Just don't try to grow them in plastic buckets.
This was my first attempt at potatoes. I will be attempting again next year. Potatoes are a thing with me. I get grumpy if I don't have potato products for several days. My husband goes and gets me french fries the way some partners buy chocolate. Growing potatoes isn't so much an attempt to cut the food bill as it is an attempt to keep living with me acceptable. We planted two varieties, Russet (the potato-who-should-not-be) and Blue potatoes (the ones that are purple all the way though. I like colors. Deal with it.)We decided to try mounding the potatoes in 5 gallon plastic paint buckets.
Do not do this. This is a poor decision.
My poor potatoes are cooking in their buckets. The plastic is keeping too much heat, and reflecting too much light onto the undersides of the leaves. I've lost 2 or 3 plants out of the 7 I planted. The ones that are still alive are sheltered and shaded by my pumpkins. The pumpkins are trying to take over the garden and in doing so have sent out vines between the potato buckets. The potatoes who live in the shade of their leaves are still alive. I figure they're being kept cooler and the sun isn't reflecting off their plastic prisons to roast them alive.
So yeah. Next year we're doing wood or cloth. No more plastic.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Monday, July 28, 2014
Safety and pickles
Today we are going to discuss something newly near and dear to my heart: kitchen safety. As I'm sure you're aware your kitchen is a very dangerous place. It's chock full of things like knives and stoves and other things that can either cut or burn you, or give you a rather squashed big toe. You should avoid getting cut, or burned, or squashed. It's generally unpleasant. Generally just be aware of your surroundings, avoid grabbing sharp things by the sharp end, or hot things by the hot end, and you should be ok.
This PSA brought to you by: Mia is a dip who missed the jar and poured a ladle full of boiling brine all over her left hand and wrist. Remember my dears: Mia, screwing up so you don't have to!
Moving right along, I made three different types of pickles today. And I still have 30 some odd cukes to deal with later this week. The aforementioned burn caused an early end to apicklypse today. I made four jars of Alton Brown Bread and Butter Pickles, four jars of dill pickles, and a dozen tiny gift jars of my great grandmother's chunk pickles. I will share none of those recipes exactly (because the only one that is *mine* is Nana G's chunk pickles and she passed away in 2008. I got the recipe two weeks ago. It's 2014.) I will however give you a bastardized version of sweet pickles that I am going to attempt next.
Fwigf Sweet Present Pickles
You will need:
12 half-pint jars
About 6 or 7 good sized cucumbers
12 Allspice seed/ball things
Tumeric
1/2 cup Brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
3 cinnamon sticks (broken into quarters)
celery seed
mustard seed (I used Garlic Mustard seeds, I'll explain those later)
1/4 sweet onion
1 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons Sea salt
2 cups water
a caner of some kind.
First things first. Sterilize your jars and lids. Combine the vinegar, salt, water, and sugar (both kinds) and bring it to a boil. This is your brine. Wash your cucumbers and slice them up into 1/4-1/2 inch slices. Cut your onion into chunks. Into the jars place 1 allspice seed/ball thing, 1/4 of a cinnamon stick, a couple pieces of onion, a pinch of celery seed, a pinch of mustard seed, and a pinch of tumeric. Pack your cucumber slices into the jars and cover with the sweet brine. Screw on the lids and process in your water bath caner. I did about 10 minutes at a rolling boil. Remove and set on a towel to cool.
Now then, what the heck is garlic mustard?
Garlic mustard is a noxious weed. It is invasive and very Very prolific right on the edges of forests. It is also edible, tasty, and packed full of nutrients. It comes into season in the early summer, the leaves are tasty and you can treat them like spinach, the roots are also edible but I haven't tried them. In the mid-late summer their seed pods mature. The seeds make a very strong, very tasty, mustard. The flavor is very close to a spicy brown mustard with a hint of garlic after taste. So, delicious, nutritious, free, and doing your local ecosystem a favor by removing it? Yes. Go eat garlic mustard. It's out of season now, but next summer you'll be prepared. Won't you?
This PSA brought to you by: Mia is a dip who missed the jar and poured a ladle full of boiling brine all over her left hand and wrist. Remember my dears: Mia, screwing up so you don't have to!
Moving right along, I made three different types of pickles today. And I still have 30 some odd cukes to deal with later this week. The aforementioned burn caused an early end to apicklypse today. I made four jars of Alton Brown Bread and Butter Pickles, four jars of dill pickles, and a dozen tiny gift jars of my great grandmother's chunk pickles. I will share none of those recipes exactly (because the only one that is *mine* is Nana G's chunk pickles and she passed away in 2008. I got the recipe two weeks ago. It's 2014.) I will however give you a bastardized version of sweet pickles that I am going to attempt next.
Fwigf Sweet Present Pickles
You will need:
12 half-pint jars
About 6 or 7 good sized cucumbers
12 Allspice seed/ball things
Tumeric
1/2 cup Brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
3 cinnamon sticks (broken into quarters)
celery seed
mustard seed (I used Garlic Mustard seeds, I'll explain those later)
1/4 sweet onion
1 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons Sea salt
2 cups water
a caner of some kind.
First things first. Sterilize your jars and lids. Combine the vinegar, salt, water, and sugar (both kinds) and bring it to a boil. This is your brine. Wash your cucumbers and slice them up into 1/4-1/2 inch slices. Cut your onion into chunks. Into the jars place 1 allspice seed/ball thing, 1/4 of a cinnamon stick, a couple pieces of onion, a pinch of celery seed, a pinch of mustard seed, and a pinch of tumeric. Pack your cucumber slices into the jars and cover with the sweet brine. Screw on the lids and process in your water bath caner. I did about 10 minutes at a rolling boil. Remove and set on a towel to cool.
Now then, what the heck is garlic mustard?
Garlic mustard is a noxious weed. It is invasive and very Very prolific right on the edges of forests. It is also edible, tasty, and packed full of nutrients. It comes into season in the early summer, the leaves are tasty and you can treat them like spinach, the roots are also edible but I haven't tried them. In the mid-late summer their seed pods mature. The seeds make a very strong, very tasty, mustard. The flavor is very close to a spicy brown mustard with a hint of garlic after taste. So, delicious, nutritious, free, and doing your local ecosystem a favor by removing it? Yes. Go eat garlic mustard. It's out of season now, but next summer you'll be prepared. Won't you?
Saturday, July 26, 2014
Random garden update
AKA wherein I have no idea what is happening.
Accurate.
I went out to Fwigf the other day and harvested ALL THE CUCUMBERS EVER (as referenced in my previous post). But I realized I forgot to give an update on everything else.
First and foremost: I HAVE CORN! Or rather I have corn developing on some of the stalks. One is stalk is being an over acheiver and attempting to put out four ears instead of the two that it should. But hopefully by the end of next month I'll have a few small ears of tasty blue corn.. We shall see.
The tomatoes are... doing well but the trellis needs some rethinking. The wind comes in from one side of the garden pretty steadily. And it has shoved all the plants to the left. Which would be fine if the were in cages, but since they are supported by a rope trellis they are just sliding along the rope and shoving the plant next to them over. They're all doing fine, no one is dying and everyone is producing. But the one furthest to the left has been shoved off the trellis entirely and is now growing along the ground. Next year the tomatoes get cross pieces AND the thicker stalks get tied to the trellis.
The potatoes are flowing! Holy crap potato flowers are beautiful! Little delicate purple stars with bright yellow centers. This makes me happy. Sadly we've lost one potato plant (Husband broke it while mounding it into the bucket) and we have a second one that isn't happy. But losing two out of the 6 planted isn't bad at all. Russet the potato who should not be is still living and growing.
My beans are thriving now that we added cross pieces to their trellis. I have a feeling they are going to end up forming a solid wall of vegetation and that's ok with me. They'd shade out the peas and spinach which can tolerate it.
My one pepper plant is flowering. So we'll see what we get from that. And the spinach is growing. But spinach can be blanched and frozen, so that's a green I'll keep.
My pumpkins are insisting that the chain link fence is a trellis. I can not convince them otherwise.
Accurate.
I went out to Fwigf the other day and harvested ALL THE CUCUMBERS EVER (as referenced in my previous post). But I realized I forgot to give an update on everything else.
First and foremost: I HAVE CORN! Or rather I have corn developing on some of the stalks. One is stalk is being an over acheiver and attempting to put out four ears instead of the two that it should. But hopefully by the end of next month I'll have a few small ears of tasty blue corn.. We shall see.
The tomatoes are... doing well but the trellis needs some rethinking. The wind comes in from one side of the garden pretty steadily. And it has shoved all the plants to the left. Which would be fine if the were in cages, but since they are supported by a rope trellis they are just sliding along the rope and shoving the plant next to them over. They're all doing fine, no one is dying and everyone is producing. But the one furthest to the left has been shoved off the trellis entirely and is now growing along the ground. Next year the tomatoes get cross pieces AND the thicker stalks get tied to the trellis.
The potatoes are flowing! Holy crap potato flowers are beautiful! Little delicate purple stars with bright yellow centers. This makes me happy. Sadly we've lost one potato plant (Husband broke it while mounding it into the bucket) and we have a second one that isn't happy. But losing two out of the 6 planted isn't bad at all. Russet the potato who should not be is still living and growing.
My beans are thriving now that we added cross pieces to their trellis. I have a feeling they are going to end up forming a solid wall of vegetation and that's ok with me. They'd shade out the peas and spinach which can tolerate it.
