Radishes

Spring vegetable gardens are a lot of work, with just the promise of reward. Dig, dig, dig. Plant, plant, plant. Add all the perennial borders: trim, trim, trim, weed, weed, weed, mulch, mulch, mulch.

One of the first rewards is pulling up perfect round radish orbs. I have planted just about every type of radish, but the little Cherry Belle types are still my favorite. Plant some seeds earlyish, and before you know it, you have peppery little sweeties for your salads.  I am on my third planting before Memorial Day.

Of course, they are so darn quick and easy that their virtue can be your vice. I always forget them a little too long and end up wasting some, letting them get woody or cracked. Today, however, I pulled up a bunch of them because they were perfect, and I didn't want any to be wasted!  Plus, they have so few calories I can eat them with abandon. Not they way the French do - with fresh butter - although I'd love to. Woodbury Kitchen serves them with tarragon butter that is my idea of heaven. One of the best things I ever did with a radish was to mince them up, and to butter, and spread thickly on pumpernickel bread for an appetizer. But I need to stick to the less buttery, and caloric, choices. I have too many for just adding to green salads (though I have so much lettuce every friend may be eating such salads this week, too). The Produce Bible has a recipe for a salad with cucumber, celery, shallot, avocado, radishes, and cilantro - with a vinaigrette. I think I will be substituting garlic scrapes from the Farmer's Market yesterday, and perhaps Italian parsley since I have a lot in the garden. But I am keeping the avocado, cucumber, and radish combination.

If any readers have radish recipes to share, please do!

Copyright 2010, EmeraldAcre.blogspot.com

Fresh Picked

One of the benefits of growing your own vegetables is that you know what "fresh picked" looks and tastes like.  So when you buy something that the seller claims is "just picked", and you notice deflated pods, stringyness, loss of crispness, fading color, soft spots - you know the claims are not true. You know that "fresh picked" still has the warmth of the sunshine on it, the bite of all its flavor, the aroma of its essence and perhaps a bit of dirt. My "favorite thing" in the vegetable garden is always what I am harvesting at the moment, just as my favorite thing in the flower gardens is what is blooming. The best of the best? Whatever is picked in the garden and eaten on the spot!

So the peas we purchased at a farm stand were not just picked, but they look great nonetheless. Since mine are still blooming and not yet podded, I was excited to find these so I could start shelling. It takes a lot of shelling to get 3 cups for fresh pea soup, but the extra work seems approriate for a dish that gives so many rewards. I also pulled up a huge amount of mint from my going-to-be melon and squash bed, so it looks like Fresh Pea Soup with Mint is on its way!



Copyright 2010, EmeraldAcre.blogspot.com

Planting Day

Every spring, there is at least one weekend of sunup-to-sundown planting in the vegetable garden. Today was one of those days, so I am writing this while stiff and sore! My vegetables went in late - first we went away for our anniversary, then my dad came to visit, and yesterday was devoted to a family get together that folks had been planning since winter. Finally today I could get all my seedlings out of the basement and into the garden!

It hasn't been such a great seedling year. I think my light bulbs needed to be full specturm, although these same bulbs have worked in years past. But my sprouts were spindly and weak, and didn't have many "real"  leaves when planted. But now they are snuged into a garden bed, amended by composted manure, surrounded by cutworm collars, and in pretty warm soil. So now it is up to them to show me what they've got. Grow, baby, grow!

When we went to Longwood Gardens for our anniversary, Jonathan admired a trellis system in the vegetable garden, so he volunteered to make me one this spring. Bless his heart - a great gift! We needed to trim (or take out) some of the apple trees, so he found six (mostly) straight branches to cut down for the supports,  and added a few bamboo posts.  Covered it with a wide plastic mesh, perfect for large vines. Though a simple project, it took quite a while to execute, and he will be sore as well this evening. I'll post a picture if I have a rain-free day soon. I planted the few remaining winter squash seeds left from last year -  an unusual variety that was incredible, so hopefully the seeds are still viable. On the other side, I planted a mini cantaloupe that I also grew last year.  Underneath at the sides I planted a winter squash meant for container growing - a Bush Delicata. It doesn't seem possible to grown winter squash in a container, so I am excited to see how the plant develops. I still have some room on the trellis, but am out of seeds. Another seed order in my future?

