Corn!

Guys we have corn! Successful and tasty corn!

See? Isn't it cute?!

This year we grew Jade Blue Dwarf Corn (Hudson valley seed library) and I highly recommend it. I planted about 20 stalks, 10 down either side of Fwigf. My tallest one is about 3 and a half feet tall (just over a meter for our metric friends). The advertised average was about 2 mini-ears of blue corn per stalk. I'm looking at 3 or 4 ears each. The ears themselves are not large at all, they're about 3 - 4 inches long (6-8cm), so each one yields about one side dish serving of corn per person. Not the massive ears of sweet corn that I'm used to, but tasty none the less. I'd actually like to try these as container corn. They didn't take up much room at all and frankly I believe a nice big pot will hold three or four stalks and give a decent yield of corn. So there apartment dwellers, you too can have corn!

They were less sweet than commercial sweet corn, but they had more corn flavor if that makes any sense. I think these would stand up very well to being frozen. The good news is we will have enough to freeze, and we can freeze one meals worth in a quart sized freezer bag. So yay corn!

This weekend also marked my acquisition of a dehydrator. And by 'a dehydrator' I mean 'the dehydrator my parents had when I was a child that they used maybe all of twice in the early '90s'. It is an ancient beast. There are no thermometers, no digital timers, the temperature is regulated by turning the top to open or close vent holes. But it works. And it was free. And the company is still in business, so even though the box says 'as seen on tv' it wasn't a one hit television wonder invention.

Current cunning plan is to make jerky. Then start making soup mixes out of on sale seasonal veggies and meat. This will save us money this winter. Provided my wonderful new-to-me dehydrator doesn't take off like the UFO it resembles (guys, this is a creature of the early 90s and looks it). The other plan is to attempt to make drink mixes by buying seasonal fruit (Read: all fruit) when it's in season (read: summer) and dehydrate it then smash it into powder. But first, we try jerky. basic jerky. Salt, pepper, garlic, and a little bit of vinegar. That's it. Baby steps.

Peppers!

The garden in my back yard has been giving me jalapenos pretty steadily for the last week or so. Which means I have about 15 of the little green peppers of awesome in my fridge waiting to become something. Then today I went out to Fwigf and discovered that my Bird's Eye had peppers on it, not just flowers. I'd never had birds eye peppers, I had no idea what they tasted like. So I handed one of the small, green, thin and long peppers to my husband to taste. 

Darlings? Bird's eye peppers are Hot. Angry hot. I've had hobs that were more restrained and polite. I now have 5 or 6 of these devil peppers in my fridge waiting to become something. 

The thing with peppers is you can't can them. Botulism is a thing. A thing you'd rather avoid, trust me. Ergo home canning peppers is not something I want to risk. I'll leave that to professionals in sterilized kitchens. So what CAN you do with a windfall of hot peppers?

Chili. 

And so my dears I give you:

Mia's Crockpot Cheater Chili

You need:

Roughly 1 pound of sweet sausage

1 medium sweet onion

1 large can of crushed tomatoes

1 large can of diced tomatoes

2 table spoons of minced garlic

1 ounce of tequila

Jalapenos

Bird's Eye Peppers (or any unreasonably hot pepper will do)

3 stalks of celery

about 2 carrots

either 1 can of kidney beans or 1/2 a cup of dried beans

2 medium sized potatoes, diced

If using dried beans: Soak over night and rinse well (multiple times) before adding to the chili. 

Cut the sausage up if you have it in links. Brown it in a pan with the garlic and onions (roughly chopped). Put the browned sausage, onions, garlic, and pan drippings into the crock pot. Seed and dice your peppers. Dice your celery and carrots. Add everything to the crockpot set on low (do not drain the tomatoes). Proceed to ignore it for about 6-8 hours. 

Serve over rice with cheese and sour cream. Keep a glass of milk handy, just in case. 

I am going back to Fwigf tomorrow since there is a lot of work that has to get done. Life has eaten me so I haven't been out there as frequently as I should, and I want everything back to organized chaos before life eats me again.The plan for tomorrow entails:

Weeding. The weeds are taking over. I do not approve.

Picking lettuce. It came back. I do not approve.

Planting Turnips where the lettuce was. Turnips are much better.

Tying up my tomatoes

Reigning in my pumpkins

Harvesting some spinach

Not getting heatstroke and dying. 

Picking through the dead potato buckets for potatoes and mounding the living ones with the dirt. 

We will see how much I get done.

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:

(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. 

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.

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.

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.