A is for Apple and Asparagus

Today I planted a Pixie Crisp Apple tree and 2 year old root stock of Mary Washington asparagus.
The large leafed plants are red potatoes. I've got red, white and purple potatoes coming along nicely. Broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots are doing well and being harvested as they get ready. I've got a couple of sweet peppers almost ready to pick. It's been a mild winter. Today Fletch came over to help get lawn equipment ready for summer mowing and while he was here he cleaned out the gutters. Hooray for a helpful, loving son!

Pickled cauliflower?

I've gotten several heads of cauliflower and will try pickling them with some of the carrots this weekend. The broccoli is heading fast as well, but I've been steaming it and eating it as a side dish with everything.

Winter Harvest

Broccoli and cauliflower from the garden today. Lots more out there, just not ready to pick.

What's up, Doc?

Bugs Bunny would be happy in my garden this month. The carrots are looking very good, but still small, so I'll leave them in the ground at least another couple of weeks.
Broccoli and cauliflower are looking healthy but no flowers, yet. I meant to feed them again this weekend but didn't get around to it despite the beautiful weather.

Potatoes are going crazy above ground, with healthy looking vines and leaves. They're a long way from being pulled, probably not until early fall.

Now for the disappointing news. After I planted all those Sweet Charlie strawberry plants I expected a bed full of strawberry plants and some even starting to fruit. Not so much. Just a few little plants with new leaves and no flowers or berries.  <*sigh*>

No lemons this year on the tree. It should be getting ready to flower in another month so I'll know then if I'll have lemons next year. I may plant an orange tree. I think I have the perfect spot for it.

If you are a gardener please let me know what's going on in your garden in late January.

Book Review: Skinny Chicks Eat Real Food

Title: Skinny Chicks Eat Real Food
Author: Christine Avanti
Publisher: Rodale Books (December 20, 2011)
Genre: Cookbooks, Nutrition
Length: 336 pages
SUMMARY: Skinny Chicks Don’t Eat Salads author Christine Avanti explains how women and men can control their appetites and lose weight by avoiding the fake and processed foods that are actually making them fatter.
Many women think that products labeled “fat-free,” “sugar-free,” or “lite” are the key to easy weight loss. The truth is that these so-called healthy packaged foods are filled with processed ingredients and chemicals that actually contribute to weight gain by causing us to overeat.
In The Real Food Diet, nutritionist Christine Avanti explains why a diet rich in all-natural produce, whole grains, and lean protein packed with the nutrients responsible for maintaining stable blood sugar levels and speeding up metabolism is by far the more effective option. Avanti draws on the latest research to provide guidelines for what and how often readers should eat to ensure that pounds are dropped—and offers specific meal plans, grocery lists, and a collection of flavorful recipes filled with fresh, seasonal ingredients.
A guide to eating real food in a factory-food world, a weight loss plan, and a real-food cookbook in one, The Real Food Diet will instruct and inspire readers to steer clear of fake food and eat the balanced, all-natural way we were designed to eat.

Book Review: Salad for Dinner by Tasha DeSerio

Title: Salad for Dinner
Author: Tasha DeSerio
Publisher: Taunton Press (March 13, 2012)
Genre: Cookbooks
Length: 208 pages
SUMMARY: Salad for lunch? Salad for dinner? It’s easy – and delicious – to turn salads into main meals with this original collection from chef Tasha DeSerio. As more and more home cooks are looking to eat healthy using local and regional offerings, the whole-meal salads highlighted here will satisfy vegetarians and meat-eaters alike. Simple, yet sophisticated and showcasing the author’s talent for presenting beautiful ingredients in an artful way, the recipes encompass everything from greens to meat and fish, dairy, and pasta and grain. With detailed information on in-season fruits and vegetables, lesser-known salad fixings, preparation techniques (including make ahead tips), and a comprehensive chapter on salad basics, readers will have all they need to turn out satisfying and beautiful salads of their own. Easy enough for one and special enough for a crowd, salads as a main course will be showing up on tables everywhere.

Don't Order More Than You Are Willing to Stoop and Plant!

