Harvesting the root veggies

This weekend I decided it was time to pull and dig up my root veggies. Luckily I picked sunny Saturday to spend time in the garden. When I was originally starting my seeds last spring I remember thinking I had a LOT of carrot seedlings. Then as I transplanted the seedlings into the garden I thought again "My, I have a LOT of carrots!" And for the third time, as I'm pulling the suckers out of the ground I remarked again "Good night, I've got a LOT of carrots!" I planted globe and multi-colored varieties; so the pile looks very colorful! I estimate I have about 12 gallons of carrots.

I pulled up all of my remaining beets at the same time and noticed that I did NOT have as many beets as I've had in past years. This year I think I got about 2 gallons of beet. Last year I had more beets than I really needed as evidenced by the 2 jars of pickled beets that are STILL in my fridge from pickling last summer. So I guess a smaller harvest of beets is ok. I also saved the beet greens. They area little tough to eat raw, although we've done it, but cooked with some garlic and parmesean cheese, they are wonderful! I'm going to freeze them for now and eat them at some point in the winter when I want a little taste of summer greens to cheer up a meal.

I dug up my whole row of potatoes and was pretty disappointed by the small number of potatoes that I found. I guess if I look at the investment in those potatoes, I should be happy with what I got. All of this year's seed potatoes came from potatoes that were in my pantry and started growing legs. We're not huge potato eaters, so sometimes they sit in the pantry for a bit too long. The ones I planted were tiny shriveled up little things so I guess if they produced anything at all I should be grateful.

I think the true winner in the garden this year is the rutabaga. One of those guys was as big as a cantalope. I can truly see how they carve those at halloween in England, although I wouldn't really want to try.

If I had to pick one job in the garden/kitchen I hate more than any other it would be washing carrots. My back aches, my mind goes numb and my hands cramp standing at the sink scrubbing all of the dirt off of my gnarled multi-legged carrots. So this year, on the advice of my friend Kathryn, I dumped all of the carrots in a Rubbermaid tote and hosed them down a few times. That seemed to do a pretty good job, but they'll still need a little scrubbing when I bring them in to eat. Right now they are drying on newspaper in my garage. I read that you can store carrots in boxes layered with newspaper and plan to give that a try this year. I have way too many to put in the crisper, so it'll have to go with it. Now to go look up carrot recipes!

A somewhat disappointing year in the garden

In past years our 1800 square foot garden along with our fruit trees has provided all of the fruits and veggies my family ate (except for bananas, which are a staple around here and something I obviously can't grow in this climate). This year, however, was very disappointing. The weather was uncharacteristically cool almost all summer punctuated by a week here and there of very hot weather. My veggies got very confused by this and did all sorts of strange things.

First, at the very beginning of June my spinach bolted. The weather hadn't reached 70 yet and my spinach decided it was time to flower and go to seed. I pulled up the first batch and replanted another crop. The second crop did much better and was very yummy. I then planted another crop around the middle of august, and that one is just barely coming up now. Maybe it will produce something in the fall if it doesn't get too cold too soon.

Second, my beets bolted! My mother in law, who is an expert gardener, said she'd never seen beets bolt within a single season. A beet is a biennial plant meaning it would flower in it's second summer if you didn't pull it up at the end of its first season to eat the root. These beets were planted in May of this year and shouldn't have been flowering this year. I assume the cold/hot/cold/hot weather of this summer made the beets think they'd lived through a full 15-18 months of life rather than the 3-4 that they really lived. Beets are usually my fool proof plant that will grow and do well no matter what, but I guess that's not the case this year.

Third, my beans didn't produce anything until well into August of this year. I'm used to getting some green beans by July anyway, and then throughout the rest of the summer until early October. So, I'm expecting the total yield for beans this year to be very low.

Fourth, my corn acted very strangely this year as well. It grew fairly tall and started to put out tassels on top, but then I noticed that the ears hadn't formed at all yet and there were no silks for all of that pollen on the tassels to pollinate. Luckily we had a few days of warm weather in there and a few ears did form. Hopefully the pollen made its way to the silks, but i won't know that until I tear open a few husks and see what's inside.

I guess with any kind of farming or gardening the gardener and the crops are at the mercy of the weather. Any year may be good or bad depending on how much sun and warmth your little plants get. Maybe next year I'll try some row covers or come cloches to warm up the plants even if the weather isn't warm. It's all an experiment; sometimes the experiment works as hoped and sometimes it doesn't.

Steamed Red Bean Buns

When we were eating at the revolving sushi restaurant the other day my daughter realized that she really liked the red bean paste inside of the sesame balls. She didn't really like the sesame seed and rice flour coating, but the bean paste was a hit. So I got to thinking that maybe I could make red bean paste. I'm always looking for ways to get more protein into my kids' diets, and this seemed like it might be an acceptable way to add a bit. I looked around online and found a few recipes that had basically the same directions. So I gave it a try.

