Quote of the Day: Joe Eck & Wayne Winterrowd
Americans are fondest of the foods of summer. Peas, beans, corn, and tomatoes are most people’s first choices among vegetables, regardless of the season. Modern agriculture, modern trucking, and the freezer allow us to have them even in the depths of winter–beets, carrots, parsnips, turnip, cabbage and winter squash–were popular then because they kept with little trouble in the cellar all winter long without much loss of flavor; and they were, in any case, sustenance when nothing else was available.
Joe Eck & Wayne Winterrowd in Living Seasonally: The Kitchen Garden and the Table at North Hill
Personally I much prefer the flavors of most of the other seasonal vegetables above the typical summer ones. Perhaps it comes from a childhood of eating canned green beans, frozen corn and applesauce all winter long. Perhaps I’m just older and learning to appreciate a wider variety of vegetables for the many flavors and textures that they bring to my table. Or perhaps, I just love being able to garden over a longer season because of these vegetables.
This winter I’m looking forward to my root cellar full of potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, beets, turnips and celeriac. In the coming years I hope to add chicories and other brassicas to my stores.
What’s your favorite non-summer vegetable?
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Admitting Defeat
This is one of only a few peppers that I have on my plants in the garden. I knew my pepper harvest would be low due to the location of the pepper plants. Then the ducks decided that pepper plants were super tasty and my hopes of harvesting even a half bushel of peppers from my garden were dashed. I have been harvesting a few green peppers and other hot peppers for the past month, but I do not have enough to make roasted red peppers for the pantry. I don’t do a lot of canning of garden produce, but I do love to have a few jars of roasted red peppers in the cupboard. They’re so much cheaper than buying them at the store, and you can customize them with white wine vinegar, homegrown garlic, and a really good olive oil. I even use the brine to make salad dressing. (“>here’s my post about making them, including the recipe)
Yesterday, I purchased a load of peppers at the Belfast Farmers Market to preserve. Next week I hope to buy more, along with some jalapeños (which I preserve in the same manner and dehydrate as well).
I also purchased a box of tomatoes since mine are taking they’re time ripening up. Roasted tomato passatta is something I don’t want my pantry to be without as well. I must admit, I’m thankful to live in an area where there are loads of farmers growing all kinds of wonderful organic produce. It comes in handy when my crop doesn’t do well.
Have you had any crops that have done less than stellar this season?
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Friday Favorite: Taza Chocolate
I’m not a chocoholic, but I do like a bit of good chocolate every now and then. Milk chocolate is not my thing, I find it much too sweet. Dark chocolate is more my speed, the darker the better. Recently, I’ve fallen in love with Taza chocolate. It’s stone ground and made without emulsifiers, so there’s no soy lecithin or other weirdness involved. The texture is different that regular chocolate, but I like it.
It’s not cheap chocolate, but it’s good quality and it’s tastes great. I don’t buy it that often, but when I do I enjoy every last bit of it. One of the things I like about buying really great chocolate is that a tiny square is enough, no need to eat the entire bar, which means a bar or round will last me a few weeks. Taza comes with different flavor additions: ginger, chipotle, coffee, cinnamon and salt & pepper (which is my favorite).
What’s your favorite brand of chocolate?
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Windbreaks
“Unless your garden is stocked only plants on the prairie or steppes, every garden should have hedges and windbreaks that will baffle the wind and break it up, protecting plants growing in their shelter.”
Monty Don from Gardening at Longmeadow
Windbreaks are a very important consideration in your garden. Even if you live in a typical suburban allotment you need to consider how the wind comes across your garden. Back in Ohio, my gardens were surrounded by trees, lots of very tall trees. We were very protected from the wind, too protected, for these trees limited the breeze and also provided too much shade.
Here in Maine, we have the opposite problem in the garden. There are large trees, but most of them are too far away from the garden to provide the kind of wind break we need to protect plants, both from the winter winds to the winds of the summer.
My onion harvest suffered from the lack of a windbreak. I harvested the majority of my onions a month ago, but a few remained standing because they were protected by the celery. It’s amazing how much larger they are than the ones harvested a few weeks ago. If I had a proper windbreak my onion harvest would have been almost twice the size it was (Note Dexter setting by the onions for scale). Below, you can see the onions I harvested earlier on the right and the ones harvested later on the left.
I am planning on adding a hedge around this garden in the future, but next year I will have to remember to plant something tall on the side the wind generally comes from. Perhaps a few sunflowers to feed the chickens in fall would be a great option.
Do you have a windbreak in your garden? Have you ever suffered loss from too much wind?
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So Long Summer
Well, summer is over in the 5×5 Challenge Garden. Yesterday I cleared out the zucchini and the beans. The tomatoes are still going strong, so I left them to ripen.
The expanse of soil is nice to see after spending time cleaning up the garden. I considered adding mulch or compost for overwintering. Then I decided to plant the garden with various chicories and endives. They should do nicely in our cold fall and provide us with food for November & December.
No doubt you’re also cleaning up you little garden, think about adding a few fall/winter plants. If not, add a good layer of compost on top and you’ll be ready to go next spring.
Have you started cleaning out the garden for winter?
