Our Edible Landscape

Is it really winter? I cannot believe that we are in January and the temperatures are in the upper 70’s! We have only had one freeze the entire month and my winter garden is a bit confused. Don’t get me wrong- I like warm weather. I just don’t like it when I think of all my fruit trees and bushes that need those chilling hours to produce the juicy fruits we love to eat fresh in the summer and plan to save for making pies and cobblers in the winter. This would have been the first year for apples and pears at my house, but I fear we may not get any for another year. I know that I will be inundated with them in future years, but the wait for those first fruits just about drives me crazy. Fortunately, I have other fruiting trees that do not need chilling hours and are producing enough to distract me.

Normally at this time of year, we are approaching the coldest time for us. This is the time when I prefer to not have to go outside and seed more radishes, carrots, or peas. It is the time for starting seeds inside my warm home. The plants from these seeds are destined to be transplanted after the last frost has come and gone somewhere around March 15th. Starting seeds indoors is always a lot of fun for me. Over the years, I have fine-tuned my methods, but it never fails, every year I always learn new things from my mistakes.

Last year, I had seeded a tray of several varieties of peppers in one of those modern seed starting set-ups with soil “sponges” inserted into Styrofoam holes. I had carefully charted the varieties using a grid system I had written on the Styrofoam block and balanced the tray on a windowsill in the kitchen. After a few days, most of the seeds had germinated and I was very excited. About two weeks into the process, someone who will not fess up, sent the tray flying across the kitchen. I heard the screams and looked up to see the sponges flying out of the block like escape pods and then bouncing in various places throughout the kitchen. The unlucky few that remained in the block were decapitated when it made its crash landing upside down on the floor. Being the caring parent of these poor pepper babies, I gingerly picked up the jettisoned sponges carrying their precious cargo and placed them back into the Styrofoam block. I was able to save 30 of the original 60, but now I didn’t know what their names were. I was plagued by questions such as which ones died and which ones lived? Are they hot or sweet varieties? How will I plant them in the garden? After some thought, I figured that once they started bearing fruit I could tell them apart. It would have been fine if I was only growing one type of Jalapeno or cayenne or tiny rainbow-colored pequin pepper. Alas, there were some that were a mystery until the frost claimed their lives in December.

By the way, after that fateful incident, we finally broke down and bought an indoor light garden set up for starting our seeds. Given the amount of use that it has gotten in the last year, I feel we made the right decision in buying it, but you certainly don’t need one to start seeds indoors. Just make sure your plants are not balanced on a ledge anywhere. It will save you from stress later…

May your peppers have less flight time than mine,
Tiffanie

Posted by Tiffanie at 10:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In our garden, radishes are one of the most valuable vegetables we grow.

Our six-year-old (a.k.a. The Radish Man) loves radishes. He plants them, talks to them, harvests them, and loves to eat them. He freely offers advice, to anyone who will listen, on the perfect way to cook radishes. COOK? We’ll get to that later.

The radish man also loves rainbows. Because of this, we are always keeping our eyes open for new vegetable varieties that are in unusual colors. When I say “new”, I mean “newly discovered by us”. Most of the colorful varieties we grow are actually heirlooms, not the new colored hybrids.

When we began our radish adventure, we started with the typical salad-type radishes most Americans are used to seeing. We then expanded into the different colored salad radishes we could find in the catalogs. Little did we know that we were on the verge of beginning a world-wide expedition from our backyard garden. I went online and discovered websites that offered radishes from countries like Germany, Italy, France, China, Japan, and Spain. Not only were these varieties new to us, but there were different categories of radishes we never knew existed.

We were now discovering long radishes that looked like carrots, winter-storage radishes that grow to huge proportions and can be stored in a root cellar, radishes that are sweet and are not just white on the inside, and daikon radishes that were different than just the huge white mammoths we saw at the Asian market. Then we found out you could eat the radish greens and some radish seed pods!

Who would have thought that planting a packet of cherry belle radishes would have taken us on a journey around the world? It opened our minds to culinary possibilities we would have never dreamed of if we just bought our radishes from the local grocery store.

Radishes we grow in our garden include:
Red – Japanese Long Scarlet, Japan
Yellow –Zlata, Poland
Green - Green Meat, China
Blue - Hilds blauer, Germany
Purple - Purple Olive Shaped, France
Black - Round Black Spanish, Spain?
White - Ice Candle, Candela di Ghiaccio, Italy
We are still searching for an orange one, but have not heard of one yet…

Sautéed Radishes
Radish Man’s Favorite
Place two cups of sliced radishes into a sautéing pan (radishes are sliced into half-inch thick pieces). Chop up ½ onion. Sautee radishes and onions with a little butter. Add 1 teaspoon curry powder and ½ teaspoon seasoned salt. Radishes are finished when fork-tender and they begin to just start browning. Serve on a bed of finely- shredded cheddar cheese. Grind sea salt over top to taste.

(The adults were not too crazy about this version, but The Radish Man keeps demanding it. I'm not sure any other kids would like it either...)

