Brassica Update

 

This year I have a fifteen foot row of brassicas planted in the in-ground garden. I used black plastic mulch and they are covered with Agribon-19 spun bond row cover to ward off pests. Biggest problem is preventing the cover from blowing off in the frequent winds we are getting this Spring. The brassicas seem to like their environment and are looking very healthy. Most remarkable is the absence of pest damage from flea beetles and cabbage caterpillars. Last Sunday I opened up the tent to do some watering and harvest some kale, so I took a few photos to give you a tour of the tent.

 

 

This the the broccoli end of the row, with two varieties. Plants are large and healthy with no signs yet of heads forming. At least they are not bolting. Both varieties are new, based on recommendations of other gardeners.

 

 

This is Arcadia, first time I have grown this variety. It is a bit later but is supposed to have large heads and abundant side shoots.

 

 

And this is Fiesta, another first for me. Daphne has grown this one with success, so I decided to give it a try. Catalog descriptions do not mention side shoot production at all, but reviews by gardeners all mention prolific side shoot production.

 

 

In the middle are four Brussels spouts, the standard Jade Cross variety I picked up at a garden center. They are looking good but who knows if I will get anything. I have had one good year, which was fantastic. Sometimes the sprouts stay small, pea size, and never size up, despite pruning and curses . Other years the sprouts tend to loosen up and become leafy, a condition supposedly caused by excessive heat. Nothing I can do about that because I can’t control the weather, but sprouts have a long development period, so here they have to be grown through the summer months. Time will tell. Gardening is all about optimism, and I am optimistic I will get some this year.

 

 

To the left are the kales. That is Tronchuda Beira or Portuguese kale with the large leaves in the foreground, which is new to me this year. Further back is Beedy’s Camden kale, a reliable and hardy Siberian kale I have grown for years. I did not photograph the dinosaur kale because it was recently clipped, so nothing to see.

Garden Post-mortem 2012

The year 2012 was a challenging year for gardening in New England and most of the country. It was hot and humid for months and we were plagued with disease and insects. Diseases that normally overwinter in the South and move north in the summer showed up earlier than ever. We had a number of new insect pests invade the gardens, such as the tortoise beetle pictured below and the green stink bug. Add to that hurricane Sandy and I have no doubt that we are dealing with significant climate change. If we are going to garden and try to grow our own vegetables, we will just have to work with what we are given. This post starts a review of what worked and did not work in my square foot garden in 2012, in roughly alphabetical order.

 

Basil

Besides my usual planting of generic basil, this year I also planted Siam Queen Thai basil and Spicy Globe (or Greek) basil. All the basils did well once the weather warmed up and  the varietal basils were exotically fragrant and welcome in cooking.

Beans

I planted both bush and pole beans this year and all did well. In place of Jade I tried E-Z Pick, supposedly an improved Jade that is easier to pick. Jade does have stems that are hard to sever with a thumbnail, almost requiring scissors to harvest. But I much prefer the appearance and quality of Jade and that’s what I will plant next year. Provider was good as usual and gets planted again. And I really liked the Fortex pole beans, which produce abundant, very-long round beans. I also want to try the Trionfo Violetto pole bean next year.

BEETS

I planted two types of beets this year. Bulls Blood seems to be popular, mostly for it greens. For me, it did poorly, with spotty germination and very slow growth. Greens never got large enough to pick and beets were about thumb size. Red Ace did better for me and I got two meals out of two squares. Some of the problems with the beets may have been that they were crowded and shaded by the peas in the same box. Next year I will put them in a sunnier spot, but I don’t see myself trying Bulls Blood again.

Broccoli

I didn’t have a lot of luck with broccoli this year, but a lot of that was my own doing. I purchased seeds for De Cicco, an heirloom variety, and started them indoors in early spring but had problems. So I purchased a pack of Blue Wind plants, a fast growing variety. I had them under row cover to ward off the cabbage moths. When I removed the row cover I found that all the plants had bolted. My poorly grown De Cicco plants eventually yielded a few small heads by late summer, but neither variety produced an abundance of side shoots. I definitely need to choose my varieties carefully and attend to the plants better.

Brussels Sprouts

Brussels sprouts are an iffy thing for me. For years I planted them and never got sprouts. Then two years ago I got a great crop of them, I have no idea why. Last year all of the sprouts opened (is this how they bolt?) and I got nothing. This year they matured early and I got a generous cutting off the bottom. Then the cabbage caterpillars and yes, even European corn borer larvae, decimated them. If I had been more watchful and ready with the bT I might have got a larger harvest. Of course, my wife was happy with that outcome.

Cilantro/DILL

I direct seeded both cilantro and dill this year and had modest success, despite the fact they were shaded by the neighboring lettuces and eventually the basil. Next year I need to get them a spot with more sun and seed them more thickly. I also need to learn what you do with green coriander seeds.

Collards

This year I planted collards Georgia, which were fairly slow growing. I don’t like this variety’s tendency to spread out and flop. I think next year I will go back to a Vates type of collard, which has a more compact growth so you get more leaf for a given area. This is an important consideration for gardening in raised beds.

