A Dewy Morning

Photos from my walk this morning.

Simple Summer Coleslaw Recipe

When you have fresh vegetables harvested at the peak of perfection, you don't need complicated recipes with lots of ingredients. On of our favorite things to eat from the garden right now is a simple coleslaw using caraflex cabbage, a small sweet onion, and a handful of freshly pulled carrots.

For this coleslaw you will need:

One head of summer cabbage*

A few small carrots (or one bigger one)

a small sweet onion

2 tablespoons of mayonnaise

a splash of apple cider vinegar

salt to taste

one teaspoon of sugar

Grate cabbage and carrots. Mince onion. Combine the onion, cabbage, and carrots. Mix in the mayonnaise and sugar. Add salt and vinegar to taste. Cover and allow to sit in fridge for a few hours before serving so the juices come out of the vegetables and the flavors meld together.

*Summer cabbages are varieties of cabbage that mature early. They tend to have smaller heads and be sweet and tender and do not store well. You would rarely find then in a grocery store. If you can't grow them yourself look for them this time of year at your local farmer's market.

Winter cabbages, on the other hand, are harvested in late fall and will store for several months. Below is a photo I took today of my Kaitlin cabbage patch--which is a winter cabbage that is specifically used for sauerkraut. The plants are just at the beginning stages of heading up.

 This post is part of Farm Girl Friday over at Dandelion House.

Dew Covered Black Swallowtail

Fire and Hearts

Red leaf lettuce and wood sorrel in the vegetable garden.

Almost Time to Plant Garlic!

This year's garlic crop, pulled, washed and hung up to cure in the shade on our north facing porch.

Garlic is one of those crops that is very easy to grow, but takes a bit of planning. That extra planning is well worth the effort though. Freshly pulled garlic that is plump and juicy almost seems like a completely different vegetable than the cured garlic you put up for the winter. One of the nice things about garlic is that it will give you a good return from a very small plot.

Garlic is planted in the fall so that it will develop a strong root system before winter sets in. In upstate NY, on my parent's homestead, we would harvest the garlic crop in mid August and plant the next years crop a few weeks later. Here in Michigan I harvest in mid July and usually have next years crop in the ground by mid August. But it can be planted anytime in late summer or fall before the ground freezes.

There are literally hundreds of different varieties of garlic. I've grown garlic in every garden I have ever had, but always stuck to growing the name unknown, rocambole type garlic that my parents have been growing on their homestead for the last 40 years. (The original bulbs where given to him by an Italian immigrate, and it is a fairly mild garlic that is hardy, and stores reasonably well.) I have been wanting to try growing different kinds of garlic, but didn't know where to start. So I jumped at the chance last fall to visit  Dick and Diana Dyer's new garlic farm and try some varieties they recommended for this part of Michigan.

I have so much to learn about the different types of garlic. This year my garlic patch include rocambole, porcelain, and an artichoke soft neck type, and this is just barely scratching the surface when it comes to the many types of garlic.

Rocambole type. Cloves of varying sizes surround a hard stem. There can be as many eight to twelve cloves per bulb.The wrapper tends to be thin, and rocamboles generally aren't long keepers, but often make up for that by being full of flavor. This is a photo of the rocambole garlic my father has grown for the past 40 years. Cloves tend to be blunt tipped.

 Porcelain types have a thick outer wrapping and 4 to five large, uniform cloves surrounding a  hard stem. Even the smallest bulbs have large cloves. This is great if you are using a lot of garlic for one recipe, but it can be frustrating if you need just a small clove for a salad. Porcelain is one of the prettiest garlics. Smooth uniform bulbs have satiny white wrappers and often the cloves are rose colored. They are also great keepers.  Pictured below is German Extra Hardy, a porcelain type garlic.

Artichoke type. Artichoke types are soft neck garlic. This is the type of garlic you most often see in the grocery store. They do better in warm climates then the hard neck varieties do and are grown commercially in places like California.  Artichoke types tend to be the best keepers, and come in a wide range of flavors. Because they don't have the hard inner stem they are the best for garlic braids. They can have as many as 20 cloves of garlic in each bulb, with larger outer cloves and much smaller inner cloves. This photo is of  Kettle River Giant--note the larger outer cloves and smaller inner cloves.

1) Selecting your garlic: If you have never grown grown garlic before, I would suggest going to your local farmers market and talking to the farmers who are selling garlic. See what does well in your area. Buy a few bulbs to taste and decide which varieties you like. Once you have settled on the kind you want to grow, you need to separate the cloves. Chose the largest well formed cloves to plant. Generally, the larger the clove, the larger and sturdier the garlic plant will be. Don't plant the large double cloves though. These will grown into two garlic bulbs which will tend to be smaller and misshaped.

