Cucumbers, Pickles or Both?
Some people love cucumbers, some people hate them. I don’t like eating cucumbers, they give me indigestion in the worst way, even the so called “burpless” ones. I grow them, however because I LOVE them made into pickles. Somehow the process of fermenting them makes them so much more digestible for me.
In my garden I have had great luck growing ‘Boston Pickling’ cucumbers. This year I’m also growing ‘Marketmore’ cucumbers to see what they’re like. Last year I grew lemon cucumbers, but wasn’t as fond of them as I am of the Bostons.
The problem with making pickles when you have a small garden is that you usually harvest 4-5 cucumbers at a time, and most recipes call for pounds and pounds of pickles. Last year, I found a recipe for Small Batch Dill Pickles in The Joy of Pickling. They were very tasty, and I ended up making a few batches. If you only have a few pickles I’d highly recommend using this recipe, it makes a zesty dill pickle.
I picked a few cucumbers on Monday to make into pickles. I debated using a recipe from last year that I knew I liked, but being an adventurous cook that loves loves to try new recipes, I decided to use the dill pickle recipe from the book Canning & Preserving with Ashley English.
I’ll let you know what I think of these pickles, they’re brining as I write this post and won’t be ready for eating for a few weeks. The hardest parking of making pickles is waiting for them to age!
What’s your favorite way to enjoy cucumbers?
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Harvesting Garlic
Last year I harvested my garlic on July 17. This year my garlic was ready to harvest early last week, but I didn’t have time to get out to do it. I ended up harvesting all the garlic last Friday evening.
As with onions, the heads of garlic I grow here at Chiot’s Run are always a little smaller than I’d like. But this year they were much larger due to the fact that I added a teaspoon of bone meal under each bulb at planting time.
I planted different varieties of garlic than I did last year, I haven’t tasted them yet so I don’t know how they’ll stack up to the varieties I grew last year.
I only have a few heads of garlic left from my harvest last year, so I’m happy that the pantry is once again filled with a nice basket of garlic. I use lots of garlic in my cooking, both because of the flavor and the health benefits.
Are you a garlic lover? Do you grow garlic in your garden?
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Growing Herbs for Soothing Teas
I’m a big fan of hot beverages, even in the summer. Most of the time you’ll find me with a cup of coffee or hot tea, especially during those cold winter months here in NE Ohio. When it comes to tea, I usually prefer herbal teas of all kinds over black tea. I like black tea iced, but not particularly served hot. As I’ve gotten more and more into gardening and growing more of my food, naturally I started growing some of my own herbs for tea. One of my favorite herbal teas is chamomile, it’s particularly good in the evenings since it’s soothing and calming (especially for people like me with slight insomniac tendencies). It’s also a wonderful herb for aiding in digestion, nothing cures stomach duress like a nice warm cup of chamomile ginger tea.
Last year my chamomile didn’t germinate well, and I ended up with one one small plant. It produced a nice crop of flowers, but not nearly enough for the amount of tea I drink in a year’s time. I had a quarter cup or less of dried blossoms by the end of the year. This year I decided I’d grow as much as I could, and boy to I have a crop of chamomile! I’ve been faithfully harvesting it every couple days, drying it on a plate in the attic and storing it in a jar. Happily I’ve been watching the quart jar fill up knowing that I’ll have plenty to get me through the coming winter. I may be able to drink chamomile tea every night before bed.
I still have a ton of chamomile blooming in the garden, so I’ll keep harvesting. I may be able to get an extra pint of dried blossoms. The extra will be used for watering my seedlings in the spring. I’ve read it’s particularly good at helping with fungal diseases and dampening off. I’ll make sure to keep you posted on this experiment come seed starting season. In the coming years I’ll be adding more and more tea herbs to my garden as I expand my flowerbeds and get rid of plants that don’t thrive. I haven’t decided which ones to add next, but I’m sure I’ll find some good ones from Richter’s. I’ve also been experimenting with growing tropical herbs in pots as houseplants. Currently I’m starting ginger and lemongrass (more on that later).
Are you a hot or a cold beverage person?
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Quote of the Day: John Steinbeck
“Well, just once in a while you get that feeling–I never look at anything. I never take time to see anything. It’s going to be over, and I won’t know–even how an apple grows.” said Jim.
John Steinbeck (In Dubious Battle)
I make sure I take time to notice the little things throughout the day. I find that when I take some time to look around I notice things I’ve never seen before, like the delicacy of a Queen Anne’s Lace as the evening light hits it. I’ve never noticed the way the buds have little bird’s nests on the back, so lovely.
What little things do you like to take notice of?
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Making Nail Soup
When I was a little girl, one of my favorite stories was one called Nail Soup (also known as Stone Soup). It’s a traditional Swedish folk tale, here it is in my words as I remember.
There once was a traveler that came to small village carrying nothing but the ragged clothes on his back and bent rusty nail. The villagers tried to run him out of town saying that he was going to steal from them. “Oh no, I was coming to share some nail soup with you. All I need is a pot filled with water and I’ll make some soup to be enjoyed by all,” he said. One curious villager brought him a pot filled with water.
The traveler built a fire and got his rusty nail out of his pocket and dropped it in the pot. Soon the villagers started gathering around to see what nail soup was. After a while, the traveler tasted the soup and said, “If only I had some onions, that would really make the soup wonderful.” One of the villagers ran to grab a couple of onions. After adding the onions and cooking the soup for a while, he tasted it again and said, “If I only had a few carrots and maybe some peas, then the soup would be so much better.” Another villager ran to get a few carrots and another got some peas.
The stranger kept tasting the soup and each time he’d mention something else that would make the soup “just right” and each time a villager would run and get that item for the soup. After a while the pot was bubbling with the best smelling soup the villagers had ever smelled.
The traveler fished out his nail, wrapped it in a handkerchief and put it back in his pocket. Then he served up the stew to all the villagers, it was the most wonderful stew they had ever tasted. They were very impressed with the Nail Soup, although they could never replicate the recipe themselves.
Here’s another version of the story if you’re interested.
Last night I made a batch of nail soup, my version is a simple soup made with all the things I have that need used up. I thawed a venison steak and then proceeded to check in my freezer for anything else that needed used, I found a container of corn left from last year. I also found a head of garlic left from last year’s harvest in the basement pantry. Then I looked in the vegetable drawers in the fridge and came across some cabbage and a handful of the peas from the garden. I remembered that I had picked a pepper along with some onions and potatoes at my mom’s on Tuesday. I had a few beans from my sister’s garden and a big zucchini on the counter that I harvested a yesterday. I kept adding things as I’d find them, and pretty soon it was smelling quite delicious. After cooking in a pot for a few hours, I added a jar of my homecanned tomato soup and a few herbs from the garden to finish it off. It made for a lovely dinner with a side of freshly baked whole wheat bread.
I searched on-line trying to find the copy of the Nail Soup I had as a child, I think it may have been This One. This version of Nail Soup is updated and looks great as well. If you’re ever looking for a great children’s book to give someone, I’d highly recommend finding a copy of nail soup.
Did you have a story that you loved as a child?
