For The Love of Harvests
This time of year the harvest basket starts to fill with delicious goodness. No longer is it just greens of various shapes and sizes and a few straggling overwintered leeks. Last week we picked our very first strawberry, just one delicous berry and which we split. Then Friday evening, Mr Chiots harvested a few handfuls. On Monday – an entire bowlful. These are ‘Earlyglow’ strawberries from Nourse Farms that I planted five years ago.
Yesterday morning we had strawberry shortcake for breakfast (here’s my recipe for anyone who wants it). No spongy sweet cake, we’re a lightly sweetened biscuit family, which is crumbled into a bowl, topped with strawberries and smothered in milk.
I also harvested my first garlic scapes yesterday, which we enjoyed sautéed over swiss chard. Can you believe swiss chard has never graced my plate before?
What are you enjoying from your harvest basket this week?
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Radishes – MMM?
I must admit, I’m not really a big fan of radishes. It’s not that I hate them, they’re grown in the gardens of Chiot’s Run every year and we eat all the ones we grow. So why do I grow them? Because they’re quick, you can seed them and be eating them almost a month later, lettuce is barely this quick to reach harvest.
This year I’m growing ‘French Breakfast’ for the first time and I really like it. My other favorite is ‘Pink Beauty’ (we’ll use the work “favorite” loosely here).
What’s one thing you don’t particularly like but still grow in your garden?
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Dreams Bigger than My Garden
Sometimes, when you make a seed or plant order you forget how small your garden is. This seems to have happened when I made my seed potato order. The box arrived last Friday and I couldn’t believe how many potatoes were inside. Thankfully I have space in my mom’s garden to plant a few of these and I’ll have a spot cleared out soon when I cut my overwintered cover crop. I will plant some of my potatoes now and save some of the long keepers to plant mid-June for a late fall harvest.
This order came from The Maine Potato Lady and I have a bag or organic Kennebec (my favorite potato) from Johnny’s Selected Seeds. I ordered from Maine Potato Lady because she had Katahdin, which I really wanted to try this year. When I looked though all the varieties available, I just had to try some new ones alongside some old favorites (like fingerling potatoes). Which kinds did I get? (descriptions from Maine Potato Lady Website)
Kennebec – my personal favorite long storage all purpose potato. These potatoes fry up like a dream, and since most of our potatoes are eaten fried for breakfast, this tops my list!
Katahdin – Still very popular here in the Northeast, this old standard has been around since 1932. Flat to round tubers with smooth buff skin and white flesh. High yielding and drought resistant; adaptable to many growing conditions. One of the best for any of your winter soups. Excellent storage. Numerous light purple flowers on large spreading plants.
German Butterball -This is my favorite potato, a round to oblong tuber with lightly netted golden skin that wraps around deep yellow flesh. Slightly mealy, this beauty is superb for everything – frying, baking, mashing, soups – you name it. Resistant to scab and viruses; some field resistance to late blight, but susceptible to rhizoctonia. Large upright vigorous plant with white blossoms.
Dark Red Norland -Customers sometimes ask, “What should I choose for early spuds that steam up well?” I always recommend Dark Red Norland; it’s easy to grow with consistent yields of beautiful round red tubers from large to small. Steam or boil some of these babies for those first early meals straight from the garden. Resistant to scab; fair storage. Purplish-blue flowers on a medium-sized plant.
Mountain Rose – With red skin and red flesh, this new release from Colorado joins Purple Majesty in being very high in antioxidants. Developed from All Red and a white-fleshed chipping variety, Mountain Rose shows good promise as a specialty variety for chefs and market gardeners. A moist but not waxy texture makes it suitable for most uses. Early to medium maturity and high yields. Resistant to second growth, hollow heart, shatter bruise, and some viruses. Slightly susceptible to fusarium dry rot. Semi-erect plants with reddish-purple flowers.
Purple Viking – Truly a beautiful potato, with deep purple skin dappled with pink splashes and stripes. Bright white and creamy-good, the flesh bakes or mashes perfectly. This variety produces what we call “lunkers”, large oversize potatoes, so plant close (8”-10”) to control size. Small-to-medium spreading plant has some resistance to leafhoppers.
