The Modern "Victory Garden"

The strength and length of available sun is obviously ramping up significantly.   In addition, the arc of the sun in the sky has moved higher such that the sun is now starting to clear the tall trees that surround our property occassionally.     The greenhouse and back garden beds in particular are showing real appreciation for the infusion of solar energy.   The greenhouse plantings and trays of seedlings have just taken off this week.   In fact, I need to harvest the kale plantings soon and the onion seedlings really should be planted out into the garden this coming weekend.   A sure sign that spring has really arrived - is the rhubarb is up in force. 

I found the first spear of asparagus poking through the soil this past weekend too!    It’s small and does not show up well in a photo, but like the rhubarb it makes me happy as they are the first substantial crops of the early spring garden.      

The replacement raspberry plants were supposed to arrive on Friday but did not.   With my husband’s help we forged ahead despite that to largely finish up the raspberry patch rejuvenation project on Saturday.   The big thing still on the to do list (besides planting the replacement plants) was to construct the supports for the raspberry beds.   Together we got them constructed and installed in no time at all.    

Today, the raspberry plants finally arrived and I made a point to leave work on time so I could get home before dark and plant them up.   No pictures to share because it was getting dark by the time I finished, but they are all in.   Now the only task I have left to do on this spring project is to reinstall the drip irrigation hose down the bed of raspberries.   Hopefully these newest bare root plants will all break dormancy and help fill in the missing portions of the raspberry bed.         

It’s a good thing the early spring crops are taking hold and starting to produce.   The inventory of freezer items from the garden is getting down to a low level because we have been leaning on them so hard for months now.   The canned items are less depleted overall but certain items (like dilly green beans) have long been used up.   The pickled peppers on the other hand have been hardly touched.   They taste great but honestly, we prefer diced frozen (roasted and raw) peppers and I am having a hard time finding ways to work them into our menus.   If you have any great ideas to share on this – I would love to hear them.   The late fall/winter crops are essentially done for the year with the exception that I still have some over wintered carrots to harvest, and there are parsnips still in the ground too - but they are going to seed and need to just be pulled.   I think the preserved supply level was just about right this year and we have not been wanting for much of anything as a result.   The only storage/preserved crop that is running out far too soon this year are the onions.   2009 was a rather bad production year for onions for some reason.   We used up the storage onions a while ago and have been using my freezer supply of diced onions but they too are fast running out and the green onions in the garden and greenhouse are still too small yet to harvest.   We may have to actually reduce down (possibly even stop) the onion usage for cooking for a while.   Now that is a true hardship because I use onions in just about everything I cook it seems.   Hopefully the green onions will get a kick-start from the increasing sun energy and I will not have to endure the onion drought for too long.   To avoid having this problem in 2010, I am planting significantly more onions and hedging my bets by planting not only onions started from seeds, but also sets, and my usual multiplier onion patch as well.   Keep your fingers crossed for me that 2010 is a better onion year altogether.            

Got any good ideas on how to incorporate pickled peppers into our evening meals?

This year’s preserving efforts had a few new recipes and a return of some old favorites.   I thought it might be fun to do a follow up to the previous posts and let you know what my judgment is on how several items turned out. 

In the totally new to me category there was pickled jalapeño peppers and spiced red cabbage relish.   We just opened the first jar of the pickled jalapeño peppers this evening and gave them a try.   Wow!   Those turned out very good.   I am glad I added the crushed red pepper flakes to the recipe because the peppers were not very hot this year and the red pepper flakes added a really nice heat.   This recipe (as modified by me) earns big thumbs up.   Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the spiced red cabbage relish.   I opened the first jar of this several weeks ago and could not even finish the first spoonful.   Yuck.   This recipe earns a big thumbs down and I am going to have to just empty the remaining jars out before someone injures themselves trying to eat some of it.   Yikes!                      

In the old favorites category we had dill pickle relish, pickled beets, and dilly green beans. True to form, these old standbys delivered to expectations.   I have to say though that I had forgotten how much I love dilly green beans. Once a jar is opened, it gets consumed almost immediately.   Nothing like a crisp croccantini flatbread cracker with a schmear of fromage blanc and then topped with a crisp dilly green bean. The spicy heat of the bean is complemented by the smooth creaminess of the cheese.  Heaven.           

So there you have it.   With the exception of the horrific spiced red cabbage relish, the rest of the specialty preserved items turned out wonderful.   If you used that spiced red cabbage relish recipe because I posted it…. you have my most sincere apology!

