As my Marketmore and Chinese Yellow cucumbers swing into full production I have been looking for a recipe that I recall from childhood. I have heard them called refrigerator pickles, cucumber salad, marinated cucumbers and vinegared cucumbers, though there are multiple meanings to some of those monikers so I am sticking with calling them vinegared cucumbers.Pro Tip - when picking cucumbers, bring them in and pop them into an ice bath to remove the "field heat" and cool them down quickly. They will keep better for longer with this trick.There are many variations on this recipe and I tried a couple before cobbling together this one that comes closest to the crisp, bright taste I remember in my grandmother's vinegared cucumbers:2 cucumbers with the skin peeled in strips then sliced to preferred thickness3/4 cup apple cider vinegar1 1/2 cups waterA few slices of red onion (optional)Pack cucumber slices into two 1/2 pint canning jars (or whatever you have that you can put a lid on), packing red onion along sides and top. Mix together vinegar and water and pour over until cucumbers are covered. Close jar and marinate in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours.
Making Hay While The Sun Shines - Part 2
Even before the surprise bounty of figs arrived on my doorstep Saturday morning, I had a hefty agenda for my first full weekend back home in my garden in 3 weeks.Serranos - picking them at both the green and red stages, sharing some with friends and preserving the rest. My favorite methods for enjoying serranos in the off season are vacuum packing them fresh and whole and freezing or else sliced in half, seeded, roasted on the grill and then vacuum packed.
(roasted, vacuum sealed and frozen)
Cucurbits - I needed to put out 8 new 1'x1' boxes for the fall planting of cucumbers and summer and winter squashes to keep them from shading their neighbors in the garden as well as giving them a bit more room to spread out as well.
I will be making an A-frame trellis out of bamboo poles and chicken wire this weekend to provide a climbing structure for the back/north-most row that will have cucumbers and spaghetti squash. I am planting 4 varieties of zucchini on the front, south-most row which include 3 new variates in addition to the Black Beauty that have done well despite the invasion of squash vine borers.
I also removed the herbs from the middle garden bed in the above shot to make room to double my strawberry patch into a second box for next year with the prolific runners from this year's plants that I have been rooting in containers.
The most handsome specimens of rosemary, sage, parsley and thyme were put into terracotta containers and the rest were dried in the inaugural run of my food dehydrator, crushed and stored in spice jars.
To me, the expression 'making hay while the sun shines' means thinking about where the food on my table in January will come from when I am drowning in the abundance of summer.
Inadvertent Homage
...to Scarborough Fair on my deck.
Companion planting 1670 style! Here is the Simon and Garfunkel version if you need to get the song unstuck from your head.
Saving Seed - Tomatoes
One of my goals for this year's garden is to save more of my own seeds for varieties I know I will be planting year after year. Saving my own seed moves my garden a little closer to being self-sufficient and maybe more importantly, by picking the best of the crop to save seed from year after year, I will be naturalizing the seeds to the place where they are grown instead of having seeds ideally suited to growing somewhere else.It is important to note that while the seeds of hybrid varieties can be saved, what grows from those seeds will likely have little resemblance to the previous year's plants. With the heirloom varieties I grow, I should be able to save seeds with reasonably reliable results but with normal variations.I am familiar with the fermenting method of saving tomato seeds but wanted to research my options to see if another method would work. I ran across this video that shows how to save tomato seeds on a paper towel.Fermenting definitely has benefits, the fermenting process helps break down the outer coating on tomato seeds, improving germination rates the following year, but increases the amount of seed handling and well...comes with a stinky, moldy cup hanging around for a week or two.I went with the paper towel method because it is easier, cleaner and has the added bonus that the bits of paper towel that will be torn off with the seeds next year will help hold moisture next to the seeds as they start to germinate.These Roma tomatoes will be popped in the freezer until I have enough to make a big batch of sauce to can or freeze.
Selecting only the best specimens to save seed from and making sure to save from more than one plant to maintain genetic diversity. Each paper towel of seeds is from one tomato.
I have also been saving seed from the Amana Orange Beefsteak tomatoes.