2) Prepare your soil. Garlic likes soft loamy soil with lots of compost. When I gardened in clay soil, I would add sand and lots of compost to the garlic bed. Our 13 acres is almost pure sand, so I just add lots and lots of compost.

3) Plant your garlic. Place cloves about five inches apart , with the pointy side up. Push the cloves into the soft soil, barely covering the tip. Space rows at least a foot apart.

4) Mulch your garlic. As the green shoots emerge, mulch between the rows. In late fall, before the first hard freeze, mulch over your garlic beds heavily to protect them from freezing during the winter. When spring comes, rake back the mulch that is covering the garlic, so the plants can continue to grow. They usually look pale and peaked the first few days after being uncovered, but have always perked right up with sunshine and fresh air and quickly turn into healthy looking plants.

5) Summer maintenance:  Keep your garlic patch weeded and well watered. When the garlic scapes emerge in June cut them off. These are the immature seed heads and if they are allowed to remain on the plant, all the energy in the bulb will go into the seed head and you will end up with very small bulbs. The scapes are delicious used in pesto and other recipes.

 6) Harvest time!  Your garlic is ready to harvest when the lowest two sets of leaves have turned brown. (The upper leaves on the stalk should still be green.) Harvesting at this stage will ensure that the outer wrappers on the garlic bulbs will be papery, but intact.  Garlic is easy to pull by hand when the soil is damp. I either water before pulling it or go out right after a rain. It can also easily be dug using a spading fork.

I trim the roots right there in garden and gently rinse off excess dirt in a bucket of water. If you have a small crop you can cut off the stems and lay the bulbs on a tray or in a basket to cure for a few weeks, before putting into storage. Larger crops can be bunched up in airy bunches and hung to dry in a well ventilated place out of direct sunlight.  Once the outer wrappers are papery and dry the stems can be cut off and the garlic stored in a cool dry place. How long the garlic keeps depends on the variety. There as some varieties that will keep until the next crop of garlic is ready to harvest.

Don't forget to enjoy some of the freshly pulled garlic.. The cloves tend to be very juicy and mild and the flavors less intense when they are fresh.

This post is part of the barn hop over at Homestead Revival. 

For those of you who have grown garlic, what varieties do you grow?



Dew Drop Pearls

Dew drops on red Russian kale.

Garden Jewels

Japanese Beetles on a butterfly bush--even pests can be beautiful.

A Garden of Mystery Roses

 This spring my husband bought me a whole bunch of rose bushes at a discount store. The bushes were surprisingly healthy and sturdy looking for being on the clearance rack of the a store that doesn't normally sell plants. I was very excited when he brought the dozen or so rose bushes home. One of my dreams is to have a rose garden. I actually ended up planting them in a long row in my vegetable garden for this year. As I get time I will transplant them to their permanent  locations this fall and next spring.

We thought we were getting  a nice mix of florabundas, climbers, tea roses, and heirlooms. Well. we did get a very nice mix of colors and rose types--but guess what? Only one of the roses looks anything like what the label on the package said. So now I have to figure out on my own what kind of roses they are and where each one would be best placed in a rose garden.

So many different shades of pink--

Two classic looking pink roses. These remind me of the Bonica roses that my father grew. I don't know if that is what they are, but I would be very happy if they do turn out to be that variety. It is very obvious it isn't a red tea rose, which is what the label claims it is.

This is a pretty little single rose. I really like the different shades of pink on the petals.

This rose is the only one that looks like it may have been labeled correctly. It is called Joseph's Coat, and looks just like the photo of the rose on its tag. If it is truly Joseph's Coat, it will be a climbing rose. I took this photo back in June--the little grasshopper thought it was the perfect place to spend the day and sat on the rose all day long.

A simple white rose--

I have three of these yellow roses. They appear to be ever bloomers, as the first one bloomed early this spring, and they are still going strong.  These where supposed to be heirloom pink roses. Obviously they are not pink. They do have the sweetest scent of all the roses that have bloomed so far.

This one is quite small--about an inch across, but it sure packs a punch with its vibrate colors.

This last rose is a little thornless wild rose that grows in the woods. I don't know it's name, either. I love the very delicate pink of its petals.

There are so many different kinds of roses! I am going to have to take a note book and write down observations about my roses through the summer and fall and then try to figure out what variety, or at least what type of rose each one is.  

Do you have a favorite rose or favorite type of rose that you grow?

This post is part of Farm Girl Friday over at Dandelion House.



Gathering Basket

 When we moved two years ago, I gave away most of my handmade basket collection. (It was bulky and somewhat fragile, making it hard to pack--so I ended up giving many of the baskets to a local charity to sell at their annual fundraising craft fair.)