And that number is much smaller at planting time than it is at harvesting and eating time! 25 strawberry plants and 25-30 potato plants is about all I can plant. Today, not wanting to waste the plants that were ordered months ago and shipped at the appropriate planting season, I put *75* friggin' strawberry plants in the ground and 50 potato plants in the new potato bed. We'll see how much strawberry jam I want to make and how many potato casseroles I want to freeze later. Ugh.

Book Review: How Carrots Won the Trojan War by Rebecca Rupp

Title: How Carrots Won the Trojan War: Curious (but True) Stories of Common Vegetables
Author: Rebecca Rupp
Publisher: Storey Publishing
Genre: Foodie, Non-fiction, History
Length: 384 pages
Get a copy: ;

SUMMARY: George Washington’s greatest enemy may have been a bowl of peas. That’s just one of the interesting highlights found in How Carrots Won the Trojan War, a rollicking, addictive discussion of the history, lore, cultural associations, and traditions associated with 23 popular vegetables. History buffs and vegetable lovers will find common ground while learning how beans beat back the Dark Ages and peppers won the Nobel Prize.
Author Rebecca Rupp brings her witty, well-crafted storytelling to the world of vegetables, offering a new perspective on their place in human history. Readers will discover why Roman gladiators were massaged with onion juice before battle, that cucumbers may be afraid of thunderstorms, and why soe 17th century turnips were considered degenerate.
Written for gardeners, foodies, and anyone curious about the history of their favorite veggies, How Carrots Won the Trojan War satisfies on every level. As recent selection of the History and Military Book Clubs, it clearly has appeal across a variety of genres. With generous portions of humor and intriguing little-known facts, readers are sure to love and endlessly retell these unique and flavorful stories.

REVIEW: So you think you don’t want to read a biography of vegetables? Think again! Rebecca Rupp’s book How Carrots Won the Trojan War is a totally fascinating read. Each of the 23 chapters is devoted to the place in history of one common vegetable, beginning with the sexy asparagus and ending with the turnip, a vegetable featured in many fairytales.
Dr. Rupp has done a tremendous amount of research into the history and agribusiness of these vegetables. Throughout history vegetables have been praised for their curative powers and the same vegetables cursed for their ability to cause death and disease. Some of these vegetables changed history and won wars.
Are you a trivia nut? Then this is a must-have for your library. For example, in ancient Pompeii, why were onions kept in brothels? Was Popeye wise to depend on spinach for his spur-of-the-moment strength? While the book is written on an adult level, with a good amount of chemical information about vegetables, the stories in the book can be shared with children who will love hearing that the cabbage on their plate at dinner was so loved by Abraham Lincoln that he requested it for his inauguration dinner. Or, that Jack of jack-o-lantern fame was banned from both heaven and hell and condemned to wander the earth forever with his lantern, originally made from a turnip, not a pumpkin.
If you want a book that is fun to read, easy to pick up and read a chapter, then put down until you have time to read again, I recommend How Carrots Won the Trojan War to you.
RATING: 4 healthy broccoli stalks!

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Garden in Transition

The plants react more to the changes in daylight hours than they do to changes in temperature at this time of year.

This is  a picture of young cauliflower and broccoli plants. They will start producing edibles sometime in late January and continue until the weather gets too warm for the florets to cluster.

The next picture is of a late season sweet pepper. There are several but with the colder nights not all may be able to mature in time.

Young carrot shoots. They will be long, fat and ready to pull in March.

This is what horseradish looks like above ground. Below ground it is a root that when shredded or ground produces a fine flavor for seasoning sauces and meats.

Purple and red potatoes have begun to sprout. It takes longer than seems reasonable for them to produce good sized potatoes. I don't expect to have any to eat from this bed until late summer. I do have sweet potatoes that will be ready to pull in February.

This last picture is titled Hope Springs Eternal. Watermelon seeds have sprouted in the compost pile, apparently unaware that the heat produced in the compost is not indicative of the actual season.

Coming soon: strawberry plants!

