July 16, 2010

quick pickles

Last year at the end of gardening season, my husband and I visited one of our favorite restaurants; The East Coast Grill in Cambridge MA. The always serve fantastic pickles made from all sorts of vegetables, carrots, beets, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, and cucumbers, as an appetizer. They were so tasty I ordered a copy of the book from Amazon when I got home. I think its time to start making pickles!

March 8, 2010

cheers to the March larder

After checking on the produce left from last years garden, I enjoyed a martini with a thin slice of crisp white celeriac and winter radish. Ahhh….

March 8, 2010

what’s left in my larder?

The other day I went down to check…. Let’s see. I have a small refrigerator in the basement that I filled last fall with fresh garden beets, celeriac, winter radish and cabbage. I’ve been grabbing a few from the top as I need them, but it was time for checking the bottom of the bags. The cabbage was in need of composting. But the rest has stored great. I took everything out of the baggies, washed, removed spots that didn’t so look good, and repacked in fresh baggies. I amazed…

October 23, 2009

taking stock of my larder

© Skippy’s Vegetable Garden I’ve been mostly just stuffing vegetables from my garden into my larder this fall. Thought I’d take stock. My larder (Merriam-Webster “a place where food is stored”) is mostly in the basement. It consists of a root cellar (a small ‘fridge), a deep freezer, a couple big baskets, some hanging small baskets, and shelves for jars. (Wikipedia “Very few modern houses have larders since the convenience of modern grocery stores obviate the need to store food for long periods.” Love that word “obviate” – to make…

October 5, 2009

popcorn in jars

The seeds started falling off a few of my ears of popcorn, so I put them into jars.

September 7, 2009

35 ears of popcorn drying

I husked and hung 35 ears of popcorn. I picked about 50 ears total, but many were not pollinated. That’s what I get with a small corn patch I guess. I enjoy the different colors. I planted two varieties: Faribo White Hulless and Baby Golden. I’m wondering if the multicolored ears were pollinated by both of two types? With corn, each kernel gets pollinated separately by a grain of pollen that comes down the silk. Most of the ears have round kernels, but a few of the ears have pointed…

August 27, 2009

storing blueberries

Prolonging the life of berries – an interesting article my sister sent.

November 3, 2008

my last garden tomatoes

This is about it for my garden tomatoes. The green tomatoes I picked a couple weeks ago are now ripening and we’re enjoying them in salads. Though this year’s wet weather gave me a small harvest, the variety was nice. I grew ten different types of heirlooms and hybrids. The late producing varieties (in this photo) are Purple Calabash (purple and green fruit) and Oxheart Red (wonderfully meaty and tomato red). I’m partial to the ‘tomato red’ colored fruits. tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum)

September 23, 2008

root cellar

How to store the root harvest? I am researching root cellars since I lost a whole bagful of big garden beets. There were too many to fit in my refrigerator and I thought these would keep in my basement – but I was wrong 🙁 Root crops I grow (or would like to) include beets, potatoes, carrots and parsnips. My two bags of potatoes (so far) are keeping fine in my basement. My carrot harvest did fine in the fridge. I only had two gallon bags of these and there…

August 7, 2008

onions drying

I pulled all of my onions a couple days ago. I have noticed other gardeners are drying theirs in their gardens, though with all the rain, I’m not sure why. So I have half my crop on a counter in my kitchen (bottom left photo) and the rest in the sun in my garden (top photo). I’m hoping to find Gino in his garden (his onions are the bottom right photo) so I can ask him if its important to leave them outside.

weeks and counting until my last spring frost

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30