My one pepper plant is flowering. So we'll see what we get from that. And the spinach is growing. But spinach can be blanched and frozen, so that's a green I'll keep.
My pumpkins are insisting that the chain link fence is a trellis. I can not convince them otherwise.
Friday, July 25, 2014
A Word On Anticipated Harvest
My darlings I have a new rule of thumb when it comes to planting. Look to the average yield of each individual plant you wish to grow. Then plan on getting half that, but have a contingency plan in case you get double.This way you won't be disappointed if you get less than average yields (everyone and everything has bad years).
But on the off chance your plants decide they must go forth and fulfill some sort of manifest destiny you won't be overwhelmed by their um... generous out put.
Case in point: in my fridge I have 42 cucumbers. Forty-two. Three and a half dozen. The answer to life, the universe, and everything. And that doesn't count the two dozen or so I've already eaten or pickled earlier this season. No my darlings, that 42 cucumbers are only the ones harvested This Week.
For context 42 cucumbers looks like this:
But on the off chance your plants decide they must go forth and fulfill some sort of manifest destiny you won't be overwhelmed by their um... generous out put.
Case in point: in my fridge I have 42 cucumbers. Forty-two. Three and a half dozen. The answer to life, the universe, and everything. And that doesn't count the two dozen or so I've already eaten or pickled earlier this season. No my darlings, that 42 cucumbers are only the ones harvested This Week.
For context 42 cucumbers looks like this:
Two liter bottle included for scale
I had not anticipated such a generous yield. I can get 3 (maybe 4) cucumbers into a single jar for pickling. That means between 10 and 15 jars. For this batch alone. And heaven help me there are more on the vine. So pickling will happen on Monday when I'm off from my day job. And after I've acquired more jars.
Thankfully about 1/3 of this goes to a friend of mine who bought a row of cucumber plants for Fwigf earlier this season. But as she is going out of town I get to pickle her share for her. Monday will be a long, hot, day in my kitchen.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
The great Krautastraphy.
Guys? Remember that lettuce kraut recipe I shared the other week? (If you don't here's the link to the post: http://fwigf.blogspot.com/2014/07/dealing-with-lettuce.html)
Don't do it.
No seriously. Not kidding. It was scary and gross. I ended up throwing it out without tasting any and my bowls are green and flies won't even go near my trash.
This was poor decision theater all over my pantry. I can not recommend this. Which means my beloved darlings? You have to either eat your lettuce fresh or compost it. I think I'm going to just compost it and I am NOT growing lettuce next year.
Don't do it.
No seriously. Not kidding. It was scary and gross. I ended up throwing it out without tasting any and my bowls are green and flies won't even go near my trash.
This was poor decision theater all over my pantry. I can not recommend this. Which means my beloved darlings? You have to either eat your lettuce fresh or compost it. I think I'm going to just compost it and I am NOT growing lettuce next year.
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Complimentary Planting: How not to sabotage your garden
So yesterday we discussed planning and the importance thereof. If you didn't read that one go do that first. I'll wait.
...
Ok? Good, welcome back. If you're working with a small space (and smaller budget) it's important to look into how your plants play together when sharing close quarters. Don't plant a field of alternating tomato and potato plants without reading up on how they grow when put in the same plot (poorly and prone to disease in this case). It'll also help you figure out crop rotation for following seasons. If you plant the same thing year after year it'll keep pulling the same thing out of the soil. So the tomatoes you planted for the third year in a row will be much less robust than the ones you planted year one in the same spot. Looking up complimentary plants will help you keep your soil productive.
Here is a helpful infographic:
...
Ok? Good, welcome back. If you're working with a small space (and smaller budget) it's important to look into how your plants play together when sharing close quarters. Don't plant a field of alternating tomato and potato plants without reading up on how they grow when put in the same plot (poorly and prone to disease in this case). It'll also help you figure out crop rotation for following seasons. If you plant the same thing year after year it'll keep pulling the same thing out of the soil. So the tomatoes you planted for the third year in a row will be much less robust than the ones you planted year one in the same spot. Looking up complimentary plants will help you keep your soil productive.
Here is a helpful infographic:
(curtesy of http://visual.ly/ultimate-guide-companion-planting)
Anything that has a little checkmark? Can be planted either together or one right after the other. An 'x' is a no go my darlings.
Now that's out of the way I want to discuss a very famous and specific type of companion planting: Three Sisters. The three sisters refer to corn, beans, and squash. This is an (by all accounts) ancient style of growing these crops throughout what is now the Northern US and Southern Canada. According to history books and oral records the three sisters were grown together, eaten together, and celebrated together. I've got a degree in history, and I'm a story teller, doing something in a way that lets me connect to how it was done in ages long past? Makes my tiny black heart go pitter patter. So I'm trying this next year.
Apparently what you do according to the Old Farmer's almanac (link in the bibliography) is make a circular mound about a foot high and four feet across. You then plant corn in the mound about two feet apart, in a circle, for a total of 6 stalks of corn. About a week or two later (once it's established and growing) you plant four bean plants, evenly spaced, around each stalk. A week or two after that, once the beans are established and growing, you plant a total of 6 squash, evenly placed, around the whole thing.
Why does this work? Why don't they choke themselves out? Well you see my dears apparently the corn provides a bean pole, the beans fix nitrogen into the soil to fertilize the heavy feeding corn, and the squash's leaves keep weeds down and provides a sort of living mulch that produces food. Which is all a very fancy pants way of saying 'it works, I'm going to try it.'
So yeah. Research your plants, plant things that play nice together, and you won't be left in a dead or disease ridden garden fighting the beetles to the one living tomato.
Friday, July 18, 2014
A Word (ok several) on Planning
This year Fwigf was a wee bit hodgepodge. And by a wee bit I mean "Oh shit I have a plot a year early and have no money for more seed! What have I planted in the back yard that I can start?! OH! I have $15?! Cool, I'm buying seed!" My plan consisted of "Get shit in the ground and see what grows". So the space wasn't exactly utilized to the utmost. Next year though! Next year I am going in with a plan. And I'm going to share with you how I arrived at that plan.
Step the First! - Figure out what you'll eat.
First and foremost I took stock of what plants my husband and I eat. I went a bit overboard on lettuce this year, as you may have gathered from previous posts. We do not normally eat a lot of leafy greens. I know, I know, shame on us, but it's true. So I now have A Lot of lettuce that's probably going to go bad before it gets eaten. No one wins. Next year I'm growing things we'll actually eat, and preserve well if we don't eat it all fresh. Lettuce does not appear on this list. Anywhere.
Step the Second! - What are your limitations?
The fine folks at Fwigf helpfully rototill every plot in the spring. So anything that needs to over winter? Is going to get chopped up. So everything needed to be edible come fall. As much as we love brussel sprouts and asparagus? The wouldn't mature fast enough to be able to eat. I'd spend a season babying plants that would end up tilled under. Your limit may be a lack of sunlight. Or a neighbor with a horrible allergy to potatoes. In any event, figure this out before you lay out the garden and buy seed.
Step the Third! - Know thy space.
Today I finally got Fwigf measured. I knew it was 400sqft. But I didn't know if it was 10x40, 20x20,15x30 or some weird thing that made no sense. Turns out it's 16x29. For the sake of planning I'm pretending it's 15x30. It makes everything easier.
Step the Forth! - Graph Paper.
Graph paper will help you figure out the scale of things. Decide how big a foot is according to your paper. For me it was 3 squares. Now, draw out your garden shape to scale. For me it was a rectangle 45 squares by 90 squares. Then (I suggest pencil, but I was dumb and used pen) draw out where your plants are going and keep the diagram to scale. DO NOT FORGET WALK WAYS AROUND PLANTS! Otherwise you won't fit in everything you thought you would, or you'll end up trampling your turnips.
I ended up with 2 5x5 plots of Corn, beans, and squash (yes next year is 3 sisters planting) 1 plot for peas that's 1.5x5. Then I had 7 beds that were 2x13, 1 bed that was 1x13 and one foot walk ways around the whole thing, and between each bed.
I'm going into 2015 prepared. I am not going to suddenly have a garden with no forethought. Maybe then I won't suffer the manifest destiny of the cucumbers, or the overwhelming amount of lettuce.
Next year's all stars: (number of plants)
Purple Peacock Broccoli (5)
Butternut Squash (6)
Long Island Cheese Pumpkins (6)
Ashworth Sweet Corn (12)
Red Noodle Beans (24)
Nor'easter Pole Beans (24)
Scarlet Ohno Revival Turnips (20)
Tall Telephone Shelling Peas
Oxheart Tomatoes (5)
Double Yield Cucumbers (5)
Purple Vienna Kohlrabi (10)
Listada di Gandia Eggplant (10)
Matchbox Peppers (5)
Sweet Siberian Watermelon (7)
Yes. All of that will fit in 400 square feet with 1 foot walk ways all the way around each bed. It's amazing what you can fit into a garden with a little planning and diagramming.
Compare that to this year:
Potatoes (6)
Jade Blue Dwarf corn (10)
Cheese pumpkins (8)
Red Noodle Beans (8)
Tomatoes (8)
Lettuce (7)
Peas (2)
Horseradish (1)
Spinach (6?)
Birdseye pepper (1)
Cucumbers (too many to count!)
And a lot of wasted space. Planning your layout avoids wasted space and lets you get the most possible out of the garden space you have. And, I at least, think it's fun. It lets you visualize what your garden will look like when you can't get out there. So do it.
