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It sounds like the name of a cute cafe or perhaps a quaint kitchen shop but it happens to be one of my favorite combos from the kitchen garden this season:
One of my favorite vignettes in the kitchen garden this year, a combination of cauliflower 'Vitaverde' and red 'Moulin Rouge' zinnias planted through a row of butter beans in the spot where an earlier planting of peas had finished. Bush type beans don't usually have a lot of visual pizazz but these are taller and have little pale yellow (butter yellow) blossoms held high on their stems. I even spied a hummingbird sipping on one. Yes, that is another name for Lima beans. I am hoping the tender young homegrown ones will live up to their buttery name. I can't say enough about those red zinnias (available from Renee's Garden Seeds), don't be afraid of red flowers, they are such a cheerful addition to this edible landscape, and so, so popular with all of the pollinators. The blue-green foliage of the cauliflower and then the chartreuse heads are an eye-pleasing treat as well. Next up roasted cauliflower!
Can you freeze bell peppers? Certainly. There are several ways but I like this quick and easy method I found on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln website. It's the same as the one I use to freeze berries so I savor summer even in the snowy winter.
'Candy Apple' Bell Peppers just starting to turn red, a great variety with thick walls
I've been waiting patiently for my bell peppers to turn that gorgeous shade of red that gives color and sweetness to any recipe. Imagine my disappointment when I noticed that the plant was so weighed down with beautiful bells that a branch split. That meant I had to get in gear to save these veggies.
Tray freezing is a technique I'm already familiar with, using it for preserving blueberries, strawberries and raspberries from the farmer's market. You freeze the produce on a baking sheet in a single layer. Once frozen you put it in a freezer bag, so the individual pieces or berries don't stick together. It's better for food safety and quality.
Join me on Twitter at #pollin8rchat Tuesdays 8pm CT to learn about pollinator-friendly gardening!
You can cut the peppers in strips or dice, however you'll want to prepare them for the intended dish. To avoid that messy moment when the seeds go everywhere I simply cut around the stem, down all four sides. You are left with the core and most of the seeds, just toss it out. There may be a few seeds to pick out.
I cut my peppers in strips, I can always dice them if needed when I go to use them. Place them in a single layer and let freeze. Once frozen you can pop them into freezer bags. Use within a year from freezing. Easy, huh?
Follow the pics to see how simple the tray freezing method can be.
Glad I noticed this heavily laden, broken branch when I did
Slice down four sides around the stem
You're left with the core intact and no messy seed explosion
Cut the pepper into strips and place in a single layer
Once frozen, place in freezer bag, make sure to label contents and date, you know you'll forget
Ooh, I'm so excited. I can see my little pea seedlings poking their heads out of the soil. I can hardly count the days until they are ready. Get out the butter!
Peas in the pods!
Lately in catalogs and garden centers I've noticed more and more pea trellis apparatuses, (or is that apparati?) for supporting the treasure-laden vines. Some are flat, some are tilted, some are arched, but all are pretty pricey.
I've always made my own pea trellises from bamboo poles and zip ties. They end up looking sorta cottage/sorta Asian. A little wonky. Whatever, they do the job.
Peas starting out in my old Kansas kitchen garden
For each trellis buy one bundle of 4' bamboo poles. They're sold 8-10 in a bundle for around $3-$6. Lay down an old blanket or paint cloth on a flat surface and arrange the poles in a grid. Leave more space at the bottom so those ends can be pushed into the soil to hold the trellis in place.
I bind the poles where they cross with small black zip ties. See the photo below. Work on the edges then inward. The poles may want to twist a bit but you can adjust this when you're done. Trim the off the excess plastic when you have the pieces all in place. Watch out, the edges can be sharp.
Trellis detail
Adjust for your pea plant spacing and then push into the soil. I use galvanized u-shape pins to anchor them in place since my garden is exposed to wind along that side of the house.
Peas in my Minnesota garden?
Well at least the snow makes the trellis easier to see!
Now all you have to do is wait for your peas to germinate, climb the trellis and fill their pods! That's the hardest part.
As the days get chilly I'm not quite ready to give up the garden. I'm always looking for ways to stretch the growing season and enjoy the tasty fruits of my labor just a little bit longer. Home Depot was thinking the same thing, so they've invited some of their favorite garden bloggers to share how they do it. Hey, The Garden Buzz is one of them!