Lots and lots of cauliflower

The broccoli didn't come up in the quantities that I planted. What the heck? So, I decided to buy plants to supplement the patchy seedlings that did sprout. Went to the usual nurseries - nada. It's still growing season in Houston so why do they think all we want to put in the ground are mums?

Drove across town to Wabash Feed Store and they had loads of small organic cauliflower plants in the exact variety I wanted - Snow Crown - but no broccoli. Well, I love cauliflower so I bought a flat and planted them Sunday afternoon and I've got to say it looks a whole lot better to see all that caulflower growing in the broccoli bed than empty dirt. Cross your fingers that they stay healthy and produce flowers. I'll share!

Book Review: Fine Cooking In Season

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Purchase direct from Fine Cooking Store

The Editors and Contributors of Fine Cooking Magazine have written an amazing book, Fine Cooking in Season. I am reluctant to call it a “cookbook” because it is so much more than just recipes. Included in this beautifully photographed book are instructions for how to select, store, prepare, use and preserve produce.

It is always best to use fresh produce, but often what is available at the market is not fresh. It has been picked, packed, trucked, shipped, warehoused and finally displayed with special lighting and temperature controls to tempt you into buying it “fresh.” The good cook needs to be schooled about what is in season right now, in this location. Buying fresh and local is the key to excellent dining.

There are a number of interesting trivia, such as how white asparagus is grown and whether it is worth the extra expense. What are ramps and why would you look for them? How is the heat level of varieties of chilies measured and which ones are the hottest?

The recipes in this book will make your mouth water. They are categorized by season, beginning with spring, so start with the current season when browsing the recipes. There is a recipe for every meal, from breakfast to midnight snack, all carefully tested to use produce at its peak of freshness.

I have tried a few of the recipes but it would take an entire year to cover the book. Hmmm. I may try that. Based on the recipes that I have tried, the Fine Cooking chefs have done an admirable job of developing and testing these delicious dishes. One of the outcomes of reading this book is a desire to grow vegetables and fruits that I have not tried in my garden before.  Next year: definitely more berries!

The Suburban Farmer Awards Fine Cooking in Season

Five Fresh Broccoli Spears!

Beware of Cheap Mulch!

Last year I had a sprinkler system installed. I also asked them to spread organic mulch on all beds. Since I was not the one ordering the mulch from a compost farm I had no way to be sure they delivered exactly what I ordered but I trusted the company. Big mistake. Organic mulch looks pretty much like any other mulch. On top of that, I believe I did not get composted mulch but instead I paid for organic composted mulch but got cheap dyed shredded bark, which has leeched all the nitrogen out of the soil and caused everything except the hardiest shrubs and trees to die. My vegetable garden has not recovered yet, even though I scraped the offending "mulch" off of the bed, turned the soil, and added my own compost. So sad!

For more information on bad mulch read this blog post by one of the best gardening bloggers, Brenda Beust Smith, "The Lazy Gardener."
http://blog.chron.com/lazygardener/2011/10/beware-of-cheap-mulch/

Happy Halloween to All Gardeners!

Book Review: The Edible Front Yard

 Purchase from Timber Press Publishing, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble.

SUMMARY: The Edible Front Yard helps you combine the loveliest and tastiest edibles and ornamentals in a garden that is a year-round feast for the eyes. Ivette Soler teaches all the tricks, from laying out the design and choosing the best front yard plants, to clear instruction for a bounty of exciting projects like a fragrant carpet of herbs, a trellis privacy screen using runner beans, and an eye-catching raised bed that turns the hellstrip into a little patch of paradise. From the curb right up to your front door, the information in these pages includes everything you need to have a beautiful front yard and eat it too!

THE FARMER'S REVIEW: This is a gorgeous book! Ivette Soler has created a beautifully photographed, designed and written book about gardening that is suited to planning a home garden using any space around your home. We’ve always assumed that a garden of edibles belongs in the back yard only. After all, the tomatoes get leggy, the melons decide to move three states away on their stringy vines, and vegetable plants aren’t as decorative as flowers and shrubs. Or are they?

