The July Round Up

I would be lying if I said that I haven't been a little disappointed with this years crops so far. Although my zucchini are looking really healthy, many of the baby fruits are shriveling before they become more than 1/2 inch wide (there are 8 ball zuccs, so they are round), the raspberries did produce well for the number of plants I think, but I was expecting enough to do something other than a syrup with, and the garlic was really tiny, much smaller than the bulb the cloves came from. Also, every time I plant lettuce, chard or spinach, something comes in and decides to flutter about in it, so all of my carefully placed seeds end up in piles, meaning any seeds that sprout are so close together that I lose more through thinning than I should. I try to transplant them back where they started, but they haven't been sturdy as of yet.

On the up side, and there is definitely an up side, I have harvested and eaten quite a lot. Oddly, despite the old French ways of cooking vegetables (braising a delicate lettuce like Boston Bibb for two hours? Really?), re watching old "The French Chef" tapes helped me to see how to circumvent some of the waste. For example, my family just won't make salad. It only gets made if I can stand up long enough to make it myself, and even then there are moans of sadness when it is presented on the plate. My husband seems most hostile to it.

So, when several pounds of it bolted in the garden, I despaired, until I saw Julia Child braise that unsuspecting lettuce. What if I peeled the thick stem that was bolting? I experimented and found that it tastes a lot like asparagus! Some of the leaves were also saved, but more was wasted than eaten because the tough ones and the ones with even a little of the red that happens once bolting starts was simply way too bitter for my family's taste buds. What was left though was excellent. If I have more in the future I will try to make something more interesting than a short braise with butter, salt, and pepper on it. One step at a time.

As stated before, the Mouse Melons are really happy where they are growing with my last remaining cabbage. I allowed a couple to get very big, but found that, like their cousins, they start to get more seedy and bitter as they get bigger. I will be saving some seeds from these plants though, because I am definitely growing more next year.

Even though the zucchini have been slow to produce viable fruit, I did get two lovely ones that were put together with some of the tomatoes into a gratin of sorts, with buttered bread crumbs and a tiny amount of Swiss cheese (told you, Julia...)

Harvest from today and some of yesterday's harvest too (at least the part that wasn't eaten)

Yes, the picture is from August. July was a tough month to even manage the basics of the garden, so no pictures. Okay, that is partly because my kitchen was a mess and I generally didn't have enough spoons to clean AND snap photos. Below are the totals for July only. I haven't posted amounts for June other than the 20 pounds of strawberries which still amazes me.

Rhubarb: 1 pound 9 oz
Garlic: six really small heads. Tasty, but small
Lettuce: 2 pounds 3 oz of Salad type leaves and over 3 pounds of bolting stems and leaves. This was supposed to be a head type lettuce, but that never happened.
Raspberries: 11.5 oz
Swiss Chard: 1 pound 8 oz
Mouse Melons:  1 pound 7 oz
Carrots: a few spindly bits, not enough to weigh really.
Snow Peas: not even a full handful over the course of the month.
Cabbages:  3 pounds 8 oz I planted three heads, one is still in the ground, the other two are making sauerkraut. :)
Tomatoes:
Patio Princess: 6 oz (large cherry tomatoes or small regular ones)
Snow White: 3.25 oz (cherry tomatoes)
Plum: 4 oz
And many bunches of basil, cinnamon basil, mint, flat leaf parsley, chives and snippets of other herbs like rosemary and French tarragon.

The tomatoes are heavy on the vines though, I expect a lot of ripening in the next couple of weeks.

For the record, here was the June harvest:

Strawberries: 20 pounds (can you tell how happy I am about that? LOL)
Rhubarb: 2 pounds (maybe a bit more, I let some sit outside and get ruined after harvesting)
Broccoli Rabe: 14.75 oz (test crop)
Bok Choy: 2 pounds
Spinach: 6 oz
Lettuce 1 pound 6 oz
Radishes: 6 oz
Kale: 1 pound
Swiss Chard: 1.5 oz
Assorted herbs

Getting Ready for Second Sowing

It has been difficult getting out to the garden to do more than very urgent weeding and watering. I may have this a bit more under control, with drugs unfortunately. Still, it gets me out in the garden for a little longer than usual, and that is A Good Thing™.  I am going to show some pictures that are already on the blog side by side with what I have going on now. This was a last minute decision because I saw the pictures from just under two weeks ago and was amazed at the difference in such a short time. I feel like I waited forever for the garden to take off, so here is some photographic proof that it is actually progressing pretty well.

