I’ve tried growing habanero chilis the last couple of years with little success. This year is looking up — likely due to the unusually warm summer. Good to see a Chocolate Habanero making an appearance…
garlic harvest day
Garlic fresh from the garden…now for the month-long cure. Fresh garlic is mild compared with its cured version, and tasty in its own right. Curing the garlic by hanging with stems and roots attached in a cool, dry space concentrates and intensifies its flavor. The cured garlic can be kept for many months, and cloves from the best heads can be planted in the fall for harvest the following summer.
eggplant flower
First year I’ve planted eggplants. Flowers are stunning!
rainbow garden harvest
Purple cauliflower, carrots, summer squash, broccoli, and garlic. Making a rainbow for dinner….
garlic scapes
When rocambole or other hardneck garlic varieties start the flowering process, they shoot up a central stalk with a bud. If you want a good-sized bulb of garlic to form rather than the energy of the plant going into producing a flower, you need to harvest that stalk once it starts to curl around. The harvested part is called a “scape,” and it’s delicious. The scape has a mild green garlic flavor, and is great chopped fresh in salads, sauteed in butter, tossed into pasta and stir-fries. Some people like the buds fried in tempura batter like a squash blossom. You can also pickle the scapes if you’d like to
July 9, 2017
peas ‘n’ summer squash
First harvest of the year always makes me happy. Nothing tastes like the first sugar snap pea of the season…
midsummer garden
I started seedlings later this year than last. Despite the later start, they seem to have caught up and are all doing well so far: Super Sugar Snap peas Graffiti Purple cauliflower Mammoth Red Rock cabbage Chiogga beets Black Forest kabocha squash Cayenne peppers Gold Star summer squash Flash collard greens Rocambole garlics – Siberian Purple Stripe, Montana Giant, Russian Red Toma Verde tomatillos Waltham 29 broccoli Romaine lettuce Nasturtium, chilies (Hatch, chocolate & orange habanero, Traveler Jalapeno, Christmas Tree), tomatoes (Cherokee Purple, Climstar, Frederik, Kakao, Purple Bumblebee, Black Cherry) are also doing well so far. Dark Star Watermelon and Early Black and Black Beauty Eggplant starts didn’t make it
June 22, 2017
pea shoot soup
Pea shoots taste like the essence of fresh peas in the pod you get later in the summer. Raw, they’re perfect on their own or in sandwiches and salads. Cooked, they marry that fresh pea flavor to a dish. One of my favorite ways to use them cooked is in cream of cauliflower pea shoot soup: Cream of Cauliflower Pea Shoot Soup Ingredients: 1 tablespoon butter 1 medium leek, sliced into rings ½ cup dry white wine 1 head fresh cauliflower, chopped into large pieces 4 cups stock (vegetable, chicken, or beef – whichever taste you prefer) 4 cups fresh pea shoots Couple dashes garlic powder Directions: In a stock pot,
June 4, 2017