I decided to share my deceptively simple veggie soup formula. I love to use my autumn harvest for delicious creamy soups made with all sort of fall veggies and fruits. They warm your tummy, and fill you up but not out. Just the thing we're all looking for between these "heavy-table" holidays.
Flakes are flying outside. Of all the things growing in my garden, fresh herbs are the hardest to bid goodbye to for the winter. The thought of shelling out for those pricey plastic packets of herbs at the store motivates me to freeze a large portion of my herb harvest to enjoy through the cold months ahead.
Earlier this summer I made numerous batches of pesto from my basil. I form and freeze flat pouches of it and then break off frozen bits as I need, adding the olive oil at that point depending upon the use.
Now it's the cold hardiest herbs that I've left to the bitter end so tonight I'm putting up chives and parsley.
Chives are so easy to freeze and so rewarding to have at hand during comfort food season. Who wouldn't want some for baked potatoes, soups or pasta toppings?
Chives should always be cut at the base of the plant so that you aren't left with ragged brown ends that mar the plant's appearance but moreso that you use the entire portion. Gather your chive foliage in "ponytails" and use scissors to simply snip in small pieces.
Freeze them in small jars or plastic containers to use throughout the winter.
Lots of folks recommend freezing herbs in ice cube trays. You chop the herbs, mix them with water and freeze into cubes. I find the process a little tedious and prefer to freeze whole leaves in plastic bags.
For flat-leaf Italian parsley I pluck the leaves from the stems putting the leaves straight into the salad spinner to wash away any dirt, insect eggs and tiny caterpillars that might be clinging to the foliage. I further dry with the foliage with a paper towel.
Then I press the leaves into a plastic freezer bag, and using a trick I learned awhile back, I roll the compressed parsley into a log and secure with rubber bands. They kind of resemble Christmas crackers but hopefully you'll freeze enough to make it was past the holidays.
Yesterday I captured the sun glowing through my Swiss chard, illuminating the leaves like fire, or perhaps stained glass. Last night's frost has put an end to that, now they droop and flag, all the wind knocked out of their veiny sails. Today I must cut them down and try, really try, to find a recipe that makes me want to eat rather than simply adore them. Like wedding cake and lattice-top pie it falls into the almost too-pretty-to-eat category for me. Yet a little birdie might feel differently.
Swiss chard in my fall garden
Earlier this year before the rest of the landscape was finished at our new home I was impatient and planted a fall garden in the kitchen beds, late even for Minnesota standards. Surprisingly those sad leftover veggies from the garden center rose to the occasion, especially the chard. But back when it was just a couple sprigs, the stonemason noticed a goldfinch sitting atop the leaves. He even managed a photo that identified the very culprit making holes in the leaves.
I thought back to a similar photo I had taken of a goldfinch sitting on chard plants at the University of Minnesota Demo Garden on the St. Paul campus. Hmmm, the goldfinches must sit on the sturdy leaves and eat insects I thought. What a coincidence. But of course, my curiosity was piqued.
I wondered how many innocent worms had been framed by these sweet little yellow birds?
Check out Cornell Lab of Ornithology, my favorite bird website and it will tell you that American goldfinches (Spinus tristis) are almost exclusively seed eaters, connoisseurs of thistle seed. In fact it states they are strict vegetarians, any insect eaten is by accident. Nothing is said about consuming leafy greens.
Do a search on Flickr for goldfinch and chard and you'll see flocks of finches perched upon raggedy chard, including my photo. Some theorize the birds are sipping water from the deeply grooved foliage.
Go on the garden discussion boards and it's another story. Loads of anecdotal evidence that goldfinches are enjoying Swiss chard in lots of gardens around the country. You might say that pokes holes in this venerable institutuion's knowledge of goldfinch behavior.
Have you seen goldfinches on your chard? And while we're at it, how do you like to eat it? I'm considering the creamy greens recipe from this month's Martha.
You've probably heard all the sayings about a weed being a perfectly good plant just growing in the wrong place. Some say weeds are plants whose virtues have yet to be discovered.
Stinging Nettle, Urtica dioica Photo by Rhonda Fleming Hayes
Weeding my new yard today I decided to test that idea. The number of stinging nettles popping up prompted me to do something more than just dump them into the yard waste bag. I separated the nettles from the others and considered my choices; I've heard they're great in soups, teas, pestos and pasta.
Stinging nettles are chocked full of iron and calcium along with lots of vitamin A and D. They have diuretic qualities that make them good for urinary and kidney issues. But then again, I'm not a doctor.