This is most of my backyard as seen today, 26 July 2014. In the foreground is my sweet old puppy Molly who has chosen to start coming outside on her own for the first time in her life. She is 13 years old, so you can teach an old dog new tricks! 

This is how things are shaping up so far:

This is the three sisters on July 1

Here are the Three Sisters on July 14

And here are the Three Sisters today, July 26 !

 That is some serious growth. The corn is looking good and I have been checking the zucchini on a daily basis to see if the vine borers made it through the dirt again. So far the plants are very healthy looking, but the fruits are yellowing before they even shed the flower. I was told that they may not be being (or beeing, hee hee) pollinated, so I went out there with a makeup brush to do the deed myself, but haven't found any male flowers. These are the 8 ball zucchini, so if you know anything, please drop a comment. I saved one that managed to grow a little, but the blossom end looked a bit eaten, so I cut it down and added it to omelets the other night.

Here is a picture of my sadness:

See how it is turning yellow from the blossom end and the blossom end looks a little like rot, like happens with tomatoes sometimes? These have been fertilized with seaweed several times, and they have been planted with beans that were treated with enzymes to hold the nitrogen.

There is a lot more happiness than sadness though. Remember my experiment with Mouse Melons (or Mexican Gherkins, or a few other names)? Well, I believe that they have been a success so far. The growth is amazing and I can't seem to keep up with making trellises for the plants.

This was the bed with the mouse melons in them July 1 (on the left). Two of the three of these cabbages are now sitting on my counter turning into sauerkraut. It looks divine.

Here are the mouse melons just two weeks later, after I had created a trellis with some old supports from the compost pile and rough twine. Oh, and another stick, those suckers are taking off like crazy.

Here is how I found the mouse melons this afternoon. I am definitely going to need a better trellis system set up before the wild growing time.

I was out there this morning at 5:30 am and picked all of the large mouse melons that I could find. When I came out this afternoon to take pictures, look at what I found. It most assuredly was not that large this morning. These things are prolific. I love it! Makes me look like I have a green thumb and stuff.

It pulled one of the metal poles over! Mind you, these are just five of the seedlings that I planted. I started 10 seeds inside and they all germinated.

Here is two of the cabbages I grew. The third is staying outside until I can think of what to do with it. This soon to be sauerkraut is two full weeks old and has stayed perfectly colored. I am very please. Last year I used Savoy, and a plastic bag of brine to keep the cabbage under, but the savoy didn't have the liquid I think that was needed to really work out. I am very pleased so far. The jar inside is just to give a little displacement to keep everything submerged.

This is "Bed Three". The plum tomatoes are growing everywhere and I can't keep up with nipping the suckers, but there are a lot of them. I thought that these were determinate, but now I am not so sure. In the center are two red pepper plants and two jalapeno with some basil and nasturtiums keeping everyone company.

Not the best photo editing every, but I never claimed to be good at it. :) On the left are jalapenos and the right are (or will be) red peppers. 

This is "Bed Four", and in it are more tomatoes, some basil that is barely alive (it looks eaten) and two pickling cucumber plants that I bought because I misplaced my cucumber seeds somewhere and it was getting late in the season. This is my "Hail Mary" so to speak.

My parsley went wild in the asparagus bed! I also have a bunch of asparagus spears coming up amongst the ferns. That was unexpected.

I should have taken pictures earlier. These are my raspberries plants, but it is the end of the first run, so there are not a lot ripe at one time now. Next year there should be a bigger crop and my neighbor said that she would be happy to give me more canes. Now I just have to expand a bit. Any volunteers to do all the actual work? 

Maybe to some the sight of a tall sunflower growing strong is not too big of a deal. For me, it is a bit of a miracle as I have never been able to grow these guys past the first two permanent leaves. So, yay!

I have planted more chard and spinach seed, but it looks as though some of the local animals are scraping around in there. I have to come up with a feasible cover idea for my direct sow vegetables as this happens all the time.
Also a shout out to my husband who did a fabulous mowing job to help me avoid ticks on the pets and family as well as getting the weeds that may have been seeding away from my lovely garden beds.

How does your garden grow?

Mouse Melons are Here!

I have two major gardening experiments this year. One is the basket of potatoes, which should be ready to harvest soon, so I will write about that when it happens. The other was the planting of Mouse Melons or Mexican Sour Gherkins.

These little viners are taking over! I didn't have more than ten seeds, and these plants are very small as far as space needed between them, but the five that I think made it through the transplant have completely taken over one side of one of my four by four raised beds. This is not a bad thing, I love seeing a plant thrive. It makes me tickly on the inside.

