Quote of the Day: Three Sisters Garden
Every American knows that a stand of well-grown sweet corn is a delight to the eye, as well as to the ear when it rustles in the wind. The classic mix of squash, beans, and corn is tricky to achieve in such a manner that the squash gets sufficient light and the beans to snot smother the corn. They should be planted only when the corn is already well on its way. Once grown, the stand of corn provides one of the best vertical accents possible.
Louisa Jones in The Art of French Vegetable Gardening
There’s something so classic about a three sisters garden. Last year I grew one featuring an heirloom yellow popcorn, a special heirloom bean that can take the shade of the corn, and Cinderella pumpkins along the edges. Everything seemed to thrive.
This is the first year in a few that I’m not growing popcorn. I typically grow it in my mom’s potager, but there was no space left for it. Plus with the possibility of a move I didn’t know if I’d be around during harvest time.
Hopefully in my new garden I’ll have space to include both sweet corn and popcorn. We’re lucky to have a local farm from which to purchase fresh sweet corn, but I’d love to grow it myself. I’m not a huge fan of the new super sweet hybrids, I like a less sweet corn with more “corn” flavor. I’ll definitely be trying to find a good one for next summer.
Do you grow sweet corn in your garden or purchase it from a local farm? Any special varieties to recommend?
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Cooking up a Storm
There’s not much I enjoy more than spending a day in the kitchen cooking up all kinds of goodness. Since there are only 2 of us in the house and we don’t eat lots of sweets or grain items, it doesn’t take much time to prepare the food we eat. I’m always happy when there’s a party invite or some other event that allows me to spend the day baking/cooking.
Today my good friend and neighbor is heading over to Washington D.C. for the Stop the Frack Attack Rally. She invited me to go, but as an introvert and highly sensitive person, a trip like this on a bus would nearly kill me. I offered to bake up a bunch of snacks instead.
Yesterday morning was spent baking both sweet and savory goodies. I made one of my specialties, molasses caramel corn. Head on over to Eat Outside the Bag for my recipe.
A big batch of maple walnut granola was also whipped up, along with a batch of cheddar cheese straws. The cheddar cheese straw recipe is from Smitten Kitchen. Of course I tweaked it a bit by using local raw milk cheddar cheese and freshly ground sprouted spelt flour.
When it comes to snacks, I’m not much for sweets or grains, give me olives, cheese, jerky, hard boiled eggs, yogurt or custard. I must admit though, the cheese straws are FANTASTIC, I’ll definitely be baking up a few batches to snack on during our long drive up to Maine mid-September.
What’s your favorite traveling snack?
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Friday Favorite: Sauerkraut
Eighteen pounds of sauerkraut, that’s how much I made 10 days ago. People keep asking me, “What are you going to do with all that?”. I’ll give a few jars away to friends, but we’ll eat most it. It will be on our plate every meal until it’s gone. The chiots will get some each morning as well. We even eat it for breakfast, head on over to Eat Outside the Bag for more about that and links to my recipe.
I must admit, I never thought I’d be listing sauerkraut on my Friday Favorites. Growing up my only experience with kraut was the stuff my grandma emptied out of bags on New Year’s Day. Then I discovered home made fermented kraut and liked it. After reading up on the health benefits and was amazed and liked it even more. Now that we try include it at every meal when we have it available I can say that I really, really like sauerkraut and love the health benefits it provides!
Are you a fan of sauerkraut and other fermented foods?
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The Results Are In….
All of the ‘Copra’ onions have finally be harvested. If you remember, this year I’m experimenting to see which method of growing onions works best. I started ‘Copra’ seed back in late January. Plants of the same variety were also purchased from Johnny’s Seeds. Seeds were also sowed directly in the garden in March when I transplanted the ones from the seed starting area.
As expected, the onions grown from seed started in winter produced the biggest onions. The direct seeded onions might have been bigger had I thinned them, but I completely forgot to do so until it was too late. I’m going to save the small onions to plant next spring as sets, we’ll see how that works out. It’s amazing how they were all ready to harvest at roughly the same time.
From top to bottom:
- direct seeded in garden on March 2
- purchased plants transplanted in the garden on April 13
- started in late January & transplanted in the garden March 24
I always figured that starting onions from seed would produce the best onions. After reading about how onions are treated with so many pesticides, fungicides and other chemicals I have decided that all my onions will be grown from seed. The plants I purchased from Johnny’s Seeds were from Dixondale farms. After reading on their website that they recommend using fungicides every two weeks to control blight and fungus I decided I really wan’t comfortable using their plants in the garden. It’s worth it to me, to take the time to start mine so I can ensure that my onions aren’t sprayed with fungicides, pesticides and other chemicals.
Now that all the onions are harvested it’s time to store them. I’m keeping all of the types separate to see which of the above store best. I’m also trying a few different storage methods. Most will be stored in shallow wooden boxes. I did braid some, both because they’re very pretty and I figure the old-timers probably knew a little something about keeping onions all winter. Seems to me the air circulation around onion braids hung from the ceiling would be much better than for those stored in a basket or crate. I’ll let you know.
Now it’s time to harvest all the red ‘Zepellin’ onions that were planted back in April as well. I’ve never grown many red onions because I’ve found they don’t store quite as long as yellow onions. This variety promises to store well so we shall see. When it comes to cooking I’m not choosy about the color/type of onion, I like them all. As long as I have onions in the pantry I’m one happy camper.
Do you like red, white, or yellow onions best?
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Who Needs Flowers?
Who needs flowers when you can have a vase of beet greens? I’ve been harvesting some of my golden beets recently and we’ve been enjoying them roasted. Since we eat the beet greens, I put them in a vase with some water to keep them fresh until the next morning. They get sautéed with garlic and onions, with eggs poached on top.
That’s one of the things I love about beets, you can eat the roots and the leaves. It always makes me feel like I’m getting a lot bang for garden space when I grow beets! It’s like a double harvest.
Do you grow beets? Do you eat the greens?