Red Bean Paste

Ingredients:

2/3 C Small red Adzuki beans (although I'm not sure why you couldn't use any type of beans)

Water
1/2 C sugar

Directions:

1. Soak dried beans in several cups of water overnight.

2. After soaking, put soaked beans and soaking water in a saucepan, bring to a boil and then simmer for about 1.5 hours stiring occasionally and adding more water when needed.

3. After beans have cooked until they are very tender transfer beans and a small amount of water to the blender, add sugar and blend until smooth.

4. If mixture is still very liquid, transfer to a microwave safe bowl and microwave for a few minuted until water has reduced and you are left with a paste.

Once I had the paste I got inspired to make the buns that go with the red bean paste. So once again I turned to my trusty friend the internet and found a few different steamed bun recipes. Here is what I made.

Red Bean Buns

Ingredients:

Red Bean Paste

3 C flour (recipe called for AP but I used WW)
1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 C sugar

1.5 tsp active dry yeast

1/2 C warm water

1/2 C milk

1 T butter

Directions:

1. Add yeast to warm water and let sit for about 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile combine flour, sugar, baking powder in a bowl.

3. Cut in the butter then add the milk and yeast mixture to the dry ingredients.

4. Mix dough and knead for a few minutes adding extra water or extra flour as needed.

5. Form into a ball in your bowl, cover with a damp towel then let rise for about an hour.

6. After dough has risen, separate into about 12 equal sized balls.

7. Fill a large stock pot with a steamer basket, add water until it is just under the steamer basket then with the lid on bring to a boil.

8. Line the steamer basket with parchment paper and keep this basket out of the pot for now.

9. Take your dough balls and flatten each into a disk, then put a Tbs of bean paste into the center of the disk and seal the dough around it forming a bun shape.

10. Put a few of these formed buns into the steamer basket seam side down, put the basket into the pot of boiling water and cover with the lid. Steam the buns for 12 minutes then remove to a plate to cool.

My Red Bean Buns don't look like the ones you get at Dim Sum most likely because I used whole wheat flour and butter rather than AP flour and shortening. But the result turned out very yummy. We ate our treats by dipping the bun into the left over bean paste to get even more yummy goodness into each bite. :) Enjoy!

Two recipes I've borrowed and loved

I wanted to put a post in here to point you to 2 yummy veggie dishes I've tried recently and LOVED! When I'd gathered a few zucchini from the garden and wanted something yummy to make from it other than zucchini bread I tried this Garden Chowder recipe reposted by Stephanie at My Mental Amalgam. I used as many veggies from the garden as I could find and it was fabulous! I'm used to broth based soups so it was nice to have a chowder for a change.

Another one reposted by Stephanie that I made the other day was Lemony Kale Chips. Mine didn't really get crispy throughout, but they were very good, and I'd definitely make them again.

Thanks Stephanie!

An Experimental Gardener: The early years

I classify myself as an Experimental Gardener. I was never around a home garden when I was a child. My house was surrounded on almost all sides by large rice, bean, wheat or corn fields. But to me that was farming, not gardening, and for some reason the two didn't seem even remotely related. My house didn't even have a flower garden or a few flowers planted around the house for color. In the summer my family was constantly getting large bags of cucumbers and tomatoes from neighbors with overflowing gardens. So I did get to experience the taste of fresh veggies straight from the vine and knew that they were far superior to anything you could buy in the grocery store. But I never got to help plant seeds or start seedlings or harvest that first ripe tomato of the season. I never got to experience the joy of creating food from almost nothing.

My first experience with a vegetable garden came no more than 7 or 8 years ago when I decided I'd fill in a bare place in my flower garden with a cucumber and a zucchini plant. Looking back on it I now realize that the soil in that garden was horrible. It was a light beige color and probably had very little organic material in it at all. But I planted my starts that I bought at Lowe's or Home Depot, watered them well and waited. The space in which these starts were planted did get a fair amount of sun fortunately. I really had no idea what to do with a plant start other than water it and wait. I didn't amend the soil with compost or even fertilize the plant, but low and behold a couple of little pickle sized cucumbers did grow on that plant. The zucchini plant, however, didn't do a darn thing. Not a single zucchini grew on that plant to the shock of some of my gardener friends. For them, zucchini multiply like bunnies to the extent that they will sneak them onto friend's doorsteps just to get rid of them. But for me, nada. Looking back on it I realize that the state of the soil was most likely the reason for the lack of fruit on my zucchini plant. Zucchini like to grow in compost piles or nearly so. That sandy beige soil held no nutrients that the zucchini needed to set fruit or even produce flowers.

I never really tried to plant vegetables in that garden again, but when we moved to our new house with a bit of land set aside for a garden I tried again. That first garden plot was about 10 feet by 10 feet and wasn't really in the best spot for sun, but I planted some seeds and starts the first year we moved into our house and to my surprise vegetables grew! I planted pole beans next to a couple of poles already set beside the garden, planted 2 zucchini starts, 2 cucumber starts, 4 lettuce starts, a packet of carrot seeds and a packet of pumpkin seeds. The zucchini, cucumber and pole beans did fantastically well compared to my previous attempts, but the lettuce was mostly eaten my bunnies and slugs. My carrots came up in neat little rows, but I am horrible at thinning! I don't have the heart to kill those little plants by pulling some of them up to make room for others to grow. So my carrots were really too crowded to grow that year. (I now start my carrots in pots and transplant every single little start into its own space in my garden. According to the "experts" you can't transplant carrots, but I tried it and it worked.)