Usually an activity for spring foraging, the combination of cool weather and the snazzy new automatic sprinklers made the new nettles tender for the taking. Nettles are known to grow in recently disturbed, nutrient-rich soil and that certainly describes my recently tilled and amended front yard.
Whether you're out in the wild or weeding the backyard, remember to bring gloves and wear a long-sleeved shirt, they don't call them stinging nettles for nothing. And always be sure to correctly identify any weed you think you might want to eat. And only harvest where no herbicides are used.
I first became acquainted with stinging nettles while living in England, well, acquainted is too gentle a word. I'd had my moments with thorny tumbleweeds in California but couldn't believe such an innocent-looking, little green plant could be so painful. The locals taught us to apply a dock leaf, usually growing in the vicinity, to the burning red welts. Even better to simply avoid them altogether.
After gingerly harvesting these nettles I snipped the leaves from the top third of the plant and let them fall into a colander. Most experts will recommend boiling the nettles for several minutes to neutralize the tiny needles along the stems and leaves. Since I was going to saute them immediately I poured boiling water over them while still in the colander. Then I squeezed out the excess moisture with a paper towel.
You're left with a bright green blob resembling thawed-out frozen spinach which I chopped into small pieces. Bach-ing it while the hubby is in Belgium I decided to go simple. I sauteed onions in olive oil, then added the nettles, three well-beaten eggs and cheddar cheese. Tasty, not tingly.
You can find plenty of other recipes for nettles on the internet, as well as delicious ideas for using other weeds for healthy eating; you'll never look at purslane, lamb's quarters, dandelions or other much-maligned plants the same.
Once again, make sure you identify the plant before you take a single bite.
My early plant memories are many; my family members were always gardening, landscaping, touring public gardens and discussing plants, how could I not?
By age six my vocabulary was peppered with Latin plant names; labels like liquidambar, festuca, dichondra, eucalyptus and philodendron fell from my young lips without a thought.
I wandered my grandmother's yard picking and eating oranges, guavas and berries, so I knew where my fruit came from, but not necessarily my food. Widowed early and working all her life my grandmother by then wasn't interested in canning or cooking, she was all about roses and pretty flowers.
{Do you have a funny or sweet early plant memory?}
Around this time we moved to an apartment building carved into a Southern California hillside populated with numerous rattlesnakes. Used to the planty paradise of our previous yards this environment was lacking in vegetation and entertainment. I remember playing with roly-poly bugs a lot and occasionally asking my dad to come kill a snake that had slithered onto the driveway. Ah, the innocent days before the Internet.
This stand of mustard at Lake Calhoun brought back a funny plant memory!
Today my kids will note that the Pacific Ocean was just blocks away. But back then at six, it was bleak when I wasn't beach combing or fishing. At the side of the driveway gray cinder-blocks held back the brown hillside for those "never rains in California" rainstorms that came in winter. Early spring would bring wild blue lupine and bright yellow mustard blooms on the hill. When I wasn't forever jumping off the cinder-blocks somehow not breaking my ankles, I would wonder at the mustard flowers. How did those yellow flowers become French's mustard?
One day I decided I was going to make mustard. I set about picking as many mustard flowers as I could find. I put them into some kind of bowl and tried to stir and grind them up, totally convinced that at any minute they would transform into the colorful condiment. I became so frustrated. But this might have been the first hint I would someday become a kitchen gardener. Yet it would be many years before I learned that it was not the flower but the seeds that made the mustard along with quite a bit of artificial food dye. This was not my only incident of food confusion.
Just imagine the day I learned that pickles were made of cucumbers and not bumpy green alligator skin I was so certain was the secret ingrdient!
(I can hear my kids sighing already, Mom's been listening to Daft Punk and now she's paraphrasing their lyrics in her blog posts. What next?)
French Breakfast Radishes sprouting in late summer
Gamble gardens are usually associated with spring time. You play fast and loose with the last frost date, sow a few early peas or go big with tomatoes. You hope to harvest days or weeks sooner with little veggies lined up across your rows instead of three identical fruits across the slots.
If you've been following my late-in-the-season laments you know I have been garden-less up to now, watching other gardens grow while my post-construction dirt yard awaited its transformation.
Things are happening this week; trees and shrubs, paths, a modest amount of lawn, beds, rocky niches, woo-hoo! And just as exciting, my kitchen garden beds made of sleek Cor-Ten weathering steel are partially in place giving me a place to play.