Ms. Soler not only suggests what plants are so beautiful you won’t want to plant them where the neighbors can’t see them but she suggests how to plant them, what kind of hardscape will best contain them, and then she offers instructions for how to build the retaining walls, walkways, trellises and other landscaping features.

If you are the handy sort, this book is the only instruction manual you need to create the most beautiful and functional front yard in your subdivision, neighborhood or area. If you would rather hire help to lay the pavers, build the structures and create your new curb appeal, this is the book to go over with your contractor so there is no misunderstanding about exactly the result you want to achieve.

I became interested in growing edible plants in the front yard the year I planted artichokes. My eyes popped as these vegetable plants grew into the most amazing foliage, flowers and ultimately delicious buds ever seen. I had the same experience with the asparagus beds: soft, fern-like growth that is a lovely background for other, smaller plantings. So, I planted some in the front beds, but just in clumps here and there.

Then I found Ms. Soler’s amazing book and realized that with a strategy, design and deliberate organization I could have a mind-blowing garden that would not only be seen as beautiful but upon closer inspection, provide food for me, my family and friends. It will take some initial work as well as a maintenance plan. The hardscape will not be cheap, but with a written scheme I can do what I can afford this year and add a little more as time and money allow. I am so excited!

Whether you are planning a garden for the front yard, a small plot in a corner of your backyard, or even on the balcony of your apartment, The Edible Front Yard is the reference book for you. Wait. It is not only an encyclopedia of landscape design, it is a book that is so pretty you will want to keep it out on your coffee table as I do. And if all you grow is grass, trees and a few shrubs, please, please get this book and get out of your rut! You won’t be able to resist planting just one pineapple guava shrub and when you see how pretty and useful that is, another fantastic fruit or vegetable plant that will be a treat for the eyes and your table.

The Suburban Farmer awards The Edible Front Yard 5 broccoli stalks and a MUST BUY!

Perfectly delicious home made mayonnaise in less than 5 minutes

The step that will take the most time is collecting the ingredients from the refrigerator and pantry!
(I used a bullet blender but you can use almost any blender.)
1 egg
1 c olive oil (or any oil you prefer - I like the olive oil's flavor)
1 tsp lime juice (or lemon juice or vinegar - I like the lime flavor)
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp fresh tarragon (optional)

Using the bullet's flat blade, place the egg, 1/4 c olive oil, lime juice, salt and dry mustard in a tall bullet jar. Pulse for 10 seconds, three times. Add another 1/4 c. olive oil, pulse three times. Continue 1/4 c at a time until all oil has been incorporated. You will never buy store-bought mayonnaise after you've made your own. It takes almost no time, is delicious, you know exactly what's in it, and you know it's fresh and hasn't been sitting in a hot warehouse for a year.

Book Review: Year Round Vegetables, Fruits and Flowers for Metro Houston, by Bob Randall, PhD

Summary: If you are already a skilled gardener, this book may be of use to you because it has a lot in it, is updated every few years, and is particularly aimed at the Metro Houston area. But if you are not so skilled, it will only partly provide what you need. Learning horticulture is like learning nearly everything else. A textbook works best if it is used with good teachers, both sit-down and hands on. For nearly twenty years, an increasing number of other gardening advocates and I have been building a “neighborhood school system” that does just that. At Urban Harvest, we provide lots of classes at night and on weekends taught by people who know their subject and care about it. Multiple-class series taught twice a month are especially useful: we have a basics of gardening course in the fall; building your orchard course in winter; organic vegetable course in spring and sometimes we teach an organic landscaping course or a gardening with water course. Year round, we teach sustainable design through four permaculture courses. We also teach monthly classes on how to sell what we grow and how to start community and school gardens.  Visit us at www.urbanharvest.org.

The Farmer's Review: This book is my Bible for gardening. I plant what it says to plant, when it says to plant it and buy seeds and plantings from where it says to obtain them.