Step the First! - Figure out what you'll eat.
First and foremost I took stock of what plants my husband and I eat. I went a bit overboard on lettuce this year, as you may have gathered from previous posts. We do not normally eat a lot of leafy greens. I know, I know, shame on us, but it's true. So I now have A Lot of lettuce that's probably going to go bad before it gets eaten. No one wins. Next year I'm growing things we'll actually eat, and preserve well if we don't eat it all fresh. Lettuce does not appear on this list. Anywhere.
Step the Second! - What are your limitations?
The fine folks at Fwigf helpfully rototill every plot in the spring. So anything that needs to over winter? Is going to get chopped up. So everything needed to be edible come fall. As much as we love brussel sprouts and asparagus? The wouldn't mature fast enough to be able to eat. I'd spend a season babying plants that would end up tilled under. Your limit may be a lack of sunlight. Or a neighbor with a horrible allergy to potatoes. In any event, figure this out before you lay out the garden and buy seed.
Step the Third! - Know thy space.
Today I finally got Fwigf measured. I knew it was 400sqft. But I didn't know if it was 10x40, 20x20,15x30 or some weird thing that made no sense. Turns out it's 16x29. For the sake of planning I'm pretending it's 15x30. It makes everything easier.
Step the Forth! - Graph Paper.
Graph paper will help you figure out the scale of things. Decide how big a foot is according to your paper. For me it was 3 squares. Now, draw out your garden shape to scale. For me it was a rectangle 45 squares by 90 squares. Then (I suggest pencil, but I was dumb and used pen) draw out where your plants are going and keep the diagram to scale. DO NOT FORGET WALK WAYS AROUND PLANTS! Otherwise you won't fit in everything you thought you would, or you'll end up trampling your turnips.
I ended up with 2 5x5 plots of Corn, beans, and squash (yes next year is 3 sisters planting) 1 plot for peas that's 1.5x5. Then I had 7 beds that were 2x13, 1 bed that was 1x13 and one foot walk ways around the whole thing, and between each bed.
I'm going into 2015 prepared. I am not going to suddenly have a garden with no forethought. Maybe then I won't suffer the manifest destiny of the cucumbers, or the overwhelming amount of lettuce.
Next year's all stars: (number of plants)
Purple Peacock Broccoli (5)
Butternut Squash (6)
Long Island Cheese Pumpkins (6)
Ashworth Sweet Corn (12)
Red Noodle Beans (24)
Nor'easter Pole Beans (24)
Scarlet Ohno Revival Turnips (20)
Tall Telephone Shelling Peas
Oxheart Tomatoes (5)
Double Yield Cucumbers (5)
Purple Vienna Kohlrabi (10)
Listada di Gandia Eggplant (10)
Matchbox Peppers (5)
Sweet Siberian Watermelon (7)
Yes. All of that will fit in 400 square feet with 1 foot walk ways all the way around each bed. It's amazing what you can fit into a garden with a little planning and diagramming.
Compare that to this year:
Potatoes (6)
Jade Blue Dwarf corn (10)
Cheese pumpkins (8)
Red Noodle Beans (8)
Tomatoes (8)
Lettuce (7)
Peas (2)
Horseradish (1)
Spinach (6?)
Birdseye pepper (1)
Cucumbers (too many to count!)
And a lot of wasted space. Planning your layout avoids wasted space and lets you get the most possible out of the garden space you have. And, I at least, think it's fun. It lets you visualize what your garden will look like when you can't get out there. So do it.
Right! I promised a thing!
Let this be a lesson my dears. Well a couple of lessons. 1. Don't make promises you can't keep. 2. Don't trust me to remember anything. Because I will forget. 3. Pickles are tasty and easy.
Ok, so in yesterday's post on salads I used some pickled pea pods and pickled onions and promised the recipe to you guys today. And forgot until I was messing around with the formatting on my blog and accidentally read that post. Thank goodness this blog exists to remind me to share things I promised to!
Though if I didn't have this blog I wouldn't have promised anything. Oh well, not the point, moving on!
Perfect Pickled Peas
You need:
1/3 cup Apple cider vinegar
2/3 cup water
2 heaping tablespoons salt
2 sprigs of fresh dill
A handful of washed sugar snap or snow peas still in the pod
These are refrigerator pickles, they are not shelf stable. Put the vinegar, salt, and water on to boil. Warm up a jar to avoid temperature shocked glass (on one's friend). Fill the warmed jar with your beautiful peas and dill. Pour the brine over the peas. Secure the lid. Let the jar sit in a draft free place for at least over night to cool to room temperature. Then stick them in the fridge.
Here comes the hard part: Let them sit for a week without eating them. Then feel free to devour at your leisure. They'll last about 3 months or the length of time it takes you to eat them ALL. The brine gets caught in the pods, so each bite releases little pockets of goodness. The peas themselves stay sweet and crisp. All around excellent.
Pickled Onions
Same as you do for peas. Only replace the peas with either a large onion cut into chunks, or several mini-cocktail onions. I use the large white onions because that's what I had. They are amazing. You should make them.
Ok, so in yesterday's post on salads I used some pickled pea pods and pickled onions and promised the recipe to you guys today. And forgot until I was messing around with the formatting on my blog and accidentally read that post. Thank goodness this blog exists to remind me to share things I promised to!
Though if I didn't have this blog I wouldn't have promised anything. Oh well, not the point, moving on!
Perfect Pickled Peas
You need:
1/3 cup Apple cider vinegar
2/3 cup water
2 heaping tablespoons salt
2 sprigs of fresh dill
A handful of washed sugar snap or snow peas still in the pod
These are refrigerator pickles, they are not shelf stable. Put the vinegar, salt, and water on to boil. Warm up a jar to avoid temperature shocked glass (on one's friend). Fill the warmed jar with your beautiful peas and dill. Pour the brine over the peas. Secure the lid. Let the jar sit in a draft free place for at least over night to cool to room temperature. Then stick them in the fridge.
Here comes the hard part: Let them sit for a week without eating them. Then feel free to devour at your leisure. They'll last about 3 months or the length of time it takes you to eat them ALL. The brine gets caught in the pods, so each bite releases little pockets of goodness. The peas themselves stay sweet and crisp. All around excellent.
Pickled Onions
Same as you do for peas. Only replace the peas with either a large onion cut into chunks, or several mini-cocktail onions. I use the large white onions because that's what I had. They are amazing. You should make them.
On Salads, Over Eager Pumpkins, and Tomatoes
Today I harvested the last of my lettuce. I have 7 full heads of lettuce in my fridge. My husband and I take two weeks to go through a head. This will not stay good for 14 weeks. My psudo-kraut is still fermenting, so I don't know if that's a viable preservation method yet. Also it kind of scares me. It looks and smells evil. I've been reassured by my friendly neighborhood food scientist (don't you have one of those?! They're so handy!) that yes, it is supposed to look and smell evil because it's rotting. In a controlled way that hopefully leads to food. But still. Rotting. On my counter. Yum.
Anyhow! Lettuce has one primary use. Salads. So lets talk salad for a minute my friends. Salads are like the box of chocolates of the vegetable consumption world. You can put almost anything on them, in almost any combination, and you *should* be ok. They can be hot, cold, warmed slightly, or be generally cold with a hot protein. Or something. This has started to get away from me. Salads are easy is my point. They don't take a lot of time to make and with the sheer number of combinations you can put together? They don't have to be boring.
That being said, I find salads boring. A salad is not a meal, it isn't even a side dish. It's a rabbit food garnish. I grew up with salads coming from a bag with iceberg lettuce, carrots, and red cabbage already mixed in. You dumped it into a bowl, slathered in in dressing and you were good to go. Anything else was for special occasions because adding tomatoes and cucumbers take effort. For every day salads? I was child one of three with two very busy full time parents. Meal times needed to be quick, easy, filling, and cheap.
However! I am currently in the middle of an Apocalypse of Lettuce, and that means figuring out how to make salads that aren't boring and are a meal in and of themselves. Challenge accepted dear readers, challenge accepted.
Today I made:
Lemon/Dill Salmon Green Salad
You need:
Olive oil
a splash of lemon juice (I'd estimate half a lemon's worth)
Salt
pepper
garlic powder
dried dill
Salmon filet
Lettuce
Fresh sugar snap peas
Pickled sugar snap peas
Pickled onions
Heat the olive oil in the pan. Ad the lemon juice, salt, pepper, dill, garlic and salmon. Cook covered on low heat, flipping occasionally, until the salmon is cooked all the way through. Then turn up the heat and fry your salmon uncovered for a few seconds on each side to make a tasty crust.
While that's cooking, wash your lettuce and fresh peas. Put them in a bowl. Add the pickled onions and snow peas (I'll post a recipe for those tomorrow). Top with your hot and tasty salmon. Eat.
This doesn't need dressing. The pickle juice from the peas combines in the bowl with the juice and fat from the salmon and makes a tasty vingery dressing all its own.
Now that that's out of the way, lets move on to the other things in Fwigf.
My pumpkins. As I mentioned before I'm growing long island cheese pumpkins. They don't taste like cheese, they're sweet pie/preservation pumpkins. They're called cheese pumpkins because they look like wheels of cheese apparently.