The Adult’s Favorite
Place two cups of sliced radishes into a sautéing pan (radishes are sliced into half-inch thick pieces). Chop up ½ onion and about the same volume of fresh shiitake mushrooms. Sautee everything with a little butter and season salt to taste. Radishes are finished when fork-tender and they begin to just start browning. Serve with freshly-shredded parmesan cheese on top.

Of course, you can always dip slices in salt, eat them plain, or add slices to a salad. The famous butter and radish sandwich also comes to mind, although I personally have never tried it.

Posted by Tiffanie at 1:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Here in our North Florida garden, January brings us bounty and anticipation for the next season’s plantings.

Plants currently in our vegetable garden include:
Beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cilantro, corn salad, garlic, kohlrabi, mesclun greens, miners lettuce, minutina o erba stella, multiplier onions, pak choi, parsnips, radishes, rutabagas, snow peas, spinach, and turnips.

For a couple of months, we have watched our winter garden grow and hopefully the month of January we’ll be able to begin harvesting a nice variety for our meals.

This is our second winter garden and we still have quite a lot to learn. This year, we have put a large focus on controlling the plantings so that we have small harvests of a variety of vegetables over an extended period of time. This has proven to be quite a challenge. So far, I have discovered that no matter how well I plan, things do not perform the way I predict. There are many environmental variables that can effect harvest times and quality. After reading the other blogs from this site, it appears that I am not alone.

In Tallahassee, if we are to enjoy cool-weather crops such as cabbage, radishes, carrots, broccoli, and spinach, we need to grow them through the winter months. Despite the fact that we are located in Florida, we do not have balmy winters. Occasionally, the night-time low drops into the low twenties. We become weather watchers, waiting to see if we need to cover certain vegetables or not. This has been a warm year. Our weekly lows hovered at 33°F through November and most of December. It wasn’t until last week that we finally received our killing freeze. I was relieved to have it happen so that I could clean up after the summer vegetables and make way for the spring plantings.

Next week, our onion and leek plants will arrive. Last spring, we missed the planting window and kicked ourselves every time we had to go to the grocery store to buy them. In our area, we cannot grow the long-storage onions. The sweet onions are wonderful, but there is something to be said about being able to keep onions for more than two months. To prolong our onion use, we chop them up and freeze them in half-cup portions for use throughout the rest of the year. No matter how many we grow, we never seem to grow enough onions.

The Brussels sprouts are starting to form on their stalks. This is the third try at growing them here and I think I finally figured out the right planting time. I am growing a beautiful variety called ‘Rubine’. The seeds are difficult to find in the catalogs, but they are still available if you look. It is an excellent edible landscape plant and an heirloom.

A new variety of radish we are growing is starting to show its presence in our garden. It is a Chinese variety named ‘Green Meat’. They are long like a daikon, mild and sweet. They are still small for their type in our garden, but we could not resist tasting them early. The initial bite gives you a crisp, sweet flavor, followed by the usual hotness from a salad radish. As they get larger the heat is supposed to mellow out and become mild.

Another new variety of plant we are growing is Erba Stella. It is a star-shaped green from Italy. As far as I’m concerned, every salad should have some in it. It is a mild green with a pleasant texture. It is not a bulk green, but an accent. It passed the taste test of our children and visiting relatives. I am not sure how large the plant will grow- ours are still small. One negative, is that the seeds are teeny black specks. Up until now, I have resisted the urge to buy one of those hand seeders. I can definitely see a use here.

May your harvests be bountiful in the new year,

Tiffanie

Posted by Tiffanie at 1:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Welcome to my tiny space in the world.

My family and I live within the city limits of Tallahassee, Florida. We live in a new subdivision with a fairly active homeowners association. Because of this, our front yard has been planted with edibles in disguise. My neighbors are always curious as to why I’m picking the holly berries (pequin peppers), pulling up sections of the ornamental grass (lemongrass), pulling out my plants and carrying them into the house in baskets (onions, garlic, lettuce), and cutting lots of things out of the flower bed (nasturtiums, violas, pansies, dianthus, rosemary, lavender, etc.). I’m sure I have been dubbed, “that crazy lady down the road.”

Funny thing is, the kids that live on our street are drawn to the plants. If they come over with their parents, I let them go into the backyard and pick some of their favorite veggies to take home. They LOVE it! I admit, I have the motive of trying to hook them on eating fresh vegetables and it is beginning to work. Three families on our street are now growing little patches of vegetables in their back yard and the children are eating it up.

As for my own family, I have two young boys and our garden has influenced them in ways I would never have imagined. They are as different as night and day, and it is fascinating how each of their personalities is inspired by something as basic as a kitchen garden. Even my husband has developed an affinity for certain plants and taken them on as his own children.

Our side and back yards are packed full of edibles that do not have to be hidden. These are our treasured areas and over the years will mature into our own little paradise.

Tiffanie

Posted by Tiffanie at 1:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)