Fall has arrived with a grand flourish.   The Japanese maple trees in the front of our place have turned a flaming red - almost glowing in the gloomy overcast conditions we have been experiencing for the past several days.     

The garden crops are now almost exclusively fall and winter items with the exception of the pepper plants that continue to flourish in the protection of the greenhouse.   Yesterday I pulled the first of the 2009 parsnips and a few carrots to fix for dinner.                                                      

These were sliced up and sautéed in butter until tender and sweet.   Not the biggest specimens but I was trying to do a little thinning and pulled some roots that were too crowded.                       

My husband and I spent several hours today prowling around the waterfront shops in Poulsbo.   We also stopped at Valley Nursery hoping to find some Heritage raspberries to purchase so we could fill in where some of our spring planted bare root stock did not thrive.   Unfortunately, they did not have any Heritage plants and I really was not willing to settle for anything else.   I ended up buying a large bag of purple onion sets while I was there - but no raspberries.   When I got home, I planted about 24 of the onion sets next to the fall planted multiplier onions.       

The peppers in the greenhouse have been continuing to do well and the Early Jalapeno plants in particularly were in need of some harvesting.   Late this afternoon I picked quite a few of them and a handful of ripe mini bell peppers.         

Since I have several bags of sliced and frozen peppers and several jars of pickled peppers, I decided to roast these peppers first before freezing them.   The peppers were split and the seeds removed and then placed on a hot grill until the skins began to char and crack.                    

The peppers were then immediately placed in a brown paper bag that was then sealed shut and allowed to sit for about 10 to 15 minutes.   When removed from the bag the peppers were ready for the charred skin to be easily peeled off.               

The mini bells are not a very meaty pepper so the removal of the skins was a little less than easy but the Jalapeno peppers roasted up nicely and the skins came off quite handily.              

 The aroma of roasting peppers is really quite wonderful.   I could not resist them and ended up eating a few as I was doing the grilling.    Scrumptious!   These will be nice to have for future meals.

Thursday night was another evening spent canning produce I purchased while traveling back from Spokane this past weekend.   This time it was the box of pears.   They were quite green when purchased (purposely chose green fruit so that I had more time to get to them) and they had ripened up nicely to the point of being perfect on Thursday.               

We reserved out a few for fresh eating, and the rest were peeled, quartered, and the cores/seeds cut out.   These were then heated in light syrup until hot and then packed into quart jars and processed in my water bath canner.   Pears cut into quarters pack pretty tightly into the jars and so I ended up with 7 very full quarts of pears from the box along with a few fruits reserved for fresh eating.      

I expect that this will be the last canning effort for this season.   I have lots more produce that will be preserved by freezing (the last of the corn & pumpkins (puree)), but I am not planning to can anything else at this point.   I had intended to do some regular dill pickles but the pickling cukes, while still producing, are not generating enough at any time to make processing worth my while.   We have been just using them fresh instead along with the slicing cucumbers.   Everything else in the garden is either intended to be used fresh and/or overwintered in the garden or stored by dry cellaring.        

I have a good supply of frozen, dry storage, and canned items that will supplement the garden's fall and winter harvests.   We prefer fresh produce from our four season harvest garden so I do not need huge amounts of preserved items - but we do need enough to fill in during the low periods of produce availability and to add more variety to the menu.              

The fall and winter crops are in and growing well.  Many are already harvest ready.   The freezer is full and so is the pantry.   The firewood is stacked and dry.   We just have a few chores to attend to for winter prep (stove pipe/chimney sweeping and gutter cleaning).   With the summer preserving efforts largely completed, I can now spend more time in the garden itself - which is something I am looking forward to.     

How is your preserving efforts going for this year?

Last Sunday on the way home from my trip to Spokane, I stopped at the big produce barn in Thorp Washington and purchased a box each of peaches and pears.   The pears were quite green and need a few days to ripen.   The peaches were just perfect though, and needed to be preserved within a very short time frame.   Monday was just far too hectic at work to even consider getting away on time to tackle the peaches, so Tuesday evening (today) was the designated day for it.                        

Doing preserving efforts in the evening after a long day at the office requires really good organization skills and a little planning.   The first order of business is to ensure that the evening meal was prepared ahead of time to keep the schedule clear for the canning/freezing work.    I started some barbeque pork chops with diced potatoes in the crock-pot and prepped a large bowl of coleslaw that went into the fridge - before I left for work today.   The second thing that was necessary was to actually leave work on time.   That is harder than it sounds but I managed to accomplish it. 