 Copyright 2010, EmeraldAcre.blogspot.com

Cutworm Collars

Just in case any beginning organic veggie gardeners are reading this blog: don't forget your cutworm collars!

If you have been nuturing little seedlings of tomatoes, peppers, and other tenders since February as I have, you are about to put them outside to grow like crazy. But in a flash, all your seedlings can be lost overnight. Cutworms. I have never actually seen one at work - but I have had my heart broken by their damage. Precious little seedlings gone.

The solution is to make small cardboard rings for your seedlings. I make mine out of posterboard or cardstock - nothing too heavy. I save cardboard that comes with shirts or with the package of laser printer labels, but I am not above just buying a sheet of poster board. I cut a strip perhaps 2 1/2 to 3 inches tall, and as wide as needed to make a circle that fits right around the plant with some wiggle room. Staple together. Makes a great project to do while watching TV.

As you plant your seedlings, put a cardboard ring around each plant, pushing it into the ground just a bit, because if it comes up, the cutworm can just crawl under and cut the stem. Cutworms can't handle older stems, just the young and tender, so the rings don't have to last all season. Rain won't destroy them, but eventually you will want to remove the remains once the stems are nice and strong.

I have done this for more years than I can count, and it makes a big differnce. A few years back I thought I would save time by eliminating this step... of course, you know the end of this story...

  Copyright 2010, EmeraldAcre.blogspot.com

Second Harvest: Rhubarb

My father's girlfriend, Karen, is what he calls "an old fashioned cook". What I love is her enthusiasm. She loves cooking, and passing on what she knows. She not a gardener - but she knows a rhubarb plant from a distance, and shows no mercy in harvesting it!

My dad and Karen came for a visit just in time for Karen to spy my rhubarb ready for harvest. So we ravished the plant, and I made a strawberry-rhubarb pie using a recipe from my newest favorite cookbook, Dishing Up Maryland by Lucie Snodgrass, just published this year. Added fresh whipped cream from South Mountain Creamery and WOW, what a treat. It was great!

The one caveat: I didn't make the pie crust from scratch. I've gotten lazy in recent years, nearly always using Pillsubry's pre-made refrigerated crusts. They are so easy!! But homemade is not that hard, either.

Karen had the solution. Her mother used to come to her house for a visit, and would ask her what she could do to help. Karen often asked for pie crusts. So now she's passing it on another generation - she shared her pie crust recipe, and we made enough for 6 crusts, freezing them as disks. Having multiple homemade crusts on hand in the freezer is a wonderful convenience- and rolling them takes very little time, so it is almost as easy as the store-bought variety. Thanks, Karen!!

She also makes a rhubarb pie, but without strawberries. She was polite about my pie, but she claims hers is wonderful. So I am waiting for a few more stalks to appear so I can reap another harvest to put her pie to the test: is it better? I have a feeling it just may be...

My friend Ellen suggests Rhubarb Relish, which she made a few years ago. I have a ton of rhubarb relish recipes, so this weekend I am going to try one or two, or more likely, invent my own. I love the idea of the relish with a rich meat like beef or buffalo, or with pork. It also makes weeknight cooking so much easier if I can just throw meat on the grill knowing that the flavor boost is going to come from a relish or homemade roasted tomato catsup. Easy without being boring.

Rhubarb is a great garden addition because it's huge (poisonous) leaves are so dramatic. I like adding more perennials to the veggie garden, so I may need to add a few more rhubarb. It is truly carefree - pests do not seem to bother it, and it doesn't mind a bit of drought. And the stalks are sooo tasty - good thing I have lots of pie crusts ready!



Copyright 2010, EmeraldAcre.blogspot.com

Wood Poppy

I'm not positive I have it's name right, but here is what I think is a Wood Poppy in the woods in my back yard. It was a new addition last year, and it seems to be a happy plant under the pines and spruces. It is no delicate little wildflower - it has a substance to it. Cold doesn't seem to faze it. Our collie can walk over it and it springs back. What a great plant. I hope ie reseeds all over the place!