La Ratta Fingerling – From France comes this special fingerling. In appearance Laratte is similar to Banana, though a fine net to the tan skin and a nutty flavor to the dark yellow flesh set it apart. Smooth and firm texture. The babies (1/2”-1”) truly melt in your mouth. Fine chefs love this gourmet morsel, and the demand is high. Matures about ten days later than Banana. Resistant to scab and viruses. White flowers top medium-sized plants.
Red Thumb – Dug as small “babies,” these bright red-skinned thumbs of delicacy have beautiful dark pink flesh. Pleasing flavor and firm flesh is perfect for roasting in olive oil and rosemary, then caramelizing. Serve with your favorite steak and salad. An interesting fingerling for the specialty market. Very productive small- to medium-sized plant.
I certainly can’t wait to try a few of these new varieties. We just finished off the last of our homegrown potatoes a week or so ago so it will quite a while till potatoes grace our plates unless I find some at Local Roots. Some year I want to experiment with early planting in a low tunnel and with luck, I’d be harvesting some new potatoes right about the time the ones from the pantry are gone.
What’s your favorite way to enjoy a potato?
I have curated a list of seed potato sources, if you’re interested head on over & check it out. Want to know more about growing your own potatoes? Head on over to the Your Day blog at Ethel to read my in depth article on growing your own potatoes.
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Harvesting Kale Buds
A few weeks ago, I noticed that my ‘Red Russian’ kale plants that overwintered in the garden were starting to bud. I checked on them every day waiting for the perfect time to harvest, which happened to be last Saturday. Imagine my surprise when I logged on to Pinerest and noticed someone else pinned a post by DigginFood.com about harvesting kale buds. I’ve never really seen anyone else talk about eating kale buds.
I steamed them for a few minutes, then we enjoyed them drizzled with olive oil and a healthy dusting of freshly ground sea salt and pepper. They were quite good, not as sweet as broccoli, but since the weather is still cold at night they weren’t as bitter as they can be. I especially like that they have leaves attached, which are sweet and delicious, like sautéed kale. Next batch will be drizzled with chipotle infused ghee for a bit of spicy heat, which I really like with brassicas!
I harvested the main sprouts and the side shoots will produce as well. After another harvest or two I’ll let them set seed which I will save for future plantings and to use as sprouting seeds in the winter.
Harvesting the kale buds is a wonderful way to extend the harvest and maximize your plantings. One plant, 3 different ways to enjoy it on your dinner plate: sprouts, leaves, and buds!
Have you ever eaten kale buds?
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Planting Peas
Traditionally, St Patrick’s Day is the time to plant peas and potatoes here in NE Ohio. I was getting ready to plant peas yesterday and realized that I have a ton of seed for sugar snap peas, but only two small packets of shelling peas.
I’ll definitely need more shelling peas, so an order needs to be placed this week. I’ve grown Wando & Alaska previously, this year I planted a pack of Sabre easy-to-work, short vines bear double sets of well-filled pods each with 10 to 12 peas that shell out easily. Delicious tender peas with great taste. Extremely disease-resistant and productive plants (source Renee’s Garden Seeds)
I had a lot of sugar pod peas and planted:
Mammoth Melting snap pea pods are used like snow pea pods. The thick, stringless, 4″-5″ flat edible pods encase creamy-white peas. A high-yielding, early, uniform, and wilt resistant variety. The pods are excellent for stir-fries, steaming, freezing, or eating fresh. (source: Grow Organic)
Oregon Giant Huge yields of sweet, exceptionally large, five inch crispy snow pea pods on vigorous, disease resistant short vines. (source Renee’s Garden Seeds)
Super Sugar Snap Tall vigorous vines (resistant to powdery mildew and tolerant to other pea virus) are laden with long crisp sweet pods that mature in 60 days (source Renee’s Garden Seeds)
I planted all the varieties listed above, but I’ll definitely need to plant more shelling peas so I can stock my freezer for the coming winter. Even though peas take up lots of garden space and you have to shell so many pods to get any measurable amount of peas – to me they’re worth every square inch of garden space!
Do you have any great varieties of peas to recommend?