After a fast meal of the sweet and spicy barbeque pork chops, potatoes, and coleslaw, the box of peaches was attended to.   First I processed some canned peach halves in light syrup.   Then I made a batch of peach jam.   Finally, I sliced up peaches, coated them with sugar, and packaged them in 5-cup amounts in gallon zip lock freezer bags.   I ended up with 7 quarts of the peach halves, 3 pints and 2 half pints of peach jam, and 2 gallon freezer bags with sweetened peach slices.   

The picture does not show the freezer bags of peach slices, as I rushed them into the freezer as soon as I could after packaging them up.   The 5-cup amounts per freezer bag are just the right amount for peach pie or for  peach cobbler.     

If all goes well, I plan to do a similar effort on Thursday to get the pears processed.   For now, I am glad to get the box of peaches done and I think the end results are "Just Peachy"!

The weather was overcast but not storming this morning and recognizing that I will be tied up all next weekend, I decided to take a chance and go ahead and do the potato harvesting process today - hoping it would not start raining again right in the middle of the task.                            

I worked my way through the entire 40-foot long bed, which had the Caribe, Yukon Gold, and Red Cloud potatoes in it.   I then moved on and did the harvest of the 12-foot long bed, which had the Butte potatoes in it (along with the Steins Late Flat Dutch cabbages so the potatoes were actually occupying about a 10-foot long bed section).   I ended up with 96 pounds of potatoes from the two beds.    

I also lifted over 15 additional pounds that I ended up having to destroy, as they clearly had some blight infection.      The potatoes were spread out on newspapers on the front deck to dry off.                          

They were allowed to dry for about two hours, and I turned them after the first hour to ensure the undersides had a chance to dry off too.     I then carefully sorted through them and used a shop rag to gently dust off the excess dried dirt.   Any potatoes that had skin damage or were injured by the garden fork during the lifting were held out in an open top box for immediate use.    I also removed several more potatoes that upon cleaning up revealed some more blight damage.   If in doubt, they were tossed out - as infected potatoes will rot and can spoil the other good ones that are adjacent to them in the storage boxes.   I will have to do periodic checks on these in storage to ensure that if any more go bad subsequently that they are promptly removed.   These were then sorted by variety and placed in storage boxes with shredded paper lining the bottom for moisture absorption.          

The 96 pounds I harvested today plus the 24 pounds I had harvested previously brings the total production from the potato beds at 120 lbs for the year.   Because there was some blight infection, I will not hold any seed stock out this year and will have to purchase new certified seed potatoes next spring.   The Buttes were entirely without blight infection and the Caribe potatoes suffered the most infection.                        

Before wrapping up, I broadcast seeded the newly opened beds with a green manure  / cover crop of crimson clover. These beds will rest through the winter and then early next spring I will turn the cover crop over into the soil.                         

Yesterday, it was storming something fierce.   I harvested several pounds of jalapeño peppers (and a few ripe mini bell peppers too) from the greenhouse during a torrential downpour and thunderstorm.   I was protected in the greenhouse but it was a bit unnerving!                                 

Once safely back in the house, I used the peppers to make 6 pints of pickled peppers.                                                              

I have not used this recipe before so I have no idea if it is any good.   I will have to wait at least four weeks to try it out.   Because the jalapeño peppers are not that hot this year, I added some crushed red pepper flakes to the recipe to introduce just a little more heat.                                   

Pickled Jalapeño Peppers                                    

Wash peppers and puncture each one several times with the tip of a sharp knife (3 or 4 times). Pack tightly in pint jars. Cover with a solution of:

• 4 cups vinegar
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup olive oil
• 4 teaspoons pickling salt
• 4 tablespoons mixed pickling spices
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Mix ingredients and bring to a boil. Cover peppers up to ½ inch from top of jar. Seal and process 10 minutes in water bath canner. Enough solution for 6 pints.                                                  

I hope you had a productive and fun Labor Day weekend.

After we got home from a big Costco shopping expedition and everything was put away, I took advantage of a brief break in the weather to remove the Siletz and Stupice tomato plants that had also succumbed to the blight infection.   This leaves just three Legend tomato plants in place in the garden now.   Prior to removing the plants, I harvested everything left that did not have blight lesions formed and which had at least broken color somewhat.   

I also harvested some cucumbers, pole beans, and corn.                         

And one of the many pumpkins was harvested too.                            

After the tomato patch was substantially cleaned up, I planted a 12 foot by 4 foot section in spinach and a 8 foot by 4 foot section in a green manure / cover crop of crimson clover.   The spinach will be the over wintering patch for this year.   A large over wintered spinach patch feeds us well from late February through April - when the garden's production is at its lowest point.                                     