I learned how to garden without pesticides from this book. It’s a very painful first year as you use the bad bugs to lure the good bugs, meanwhile losing many plants and vegetables to the bad bugs before the good ones eat it. However, I haven’t used any pesticides in four years and haven’t lost a plant yet. Oh, they take a nibble out of a leaf from time to time and get a vegetable once in a while, but overall it’s a perfectly fine garden that looks like there are no bugs at all. Look closely and see the good guys.

The other thing I’ve learned is if you try two or three times to grow something, watermelons, for example, and are not successful, give up and plant something else! The light or temperature or soil may just not be right in your garden. Keep growing what works, okra for example.

Bob Randall has retired and the book is apparently no longer in print. Used copies are available at Barnes and Noble online and Amazon online for up to $200. So, if you are lucky enough to come across a copy, hold it dear for it is as valuable as gold.

The Suburban Farmer rates Year Round… by Bob Randle
Five organic broccoli stalks!

Too much of a good thing?

Guess what came in the mail yesterday. More potatoes for planting. I guess I forgot how many I ordered from another company and ordered additional. *sigh* I'll find someplace to plant them. You can never have too many fresh, organic potatoes, I do believe.

Rain! Blessed rain!

The garden got over 2" of rain yesterday in an all-day soaker like we haven't seen in almost a year of drought. The little seedlings are popping above the surface of the soil in celebration. Still no sign of potato vines, except the rogue sweet potatoes that just won't go away. It's too wet to work in the garden or flower beds today but this week looks like it will have time to dry out, so that's good.
With our Thanksgiving camping trip now in jeopardy we welcome this rain for that, too. Burn bans are in effect in nearly every county in Texas, including Polk County where we plan to camp in November. No campfires and no charcoal grills means no cooking and no s'mores by a warm fire at night. Come on more rain!

Book Review: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver

animalvegetablemiracle.com

Summary: Author Barbara Kingsolver and her family abandoned the industrial-food pipeline to live a rural life—vowing that, for one year, they’d only buy food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an enthralling narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat.
The Farmer's Review: I first read this book while on vacation and could hardly wait to get home to put into practice as much of Ms.Kingsolver’s philosophy about food as possible. Here we are four years later and I’ve done some.
I started and keep an organic garden, or as organic a garden as one can have in a suburban tract home neighborhood. God only knows what kind of fill is under the yard and house. I dug out my garden about 12”, added a mix of organic garden soil and organic compost, and began my hobby as gardener. I only purchase seeds from known organic suppliers and prefer to buy heirloom varieties. I shop at a feed store near downtown Houston where I can obtain organic, heirloom plants and organic fertilizers. I haven’t used a single pesticide since I started gardening, except for one application of rat poison. *shudder* I can’t stand rats.
I’m into the slow food movement, cooking almost every meal I eat at home or dining out where food is prepared in the restaurant’s kitchen. Sometimes I slip and hurriedly buy from a fast food joint but try to get a sandwich, soup, BBQ or baked potato from a shop where the food is prepared right there, from scratch.
I also became enamored of Ms. Kingsolver’s cheese making and ordered the book, video and equipment mentioned in the book. I still make some cheese but the biggest challenge is finding organic milk that has not been ultra pasteurized because that will not make cheese.
The funniest part of the book is when the Kingsolvers undertook to raise turkeys. They got heirloom chicks but because turkeys are usually slaughtered before they become sexually mature, her turkey had never learned how to have sex, so they were having trouble getting fertilized eggs and thus more chicks. One turkey fell in love with Ms. Kingsolver’s husband, to his chagrin.
I don’t live where I can raise goats for milk or chickens/turkeys for eggs but I always buy organic products.
I’ve become more and more “green”, with almost everything that is tossed out going into the recycle can or the compost heap. I put out the garbage can about once every six weeks or so, and even that is overkill – a giant can with about two or three pounds of trash that is not recyclable, such as chicken bones. I have considered becoming a vegetarian but like meat, poultry and fish so I try to eat healthy portions of organic meats and fish and pile more veggies on my plate than meat. The Forks over Knives movement is another step in this direction.
In conclusion, this excellent book changed my life and hopefully my little part of the planet. I recommend it highly and award Animal, Vegetable, Miracle Five Healthy Broccoli Stalks!