Harvest Monday 18 July 2016

It has been pretty hot and dry, enough to cause this brown bat to move out of its apartment and hang out on the cool concrete wall of the garage in the shade under the deck. It is hanging upside down, you can see its ears at the bottom. I wonder what it is eating? It is so dry I don't remember seeing a mosquito this year, nor a single black fly or deer fly. But I have already had two deer tick bites, ouch, and this is prime Lyme disease territory.

How dry is it? We are in one of the worst droughts we have had in awhile. I can not find the rainfall amounts for Bolton, seems they are a secret. I did find one article that said Worcester (city or county not specified) had 6.5 inches (17 cm) of rain since January 1st. Consider that includes snow fall and that number is astounding. We get an average of 4+ inches (10 cm) of rain per month (48-53 inches/1.2-1.35 m per year). For the first half of the year we have received 1/4 our normal rainfall, and a lot of that was snow during the winter.

 I really need to water the garden every day but can not always get there. It takes me two hours to water the two plots, but that does not do as thorough a job as a day long soaking rain. Most plants are getting stressed. The peas look poorly and all of the greens and brassicas are hating this weather. The harvest this week reflects the need to get things out of the garden before they are ruined. So lots of root vegetables and greens.

Seedling Progress

The weather has been variable and it is chilly and breezy, more like March than late April weather. It has also been quite dry but still cloudy, and starting the garden is going to be difficult until the pump man re-installs the foot valves removed for the winter. I have not done anything in the garden yet except visit a few times, but I need to get going really, really soon.



As an example, the kales above are just about ready to be set out in the garden. I will have a single brassica row for the kale, broccoli, collards, and cabbages. Putting them in one row will allow me to cover them with row cover on hoops to keep the flea beetles and cabbage caterpillars at bay. From left: Red Ursa, Nash's Green, and Nero di Toscana.



Most of the broccolis are also ready to go. From left: Spigariello liscia, Blue Wind, and Atlantis. I am particularly impressed by the size and vigor of Atlantis and have high hopes for it.



The cabbages are ready as well. Clockwise from upper left: Golden Acre cabbage, Flash collards, Green Wave mustard, and Minuet Napa cabbage. The Green Wave mustard is getting impatient and starting to bolt. I may just re-seed it in place. The Minuet cabbage seedlings, new this year,  look a little strange for a Napa. The leaves are serrated on the edge and a bit fuzzy. I may start some Soloist as a backup.



The kohlrabis are doing well and are ready to go. These will get planted in the raised beds. Again, I have to plan the bed assignments so I can group plants that need covering together. Flea beetles are a big menace but the caterpillars seem less likely to attack these smaller plants. Top row is Azur Star and the bottom row is Winner.



Lettuces are also ready. Clockwise from upper left: Green Ice, Red Sails, and Buttercrunch, The fourth flat has escarole in the top row and endive in the bottom. I decided I was planting too may of them and didn't use them all before they bolted. So this year, three of each to start. The three lettuces above will go into my City Picker self-watering container on the deck, for easy harvesting without driving to the garden. I have also started seeds for Midnight Ruffles, Winter Density Romaine, and Webb's Wonderful crisphead which will go into my raised beds at the community garden.



I have shown the good and the bad, so now for the ugly. Above are pictured my successes with the solanums this year. The peppers clockwise from upper left: Revolution, Jimmy Nardello, Hungarian Paprika, and Lemon Drop. The sole tomato flat is Juliet. The rest of my tomatoes and peppers either failed to emerge (even after pre-sprouting) or I killed them by failing to notice a flat or two under the humidity dome had dried out. Just takes one oversight to wipe out weeks of effort.

I am happy with what I do have. Revolution and Jimmy Nardello are must have peppers for me. And how can I not be happy that I managed to sprout and grow those beautiful Lemon Drop plants after swearing off baccatam peppers. The best of those will go in containers to be brought inside for the winter to see if I can get some to ripen. And I have three (maybe four) Hungarian Paprika plants to play with again. Carmen completely failed to germinate from fresh seed, so that is puzzling and disappointing, but I may be able to buy them locally. The Super Shepherd peppers germinated but I managed to let their flat dry out and kill them. If I can find Carmen I will just substitute them for the Super Shepherd, which were just an experiment.

The tomato situation is a somewhat bigger disaster, since none of the tomatoes I was planning to grow are available locally. I did push some new seeds into the cells in the flats and some of them are starting to emerge now, so I may recover partially. After all, it is still 5 weeks or more to setting out.The Chinese gentleman in our community garden direct seeds his tomato plants and they eventually catch up with everyone's transplants. So not all is lost.