Copyright 2010, EmeraldAcre.blogspot.com

Merrybells in the Shade Border, early April

Copyright 2010, EmeraldAcre.blogspot.com

Redbud, Early April

When I was growing up, we have two crabapples sentinels opening to the backyard, and one perfect Redbud on the left side. It had a graceful shape, the perfect small tree. And the buds! The delicate pink flowers were my favorite of the spring blooms. That was in Michigan. In my early thrities, I moved to the east coast and found out that Redbuds were native to the local hardwood forests, unlike in my home state. I have been enchanted since then, and visits to the woods in ealry spring takes my breath away. On our property, we have a wooded area that is second growth and degraded from what I see as the natural woods. We are adding dogwoods and redbuds to create a second story canpoy, and although it is taking a while, the redbuds are starting to grow.  Perfect. 

First Harvest: Mint

I was excited to have my first harvest meal of the year: Mint Marinated Lamb Kebabs.

I am one of those dummies that palnted mint years ago that wasn't properly contained (look to make sure the pot doesn't have drainage holes!!), and as a reuslt, I have been pulling it out of vegetable beds, paths, and flower beds for the last decade and a half.

It is one of the first plants back to life in the spring, and I pull it up with as many roots as I can get. I know there are more roots, and I will see more mint. Later in the year, it sneaks under other plants, and I may not notice it when the leaves are still nice and tender, so the "harvests" from weeding can't be used. But in spring, the mint is fresh, green, and tender, and oh-so-good. I planted some of it is a pot - always optimistic that it won't escape this time - so I can have fresh, tender mint for cooking later in the year, then took the roots off the rest and chopped it up for the marinade.

So if you have mint invading your beds, please try the marinade. It is wonderful on lamb, the natural mint combination (I used lamb from Evermore Farms, which is wonderful), but could be used on beef or buffalo as well.  I used about a pound and a half of meat, trimmed of fat. Here is the approximate mix:

Juice of one lemon (throw in some of the peel, too)
2 Tablespoons Honey
Big handful of fresh, minced mint (perhaps a cup)
4 cloves of minced garlic

Cut the meat into large chunks - 2 to 3 inch on each side. Put the marinade ingredients (mixed) and the meat in a Ziploc gallon bag or (slightly safer) in a lidded glass container and marinate in the refrigerator for no less than one hour or more than overnight. Take the meat out of the marinade, and put on metal skewers, leaving some room in between the chunks for most even cooking. Grill. Eat. Enjoy plain or with a sauce of equal amounts of greek yogurt and tahini.

Yum. One great weed.

Copyright 2010, EmeraldAcre.blogspot.com

Work, Play, and the Creation of Beauty.

When I started my blog, it was supposed to be "life outside the office". I wrote a lot, then stopped. Clearly, there hasn't been enough "outside the office" in the last few months.

But the garden is blooming like crazy, veggies are popping, and my kitchen is starting to reflect the fresh harvests again. It is time to reclaim a balanced life between work and play.  My "play" involves one heck of a lot of work. Digging, planting, weeding outside. Chopping, sauteeing, baking inside. Whew.

When spending hours and hours and hours weeding and mulching last weekend, I can't say I was always having fun. Gardening involves a lot of grunt labor. So does good cooking - there is not a lot of glamour in endless vegetable chopping. But in both cases, the payoff is so great: the creation of beauty.

Beauty is the payoff. Visual beauty, glorious taste - I am a glutton for the sensual rewards of my labor. My eyes widen in celebration of a bloom, or the textured created by overlapping foliage. My taste buds rejoice in fresh, healthy foods.

I am not alone. Yesterday, Joanthan and I went to Longwood Gardens to celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary. It was crowded, of course, with people basking in the beauty of thousands of flower bulbs, forest wildflowers, and sniffing incredible fragrances. It took hundreds and hundreds of hours of labor to create such beauty - and none of it was my own labor. Joy, joy, joy!                    

Copyright 2010, EmeraldAcre.blogspot.com