My pumpkins were another mystery to me. I still hadn't figured out that the soil in our other garden had not been good. So I didn't think about the soil in this garden much either. The soil was better here, but I could have done more to make it better. As the years went on, I did amend the soil with compost, leaves, grass clippings, etc. but at this point we had the soil that came with the house. I also didn't know the difference between a female flower and a male flower on a squash plant. So when my pumpkin plants started to grow and produce these lovely yellow flowers I thought I'd have a bumper crop of pumpkins. But the flowers kept coming and no pumpkins appeared. All summer long I'd water the garden and peek under all of the pumpkin leaves only to find nothing resembling a pumpkin. Again, hindsight being 20/20, I realize that I never had a female flower on those plants. I'm not sure why that was; the next year my pumpkins did very well and I had several pumpkins to carve and to eat.

All in all, that first real year of gardening taught me a lot. I learned that if you want to grow lettuce you have to put up a fence and lay out slug bait (or get chickens), most veggies need a lot of sun -- more than that garden position would give, and soil needs yearly amendment of organic material. In later years I've learned a lot more helpful tidbits, but it's all experimentation. One thing I've learned is that ignorance of the "right way" to do something often leads to a better way to do it or at least a better way for you.

The garden so far

This summer has been a very challenging gardening experience. The weather here was cold and rainy until well into July. That's left the garden at least a month behind in it's growth cycle. Some things just didn't grow at all this year like the golden apples on my apple tree. And some things are very behind, like the rest of the garden.

So far I've been able to harvest a couple handfuls of red strawberries and a couple handfuls of white Alpine strawberries. The white ones are still producing a few berries every week and the red Ever bearing varieties will probably come back and produce some more later in the summer. I've harvested some lettuce, but it's now bolted. My first round of spinach started in the greenhouse bolted very early before I could harvest it and since the temperatures at the time were in the 50's I have no idea why it did. But my second planting, which went directly into the garden has done pretty well. We ate some of it the other day.

I planted some peas this year as I do every year and then threw away the seed packet. When the peas started producing decent sized pods I picked them and put them into a salad to eat. The pods were so stringy and tough we just couldn't eat them. In past years I've had no problem with my snap peas being tough. Hubby asked me what variety I planted and I had no idea. I'm not very good at keeping track of that kind of thing when it comes to my garden. But that got us thinking that maybe I'd planted shelling peas. To test the theory I let them grow and mature more before I picked more of them. Yesterday I brought in a decent sized bowl full of pea pods, shelled them and had a small bowl full of peas! They tasted great, so I guess I planted shelling peas. I'll have to read the packet more carefully next time. :)

There are a few other veggies in the garden that are growing but not quickly. I've got broccoli that I could probably cut next week and I've got little bitty pickles and yellow squash on their vines. The Pumpkin patch, which was planted in straight compost, seems to be producing something but the little female flowers look they are attached to zucchini or some strange long skinny pumpkin rather than a round one. I guess I'll see what comes of it.

The carrots, beats, soybeans, corn, rutabaga, parsnips, potatoes, and pole beans are growing as well, but there's nothing to harvest there yet. I planted artichoke and okra as a test this year to see if I could do it, but the weather has made this year a bad year to test things. They are growing but aren't very tall yet. Not sure if they'll produce anything. And last but not least the 4 tomato plants I bought and planted have flowers! Maybe I'll have some tomatoes this year. I planted them in pots and have them sitting next to the greenhouse in as full a sun as I have. We'll see what happens.

Make your own Kettle Corn

My daughter LOVES Kettle corn and wants to buy the huge $7 bags every time we go to the farmer's market. I don't buy it very often, but she would eat the whole bag by herself if I did. So I got to thinking that maybe I could make Kettle corn on my own using the popcorn that was already in my pantry. I've made 2 batches so far and they've been a hit both times. Even my son ate some and he's not a popcorn fan normally. I have no idea how much homemade kettle corn costs, but it can't be much more than 50 cents per batch. I found a recipe online and used that the first time, but last night I couldn't find it so I just "winged" it, and Hubby liked this batch better than the rest.

Homemade Kettle Corn

Ingredients:

1/4 cup popping corn

2 Tbs oil (I used vegetable oil)

2 Tbs sugar

1 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon (optional, but my family loves it this way)

Directions:

Mix sugar, salt and cinnamon in a small bowl or mixing cup. Put oil and corn in a fairly deep skillet (mine is almost wok-like) and heat on medium heat until oil starts to bubble. At this point put the lid on the skillet. When you hear the first few pops shake the skillet with the lid on to move the corn around in the pan (like you've seen people do when they make popcorn). When most of the corn has popped sprinkle the sugar mixture over the corn, replace the lid and shake some more. Heat for a few seconds more until all corn has popped then remove from heat and enjoy!