Most late season veggie offerings at the garden centers are rough, ragged; kale and chard tangled together, a few herbs and some sad zinnias. No matter I planted some, but they stand stiff and unnatural in one bed like awkward latecomers to the party.
Lots of gardeners don't think of planting seeds mid-season, but there are actually lots of vegetables you can sow up until end of June in Minnesota, sometimes getting a better yield bypassing certain insect pest's life cycles. Beyond that you wait until August and the possibilities narrow, but never mind that September 15 first average frost date.
I decided that between this weird weather year, the urban zone bump and a sheltered microclimate I could risk a few seeds and my high hopes.
I sorted through my seed packets and selected anything that could mature in 55 days or less. So this week with some good weather, a few rains and the micro-spray sprinklers I have little babies; spinach, beets, carrots, mesclun, two kinds of leaf lettuce, bunching onions and radishes. In addition, Harris Seeds recently sent a trial packet of Mascotte Beans, an AAS 2014 Vegetable Award Winner with a 50-day maturity date. I'm anxous to see how things go.
I've been out there quite a bit leaning over the raised beds encouraging the tiny green sprouts to get busy and grow. And surely that lilting classical music the stonemasons play while they build the drystack wall in the garden can't hurt.
Last year I pitched an article about grafted tomatoes---what a cool concept I thought. I was told it was more an agriculture story, not mainstream enough for the home gardener.
So what shows up in all the garden centers this year? Yep, grafted tomatoes, and more. Eggplant, cucumbers, peppers. Already popular in Asia and Europe, they've been slow to take off here, but sure gained steam this year.
Just like grafting an apple makes for a stronger, hardier tree with other good qualities selected like improved flavor and disease-resistance, the same goes for these grafted vegetables. The really good thing about grafted tomatoes is they can give heirloom tomato varieties that extra something to get higher yields than you would otherwise. How's that for a win-win?
Important note: Unlike regular tomatoes that should be planted deep, grafted tomatoes should be positioned so that their graft union (usually marked by a little plastic collar, or if that has fallen off, just look for the nubby seam) at least an inch above the soil. You do this so the original rootstock (scion) doesn't root and ruin the whole reason for growing it.
So...anticipating, and dreading a slow start to my gardening year, what with the winter that wouldn't leave and our new house exterior behind schedule, I bought one grafted Mighty 'Mato Indigo Rose and a regular Sweet 100 cherry tomato for two large containers. I thought... one experimental and one old dependable to take care of my tomato urges until the garden goes in.
What shows up the next day? Samples. Of grafted tomatoes and their ungrafted counterparts to test side by side. So without further ado and according to the FTC rules I will tell you I received Grafted Brandywine, San Marzano and Chocolate Stripes from the folk at Mighty "Mato and Harris Seeds among others. I gave one set to the neighbor and still await his verdict.
Meanwhile the Indigo Rose shot up huge and immediately put on baby tomatoes all over the vigorous vine. The best part? These gorgeous little globes are deep blue-purple draped over green. Striking.
And they have anthocyanins. Say what? I was introduced to these free-radical scavenging and anti-oxidizing pigments at the Minnesota Herb Society "Journey Through Thyme" 50-year celebration. Herb wizard Pat Crocker conjured up some great cooking during her presentation, Basic Black: Cooking with Magic.
Anthocyanins are members of a flavonoid group of phytochemicals with wide-ranging health benefits. They are found in herbs, fruits and vegetables with blue, purple and black colors. Or as my mama used to say, "A colorful plate is a healthy plate".
Mighty 'Mato Indigo Rose--Grafted Tomato
So in went the other grafted tomatoes unstaked into temporary two gallon pots, waiting for transplant into my new kitchen beds. Now here in mid-July and still no kitchen beds, all the tomato samples are in limbo, perhaps purgatory, but the Mighty Matoes are proving a point.
You can see that under horrible circumstances they are still making a better effort next to the regular plants. I can only think if I'd had that many large containers or here's an idea, real ground, they would have been prolific and healthy!
So as I'm waiting for my landscape to be "installed", what a less than picturesque word, I'm waiting on Indigo Rose to ripen soon (followed by the others). You're supposed to wait until the purple turns brown and the bottoms go red for optimum taste.
And the Sweet 100? In a year of weird weather and weirder plant happenings, with some things flourishing and astounding us while others languish, I still can't believe it's such a disappointment. You can usually always count on a cherry tomato when all else fails but not this time.
Time to invoke the gardeners mantra...there's always next year.
As for grafted tomatoes, I think they're a great idea.