The seeds have been drying on wire shelving for a little over a week and are ready to be packaged, labeled and tucked into my seed box for next year.
I plan to test the germination rate in late winter when there is still time to order and start seeds if this method does not prove viable. If it does work well, I will be looking to use something similar to paper towels again next year, but with recycled material that has not been bleached. Kaizen!
Green With Envy
Last fall when I decided that edamame would be a fun and delicious addition to the garden, the only seed variety available through Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds was a variety called Envy.The spring crop consisted of roughly 130 plants in a 4'x4' bed. When the spinach and lettuce bolted in mid-May, I used some of the left over seeds to cover crop those areas until fall when I can replant leafy greens and start my fall planting of the soybeans.Earlier this month I harvested the official crop with a weigh in of 1lb, 6oz of pods. The cover crop plants are producing just as vigorously as the spring crop so it looks like I will have a bonus mid-summer harvest of Envy.Envy soybeans which average 2 beans per pod are on the smallish side for those of us used to restaurant edamame with its typical 3 and 4 beans.
I did not use soil inoculants and relied on the native bacteria population in my soil to create a symbiotic relationship with the plants and form the nodules that help fix nitrogen. The nodules were stripped from the roots and worked back into the soil as I harvested the plants.
The pods were washed and blanched for 3 minutes, then plunged into ice water to stop the cooking process inside. They were dried by being spread on a towel then blotted with a second towel before being divvied into 3 freezer bags of about 7.3oz each.
I waited about 2 weeks before preparing one of the packages to assess the entire enterprise.
Lessons learned:1. Baker Creek has since added two other soybean varieties one of which averages 3 beans and I want to try it for my fall planting and compare the total pods/weight produced. The Envy were delicious and I am looking forward to preparing my cover crop harvest in a few weeks.2. Of the entire harvest, only a handful of beans had the fibrous taste and texture of being on the plant a little too long. I count this as a success since it was my first year growing and the harvest instructions say things like "harvest before the pods have a hint of yellow color". This is the sort of advice that only works AFTER they have a hint of yellow.3. The 7+oz servings were a little large, so next time I will prepare in 5oz packages.4. Edamame will now be a permanent fixture in my garden.
Canning - Green Beans
I received a wonderful offer today from a dear friend and colleague. A hands-on canning lesson with fresh Blue Lake bush beans from her husband's garden. The photo below captures about half of his very productive garden. He is growing okra, summer squash, beans, broccoli, tomatoes, eggplant, basil and I am sure I am missing at least a few more.
The Ball canning recipe book was open on the island and 6 quarts of beans were cleaned and snapped in a large bowl. We used a colander to submerge a portion of the beans into boiling water for 5 minutes.
The 1 quart canning jars fresh out of a 180 degree hot water bath are started with 1 tsp. salt before being packed with freshly cooked beans to 1" from the top of the jar. The cooking liquid is then ladled in to the same 1" from the top. Long sticks are used to remove air bubbles by compressing the cooked beans inward from the jar and working all the way around it a couple of times.
The liquid is topped off to 1" again and the neck of the jar cleaned to prepare it for being sealed.
The hot lid is added fresh from the hot water bath (180 degrees) with tongs.
The lids are screwed on hand-tight and jars are packed into the pressure cooker.
The recipe instructions for the pressure cooker are very specific. Eventually the pressure reaches 10 lbs and the beans are cooked another 25 minutes.
At the end of a couple of hours of wonderful company and conversation and a bit of vino, she had canned green beans and I had more experience and comfort with canning.
On top of the lesson, she generously shared 2 quarts of the newly canned beans as well as some of their fresh garden bounty. I thanked her by graciously inviting myself to an upcoming tomato canning :)
Early July Update
This morning I started 22 strawberry runners and found another 8 that were already well established in the existing strawberry bed. I began this year with 32 plants and I think I will start 2016 with double the number.
The serrano peppers are being harvested green but I am letting a few go to red also. They are hotter than jalapenos but I think they have a better flavor also.
The Blue Beauty heirloom tomatoes are so pretty as their color develops. The bird netting has so far kept all of the slicing and roma tomatoes safe from birds and squirrels. My fingers are crossed that this holds true when they ripen too.