My pumpkins are planted along the back of Fwigf. Right by a chain link fence. You clever darlings can surely see where this is headed. Yes. They started climbing the chain link. I think I'm going to let them. I'll make little slings for the pumpkins as they develop but I'm just going to let them climb the fence. Better than having them invade my neighbor's plot I suppose.
Tomatoes. My poor tomatoes. I hadn't been weaving them in their trellis. And they're getting rather large and were starting to fall over. Thankfully I was able to save them and weave them into their support system. Let's see if this helps. They are developing little green tomatoes. See?
Anyhow! Lettuce has one primary use. Salads. So lets talk salad for a minute my friends. Salads are like the box of chocolates of the vegetable consumption world. You can put almost anything on them, in almost any combination, and you *should* be ok. They can be hot, cold, warmed slightly, or be generally cold with a hot protein. Or something. This has started to get away from me. Salads are easy is my point. They don't take a lot of time to make and with the sheer number of combinations you can put together? They don't have to be boring.
That being said, I find salads boring. A salad is not a meal, it isn't even a side dish. It's a rabbit food garnish. I grew up with salads coming from a bag with iceberg lettuce, carrots, and red cabbage already mixed in. You dumped it into a bowl, slathered in in dressing and you were good to go. Anything else was for special occasions because adding tomatoes and cucumbers take effort. For every day salads? I was child one of three with two very busy full time parents. Meal times needed to be quick, easy, filling, and cheap.
However! I am currently in the middle of an Apocalypse of Lettuce, and that means figuring out how to make salads that aren't boring and are a meal in and of themselves. Challenge accepted dear readers, challenge accepted.
Today I made:
Lemon/Dill Salmon Green Salad
You need:
Olive oil
a splash of lemon juice (I'd estimate half a lemon's worth)
Salt
pepper
garlic powder
dried dill
Salmon filet
Lettuce
Fresh sugar snap peas
Pickled sugar snap peas
Pickled onions
Heat the olive oil in the pan. Ad the lemon juice, salt, pepper, dill, garlic and salmon. Cook covered on low heat, flipping occasionally, until the salmon is cooked all the way through. Then turn up the heat and fry your salmon uncovered for a few seconds on each side to make a tasty crust.
While that's cooking, wash your lettuce and fresh peas. Put them in a bowl. Add the pickled onions and snow peas (I'll post a recipe for those tomorrow). Top with your hot and tasty salmon. Eat.
This doesn't need dressing. The pickle juice from the peas combines in the bowl with the juice and fat from the salmon and makes a tasty vingery dressing all its own.
Now that that's out of the way, lets move on to the other things in Fwigf.
My pumpkins. As I mentioned before I'm growing long island cheese pumpkins. They don't taste like cheese, they're sweet pie/preservation pumpkins. They're called cheese pumpkins because they look like wheels of cheese apparently.
My pumpkins are planted along the back of Fwigf. Right by a chain link fence. You clever darlings can surely see where this is headed. Yes. They started climbing the chain link. I think I'm going to let them. I'll make little slings for the pumpkins as they develop but I'm just going to let them climb the fence. Better than having them invade my neighbor's plot I suppose.
Tomatoes. My poor tomatoes. I hadn't been weaving them in their trellis. And they're getting rather large and were starting to fall over. Thankfully I was able to save them and weave them into their support system. Let's see if this helps. They are developing little green tomatoes. See?
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
The Ballad of Jerusalem Artichokes.
My darlings today we are going to discuss something that is unexpectedly dear to my heart. Invasive species. Nutrient hogs, enemies of the free peoples of Fwigf...Jerusalem Artichokes.
Jerusalem Artichokes are (in theory) a cash crop. They sell for roughly $6-$10 a pound. They grow Everywhere, and propagate like horseradish. If there is the smallest bit of them left in the ground a new plant will grow. They are impossible to fully get rid of and are heavier feeders than corn. You either need to heavily fertilize to avoid depleted soil or keep removing them forever and ever amen.
We hates them precious.
"But Mia!" I imagine you saying "your garden has a rule against planting invasive species. Jerusalem Artichokes aren't native to Eastern New York! How did Fwigf fall victim to this scourge?" Well friend, I'm going to tell you.
Once upon a decade ago, one of the gardeners in the community garden where Fwigf is located saw a wonderful new vegetable. They were easy to grow! Tasty! Nutritious! Expensive! And her little gardener's heart started beating faster. She spoke with the garden organizers about bringing this new, rare, never-before-seen plant into the community garden. They agreed.
On one condition.
She must contain them in a lined raised bed. With chicken wire around them. Because there had been the rumbles of rumors of their darker nature. Our intrepid gardener agreed. She built their box, set up the chicken wire, and planted herdemon plants Artichokes. I like to imagine a shadow fell over the garden that day.
For a time all was peaceful. Her plants grew, her artichokes were contained, she was pleased with how things were progressing. Then the squirrels came. Her wire was insufficient to keep the fuzzy minions of evil out. They liberated the artichokes from their well deserved isolation. One by one the free plots of the garden fell victim to the curse.
Some resisted! They covered their gardens in plastic over the winter, in hopes of preventing the artichokes from returning. But alas, it was too late. The artichokes had laid firm claim to all lands within the confines of the garden. The garden was lost.
And so my darlings, we continue to fight this scourge to this day. And so I beg of you, whether planting in your own yard or a community garden, a container or open field, please, for the love of peas and carrots, do NOT plant invasive species. Check before you plant to see if what you're putting in will reseed itself, and if so under what conditions.
If planting something like horseradish that grows a new plant for every cutting? Make sure when you harvest you don't leave any in the ground. Do not plant anything that will have those who follow you (this can also be future you) laying a curse upon your name.
Jerusalem Artichokes are (in theory) a cash crop. They sell for roughly $6-$10 a pound. They grow Everywhere, and propagate like horseradish. If there is the smallest bit of them left in the ground a new plant will grow. They are impossible to fully get rid of and are heavier feeders than corn. You either need to heavily fertilize to avoid depleted soil or keep removing them forever and ever amen.
We hates them precious.
"But Mia!" I imagine you saying "your garden has a rule against planting invasive species. Jerusalem Artichokes aren't native to Eastern New York! How did Fwigf fall victim to this scourge?" Well friend, I'm going to tell you.
Once upon a decade ago, one of the gardeners in the community garden where Fwigf is located saw a wonderful new vegetable. They were easy to grow! Tasty! Nutritious! Expensive! And her little gardener's heart started beating faster. She spoke with the garden organizers about bringing this new, rare, never-before-seen plant into the community garden. They agreed.
On one condition.
She must contain them in a lined raised bed. With chicken wire around them. Because there had been the rumbles of rumors of their darker nature. Our intrepid gardener agreed. She built their box, set up the chicken wire, and planted her
For a time all was peaceful. Her plants grew, her artichokes were contained, she was pleased with how things were progressing. Then the squirrels came. Her wire was insufficient to keep the fuzzy minions of evil out. They liberated the artichokes from their well deserved isolation. One by one the free plots of the garden fell victim to the curse.
Some resisted! They covered their gardens in plastic over the winter, in hopes of preventing the artichokes from returning. But alas, it was too late. The artichokes had laid firm claim to all lands within the confines of the garden. The garden was lost.
And so my darlings, we continue to fight this scourge to this day. And so I beg of you, whether planting in your own yard or a community garden, a container or open field, please, for the love of peas and carrots, do NOT plant invasive species. Check before you plant to see if what you're putting in will reseed itself, and if so under what conditions.
If planting something like horseradish that grows a new plant for every cutting? Make sure when you harvest you don't leave any in the ground. Do not plant anything that will have those who follow you (this can also be future you) laying a curse upon your name.
On The Subject of Peas
I like peas. Snow Peas, Snap Peas, shucking peas, peas that come frozen in a bag. All of them are tasty when cooked correctly. Or raw. But I digress.
Peas are a cool weather veggie. This means that they need to be planted early, come into season in the early summer, and die in the heat of summer. Even in the Northeast.
What I'm trying to do is get around this. I'm trying to keep my peas cooler and alive all summer and try to get a fall crop. What I'm doing to achieve this in my garden at home is keep the peas shaded by my cucumbers. That's helping to keep the temperature down for them. This appears to be working (in combination with the oddly cool weather we've had for the last couple of weeks) since my home peas are blossoming a second time and I have a few more pea pods forming. One or two have fully developed peas in them. I'm letting those age a bit longer on the vine while I research some seed saving methods.
At Fwigf I planted a trellis of pole beans right behind my peas. Which means once the beans become mature they'll provide my tiny peas shade and let them grow for a fall harvest.However when I tried to plant peas in Fwigf most of them didn't live. Only two plants came up. My advice? Get your peas in the ground *before* the average temperature is over 80 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. But I'm still trying. if it works then I'm trying to save the seeds to plant my heat hardy double producers. If not then I'll try a different starter strain next year.
Peas don't need a lot of fertilizer. So they're an excellent thing to plant after a heavy feeder like corn. They'll do just fine with almost depleted soil, you just want to add a little manure to help them out. Really the only care they need is: planting before it gets hot (you can direct sow peas before the last frost if you really want to), water, and something to climb. That's it. They are the most low maintenance veggie I've ever tried to grow. Carrots are harder.
You can also grow peas in a container if you don't have a lot of space. They do well (in my experience) in containers with tiny trellises. You don't get as big a harvest, and the pods themselves don't get as big, but you can grow peas in your window with minimum investment. I'd only suggest 1 plant per 3 inches in a deep pot. That information isn't coming from anywhere specific, just my own observations with pea plants. Remember if you're growing indoors you may have to manually pollinate your flowers to get pods. Since I'm assuming you don't keep bees, butterflies, or other pollinating insects indoors as a general rule.