Finally, just to add additional pressure to get the garden ready, my onion plants arrived from Dixondale Farms last week and are being kept cool in the basement. These are Copra yellow storage onions and Red Wing red storage onion. They are huge and beautiful, better than anything I can grow. The one disadvantage is they are dormant, which makes it possible to store and ship them. I have found it takes up to a month before they break dormancy and resume growth. I suspect a well grown onion start might compete, being actively growing when it is set out in the garden. Anyway, the race is on to get these in the garden since day length is what it is all about, and how much foliage they can add before the summer solstice starts to shorten days up here in the northern latitudes.

Making Kimchi

Kimchi

There was nothing new from the garden this week but I used some of the Napa cabbage I harvested last week to make a batch of kimchi/kimchee, the Korean soul food. Kimchi is a fermented product and a good way to preserve some of the garden harvest. The kimchi I made is called mak-kimchi or “easy” kimchi, because it uses chopped cabbage leaves rather than whole cabbages and is simpler and faster to make. Napa cabbage is best to use because it has thinner leaves which will make the fermentation faster. This recipe calls for 2 pounds (1 kg) of cabbage.

In addition to the cabbage, there are a few other ingredients, counterclockwise from upper left:

• A bunch of scallions, including greens
• A small leek, including greens
• A carrot or two
• A 2 inch piece of fresh ginger
• A head of garlic, cloves peeled
• 1/4 cup Korean chili flakes (gochugaru), or more to taste
• A turnip or daikon radish
• An apple or Asian pear, peeled and cored
• 3 Tbsp. fish sauce or fermented shrimp paste

The first step is to chop and brine the cabbage. Cut through the root end of the cabbage to quarter it, then pull the quarters apart. Each quarter is sliced lengthwise in half, then chopped into 2 inch pieces. Place the chopped cabbage into a glass or earthenware bowl.

Prepare a brine using 3 Tbsp. of sea salt to 6 cups of water. Pour the brine over the cabbage, then place a plate on the cabbage to make sure the cabbage remains submerged. Drape a towel over the bowl and set aside for 3-4 hours. Another method just salts the leaves and leaves them to wilt. The leaves are then rinsed several times to remove excess salt. I used that method last year and found the leaves to be very salty. Mac commented that the brine technique produced a less salty kimchi, so that is what I am trying this year.

While the cabbage is soaking, prepare the other ingredients. The whites of the scallions and leek are cut into 2 inch lengths, then sliced lengthwise into slivers. The greens are sliced diagonally into small pieces. The turnip or daikon is cut into matchsticks, as well as the carrot. Or you can slice the carrot diagonally into thin slices as I did here.

After the cabbage is finished brining, spoon it into a colander using a slotted spoon and squeeze out any liquid. Place the drained cabbage in a bowl and add the diced fresh vegetables and mix thoroughly. Reserve the brine for later use. 

Prepare the pepper paste by putting the ginger, garlic, pepper flakes, fish sauce or shrimp paste, a teaspoon of sea salt and the apple or pear into a food processor and blend until smooth. Add some brine if you need to thin it. The pepper I used is gochugaru, the traditional Korean red pepper flakes. The gochugaru in the bag above from my local Korean grocery was grown in Korea. All the other bags in the store were of Chinese origin and I try to avoid Chinese produce if possible. The Korean pepper was only available in 1 kilo bags, so I probably have a lifetime supply.

Note that the Korean red pepper is flaked, not ground, and is seedless. Supposedly it is less spicy but more flavorful than other peppers such as cayenne. There really is no substitute for it so a search is worthwhile, or you can mail-order it. You certainly could use your own dried pepper flakes if you have them. Results will likely have a different flavor and heat from using gochugaru, but go ahead and experiment.

Spoon some of the the mixed vegetables into a large mixing bowl and add a scoop of pepper paste. Using disposable gloves, work the paste into the cabbage mix with your fingers until the cabbage is well coated. Continue with layers of vegetables and paste, mixing well, until all is done.

Pack the kimchi into quart canning jars, pushing down to compact the kimchi into the jars. Spoon reserved brine into the jars until the top of the kimchi is covered. My batch filled 2 quart jars. Cover the jars with a loosely-fitted plastic cap and set in a dark, cool place for 3-6 days. Taste the kimchi and when it is sour enough, tighten the caps and store in the refrigerator.