The first year blackberry has sent up one good cane so far which is secured to the trellis and is topped at 6.5' to encourage lateral shoots.
The edamame is very close to harvest. I will freeze them in serving size vacuum sealed packages and hope to have enough to enjoy them throughout the year until the next harvest.
That's the garden update for this overcast and occasionally rainy July 3rd.
Two New Acquaintances
I made two new acquaintances in the garden this week. The first was the American Goldfinch of which the National Audubon Society book says of their call "bright per-chick-o-ree, also rendered as potato-chips", my new favorite bird fact.
The other new acquaintance this week was not as charismatic as the goldfinch...
The Squash Vine Borer is the squash killing larvae of the Melitta Curcurbitae moth. As its name indicates, it bores into the hollow stems of squash plants and begins eating the plant from the inside out. Because the pest is hidden with the plant, organic treatments are pretty hands on. The best options are either to perform plant surgery and open up a little of the stem following the bore hole to find and dig out the worm and kill it or, and this will be my preferred method, running a toothpick through the plant stem, skewering and killing the larvae but leaving the plant less damaged than opening a larger hole.Fingers crossed my spaghetti squash makes it though the aggressive acupuncture treatment!
Learn As You Grow
Between now and November the most common phrase in my Google search history will be "when to harvest..." followed by the common name of a first year plant in my garden that is showing signs of being nearly there.In general, operating on a need-to-know-basis with my garden works well for me. A quick search told me that I have some time before my first year spaghetti squash will need to be harvested.
But it's not without it's misses too. I mistakenly expected my first year zucchini to continue to grow at something like the rate they did from the 1" to 4" phase. One of the young zucchini shot to 11" and a whopping 1 lbs. in just two days! Researching revealed that I had missed the mark on this one and would need to watch more closely to catch them at the 6"-9" size for the best flavor and texture.
I do look forward to the day when I have grown my staple cultivars so many times that much of it becomes second nature to me. But I will always experiment a little too, trying new plants and varieties to keep this learn-as-you-grow wonder alive.For the record, my overgrown zucchini was still delicious and I don't think it was just because it was the first one.
A Collaborative Dance
I think of my garden as a collaborative dance with nature and I am always looking for ways to be a better dance partner.My garden is exactly one square foot smaller than the maximum allowed in the HOA rules so I was loathe to use valuable garden space for non-edible plants. Instead I decided to make flower beds around the pines and larger sweet gumballs that occupy the back 1/3 of my yard.When selecting what flowers to grow, I tried to stick with varieties that are native to this area to be low maintenance, have something blooming from spring through fall and hopefully be just like mom's cooking to the wild pollinators.Lucky for me this includes Lily of the Valley and Balsam (below, pink) with Canterbury Bells and Candytuft (below, purple) being naturalized.
Despite not being native, I couldn't resist Mother of Pearl Poppys (below) and Four O' Clock Sweets. 
And in spring a colleague gifted me with some pink Calla Lily bulbs.
I also have a Malope mix, 3 varieties of sunflowers, Blue Zebra Primrose and Zenias growing.I am trying to encourage nature by giving it what it needs, then mostly staying out of the way while it grows delicious food.
If I Were a Rich Man
I have the outlines of a dream homestead in mind and every time I think of it, the chorus from "If I Were a Rich Man" plays in my head. It sits on a small acreage, less than 15. It has a good sized, stocked lake, space for an expanded back yard garden, a greenhouse and a mixed fruit orchard. There is a place for a small apiary and for backyard chickens.Close on the heels of the song from Fiddler on the Roof is a tongue in cheek quote I first heard in a Michael Pollan book:As the farmer who won the lottery said when asked what he was going to do with his winnings, “Keep farming until it’s all gone.”While I enjoy the idea of my dream homestead, I am going to keep trying to make my .2 acres as productive as possible in the meantime!
Spring Garden to Summer Garden
It is June and the turning from the spring garden to the summer garden is well underway. I am quickly picking the last of my lettuce before it bolts meanwhile the edamame is flowering.