So I mentioned 'cooked correctly' up above. Cooked correctly does NOT EVER mean boiled into a sad and tasteless mush. When you do that you make your peas cry. You can't see the tears in the boiling water, but they're there. There are so many ways you can eat peas! Shuck them and steam the peas themselves without the pod, or toss the peas into a soup or salad raw. Or blanch them and freeze them. I have been known to eat frozen peas in the middle of the summer instead of popcicles. I mentioned I have a love of peas. Don't judge me. If you get a variety that you can eat the whole pod you suddenly have almost limitless options! I eat them raw by the handful more often than not. However if you can resist that urge you can pickle them (just treat them like cucumbers and pickle them whole. Soooooo good).
If you must cook your pea pods here are two ideas. Both of these are great either as side dishes or garnishes for salads.
Barbecue Pea Pockets
You will need:
Tinfoil
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper
Dried red pepper flakes
Garlic powder
Sugar Snap or Snow Peas
Lay out a sheet of foil. Oil it lightly. Put your raw peas on the lightly oiled foil and season to taste with the aforementioned spices. Here comes the hard part, folding the foil into a packet.
Take the long edges of your foil and bring them up to touch in the center. Roll them down together until they are firmly against your peas. Next roll each of he short edges in until they are firmly against your peas without tearing the foil. You should have a roughly rectangular shape. Now the reason these are called barbecue peas is because you cook the packet either on a barbecue grill or over hot coals. Your cook time will vary based on how hot your coals are, but generally takes us about 10 minutes.
The peas steam themselves in the packet and come out tender and delicious. The seasonings mixed with the sweet flavor of the peas themselves makes this a sweet/spicy side dish that goes great with any meat cooked over coals. Or by themselves because you share my unnatural pea love.
"But, Mia? What if it isn't summer? Or grilling weather?" I'm so glad I imagined you asking that theoretical reader!
If you're trapped indoors I suggest you try:
Fwigf Skillet Peas
You need:
Olive oil
Sugar snap or snow peas in the pod
minced garlic
a small finely diced onion
salt
pepper
a pinch of sugar (trust me, I won't lead you astray. Well, I won't lead you far)
In a skillet heat the olive oil over medium high head. Add your onion and garlic. Saute them until the onions are clear. Add your peas and season with the salt and pepper to taste and add your pinch of sugar. Saute everything together until your onions are caramelized and your pea pods are bright green and tender.
This is a sweeter side dish so I find it goes really well with spicy meats, or over crisp green salad if you're not carnivorous.
There you have it my dears. Go forth and eat peas.
Peas are a cool weather veggie. This means that they need to be planted early, come into season in the early summer, and die in the heat of summer. Even in the Northeast.
What I'm trying to do is get around this. I'm trying to keep my peas cooler and alive all summer and try to get a fall crop. What I'm doing to achieve this in my garden at home is keep the peas shaded by my cucumbers. That's helping to keep the temperature down for them. This appears to be working (in combination with the oddly cool weather we've had for the last couple of weeks) since my home peas are blossoming a second time and I have a few more pea pods forming. One or two have fully developed peas in them. I'm letting those age a bit longer on the vine while I research some seed saving methods.
At Fwigf I planted a trellis of pole beans right behind my peas. Which means once the beans become mature they'll provide my tiny peas shade and let them grow for a fall harvest.However when I tried to plant peas in Fwigf most of them didn't live. Only two plants came up. My advice? Get your peas in the ground *before* the average temperature is over 80 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. But I'm still trying. if it works then I'm trying to save the seeds to plant my heat hardy double producers. If not then I'll try a different starter strain next year.
Peas don't need a lot of fertilizer. So they're an excellent thing to plant after a heavy feeder like corn. They'll do just fine with almost depleted soil, you just want to add a little manure to help them out. Really the only care they need is: planting before it gets hot (you can direct sow peas before the last frost if you really want to), water, and something to climb. That's it. They are the most low maintenance veggie I've ever tried to grow. Carrots are harder.
You can also grow peas in a container if you don't have a lot of space. They do well (in my experience) in containers with tiny trellises. You don't get as big a harvest, and the pods themselves don't get as big, but you can grow peas in your window with minimum investment. I'd only suggest 1 plant per 3 inches in a deep pot. That information isn't coming from anywhere specific, just my own observations with pea plants. Remember if you're growing indoors you may have to manually pollinate your flowers to get pods. Since I'm assuming you don't keep bees, butterflies, or other pollinating insects indoors as a general rule.
So I mentioned 'cooked correctly' up above. Cooked correctly does NOT EVER mean boiled into a sad and tasteless mush. When you do that you make your peas cry. You can't see the tears in the boiling water, but they're there. There are so many ways you can eat peas! Shuck them and steam the peas themselves without the pod, or toss the peas into a soup or salad raw. Or blanch them and freeze them. I have been known to eat frozen peas in the middle of the summer instead of popcicles. I mentioned I have a love of peas. Don't judge me. If you get a variety that you can eat the whole pod you suddenly have almost limitless options! I eat them raw by the handful more often than not. However if you can resist that urge you can pickle them (just treat them like cucumbers and pickle them whole. Soooooo good).
If you must cook your pea pods here are two ideas. Both of these are great either as side dishes or garnishes for salads.
Barbecue Pea Pockets
You will need:
Tinfoil
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper
Dried red pepper flakes
Garlic powder
Sugar Snap or Snow Peas
Lay out a sheet of foil. Oil it lightly. Put your raw peas on the lightly oiled foil and season to taste with the aforementioned spices. Here comes the hard part, folding the foil into a packet.
Take the long edges of your foil and bring them up to touch in the center. Roll them down together until they are firmly against your peas. Next roll each of he short edges in until they are firmly against your peas without tearing the foil. You should have a roughly rectangular shape. Now the reason these are called barbecue peas is because you cook the packet either on a barbecue grill or over hot coals. Your cook time will vary based on how hot your coals are, but generally takes us about 10 minutes.
The peas steam themselves in the packet and come out tender and delicious. The seasonings mixed with the sweet flavor of the peas themselves makes this a sweet/spicy side dish that goes great with any meat cooked over coals. Or by themselves because you share my unnatural pea love.
"But, Mia? What if it isn't summer? Or grilling weather?" I'm so glad I imagined you asking that theoretical reader!
If you're trapped indoors I suggest you try:
Fwigf Skillet Peas
You need:
Olive oil
Sugar snap or snow peas in the pod
minced garlic
a small finely diced onion
salt
pepper
a pinch of sugar (trust me, I won't lead you astray. Well, I won't lead you far)
In a skillet heat the olive oil over medium high head. Add your onion and garlic. Saute them until the onions are clear. Add your peas and season with the salt and pepper to taste and add your pinch of sugar. Saute everything together until your onions are caramelized and your pea pods are bright green and tender.
This is a sweeter side dish so I find it goes really well with spicy meats, or over crisp green salad if you're not carnivorous.
There you have it my dears. Go forth and eat peas.
Monday, July 14, 2014
Dealing with Lettuce
As I mentioned yesterday I am currently dealing with an over abundance of lettuce. As in I'm not done harvesting but I've gotten two Large plastic shopping bags full of the stuff. That is... considerably more than my husband and I can eat fresh. I managed to offload about half of it to my neighbors two doors down, along with a cucumber and a jar of pickles, as a thank you for unexpectedly mowing my front lawn yesterday. It was getting really long, my husband hadn't gotten around to it, I hate dealing with the getting the gate open to get the mower out. But Awesome Neighbor noticed and just mowed it for us. Didn't even take credit, we had to wander over to his place and ask if he'd done it before we found out who our mystery mower was. So he and his wife got garden produce.
But that still leaves me with A Lot of Lettuce. I scoured the internet for ANY lettuce preservation method. Lettuce is a delicate and testy thing. It is mostly water, so freezing it ends with mushy, slimy, black sludge. Not Appetizing. It doesn't stand up well to high heat, so canning it is Right Out. Fresh lettuce only stays that way in a fridge for about a week.
There had to be something I could do (other than toss it on the compost pile and shrug).
It is here that I discovered lacto-fermented pickled lettuce. Apparently pickled lettuce is a popular condiment/relish-thing in South East Asian cooking. I figured since you could buy jars of the stuff off the internet there had to be a way to do it at home. Seems logical right? I found a simple enough recipe and decided to try it with half of my remaining lettuce. That way if it failed I didn't ruin ALL of what I had harvested, but if it worked I could use all my lettuce before it goes bad.
Disclaimer! This is the recipe I am currently using! I can not attest to it being tasty or working. I'm still in the 'this is fermenting' stage of things. There will be another report when I taste it.
Pickled Lettuce/Psudo-kraut
You need:
A big, deep bowl
A smaller bowl
Plastic wrap
things to weigh the smaller bowl down with
Lettuce. An inadvisable amount of lettuce
sea salt
water.
Wash you lettuce carefully, leaf by leaf. Layer your leaves in the large bowl, alternating with a layer of sprinkled sea salt. Don't be stingy with the salt. I'm talking about a teaspoon between each layer. When your bowl is 3/4 full stop adding more things to it. Put a layer of plastic wrap loosely overtop. The plastic wrap is only to help keep your smaller bowl from touching the top of the lettuce and to keep bugs out. Put your smaller bowl on top of your bigger bowl. Add weight until your lettuce is being squashed.
