Keeping away the Twilight fans and Babies everywhere! (click on title to get)

A week ago (I know, behind on posting in real time) my garlic was looking really scruffy and yellow indicating that it was garlic yanking time!

I've already done a post on garlic harvesting and braiding from a while back so I won't bore you with the details all over again.

When I harvest my garlic each year, I also re-plant it at that time to replace what I've pulled up despite many people saying that garlic planting time is in the fall.  I figure if I have holes in the garden already, why not just plant more in them and my other reason is my garden is sort of self sustaining in the garlic growing area.  The first year I planted, I planted so much garlic that it was way too much for one harvest and it seemed that the cloves I planted might have grown at different rates, some smaller than others, so I left those smaller ones  in the ground for the next year's harvest.  Some I think have even been in there for 3 years just because I wanted them to get bigger.

Well, this year was a little different.  I still is a good sized harvest despite leaving some of the smaller ones in the ground as usual and there were quite a few beautifully sized bulbs to dry for use this year. Smelly joy!

The only change in the garlic harvesting/planting came from the garlic itself telling me something: They wanted to have babies apparently:

Lots of the garlic started sprouting flowers and growing bulbs at their tops like the Egyptian walking onion, but also bursting with little bulbs oddly from the middle of their stems too.  I assume that it was their time and they had matured and these little bulbs can be considered seed garlic.

The mama bulbs that produced the seed bulbs were still small and I set them aside with the idea of replanting them too, but decided later as an afterthought that maybe they had run their course and it might be better to just simply use them despite their smallness (maybe their flavor's more intense?)  I also made the decision not to replant the mama bulbs because there were so many little seed bulbs, those and the already too small bulbs still in the garden would get a little crowded if I added anymore extra garlic bulbs to the mix.

Currently I am leaving them to hang in the garage (pardon the mess o' sports equipment and tools in the background)  It's a relatively dark place with what I hope is some air circulation to prevent rot and sprouting.

(pic of lone mid-section sprouted bulb plant)

(closeup of the midsection garlic, great color!)

Last year I dried the garlic in the guest bedroom, but it did stink the place up of garlic (made worse because I kept the door closed in that room) and as I have guests coming, it's not happening now unless I can confirm my guests enjoy garlic scent as air "freshener."  My only concern about the garage is that it is rather hot and humid outside, the heat not so bad in the garage, but still, a bit of a concern.  I suppose we'll see.  Granted garlic is cheap if it goes bad, but it's obviously nice to use what you grow and that it doesn't go to waste.

(artsy photos of the garlic with my spiffy "it's Italian night!" tablecloth I found at the thrift store)

(who knew garlic could be so pretty?)

(I don't know what happened to this bulb for it to end up looking so weird... spirals of garlic cloves! Maybe I should plant these out in hopes that I can reproduce spiral garlic? Note: this is being propped up by a small bulb of garlic)

(Unpropped by another garlic bulb.  It's like some sort of garlic unicorn horn, or a smelly seashell?)

This, and winter squashes (missing those so bad this year) are amongst my favorite things to grow because of their shelf life.  Someday I'll get/make a root cellar and I might be able to keep carrots, potatoes, broccoli, cabbage and other goodies well into the fall/winter without refrigeration. Someday, one day I will!

I try to use the garlic up as fast as possible because there's nothing like peeling or chopping up your garlic to find that it's all gray-black and nasty smelling.  Any recipe suggestions?  Lots of Italian and roasted garlic use here, so if you've got something real good, send it this way!

Monday morning, is for kimchi making! (and Tuesday posts are for those who post late about Monday...)

(Yesterday I didn't get to update as promised because I have been busy busy with guests, so please forgive me for this late post.)

As many of you are experiencing, at least down in the South here, it's warmin' up and many of the cold weather plants are BOLTING.

The cilantro's gone to flower (off to become coriander if you so wish), the mustards are sending up stalks too and the corn salad (aka mache) has long gone by the wayside of anything near delicious.

My turnips and radishes have also begun to send up flower stalks and show off a few pretty purple flowers.

A few of those useful for next season's cold planting, but to salvage some for food use, I needed to think quickly about how best to use them.  Unfortunately the husband is not a fan of either of those vegetables and I can't eat them all on my own in enough time especially before it all becomes unpalatable.  So after thinking, thinking and thinking I realized: KIMCHEE!

I can't get the husband to want to eat kimchee either, but at least this will allow me to preserve the vegetables that I can eat it slowly on my own over time.  I thought about searching for some recipes online, but what wouldjaknow, reliable Mother Earth News read my mind in their most recent issue (got a subscription from the in-laws for Christmas).

Spiffy, so now I just needed the veggies...  M.E.N. lists using turnips, radishes (tops if wished), horseradish, garlic, ginger, carrots and scallions in their recipe.  I didn't have too many red radishes, and so I used what I could, the turnips were white Asian ones:

...ones that I had forgotten to thin out and grew a little weird and... obscene:

(sorry about the knife and "surgery" that happened to the turnip guys, don't mean to make you uncomfortable...) 