Back inside the house, it was time to clean out the inside of the pumpkin.      

The seeds were rinsed and then placed on a paper towel lined cookie sheet to dry.                                                      

I will hold out the best of these for seed saving and the rest will be roasted - basted with some melted butter and seasoned based on my taste at that time.   Pumpkin seeds can be dressed very simply with just a sprinkle of salt, or can be made more interesting by adding a little cayenne pepper to the melted butter.                       

I like to use my turkey roaster pan for cooking pumpkins and squash.   I put water in the bottom of the pan and then lay the quartered pumpkin (rind side facing up) onto the rack.                            

These are then cooked in a 350 degree oven for approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour.   I use a fork to check that the pumpkin is soft throughout.   The pan is then removed from the oven, the water drained out, and the cooked pumpkin sections are set aside to cool.   Once they are cooled down sufficiently, the cooked pumpkin meat is scooped out and put into the food processor and pureed.   

Two cups of the pumpkin puree was reserved out for pie making, and the rest was put into quart sized Ziploc freezer bags - 2 cups or 1 lb per bag - for freezing. I got four bags for the freezer plus the pumpkin pie from just this one pumpkin.      

Yummy!

The weather is not very promising for the coming three-day weekend.   Forecast is calling for heavy rain and breezy conditions on Saturday and only mildly better weather on Sunday and Monday.   Fall has definitely arrived in the maritime Pacific Northwest.   Today was actually quite nice though and I took advantage of that this evening to do a few minor tasks in the garden.   Since the forecast is calling for some significant rain, I thought it would be wise to bring the flats of Walla Walla seedlings into the protection of the greenhouse - so they do not drown from too much water pooling in their base tray.   I also removed all of the branches and leaves from the lower half of the brussel sprout plants tonight and put them in the compost pile.   Removing the leaves and stems channels the energy of the plants into the development of the sprouts and provides the sprouts more room to grow larger.                                                 

This morning I picked a big bowl of strawberries.   I am pleased with the quality of the fall crop this year.   Last year, they ended up mostly going to the slugs and/or quickly rotting.   This year however, most of the fruit is ripening up nicely with only minor amounts of losses to slugs and rot.              

If the weather breaks at all this weekend, I need to do the first of the two big potato lifts.   If it is really wet out, I am going to have to postpone it.   However, the mid and early season potatoes are definitely ready to come out of the ground and given my commitments for the following weekend, I really need to do it this weekend if at all possible.                         

The largest head of the Late Flat Dutch cabbage needs to be harvested this weekend as well.                                                    

I also need to pick a bunch of jalapeño peppers that are getting quite large.   If there is enough of them, I hope to be able to do a few pints of sliced pickled jalapeño peppers.   Finally, I need to harvest the largest pumpkin, which has been ripe for a while now.                          

Since the weather is promising to be so gloomy all weekend, I figure it will be a good time to cook the pumpkin and use some of it immediately for a pumpkin pie and then freeze the rest of the puree in packages of 2 cups each - just the right amount for pie making.                      

Here's my garden "to do" list for this long weekend:

• Remove the remaining Siletz and Stupice tomato plants, which have also succumbed to the blight  (Done 9/5/09)
• Plant the big over wintering spinach patch where the tomatoes used to reside (Done 9/5/09)
• Harvest the big ripe pumpkin and process it for pie making - freezing what is not used immediately (Done 9/5/09)
• Harvest the large head of green cabbage and use it in various recipes over the next several days (Done 9/7/09)
• Lift, cure/dry, and store the Caribe, Yukon Gold, and Red Cloud potatoes - setting aside seed stock for next year as well (Done 9/7/09)
• Harvest the largest of the jalapeño peppers and pickle them (Done 9/6/09)
• If there is enough pickling cukes, I may do a batch of dill pickles as well. I am skeptical that I have enough though, as the cool down in the weather has slowed down production quite a lot (Not Enough)
• Spray the cole crops with Bt on Monday after the worst of the rain events is behind us for a while  (Ran Out of Time and Energy!)

Hopefully, I will get at least a few of these items attended to in the next three days along with a big Costco shopping and some other more mundane household chores.   What are your plans for the weekend?

I pulled the beet patch up this morning.   I had planted them primarily to provide a couple of pints of pickled beets and purposefully did not plant much more than that -  because quite frankly beets are not my family's favorite thing.   In fact, I am pretty much alone in my appreciation of pickled beets, which is why I strive not to put up more than a few pints each year.   We had harvested some for fresh eating earlier this summer so by the time I cleared out the rest of the plants - there was 3 ½ pounds left which was just enough to do 3 pints of pickled beets.        