The next day:
Check it. If your lettuce has had enough water squashed out of it that it's sitting in brine? Excellent! Leave it alone for a few days, then put it in a jar and leave it in your fridge. If it isn't covered in brine add water until it is, then leave it for a few days, put it in a jar, and let it live in your fridge.
This (in theory) should last as long as refrigerator pickles (so a month or so). The longer you leave it the more intense the flavor gets but the softer your lettuce is.
But that still leaves me with A Lot of Lettuce. I scoured the internet for ANY lettuce preservation method. Lettuce is a delicate and testy thing. It is mostly water, so freezing it ends with mushy, slimy, black sludge. Not Appetizing. It doesn't stand up well to high heat, so canning it is Right Out. Fresh lettuce only stays that way in a fridge for about a week.
There had to be something I could do (other than toss it on the compost pile and shrug).
It is here that I discovered lacto-fermented pickled lettuce. Apparently pickled lettuce is a popular condiment/relish-thing in South East Asian cooking. I figured since you could buy jars of the stuff off the internet there had to be a way to do it at home. Seems logical right? I found a simple enough recipe and decided to try it with half of my remaining lettuce. That way if it failed I didn't ruin ALL of what I had harvested, but if it worked I could use all my lettuce before it goes bad.
Disclaimer! This is the recipe I am currently using! I can not attest to it being tasty or working. I'm still in the 'this is fermenting' stage of things. There will be another report when I taste it.
Pickled Lettuce/Psudo-kraut
You need:
A big, deep bowl
A smaller bowl
Plastic wrap
things to weigh the smaller bowl down with
Lettuce. An inadvisable amount of lettuce
sea salt
water.
Wash you lettuce carefully, leaf by leaf. Layer your leaves in the large bowl, alternating with a layer of sprinkled sea salt. Don't be stingy with the salt. I'm talking about a teaspoon between each layer. When your bowl is 3/4 full stop adding more things to it. Put a layer of plastic wrap loosely overtop. The plastic wrap is only to help keep your smaller bowl from touching the top of the lettuce and to keep bugs out. Put your smaller bowl on top of your bigger bowl. Add weight until your lettuce is being squashed.
The next day:
Check it. If your lettuce has had enough water squashed out of it that it's sitting in brine? Excellent! Leave it alone for a few days, then put it in a jar and leave it in your fridge. If it isn't covered in brine add water until it is, then leave it for a few days, put it in a jar, and let it live in your fridge.
This (in theory) should last as long as refrigerator pickles (so a month or so). The longer you leave it the more intense the flavor gets but the softer your lettuce is.
2 Months of Gardening in One Post. Also Pickles.
Ok, here goes.
The day we got access to Fwigf we planted up everything motioned in my last post, as well as Russet The-Potato-That-Should-Not-Be (it was a commercial russet potato that sprouted, I said 'what the heck' and planted it in my yard. Then transplanted it to Fwigf. After transplanting I was told by another gardener you aren't supposed to transplant potatoes. Oops. But he seems to be doing well regardless). I was a bit concerned about my seedlings, since they were tiny, Fwigf looked huge, and I was convinced everything was going to die. Short version? It didn't.
Long version:
We lost two heads of lettuce to Jerkface. They were planted right in the front, so I wasn't surprised they were gone. They were small, easy to eat, and planted where they were essentially an offering to the wildlife to leave the rest of my crops alone. Even with that loss I'm currently suffering a lettupalooza.
We experienced critical Pea failure. Of the 9 plants I planted only 2 continue to grow. Peas are a cool weather crop, and do better being planted either in an area with fewer hours of direct sunlight OR early enough in the season that it's still below 80F on average. Fwigf in June is not that place. My backyard however apparently *is*. So I have peas from the tiny garden I'd planted out back before getting Fwigf.
In order to provide the tomatoes, cucumbers, and beans with support, without having to buy individual cages for each plant (which adds up quickly) we built a rope trellis for each. I got the idea out of The Backyard Homestead (full citation at bottom). Basically how a rope trellis works is you get two long/tall garden stakes (we used green fencing stakes from Lowes, they were about $3 each) per row of things you want to give support to. Then we took cotton clothes line ($2 from the dollar store) and ran the clothes line between the two stakes. We tied to one end, ran the line to the other stake, cut it, tied the end, then repeated back and forth up the stake. The fence stakes we used had holes in them at regular intervals so we pulled the cord through the holes and tied knots to keep them in place. For the tomatoes that's all the needed. We wove the growing plants between the strings and they are doing fine. that's about 7 or 8 tomato plants supported for roughly the cost of one cage.
The cucumbers and beans got an extra step. We tied clothesline going vertical in addition to the horizontal lines. This created a net that give the cucumber tendrils more places to cling, and gives the beans more support between horizontal cords. Again each trellis comes out to supporting 7 or 8 plants for the cost of a single tomato cage. And they're reusable, at the end of the season we just need to pull the old plants off, roll the stakes up in the netting, and set them in the basement until next year. They take up less room than a whole pile of tomato cages, and when the cord breaks or gets too old to be trustworthy we can just replace that as opposed to the whole thing.
Directions for making a rope trellis can be found here: http://www.ehow.com/how_12152993_make-rope-trellis.html
Trellises have the added benefit of letting you garden vertically. Which saves space and lets you can cram more plants into your available space. More plants in an available space means a higher yield and a higher return on investment. Any vining plant can be grown vertically. The amount of support it needs depends on how heavy the plant itself is. Next year I'm doing a heavy duty trellis to support pumpkins. And then planting those suckers right at the front of my garden to give bit of privacy to working in my garden and discourage Jerkface from eating my lettuce. And to stop this from shading out everything else I'm growing.
We've also hand to mound up our potatoes. I've never grown potatoes before (neither has Husband) so this is an experiment. Potatoes keep growing and reaching and putting out more roots (which is where the edible bits grow) for as high as you mound them before they flower. They grow a little bit, you throw a little more dirt around the base, and so on. This eventually means that you need something to hold all that dirt in place. I've seen a lot of different suggestions. Everything from commercial potato cages (which are expensive) to growing potatoes in garbage cans (also more money than I want to spend) to building boxes around them gradually to hold the dirt as you add it. Think Lincoln Logs or Legos. Husband and I debated all of these options. Including getting Legos in bulk and building colorful fortresses and castles around our potatoes. Because we are adults and we get to decide what being a grown up means. We ultimately decided to buy some 5 gallon buckets from the hardware store and cut the bottoms off. Those seem to be working for now.
Totally doing Legos next year though.
Right! I promised pickles. My backyard garden is currently experiencing cucumber manifest destiny. I harvested a dozen cucumbers a couple of days ago. And since this blog is about preserving food, rather than making sculptures out of a material prone to rotting thus making a commentary on the nature of life and beauty, I decided to pickle them.
First I made refrigerator pickles. I found a recipe online but ended up modifying it so heavily that it bares little resemblance to the original. Therefore I give you:
Fwigf Refrigerator Pickles
You need:
1 pint jar
3 decent sized cucumbers
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
2/3 cup water
1/4 cup salt
Sprig of dill
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 a medium onion
Put your water, vinegar, and salt into a pan and bring to a boil. While that is heating wash your cucumbers and cut off the ends, then cut them into spears or slices, whatever you want the final shape of your pickle to be. Cut your onion into chunks. Put your cucumbers, onion, dill, and garlic into your warmed and sterilized jar. You want the glass hot so you don't temperature shock it. Once your brine has come to a boil and dissolved the salt pour it into the jar with everything else. Screw the lid on and let it sit over night so the glass can cool down slowly. Again, temperature shock is bad. Once it's room temperature to the touch put your jar in the fridge. These will last roughly 2-3 months (or as long as it takes for you to stuff them all in your face, whichever comes first.) The pickled onion chunks are also tasty.
Perhaps you are running out of room in your fridge? Maybe you just want pickles that will last longer? In that case I give you:
Fwigf Shelf Stable Pickles
You need:
Everything listed in the refrigerator pickle recipe. Also either : A. a commercial water bath canner or B. A pot big enough to put your jar into without it touching the sides, and with enough room above it to have 2 inches of water over the top of the lid. Also a hand towel, ladle, and oven mitt.
For this the jar you are using needs to be a canning jar. One that seals. You know those mason jars with the two part lids? Yeah. Those. I found mine at Tractor Supply Company, but in the fall you can also find them at grocery stores and (if you must) Wal-Mart. And through all powerful Google.
Put your jar and lids in a smaller pot filled with room temperature water, slowly bring to a boil (again temperature shock is NOT your friend), this will kill off any bacteria that might be living in the jar/lid pieces that would spoil your pickles while they live on a shelf. Prepare your brine, onion and cucumbers the same as before.
Now if you're using a commercial water bath canner follow those instructions.
If you're using my 'giant pot and a towel' canner: lay the towel at the bottom of the pot, set the full jar on the towel, away from the sides of the pot. Add enough water to cover the jar, plus two inches over it. Bring the whole thing to a boil and keep it boiling for 10 minutes. Your 10 minutes doesn't start until it starts boiling. If at any point your pot stops boiling, bring it back to a boil and start your count over.