To make up for the lack of radishes and relatively small amount of turnip-y-ness I used some small Chinese cabbage.  I didn't have 'official' scallions and so I raided some stalks from the Egyptian Walking onion.

My carrots were 2 years in the ground and flowering (and too woody obviously for use).  I've decided to use carrots in the garden now for loosening the soil and when they flower, the umbels of carrots have such tiny flowers that they are good for attracting especially nice pollinators.  It's so cheap to purchase a bag of carrots it's hard for me to justify growing them when I could use the room for other things.

Perhaps I will grow some of those awesome purple or red carrots that I can't find in the stores usually that would make it worthwhile.

After a lot of chopping I finally was ready to brine the veggies in a jar!  As it turned out, the cabbage gave the recipe more heft and caused the recipe to double and I needed to add more brine than it called for.  To make sure that the vegetables become fully preserved, it's suggested to immerse cover (use a plate)or use a plastic water weight (plastic bag full of water here) over the jar of vegetables and brine so that there's no spoilage and contact with air.

After the veggies sit in brine overnight you taste for saltiness level in the morning (which is what I did today, Tuesday morning) and then you add the seasonings.  I would have used horseradish, ginger, garlic and fresh chili peppers grown here, but they were not ready/ in season and I had used all of mine already from last season anyways.

So, alas... note to self to make this recipe again in the winter when all those things are in season in the garden (duh).  (Ooh, then I can have jars and jars and JARS of kimchee!  I wonder if I can, can it so that it doesn't take up room in the fridge... mmm)

We had all these seasonings in the fridge/pantry on hand as we cook Asian-y food often enough, so that was helpful.  I used whole red chilis (though the recipes states powdered Korean chili is fine) and had a mini workout by grating ginger (gotta stay buff somehow!)  Technically you're supposed to make a paste of the rest of the spices/seasonings which I proceeded to do for 2 minutes with a small mortar and pestle of mine, but then gave up and just dumped my relatively finely minced/shredded seasonings in the vegetable and brine mix and decided it would probably be fine.  After stirring everything around well, you cover with a dish or water weight again to begin, FERMENTATION! (a beautiful process that all delicious things in life use: wine, beer, pickles, etc.)

(ta da!  Seasoned kimchee, ready to bum around for a week and get sour!  please note: the stove was just a convenient place to put the jar for the pic.  I found that it leaked some brine after a while when the plastic water bag weight settles a bit.  No actual cooking over a hot stove was done during this mini-project)

The recipe tells me to let the jar go for a week like this and to check on it every day for sourness level and make sure that it's still covered.  Hopefully I don't die of botulism or something... My understanding, like my past failed experience with pickles, is that if the stuff doesn't taste good, you did something wrong, and you need to toss whatever you tried pickling (because why would you want to keep it anyways?)

So, if you don't hear from me after I try this stuff in a week... you'll know the reason.  

mini-update about the mold thing

I had completely forgotten to mention also sour milk (or fresh or powdered milk) is also an anti-fungal.

I remembered this when I opened my fridge today and noticed the leftover milk from making yogurt with (if you want the simple, super awesome recipe just ask! It's so easy and magic) had gone bad.


Did a little research and found a nice little science for backup. (note especially the 30% dilution mention)

Also having slipped my memory (as I don't have to deal with problem often, and once you find one thing that works you sort of stick with it) is that chamomile tea, garlic solutions, and cinnamon solutions (or powder) are also an purported method of mold/mildew prevention/treatment.

So, cuppa chamomile-garlic-cinnamon-milk tea anyone?  (I'm sort of seriously thinking of doing this)

This fact made me whip up a dust of powdered milk, ground cinnamon and garlic powder (NOT SALT) which I sprinkled at the base of my house plants in hope that it will drive away any pests.

This would be interesting to use in a solution as long as you filter it ahead... gunked up sprayers are no fun.

Other helpful links:
http://www.yougrowgirl.com/tips_disease.php
 http://newfarm.rodaleinstitute.org/columns/cut_flowers/2005/0505/disease.shtml
 http://www.ghorganics.com/page15.html

Let us eat lettuce! Salud to the salad!

A while back my mother gave me a bunch of seeds that she thought were chard, then I realized when looking at them later they weren't and confronted her about this and she then said it was a Chinese vegetable of sorts, which after a while of talking with her I concluded that my mom is just a nut as usual. 

The seeds (sown under a raspberry plant) appeared to be lettuce like and after promising that inform readers of their fate this is what has sprung up in their place:

Looks like lettuce doesn't it? (Bleeds like lettuce too, you know that white sap that oozes when they're cut)

The only thing is, is that I have no clue what lettuce they are.  They were apparently 2 different lettuce varieties.  Obviously lettuce seeds are pretty standard tiny skinny football shaped things of varying shades of brown so if anyone is able to discern what is what here I'd appreciate it.  Both appear to be loose leaf lettuces, one I would not be surprised to be a generic black simpson and the other has light purpling about the leaves.

Here's the first type:

And now the second:

(closeup of purpling)

If you're a lettuce eater/grower/identifier, I'd appreciate any info!