According to all the literature, these bitty melons are supposed to hit about 2 inches, but these ones are far smaller as you will see. I was noticing some yellow on them, so, if they are like cucumbers, I would rather pick early than end up with a bitter fruit.

Mouse Melons I picked today. These are also sold as Mexican Sour Gherkins and a couple other names.

I was so excited I popped one right in my mouth, washing be damned! I avoided eating any bugs in my haste, and was very surprised at the huge flavor in such a little fruit. This tastes the way I expected the Lemon Cucumbers to taste. They taste just like cucumbers, but with a twang of lemon. The first bite registered as a little bitter, but that immediately fell away to the true nature of this lovely little curbit. (I believe the jury is still out on its full classification, but the more formal name is Melothria scabra). The lemon flavor is light, but really refreshing, I really can't explain how much I like these. So far it seems that I will be getting many, many fruits to experiment with over the summer, so stay tuned!

July Garden Updates

I actually have June pictures also, but I am pretty sure I missed the boat on writing about June, so here it is July. This year I am keeping track of how much edibles are being produced. Each time I come in with a harvest I set it on the scale and weigh what I brought in. By the end of June I had harvested over 20 pounds of delicious strawberries from those six plants I put in the Fall of 2012, so this is only their second growing year in my yard. Here is a photo of the size of the patch now:

All told, the patch is approximately 8 feet long and five feet wide and the patch produced 20 pounds of these beauties:

While they are not as sweet as their tiny, wild cousins, these are so much sweeter than the supermarket ones, with no tasteless "core" because they ripen on the plant fully before picking.

My potato in a hamper experiment seems to be going well. I did try to fish out some potatoes, but only managed to find one small one, so I am leaving it be until I can properly harvest them, which should be fairly soon.

Just when I was about to give it up for lost, the potatoes popped through at the end of May. I could not contain my joy. :)

By the end of June I had already hilled them twice and they were starting to peek over the top

This is what my plants look like today (14 July 2014)

 I should have hilled them one last time before they bloomed, but that will be a lesson to put to work next season as these have blossomed and the blossoms have fallen off already. At the bottom you can see some of the foliage growing out the sides. Hmmm.. that gives me some ideas.

I got this hamper on sale at Family Dollar for six bucks I think. I am optimistic that we will have at least a couple meals of potatoes from my garden this year, and if so, I will be planting more next Spring.

As for the rest.. everything is growing as fast as the weeds. My trial planting Mexican Sour Gherkins, aka mouse melon,  cucamelon, Mexican miniature watermelon and Mexican sour cucumber has been going well. They do take over a spot! So far the fruits are minuscule, but I did try one and it was packed with a lovely flavor, far more than the small size would suggest. My lettuce bolted before forming heads, as usual, but I tried cooking it and the stems and found that it is quite tasty. More on that as I experiment. Here is the view of the rest of my garden, including the raspberries that are producing this year! I have already planned for the expansion as they are spreading rapidly, with or without my permission.

This was my 3 Sisters in July. There are popcorn plants, beans (Kentucky Blue) and round zucchini. The beans keep getting eaten before they can grow. In the foreground are asparagus ferns (I was told that was okay for the first year planting)

And this is the 3 sisters today. There are baby zucchini growing an everything is noticably taller and more full. Something is nibbling on the greenery though, I am pretty sure they are slugs and garden snails as we have a lot of those around and they like to leave holes in leaves. As long as it doesn't hurt the yield too much I can be patient. Once my patience wears out I will be serving an open bar (flat beer in a dish). At least they go happy.

Up against the fence are my raspberries that my lovely neighbor gave me last year. The poles an sticks are keeping the net off of them. The net is helpful in keeping the birds away from the fruits.

Here is my back yard. Please ignore the ugly parking lot on the right, there is supposed to be a fence blocking the view. Way down the end is the 3 sisters mound and to the right of that my winter wheat which was destroyed after a particularly windy storm. The strawberries are off screen to the left and the raspberries a bit behind me. 

I am so proud of these, as well as the sunflower next to it. I have three beautiful cabbages that are close to being ready to harvest.

Although it is a little hard to see, between the two green poles is a netting that I created with twine and up that are the Mexican Sour Gherkins. I think I prefer "Mouse Melon" though.  

It is next to impossible to get my family to eat salad, so here is a lot of bolted lettuce. Preliminary attempts at braising have yielded promising results. Stay tuned.

Some how, some way, my lemon balm survived the winter unprotected in this container.

On the left is my last year's Sage, and in front is some lemon grass. In the round container in the back are the chives and marjoram that survived the winter too. The container on the right is last year's chamomile struggling to live. 