When you've let it boil for 10 minutes turn off the heat and allow the water to cool for about 20 minutes or so. I did this to avoid temperature shock, and because I realized I had nothing to pull the blazing hot jars OUT of the water with. So I decided to let them think about what they've done while I scrambled around to figure out what the heck to do. Once you've finished that, realize you got your ladle and oven mitt out because I told you that you'd need one. Ladle out enough water to be able to safely grab the jar.
Set your jar on a towel in a draft free area. Let it sit over night. In the morning check the lid, if it's suctioned down (doesn't Pop back and forth when you push on it) you're sealed and you can set it on your self. If it isn't suctioned down put it in your fridge and eat them within a month or two.
The day we got access to Fwigf we planted up everything motioned in my last post, as well as Russet The-Potato-That-Should-Not-Be (it was a commercial russet potato that sprouted, I said 'what the heck' and planted it in my yard. Then transplanted it to Fwigf. After transplanting I was told by another gardener you aren't supposed to transplant potatoes. Oops. But he seems to be doing well regardless). I was a bit concerned about my seedlings, since they were tiny, Fwigf looked huge, and I was convinced everything was going to die. Short version? It didn't.
Long version:
We lost two heads of lettuce to Jerkface. They were planted right in the front, so I wasn't surprised they were gone. They were small, easy to eat, and planted where they were essentially an offering to the wildlife to leave the rest of my crops alone. Even with that loss I'm currently suffering a lettupalooza.
We experienced critical Pea failure. Of the 9 plants I planted only 2 continue to grow. Peas are a cool weather crop, and do better being planted either in an area with fewer hours of direct sunlight OR early enough in the season that it's still below 80F on average. Fwigf in June is not that place. My backyard however apparently *is*. So I have peas from the tiny garden I'd planted out back before getting Fwigf.
In order to provide the tomatoes, cucumbers, and beans with support, without having to buy individual cages for each plant (which adds up quickly) we built a rope trellis for each. I got the idea out of The Backyard Homestead (full citation at bottom). Basically how a rope trellis works is you get two long/tall garden stakes (we used green fencing stakes from Lowes, they were about $3 each) per row of things you want to give support to. Then we took cotton clothes line ($2 from the dollar store) and ran the clothes line between the two stakes. We tied to one end, ran the line to the other stake, cut it, tied the end, then repeated back and forth up the stake. The fence stakes we used had holes in them at regular intervals so we pulled the cord through the holes and tied knots to keep them in place. For the tomatoes that's all the needed. We wove the growing plants between the strings and they are doing fine. that's about 7 or 8 tomato plants supported for roughly the cost of one cage.
The cucumbers and beans got an extra step. We tied clothesline going vertical in addition to the horizontal lines. This created a net that give the cucumber tendrils more places to cling, and gives the beans more support between horizontal cords. Again each trellis comes out to supporting 7 or 8 plants for the cost of a single tomato cage. And they're reusable, at the end of the season we just need to pull the old plants off, roll the stakes up in the netting, and set them in the basement until next year. They take up less room than a whole pile of tomato cages, and when the cord breaks or gets too old to be trustworthy we can just replace that as opposed to the whole thing.
Directions for making a rope trellis can be found here: http://www.ehow.com/how_12152993_make-rope-trellis.html
Trellises have the added benefit of letting you garden vertically. Which saves space and lets you can cram more plants into your available space. More plants in an available space means a higher yield and a higher return on investment. Any vining plant can be grown vertically. The amount of support it needs depends on how heavy the plant itself is. Next year I'm doing a heavy duty trellis to support pumpkins. And then planting those suckers right at the front of my garden to give bit of privacy to working in my garden and discourage Jerkface from eating my lettuce. And to stop this from shading out everything else I'm growing.
We've also hand to mound up our potatoes. I've never grown potatoes before (neither has Husband) so this is an experiment. Potatoes keep growing and reaching and putting out more roots (which is where the edible bits grow) for as high as you mound them before they flower. They grow a little bit, you throw a little more dirt around the base, and so on. This eventually means that you need something to hold all that dirt in place. I've seen a lot of different suggestions. Everything from commercial potato cages (which are expensive) to growing potatoes in garbage cans (also more money than I want to spend) to building boxes around them gradually to hold the dirt as you add it. Think Lincoln Logs or Legos. Husband and I debated all of these options. Including getting Legos in bulk and building colorful fortresses and castles around our potatoes. Because we are adults and we get to decide what being a grown up means. We ultimately decided to buy some 5 gallon buckets from the hardware store and cut the bottoms off. Those seem to be working for now.
Totally doing Legos next year though.
Right! I promised pickles. My backyard garden is currently experiencing cucumber manifest destiny. I harvested a dozen cucumbers a couple of days ago. And since this blog is about preserving food, rather than making sculptures out of a material prone to rotting thus making a commentary on the nature of life and beauty, I decided to pickle them.
First I made refrigerator pickles. I found a recipe online but ended up modifying it so heavily that it bares little resemblance to the original. Therefore I give you:
Fwigf Refrigerator Pickles
You need:
1 pint jar
3 decent sized cucumbers
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
2/3 cup water
1/4 cup salt
Sprig of dill
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 a medium onion
Put your water, vinegar, and salt into a pan and bring to a boil. While that is heating wash your cucumbers and cut off the ends, then cut them into spears or slices, whatever you want the final shape of your pickle to be. Cut your onion into chunks. Put your cucumbers, onion, dill, and garlic into your warmed and sterilized jar. You want the glass hot so you don't temperature shock it. Once your brine has come to a boil and dissolved the salt pour it into the jar with everything else. Screw the lid on and let it sit over night so the glass can cool down slowly. Again, temperature shock is bad. Once it's room temperature to the touch put your jar in the fridge. These will last roughly 2-3 months (or as long as it takes for you to stuff them all in your face, whichever comes first.) The pickled onion chunks are also tasty.
Perhaps you are running out of room in your fridge? Maybe you just want pickles that will last longer? In that case I give you:
Fwigf Shelf Stable Pickles
You need:
Everything listed in the refrigerator pickle recipe. Also either : A. a commercial water bath canner or B. A pot big enough to put your jar into without it touching the sides, and with enough room above it to have 2 inches of water over the top of the lid. Also a hand towel, ladle, and oven mitt.
For this the jar you are using needs to be a canning jar. One that seals. You know those mason jars with the two part lids? Yeah. Those. I found mine at Tractor Supply Company, but in the fall you can also find them at grocery stores and (if you must) Wal-Mart. And through all powerful Google.
Put your jar and lids in a smaller pot filled with room temperature water, slowly bring to a boil (again temperature shock is NOT your friend), this will kill off any bacteria that might be living in the jar/lid pieces that would spoil your pickles while they live on a shelf. Prepare your brine, onion and cucumbers the same as before.
Now if you're using a commercial water bath canner follow those instructions.
If you're using my 'giant pot and a towel' canner: lay the towel at the bottom of the pot, set the full jar on the towel, away from the sides of the pot. Add enough water to cover the jar, plus two inches over it. Bring the whole thing to a boil and keep it boiling for 10 minutes. Your 10 minutes doesn't start until it starts boiling. If at any point your pot stops boiling, bring it back to a boil and start your count over.
When you've let it boil for 10 minutes turn off the heat and allow the water to cool for about 20 minutes or so. I did this to avoid temperature shock, and because I realized I had nothing to pull the blazing hot jars OUT of the water with. So I decided to let them think about what they've done while I scrambled around to figure out what the heck to do. Once you've finished that, realize you got your ladle and oven mitt out because I told you that you'd need one. Ladle out enough water to be able to safely grab the jar.
Set your jar on a towel in a draft free area. Let it sit over night. In the morning check the lid, if it's suctioned down (doesn't Pop back and forth when you push on it) you're sealed and you can set it on your self. If it isn't suctioned down put it in your fridge and eat them within a month or two.
Fwigf 2014: An Overview/ Starting Seedlings
This year we started our community garden a bit late. I'd called in early June to see about signing on for next year and got told there were still plots left in our preferred garden, and if we wanted one we could have it. We decided to go for it. I made a hasty garden plan and began starting seeds. A week and $30 later Fwigf was ours. A barren, flat, untilled piece of land, growing only sparse grass and Jerusalem Artichokes. I'd begun to think I was in over my head. I probably still am. Thankfully the gentleman next to us was a retired farmer and was able to explain how to build up mounds and lay out our garden most effectively.
There it is, the day we got our mounds made and our seedlings in. It didn't look like much there yet.
What we planted (from back to front):
Long Island cheese pumpkins, Adirondack Blue potatoes, Chinese Red Noodle Beans, Sugar Snap Peas and spinach, Bird's eye pepper and horseradish and spinach, carrots, cucumbers, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce. Along either side is a row of Jade Blue Dwarf Corn.
Our seeds came from the Hudson Valley Seed Library (http://www.seedlibrary.org/), which is an organization dedicated to the preservation of heritage variety plants. What does that mean? It means our plants are open pollinated, which is the vegetable version of open source. We aren't growing GMOs, nothing is patented, and we can engage in seed saving and have our seed be viable. Nothing has been bred to be sterile and unable to propagate itself. Which means if we do this right we won't have to buy seed every year, and we're growing veggies that are a bit more unusual.