On a similar note, husband and I made chirashi salad again with the plethora of greens that abounded in the garden!  In the basket is sorrel, salad burnet, siberian kale, garlic green, mache, mystery lettuces #1 and #2, mustard greens and Swiss chard.

Though not a "true" salad by some historical definitions where there are dozens of greens if not more, it was still quite delish with the pops of spicy of the mustard, the textures of the soft mache leaves/flowers (it was bolting now) to the ruffly kale, garlickiness of the... garlic and unexpected flavor of the chard.

It was my first year growing the Swiss chard and I was WEIRDED OUT by the saltiness of it.  Not unpleasant, just not expected.  I wonder if it really was as salty as I thought it was or if I simply note saltiness more than other people.  Other than dehydration, what might make chard more salty than usual I wonder? Large amounts of fertilizer (which I swear I didn't do)?

Self seeders. Gotta love 'em. (and some perennial veg goodness thrown in for good measure)

A boon to having a ridiculous amount of plants/herbs: self seeders.

Many years of letting the plants "just go" has made my garden basil/parsley/cilantro/oregano (a perennial.. I know, but it's flowered and seeded too!)/garlic (off shoot bulbs, yada)/Egyptian walking onion (YES!)/dill (sort of) and now recently feverfew, California poppy and bells of Ireland seem to be going on autopilot.  I find my India mustard to be easily self seeding too, but I know I'm supposed to "rotate" my beds and etc to avoid pests and disease.  I try to tear up the mustard from the bed each year and replant it in a different place, but those everlasting seeds always crop right back up in the bed or wherever I've dragged the plant off to.

Not that I mind (I eat all the errant little child plants), but it can be a little weird when I find self sown seedlings in the garden path or in the flower bed or by the trash can.


Ah, an entirely self seeded vegetable/herb garden is THE perfect garden for me...
 
Diane Meucci at Gardens Oy Vey has self seeded Siberian kale ALL over her nursery, not just for looks, but for eatin' too.  Definitely a worthy goal to aspire to. 

On top of the self seeders, I'm working towards the perennial vegetable garden and have the asparagus bed, mache/corn lettuce/lambsquarters, (hopefully sunchokes), strawberries and garlic down.  I'll probably be getting rhubarb sometime soon-ish from my awesome mother in law.  Artichokes are a possibility, but seems a bit limiting for the space they use and I understand that sunflower buds are just as nice.

I'm still working on getting the horseradish to take to the pot I've been babying it in, but it was an abysmal mess last year.  Incredible for horseradish too.

I had an air potato plant that I was worried would be invasive but never got to eat it.  Then I lost the little seed air potatoes in the great frost/amongst the vines.

This book: Perennial Vegetables: From Artichokes to Zuiki Taro, A Gardener's Guide to Over 100 Delicious and Easy to Grow Edibles caught my eye a while back and I am somewhat interested, but I think it's geared towards those who are lucky enough to live in very nice zones, ie 8/9+


If you live in the right climate, lots of vegetables can become perennial.  I hear in Florida eggplants and tomatoes are known to live just about forever .

Either way, I can't move my garden to Florida (and I'm not a huge fan of beaches anyway).  So it's best to make do, get tricky with Mother Nature and build cold frames.  Lots of them.

Time to plant your vampire repellant

Hell and fiddlesticks, the season of vampire preparedness is upon us!

Earlier this year I pulled up garlic that I had planted 1-2 years ago (potentially 2 years ago as I sort of "lost" some of the garlic when the leaves died down too much and then blew away...)


I allowed the garlic to dry out for about 2 weeks in a dark, well air-circulated location and then with MUCH effort and research figured out how to crudely (and CHIC-ly may I say?) make a garlic braid. (okay, so I skipped a few steps here and there that I couldn't really 'get', but it looks braided)
*It's starting to get cold here, so put on all your clothes...* When the weather gets a little nippy (before the vampires do), it's a good time to start planting garlic.

Since I am a huge cheapskate and am not into the gourmet garlic thing yet I use cloves of garlic from the grocery store. This type of garlic is typically the softneck variety that grows easily when planted by individual cloves and once harvested, stores well.

The other type, the hardneck variety has as the name states, has a hard neck but it does not store as well is what I heard through research.  It does form however these super nifty curled up greens called scapes when they grow. The scapes are known to be a tasty flavoring or can be made into or added to dishes.

I think I may have seen hard neck garlic at Walmart if you wish to grow it... but don't take my word for it and don't ask me why I was at Walmart.

How to grow (super easy):
I simply take apart my garlic cloves, I need only about 4-6 heads per medium size raised bed (and that's a bit heavy on the planting) and make sure that pointy side is up and under about an inch or 2 of soil.
Then I sit back, confident and unfearful in the knowledge that the vegetables and I are safe from blood suckers.

Even the softneck garlic green shoots can be eaten or added to dishes and when the cloves are ready, what I like to do with them is to roast them in their skins, wrapped in foil for about 25 minutes at medium-high heat and then the garlic is awesome, nutty and spreadable. I just pop the cloves out of the skin into my mouth and then make kissy motions to my husband.

Get that garlic out now or when it gets colder, just at least before the vampiric invasion!