One of the jars did not seal properly, so I put it in the refrigerator and will put it to use immediately.                                                

I started some Walla Walla onion seeds on August 16th and they are now all emerged and growing on quite well.                 

These will be planted out in early October so that they can over winter in the garden bed.   I have never tried over wintering sweet onions before, but I am told the practice produces really big onions so I am giving it a whirl this year.      

The swiss chard (Bright Lights) starts that I transplanted out recently are doing really well.                                       

I am harvesting from the summer planting still, but these young plants will be ready for harvest about the time that the garden bed plantings start shutting down.   Because they are in pots, they can be moved into the greenhouse when the weather turns particularly nasty -  where they will then reside for the remainder of the winter.                                   

Currently in the greenhouse I have all my pepper plants growing.   The Mini Bell peppers are amazingly prolific.                                

And the Early Jalapeños are loaded with fruit as well.                    

It definitely felt like fall today.   The sun did come out for a while mid-day but because of the early morning rain it just made it feel muggy and sticky.   The sunshine did not last long though.   Grey storm clouds arrived just a few hours later and everything returned to gloomy looking once again.   Since it is starting to really feel like fall, I thought I would give you an update on some of the fall crops.                                       

The parsnip patch is thriving and right next to it is one of the carrot patches that will be an over wintered harvest crop. I have four separate carrot plantings ranging from "fully mature" that we are currently harvesting from to "almost mature" which will be the over wintered harvest patch.          

The brussel sprout patch is also coming along well.   The plants are quite tall and have sprouts forming up.   They should be ready for the first harvest around mid to late September.                         

The cole crops I planted out mid-summer are starting to reach maturity.   There are several kohlrabi plants, which are ready to be harvested already.      

And the broccoli is beginning to develop heads on some of the plants.        

Another fall harvest item is the Steins Late Flat Dutch cabbages.   These really are heavy and flat heads that form on these plants.   This is the largest of the heads so far and could be harvested any time now.                

Nothing says "fall" like the pumpkin and winter squash patch though!   I have ten Small Sugar pie pumpkins that are coming to maturity and five good sized Buttercup winter squashes as well.   Some of the "Small" Sugar Pie pumpkins are actually quite large!                                   

I did not take a picture of the lettuce and spinach bed, but they are growing on too and should be ready to provide some light harvesting in just a few more weeks.                                              

Before I headed in to bake some bread for the coming week, I harvested a variety of items including some gold zucchini, cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes pole beans, runner beans, and an onion.                         

The cucumber, ½ the onion, and all of the tomatoes will be made into a tomato/cucumber salad.   The remaining items will all be used in a large beef and vegetable stir-fry with rice noodles for dinner tonight.               

Is it feeling like fall in your gardens too?

I am a proficient cook -  but not a great chef.   I must say though, that I really do love cooking in the summer time.   The choice of fresh ingredients is almost overwhelming and the colors and flavors are so intense.   The simple "no fuss" meals that I tend to favor, are made easier and more varied with the abundance of the summer garden.   Yesterday evening  I harvested some cucumbers, a large head of red cabbage, several tomatoes, an onion, and some zucchini (lots of it actually!).

One zucchini was hiding and is definitely oversized! 

The tomatoes, cucumber, and half of the onion were immediately cut up and sliced and then tossed together with some garlic infused vinaigrette dressing.   The resulting tomato/cucumber salad was gobbled up for lunches and snacks.   Tonight I harvested five fresh ears of corn, which was simply boiled and then served with butter and salt.   The corn went with some grilled New York steaks and a cabbage slaw salad made from half of the head of red cabbage and the other half of the onion.   The slaw was dressed with my favorite slaw dressing recipe; ¾ cup of mayo, 1/8 cup of lemon juice, 1/8 cup of real maple syrup, and a dash of ground nutmeg.   No picture to share of any this evening's meal, because there is no way that my family will wait around for me to take photos when they know the food is ready!  

So if you were keeping track of all that, you will know that I still have half a head of cabbage from the Tuesday night harvest left, plus the zucchini that is still unused.   I will likely use the remaining cabbage to make another cole slaw salad since there is almost nothing left of tonight's dish.   As for the zucchini, some will be used in tomorrow night's stir fry dinner (along with what ever else looks good and is ready in the garden) and the remaining over sized zuke will be grated and frozen for later use in zucchini cake etc.  

Life's good and the eating is even better - when the garden is in it's high summer season.