I mentioned up top that I started the seeds. What that means is I essentially planted the seeds themselves in a tiny greenhouse at home so I could plant the seedlings where they were a bit bigger and stronger and less likely to get eaten by Jerkface the groundhog. I used one of these: http://www.plantationproducts.com/pages/cfJiffy.cfm which is essentially a plastic tray with a lid and some pellets of peat moss that you put the seeds in. I liked this because all you needed to do was add enough water to hydrate the pellets, put the lid on, set it in a sunny spot and forget about it for about two weeks. Evaporating water condensed on the lid then 'rained' on the peat pellets. Which meant I didn't have to worry about over or under watering. When the shoots appeared I had to prop the lid open and start hardening off the seedlings so they'd be able to live outside. All that means is exposing them to out side conditions gradually.
I also started seeds by planting them in a container filled with potting soil and covering it with plastic wrap. Did the same thing and I was later able to use the extra potting soil to mound my potatoes. I think next year I'll skip the jiffy tray and just start in pots with plastic wrap. The steps are the same, I just think the pots method leads to more reusability and lower long term costs, but it is a more expensive initial outlay.
Direct sow is easier and cheaper, but has a higher risk of failure. Direct sow means you skip the starting bit entirely and just plant your seeds directly where you want the plant to grow. I don't care for direct sowing because I live in the Northeastern US where our growing season isn't what it could be and I want my plants to have as long a growing season as possible. If you direct sow too early your seeds won't germinate because the ground is too cold. If you direct sow too late you won't get food off your plants because they didn't have enough time to mature. Therefore I cheat and start my seeds indoors.
When the seedlings were big enough and hardened off they were ready to go in the ground. If you're using the peat pellets just pop that sucker in the ground, water it, and go about your business. If you're using the pot method you need to carefully remove your seedling (making sure to take ALL the roots), then put it in the ground, water it and go about your business.
If you're doing direct sow then pop your seed in the ground, water it, and keep coming back every day to make sure it's got enough water and hasn't been eaten by Jerkface and friends.
There it is, the day we got our mounds made and our seedlings in. It didn't look like much there yet.
What we planted (from back to front):
Long Island cheese pumpkins, Adirondack Blue potatoes, Chinese Red Noodle Beans, Sugar Snap Peas and spinach, Bird's eye pepper and horseradish and spinach, carrots, cucumbers, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce. Along either side is a row of Jade Blue Dwarf Corn.
Our seeds came from the Hudson Valley Seed Library (http://www.seedlibrary.org/), which is an organization dedicated to the preservation of heritage variety plants. What does that mean? It means our plants are open pollinated, which is the vegetable version of open source. We aren't growing GMOs, nothing is patented, and we can engage in seed saving and have our seed be viable. Nothing has been bred to be sterile and unable to propagate itself. Which means if we do this right we won't have to buy seed every year, and we're growing veggies that are a bit more unusual.
I mentioned up top that I started the seeds. What that means is I essentially planted the seeds themselves in a tiny greenhouse at home so I could plant the seedlings where they were a bit bigger and stronger and less likely to get eaten by Jerkface the groundhog. I used one of these: http://www.plantationproducts.com/pages/cfJiffy.cfm which is essentially a plastic tray with a lid and some pellets of peat moss that you put the seeds in. I liked this because all you needed to do was add enough water to hydrate the pellets, put the lid on, set it in a sunny spot and forget about it for about two weeks. Evaporating water condensed on the lid then 'rained' on the peat pellets. Which meant I didn't have to worry about over or under watering. When the shoots appeared I had to prop the lid open and start hardening off the seedlings so they'd be able to live outside. All that means is exposing them to out side conditions gradually.
I also started seeds by planting them in a container filled with potting soil and covering it with plastic wrap. Did the same thing and I was later able to use the extra potting soil to mound my potatoes. I think next year I'll skip the jiffy tray and just start in pots with plastic wrap. The steps are the same, I just think the pots method leads to more reusability and lower long term costs, but it is a more expensive initial outlay.
Direct sow is easier and cheaper, but has a higher risk of failure. Direct sow means you skip the starting bit entirely and just plant your seeds directly where you want the plant to grow. I don't care for direct sowing because I live in the Northeastern US where our growing season isn't what it could be and I want my plants to have as long a growing season as possible. If you direct sow too early your seeds won't germinate because the ground is too cold. If you direct sow too late you won't get food off your plants because they didn't have enough time to mature. Therefore I cheat and start my seeds indoors.
When the seedlings were big enough and hardened off they were ready to go in the ground. If you're using the peat pellets just pop that sucker in the ground, water it, and go about your business. If you're using the pot method you need to carefully remove your seedling (making sure to take ALL the roots), then put it in the ground, water it and go about your business.
If you're doing direct sow then pop your seed in the ground, water it, and keep coming back every day to make sure it's got enough water and hasn't been eaten by Jerkface and friends.
Mission Statement
This year I began gardening in earnest. I also began looking at preserving food beyond just putting something in the refrigerator. I have been making a ton of posts on my social media sites about what is going on in my garden, what my pickling recipes are, how I making things, and I decided to start this blog to have it all in one place.
This is where you will find updates from Fwigf (the name of my garden). It will be a collection of what I'm growing, how I'm growing it, how much produce I got out of it, and how I laid it down for later eating. I am growing my garden specifically to cut down on the costs of food, my goal is to grow as much food as I can, as cheaply as possible. If I found a tip online I will post a link to the place I found it, if I found it in a book I will have a running annotated bibliography, complete with ISBIN numbers if you want to find the book yourself. If the tip or recipe came from a family member or friend it will be credited to that person. If it's something I decided to try for the hell of it then that'll be mentioned too.
What is Fwigf?
Fwigf stands for two things: Field Where I Grow Fucks (when it is barren and lifeless) and Field Where I Grow Food (when it is not). Fwigf is a 400sqft plot of land in my local community garden. If I tried to grow everything at home I'd lose at least half my crop to my much beloved, yet very assholeish dogs. I highly recommend looking for community garden in your area if you don't have space to garden at home. If there isn't one near you? Don't worry, I'll also be adding tips and information on container gardening for apartments/urban areas. You can get a surprising amount of food from a stunningly small space.
The community garden is an organic practices only garden. Which means I can't use any synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, or weed killers. Fertilizers that I can use are things like compost, manure, fish emulsions, that sort of thing. Weed control can be done by pulling weeds by hand, or laying down landscaping fabric. You won't find any reviews on MiracleGrow(tm) or Scotts(tm) here.
Your growing rules will vary by garden. Obviously if you're in your yard then you can grown whatever you want. My community garden limits me to non-invasive species (no mint, no oregano, no Jerusalem Artichokes ect), no trees, no cane fruit (raspberries, black berries ect), and nothing that takes more than a year to mature (no asparagus or anything like that). The reasons for these rules boil down to being considerate of your fellow gardeners. Your wonderful apple tree may shade out your neighbor's tomato patch, your Artichokes won't stay in your patch and your neighbors may not want to spend the next 5 seasons pulling those nutrient hogs out of their own gardens, you may not have your patch next year and you don't want to leave someone who hates asparagus an unwelcome surprise when they try to plant their lettuce. Always check your community garden's rules before getting your heart set on planting something if you go the same route I did.
So that's it. That's the purpose of this blog. Sit back and enjoy if you want to, or get out a note book and a pen and dust off your library card. Either way this should be fun.
This is where you will find updates from Fwigf (the name of my garden). It will be a collection of what I'm growing, how I'm growing it, how much produce I got out of it, and how I laid it down for later eating. I am growing my garden specifically to cut down on the costs of food, my goal is to grow as much food as I can, as cheaply as possible. If I found a tip online I will post a link to the place I found it, if I found it in a book I will have a running annotated bibliography, complete with ISBIN numbers if you want to find the book yourself. If the tip or recipe came from a family member or friend it will be credited to that person. If it's something I decided to try for the hell of it then that'll be mentioned too.
What is Fwigf?
Fwigf stands for two things: Field Where I Grow Fucks (when it is barren and lifeless) and Field Where I Grow Food (when it is not). Fwigf is a 400sqft plot of land in my local community garden. If I tried to grow everything at home I'd lose at least half my crop to my much beloved, yet very assholeish dogs. I highly recommend looking for community garden in your area if you don't have space to garden at home. If there isn't one near you? Don't worry, I'll also be adding tips and information on container gardening for apartments/urban areas. You can get a surprising amount of food from a stunningly small space.
The community garden is an organic practices only garden. Which means I can't use any synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, or weed killers. Fertilizers that I can use are things like compost, manure, fish emulsions, that sort of thing. Weed control can be done by pulling weeds by hand, or laying down landscaping fabric. You won't find any reviews on MiracleGrow(tm) or Scotts(tm) here.
Your growing rules will vary by garden. Obviously if you're in your yard then you can grown whatever you want. My community garden limits me to non-invasive species (no mint, no oregano, no Jerusalem Artichokes ect), no trees, no cane fruit (raspberries, black berries ect), and nothing that takes more than a year to mature (no asparagus or anything like that). The reasons for these rules boil down to being considerate of your fellow gardeners. Your wonderful apple tree may shade out your neighbor's tomato patch, your Artichokes won't stay in your patch and your neighbors may not want to spend the next 5 seasons pulling those nutrient hogs out of their own gardens, you may not have your patch next year and you don't want to leave someone who hates asparagus an unwelcome surprise when they try to plant their lettuce. Always check your community garden's rules before getting your heart set on planting something if you go the same route I did.
So that's it. That's the purpose of this blog. Sit back and enjoy if you want to, or get out a note book and a pen and dust off your library card. Either way this should be fun.
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