Cucumbers

It was a good year for cucumbers for me, despite all the mildew and bugs. I planted varieties, Diva and Summer Dance, that were said to be mildew resistant and that was generally the case. I also had little problem with cucumber beetles and bacterial wilt, although wilt did eventually knock off the pickler and Diva vines, but later than usual. The Jackson Classic pickler got off to an earlier start and produced an abundance of 5-6 inch fruit. I really liked this one and will plant again. Diva was late in germinating and producing and I got very few fruit from it, but they were of good eating quality. I may give it another chance next year.

The outstanding variety was undoubtedly Summer Dance, a Japanese-style cucumber that was a heavy producer (picking 2-5 a day) of long, slender, dark green fruits that were sweet and crisp with a tender skin and small seed cavity. The cucumbers hold well on the vine and simply grow longer if overlooked, sometimes well over 12 inches long. They continually produce side branches so most production takes place on the bottom 3 feet of the trellis. When cleaning the dead vines off the trellis in early fall, I found a couple of cucumbers I had missed and they were still in good condition, a nice treat. I highly recommend Summer Dance cucumber.

Eggplant

Well, eggplant was a complete failure again this year, partly due to flea beetles. I did battle by picking beetles, then spraying the plants with a pyrethrin spray and a pepper-garlic spray. I can’t camp out in the garden, however, so despite my efforts eventually the plants started to decline. I did use row cover on the plants I started from seed but left the purchased plants uncovered.  I don’t know if I will grow eggplant again, too much valuable space wasted in the raised beds for no yield. Maybe I will try a few oriental types like Ping Tung since I observed they seem to be less bothered by the beetles. And I will definitely have to cover them with row cover.

Endive and Escarole

I planted both of these bitter greens this year from plants I started and they did very well. They form large dense heads that contact the ground so you do have to do slug control or they will chew up the heads. I planted varieties from Johnny’s (Dubuisson and Natacha) and both were excellent. I am definitely planting these again next year.

Thanksgiving Menu

Thanksgiving is my daughter Kate’s favorite holiday. So the menu is very important and I have to get her OK on everything. Over the years we have always tried new recipes and some pass on and some become traditions. I bring my own prejudices to the process, a reaction to the cooking of the 50s and 60s. I won’t eat anything made with cream of snot soup, or miniature marshmallows, or canned green beans. So that precludes two Thanksgiving “classics”, the green bean casserole and cranberry sauce with marshmallows and canned mandarin oranges. Instead, this is what we will be serving at our place on Thursday.

Turkey, of course, roasted not fried. I use the neck and gizzards along with an onion and celery to make a brown turkey stock while the turkey is roasting. For the liver, I use a trick I learned from a Gourmet magazine article years ago. I put the liver in the food processor with some heavy cream and Madeira and liquefy it. The mixture is then added to the stuffing to enrich it.The stuffing recipe varies each year and I usually ad-lib it. This year it will probably be corn bread and sausage with sage and thyme from the herb garden. I like to add brown rice to add some chew to a corn bread stuffing, but this year I may try some Israeli couscous I have in the cupboard.

Gravy is just the traditional gravy made with the pan drippings and the turkey stock. Mashed potatoes this year will be made with Yellow Gold potatoes and rutabaga. I like to add some  rutabaga (or yellow turnip or Swede as it is called in New England) to the potatoes to give it a little bit of flavor and texture. Nothing like a bowl of mashed potatoes with a puddle of butter melting in the middle. And it will be our own home made butter which Kate and I made Monday.

The cranberry sauce recipe we usually make is from the Vegetarian Epicure Vol. 2 by Anna Thomas, unfortunately now out of print. It is a perfect bound paperback and is now falling apart but is just as loved. This cranberry sauce is a cooked sauce that uses fresh cranberries and a chopped up navel orange, with cinnamon and cardamom for spices. It is a fresh tasting, fruity sauce without any of the canned or candy flavors of “traditional” sauces. A copy of the recipe can be found on the Reluctant Gourmet blog.

The vegetable side dishes are just as important as the turkey and stuffing. After lots of experimentation, we have come to standardize on a few dishes. Creamed onions are a traditional dish that we love, although we use a real Béchamel sauce to make them. Sweet potatoes are another classic, but the recipe we love is a streuseled sweet potato casserole from the November 2002 Cooking Light magazine, which is fabulous and can be prepared ahead of time. This is more dessert than vegetable, but it is Thanksgiving!

For more “healthy” side dishes, we like and will be preparing Cider-Glazed Carrots from that classic issue, the November 2002 Cooking Light magazine; and Shredded Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Hazelnuts from the November 2004 Cooking Light magazine. For both recipes, a lot of preparation can be done ahead of time, which is always important for planning a Thanksgiving dinner. The latter recipe is particularly amazing because my wife, a certified, genetically-tested hater of Brussels sprouts actually likes them prepared this way. And it’s not just her Mississippi-bred love of all things bacon, she actually likes the sprouts fixed this way. Since my daughter and I love Brussels sprouts, this is a win-win recipe.

