickled peppers.
Who doesn’t love cranberries? Two weeks ago my sister (fabricgirl) came up from Long Beach to celebrate our mom’s 81st birthday and she brought me two, gallon bags of fresh cranberries. I popped them into the freezer to keep until we returned from New Orleans (thank goodness for pre-planned trips). Hmmmm….cranberry wine jelly may be in order. And that should be the last of this year’s preserving. I think I put something in jars at least twice a week, every week of the month. At least that’s how if felt by the last Friday of the October. So as you can see, there was scant time for posting. Whew!
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