The sugar snap peas, snow peas and strawberries are in full swing while the blueberries are just beginning to take on a purple hue.
The serrano peppers are fruiting and flowering at the same time.
I am pleased with how many spears my first year asparagus crowns are throwing up. The shoots are tall and flopsy when they grow out so they are staked for support during this first unmolested this year. I hope to be able to sample a couple of spears next year and in 2017 they should be healthy, happy crowns I can harvest from.
The spaghetti squash have reached the top of the 8' bamboo supports and are making good use of the top bar to spread out.
Not pictured:The blackberries are hard, green nubs right now. The pepper plants are flowering as are the zucchini, cucumbers and tomatoes. The chard is getting large and I hope to try stuffed chard leaves soon. The acorn squash is blooming but staying much closer to the ground than the climbing spaghetti.I love this time of year!
On Kaizen and Garden Logs
Kaizen is a word that has one meaning in the dictionary sense and a wholly different meaning in the popular mind. The dictionary definition is "change for the better", but over time, this word has morphed through its adaptation both as a business philosophy and a motivational concept into something more akin to "constant, incremental improvement" - that we should seek to do each and every thing we do, no matter how small or great, a little better than we did the day before. The philosophy that has grown up around kaizen doesn't contemplate ever actually reaching perfection, only continually striving to be closer to it. Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a fantastic documentary that displays the heart of kaizen.Gardens are a great place to embrace the practice of kaizen as they will enthusiastically share with us laundry lists of ways that we could plan, execute, research or just plain do better each day, week, month and year. And luckily we can keep garden logs (or journals) to make note of all of those over and under-estimates, the good ideas and the bad, the lucky guesses and unlucky ones, and of course, how much produce was grown in the garden during the year.Gardens and gardeners are both works in progress, but it is the gardener that must implement the incremental improvements. Noting in my log that my cilantro and spinach bolted this year during the week I was in DC this May, I can plan to harvest a couple of weeks earlier next year and keep more of my spring harvest. Garden logs are also helpful to review in fall/winter when planning the following year's garden. What varieties did well and which did not? Was one variety slower to bolt?Approaching our gardens with the philosophy of kaizen, not always getting it right but always improving and logging on a regular basis what we see happening in the garden is less discouraging when things don't work out as envisioned than "anything worth doing is worth doing right the first time" for new growers.Here's to always growing!
Good Companions, Bad Companions
"It is better to travel alone than with a bad companion"~ African ProverbGardening can be as simple or as complex as we chose to make it and the results will echo our intentions. An inclination to grow a few things will result in exactly that, a few things coming up. A desire to grow food will involve a bit more planning, time and effort to consider which items to grow and how best to grow them. A serious intention to grow as much food as possible within the space available on a continual basis will require careful planning, including crop rotations (which I discussed in a previous post), companion planting considerations (which I will discuss here) and strategic succession plantings to create a rolling harvest.Plants are a bit like dinner guests, there are some that seated side by side will find great pleasure in the symbiotic company and will make new friends while others that if placed in close proximity will antagonize each other. This is mostly related to nutrient and root/leaf space needs of different plant families but can also due to how some plants interact with their proximity (ex: alliums exude a chemical that inhibits the growth in legumes).You don't have to hit the botany books to steer clear of the antagonistic relationships or deduce which plants would make good companions - there are plenty of companion planting charts available online ranging from the very simple to the very complex. A little planning will increase your plants happiness and your harvest. Or you could just wing it ;)
Attention - Manufacturers
Have I got an idea for you, a FREE idea! Hydrocortisone infused socks! You already make socks infused with lotion to soften our feet. How about a little something for those of us who are losing the organic battle with chiggers?Chiggers - 2 (feet)Me - 0
Garden Toy - Hod
Zucchini and squash season is just around the corner and I had been looking for a replacement for my lovely, but somewhat lightweight flower basked that I use to gather what needs picking and what's for dinner (usually the same things) each day. After a few searches for garden baskets I ran across this shiny new toy, I mean garden hod.