There is a lot of onion in this version which I found to be pretty strong initially. That strong onion flavor subsided as the kimchi fermented. I didn’t use a follower in the jars, but they could have used one. The kimchi was tightly packed in the jars and tended to rise as a mass from the gasses of fermentation. I used a spoon daily to push the mass down below the liquid level. After a week, the kimchi is now pleasantly sour and flavors have melded a bit. It is very tasty, not as salty as my previous attempt,  and the the amount of pepper I used adds enough bite without making it painfully hot (your taste may vary).

That’s my offering for Harvest Monday. Head over to Our Happy Acres, our host for Harvest Monday,  to see what other gardeners around the world are doing in their gardens.

Harvest Monday 7 December 2015

I took a calculated risk last week when I left my cabbages in the garden and visited my daughter in South Carolina. I figured the cabbages would maintain better in the soil under the row cover than in the refrigerator. It looked like night time temperatures would be above freezing, so I would not have to worry about freeze damage. Of course, one of those pesky Canadian cold fronts descended so temperatures were lower than the 5-day forecast predicted, but the cabbages seemed to do well

These are two heads of Soloist cabbages that I have been nursing, hoping they would head up enough to give me enough to make kimchee. These heads were tied up so the interior has blanched but they have not formed a tight head. That is OK, these will be perfect and the good news is no slugs or earwigs in these. Each head weighs about a pound and a half (.7 kg) and with a smaller head will give me the 2 pounds I need for a small batch of kimchee.




These weird looking objects are two more Solist cabbages that I did not tie up to blanch. The leaves laid flat so the inside leaves are green and not the nice yellow color of the first two cabbages. The proximity to the ground also made it easier for something to munch on the leaves. These heads are about a half pound (.25 kg) each. So one of these and a full head will give me the 2 pounds (.9 kg) I need for a batch of kimchee or kraut. Maybe I will make one of each.



I also salvaged two out of three Joi-choi plants left in the bed. These two have had their leaves munched on but the third was down to stubs. With this harvest, I have nothing left in the garden (except for maybe a couple of small carrots).  I still need to clean up some beds but those might wait for Spring, depending on the weather. With the seed catalogs arriving, it's time to think of Spring.


That is all from my garden this week. To see what other gardeners around the world are doing, visit Our Happy Acres, our host for Harvest Monday

Harvest Monday 21 July 2014

As a little reminder of how nasty last winter was, the local paper says that the selectmen are dealing with a budget deficit from last winter when the highway department had to treat roads for 45 separate storms, the most in Bolton history. We are now having a spell of great summer weather. It did rain Tuesday and Wednesday , but except for that daytime temperatures have been in the 80s and overnight temperatures in the 60s. The garden has responded by putting on a growth spurt. The warm weather vegetables are close to yielding large amounts of veggies while the cool weather vegetables have bolted or shut down. Tomatoes and peppers look very healthy and the summer squash and beans are about to deliver.

 

 

I harvested the first Soloist Chinese cabbage. After removing chewed up outer leaves and de-slugging it, it weighed in at 2.5 pounds. This was supposed to be a miniature cabbage. Half of this went into an Asian Cole slaw for the Sunday BBQ. Since I have garlic chives in the garden, I’m thinking the rest goes into dumplings.

 

The last broad beans were harvested and I pulled out the plants, along with the peas. I got about a half cup of shelled beans total out of the effort. They were tasty but I am inclined not to waste the space next year. I also pulled a few of the Jaune Boule d’Or turnips which were ready. The freed up pea/fava bed was planted with beets and spinach. The only trouble with seeding raised beds this time of year is I now have to water the seed beds every day or risk getting nothing, the beds dry out so fast.

 

 

The first of the warm weather vegetables are making their debut. I picked a handful of Provider bush beans, a few Sishito and Jalapeno peppers, and a Y-Star patty pan. This is first time growing Y-Star and I am not sure what to expect.The catalog pictures show it a golden yellow with a green spot on the blossom end. Mine started out dark green and then gradually turned yellowish. No green spot on the end, and this one was already pretty large for a patty pan so I harvested it. Eating quality was good but I think I’m back to Sunburst next year. I didn’t photograph it but I removed the rest of the Green Wave mustard, which was starting to bolt, and planted escarole and endive in the freed up space.

 

That’s what happened in my garden this week. To see what other gardeners around the world are doing, visit Daphne’s Dandelions, our host for Harvest Monday.