Finally, there is the not so small matter of desserts. Yes, plural, as in desserts. My son is a chocolate lover so we will be making a chocolate meringue pie from my mother’s recipe. The family joke is that my wife would try year after year to make the pie following recipes from Joy of Cooking, Fannie Farmer, you name it, and the filling would not solidify. So we would have chocolate soup pie. Recently I have been making my mother’s recipe and it works quite well. In addition we will have a pumpkin cheesecake, based on Dana Carpender’s cookbook, 500 Low Carb Recipes. This is a satisfying and rich dessert that is also low carb and will substitute for the traditional pumpkin pie.

That’s our menu for this year. Hope you have a great Thanksgiving (if you celebrate it). My mother’s chocolate meringue pie recipe follows.

Chocolate Meringue Pie

My mother’s recipe, sent to me by my sister, Sharon.

Ingredients

• 3 oz. chocolate
• 2½ c. milk
• 3 Tbsp. flour
• 3 Tbsp. cornstarch
• 1 c. sugar
• ½ tsp. salt
• 3 egg yolks, slightly beaten
• 1 Tbsp. butter
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 baked pie shell
• 1 recipe meringue

Instructions

1. Melt chocolate in milk in double boiler and blend with wire whisk.
2. Mix flour, cornstarch, sugar, and salt. Add to chocolate mixture and cook 15 min., stirring constantly. The mixture should be thick and smooth.
3. Stir a small amount of the hot mixture slowly into egg yolks, stirring constantly. Return to double boiler and cook a few minutes longer. Add butter and vanilla; stir until melted. Cool the mixture.
4. Pour into pastry shell. Cover with meringue, and bake in 325º F. oven until delicately browned.

Meringue

Ingredients

• 3 egg whites
• 6 Tbsp. sugar
• ½ tsp. vanilla

Instructions
Beat egg whites until stiff. Add sugar gradually (1 Tbsp. at a time), beating constantly. Add vanilla. Pile lightly on pie filling, sealing edges.

Garden Update 20 June 2012

It has been two weeks since my heavy planting effort on May 26-27, the Memorial Day weekend. All of the transplants survived and are actually thriving, despite the cool, cloudy, rainy weather. I did not have to worry about the keeping the seeded beds moist. All the rain took care of that for me. I did worry about the bean seeds, which prefer a warm, fairly dry soil of at least 60° F (16° C). That planting weekend was warm and sunny but early this week we had overnight lows in the forties. Nonetheless, everything has now germinated and is doing well.

Speaking of beans, the pole bean Fortex was one of the first to come up. They are going to be trained up a trellis on the left. The rest of the box has my kale and collards transplants along with a few remaining kale plants from last year. I have been planning to remove the old plants, so I shear them of leaves and come back to find them looking like this. I’m getting buried in kale. I also need to get them doused with bT and covered with row cover to ward off the cabbage moths floating around the garden now.

Garden Update - 22 August 2011

Most plants in the  garden is pretty mature now, and some are history. I removed the snap and snow peas, the mesclun and lettuces, and harvested all the baby bok choi. I reseeded the lettuce, mesclun and sugar snaps, and set out some Romaine, chard and bok choi seedlings I started at home. Also put in more Icicle radishes. Given how long they take to germinate, I decided not to try a second planting of beets, given my first planting is still golf ball size or less.

I removed the last floating row cover from the collards/kale bed. The collards were ready for a second harvest and were starting to crowd the kale. The collards looked beautiful (front of the box, lower left) and the row cover kept the cabbage caterpillars off them so there were almost no holes in the leaves. They are a lot more appetizing that way!  The Beedy’s Camden kale (on right, lower right photo) is coming along and I might get a cutting in a week or two. The leaves are thinner and less curled than Winterbor and are supposedly more tender. Each year I make a batch or two of Portuguese kale soup (I use the Victory Garden Cookbook recipe). which uses up some of the tomatoes and kale from the garden. Last year I tried shredding the kale and sautéing it, which turned out great. I think Beedy’s Camden might be even better for that.

Garden Update week of 5-11 Jul 2011

Because of the time taken to build and fill the beds and our trip to St. Louis,the garden was planted fairly late this year. Then add in many days of cold, rainy weather with no sun and the garden was looking poorly. Lately, after some stretches of warmer, sunnier weather, plants are starting to green up and grow. Of course, the lettuces have loved the weather and we have been having salads almost every night. Overall, the garden is looking good and is starting to catch up with the neighbors.

As you can see, the tomatoes (the only plants not in raised beds) are looking great. The Brandywine is growing well and already has a fairly large fruit. The Cherokee Purple and Sun Gold are also growing strongly and setting fruit. Several of the Jet Stars are also flowering and have small fruit. The Romas in the cages look healthy but are taking their time while hopefully developing a good root structure.

2011 Planting List

This is a list of what I planted in the eight raised beds and in the strip of garden allotted to tomatoes.

Box 1 (3x6)

• 1 zucchini Raven (9 sq)
• 1 pattypan squash Sunburst (9 sq)
• 4 lettuce red leaf (1 in each corner)

Box 2 (3x6)

• 5 broccoli Green Comet
• 2 Brussels sprouts Jade Cross
• nasturtium Alaska

Broccoli and Brussels sprouts