Pros:Food-grade vinyl-covered mesh means you can hose off produce right in the hod before bringing it inside16 quart capacity means plenty of space for an evening's bountyFlat bottom is perfect for when I want to use a small bowl to separate out small itemsSturdy construction...see belowCons:Sturdy construction - this hod is 3.5 lbs. when emptyPersonally, I am okay with the one con. I garden for a number of reasons and needing to exert a little physical energy to get my food is one of them.I give my new garden hod an A+
Night Garden
My back deck has a beautiful view of the garden and is one of my favorite places to be in the evenings. A few months ago I had the idea of adding some solar lanterns to the garden beds primarily as a safety precaution against guests tripping over raised-bed edges after dark but also to add a little visual interest to the garden during my evening reveries.Since then, the soft light of the lanterns kissing the plants good night has become one of my favorite ways to view the garden. My camera of choice (and necessity) is an iPhone 5s, so it is limited in its nighttime shooting capabilities even with the myriad of apps available so I shot this one just after dusk when the lights had begun their night watch but there was still enough light to not turn out a grainy image.
A Tisket, A Tasket
A tisket, a tasket, sandwich greens in my basket!Tonight's dinner shopping spree in the garden was for accouterments for egg salad sandwiches. Clockwise starting at the bottom is some spinach that is on the verge of bolting in this warm weather, some lola rosa lettuce, cilantro and those olive green sprigs at the 3 o'clock position are sweet pea shoots (trimmed from the growing tips of my producing plants) which add a light, sweet pea taste to any sandwich, salad or stir-fry. In the center are leek thinnings which I use like scallions and add a lightly onion taste to dishes.
If you to garden but don't want to dine on salads nightly, I agree wholeheartedly and suggest we make a nice sandwich instead!
One Man's Trash is Another Man's Haute Cuisine
In the past couple of years microgreens have become a buzzword on restaurant menus and news articles talking about their nutritional content compared to the mature varieties of the same plant. Some early studies show that there may be reason to laud their nutritional content and chef's put them on their menus because they are delicious to the eye and the taste buds.I grow a number of indoor microgreens (basil, cilantro, mustard, arugula, beets) to add color, flavor and crunch to dishes but you don't have to set up a grow area to get some microgreens in your diet, you can just repurpose your plant thinnings.This year I overseeded my regular and dwarf varieties of pak choy and basil in my backyard garden because I was using 3 year old seeds and suspected that I would have low germination rates. Surprise, the seeds germinated at a remarkable rate and now I have a whole lot of extra seedlings that will have to be removed to make room for the vigorous individuals to grow to maturity. Rather than cut them and toss them in the compost, I let edible seedlings grow enough to be used as microgreens before snipping them down.Below you can see that I thinned one square of the dwarf pak choy that will be used as microgreens today and I will save thinning the square next to it until I can use them in a meal. Waste not, want not!
Whether you are just thinning seedlings or clipping microgreens to go into your next meal, be sure to use scissors or a similar sharp pruner to cut the plants at soil level. If you pull on your thinnings, you may damage the delicate roots of the one you have selected to grow to maturity.
Getting The Most From Your Harvest
For urban growers, getting the most production out of the smallest space possible is an absolute priority! I can grow a lot in my 224 sq ft space, but there are ways of making what you grow give you even more.One of my favorite methods of getting more is to harvest leaves, but allow the plant to regenerate and keep growing more leaves. Not all garden plants are suitable to this, but if it is an herb or vegetable you grow for the leaves, chances are that you can.Some of my favorite plants to steal from are cilantro, chard, spinach, lettuce, basil, oregano, rosemary, sage, thyme and parsley and you can do this even when they are quite young. The trick is to only steal a little from each plant so the plant can recover and continue to grow.Below are my young cilantro plants. I choose the largest, oldest leaves from furthest down the plant stem to leave the fresh young growth undisturbed and pinch off one or two from each plant or as much as is needed for a meal.
The spinach is more mature but I still want to keep the plants growing and only harvest what I need right before a meal.
There is nothing fresher than still warm from the sun or wet from the rain.
Who says you can't have your plants and eat them too :)*Note - even those little cilantro and spinach stems will be put to good use either as flavorings for stocks or to into the compost.