Here are just a couple tomato plants after a deep pruning along with pepper plants and nasturtiums.

My garlic was puny, but the tops wilted back so they are pulled. These small garlic are quite sweet though, so that is a bonus to me. I have put out some more seeds for a Fall harvest of chard, but I think the birds ate them up.

My son gathered his friends to help out last week. They brought some food and worked their tails off pulling weeds, planting the old, dying blueberries and clearing out the branches from various storms. They spent so much time weeding my wheat, I feel awful that the very next day a storm beat the grains out of the entire planting. At least there is still the straw mulch.

Using Your Slow Cooker for Things that are not Dinner

The one thing that helps me get through quite a bit of the hot weather preserving and canning seasons is the use of my slow cooker. Notice that I did not say "Crockpot". The Crockpot name refers to a specific (and trademarked) slow cooker and has been around a very long time.

The "Crock" in "Crockpot"

There are basically two types of slow cookers. One type uses a ceramic or pottery insert for cooking. This is excellent for even cooking as it helps to disperse the heat coming from the coils inside. If you have ever cooked jam in a stainless steel pan and noticed that if you left it, the jam would scorch right were the heat hits the pan, but usually not elsewhere. That is a dispersion problem. Further on I have a trick for cooking jam in a steel pan which cuts down on this burning problem in a big way. Materials like cast iron and crockery will disperse the heat so that there are no hot spots which is what causes that round burning spot on the bottom of the pan.

That would suggest strongly that a ceramic cooker is generally better at even heat dispersion, which is very important when cooking things for a long time. I have had the famous "crockpot" and it does generally cook evenly for the most part.  If you are choosing to cook something for 8-10 hours, this is very important to accomplish, and why a slow oven is often recommended if a slow cooker is not available.

The Problems

The first problem is confronting the idea that long cooking always means moist meat. Anyone who had long cooked a chicken and tried eating it without some sort of sauce can attest that is not the case.  Low temperature cooking is very cook at slowly melting the gelatin found in many cheap cuts of meat, so if it is low enough, the gelatin will coat the meat fibers leaving it sticky (or moist if you prefer) and delectable. This is not so much a function of cooking it forever, but happens at low temps until the meat is done (internal temperature desired for the type of meat being cooked). This means that cooking a low gelatin/fat product will produce a dry meat regardless of how long it cooks. With a good bodied sauce, those foods can still be delicious, but over cooking is over cooking regardless of the method used.

Another issue is that the slow cooking method, particularly when using a covered pot, sucks all the juices out of what you are cooking. Ever follow a pot roast recipe to the letter and found the pot completely full of liquid at the end of the cooking time? That is what is happening. The best way to circumvent this is to reduce the amount of liquid called for in the recipe, often drastically. When I do a pulled pork in the slow cooker, I use absolutely no additional liquid. The meat itself creates the juices which are now much more flavorful because no water was used. That also makes the juices easier to cook down if you want a more full flavored sauce.

There is one more problem that always irked me, and that is the problem of having to dirty other pans in order to create a flavorful meal, as so much flavor is created during the Milliard reaction (browning). That is why, when I purchased my slow cooker I threw out the idea of the "crock". My slow cooker allows for the insert to be heated on a burner so that you can brown your aromatics, seasonings and meat, all in the same pan! The trade off is the more even cooking, but since I now know that longer cooking is not necessarily better cooking, this wasn't such a problem. **for clarity, my slow cooker does not have a crockery insert, it is metal with a non stick coating.. please do not try using your crockery on direct heat as it can crack.

Why am I Telling You all This

The slow-cooker will save your sanity for many things during the canning season. I use it to caramelize onions, make stock, and even cook items like apples for apple sauce.  Today I am making pectin using granny smith apples. Over the next few months I will be posting information and tutorials on doing things other than pot roast or pulled pork in the slow cooker.  So far I have successfully made a large quantity of caramelized onions, many gallons of broth, applesauce for canning and of course, regular cooking.  The broth is one of my favorites because it simplifies cutting up whole birds. I just throw the scraps and bones directly into the pot, cover with water and turn on low for several hours. At the end of the cooking all that is needed is straining the broth and defatting. I generally do not add additional flavorings except a little salt when I make it in the slow cooker as some seasonings seem to taste "off" when simmered for such a long time. I prefer it as simply chicken broth, without any additional seasonings that may interfere with any dish it is being used it.

Stay tuned for the results, and if successful, a tutorial on making pectin in the slow cooker as well as using homemade pectin for strawberry jam.