I was sorely missing having a wide shallow basket for harvesting my delicate crops such as squash blossoms and dill flowers this past weekend, so I went out to our woods, pulled down a bunch of wild grape vines, and wove myself a gathering basket. It may not be the most perfect basket I have ever made, but it is sturdy and durable and does the job it was made for!

Cooking with Pumpkin Blossoms

I've never eaten squash blossoms before, but this weekend the multitude of vibrant yellow pumpkin and squash blossoms in my garden got me wanting to try them. I did my research then started cooking.

1) Which flowers to pick?

You want to pick only male flowers. The male flowers have long stems and no tiny pumpkin attached.

The female flowers have a tiny pumpkin at the base that will quickly swell and grow once the flower is pollinated and dies.

2) When do you harvest the flowers?

Interestingly, everything I read said to pick freshly opened flowers first thing in the morning, but all the photos I saw of squash flowers at the market or picked and ready to made into a recipe were of flowers that were slightly past their peak and  being to fade. (See photo below.)

Picking flowers that are past their peak makes sense for two reasons--first if you go out to the garden in the morning you will find bees and other insects going busily from flower to flower, taking pollen from the male flowers to the female flowers. Picking the freshly open flowers would disrupt that process and potentially damage your pumpkin and squash crop.  Second, for stuffed squash blossoms you need flowers that are slightly wilted. Part of the process in making them is to twist the blossoms shut after filling them. You can't twist a fresh flower shut--it only damages and breaks the delicate petals.

I decided to pick all my blossoms in late afternoon and ended up with a nice basket full.

Even if you do pick later in the day, you still need to be careful of bees--the bees seemed to like to hide in the closed flowers. I took to shaking each blossoms as I picked it, but even so I ended up with a few bees in my basket of blossoms that didn't get noticed until I was ready to wash the flowers.

3) How to prepare the flowers:

To prepare the flowers, gently wash them, pinch off the sepals on the outside base and remove the stamen in the center of the flower. The flowers are quite delicate and will tear easily.

Making stuffed Squash blossoms:

Stuffed blossoms are easy to make though a bit time consuming.

Most recipes I read suggested stuffing with a soft cheese blended with herbs.

I ended up blending half a cup of cooked swiss chard with a handful of walnuts, basil, a few cloves of garlic, and about 4 ounces of cream cheese together in the food processor. The result was a pesto like paste.

I gently filled each blossom with about a teaspoon of the filling, then gently twisted each blossom closed.

The next step is to dip the stuffed blossoms in beaten egg then roll in flour or bread crumbs. I used a crushed corn bread stuffing that has become our favorite thing to bread meats and fish with with. It has lots of flavor and comes out crisp and crunchy after the food is fried.

When you are breading, continue to gently twist the tip of the blossom. This will help seal the flower shut and prevent leakage of the stuffing.

I fried the breaded blossoms in olive oil. They were done in a minute or two. They came out nice and crisp and crunchy and I was surprised how filling they were. If I were doing these for an appetizer, I would only plan two or so blossoms for each guest.

My filling was okay, but a little strong. I think next time I will try using more cheese and less other ingredients.

 The other thing I think that would be really good is to fill them with pumpkin pie filling or sweeted cream cheese with pumpkin pie spice. I may try this and try baking them or breading them with graham cracker cruumbs and frying in butter, then sprinkling with powdered sugar.

Creamy Pumpkin Blossom Soup

 I adapted this recipe from a recipe that used a lot of butter and heavy cream. I didn't miss the cream at all.

4 cups squash or pumpkin blossoms washed and prepared as instructed above, then torn into large pieces.

1 T butter

I medium sweet onion, chopped

3 cups chicken broth

I cup milk (I used full fat milk)

I medium sized potato, diced (I used a Yukon Gold from my garden--in keeping with the gold theme of the soup!)

Dash of red pepper (I used one small fresh cayenne pepper from my garden)

two small summer squash (I used a yellow crookneck and a zuchinni), diced

Kernels cut from a large ear of corn

Salt to taste

Heat butter in a soup pot. Sautee the onion in the butter until translucent. Scoop out and set aside half the onions.

Add the broth and potato and simmer until the potato is tender.

Add half the blossoms to the broth and simmer for a few minutes, then puree the soup in  a food processer or blender. (Do this in small batches if necessary.) The return soup to the pot.

Add the red pepper and reserved onions. Simmer for ten minutes then add the zuchinni and corn. Simmer for two to three minutes then add the remainder of the squash blossoms and simmer for another few minnutes.

Salt to taste. Garnish with fresh parsley.

The soup was surprisingly creamy without adding any cream. Of course if you want to, you can add cream at the very end after you remove it from the heat.

What are some ways you have tried eating pumpkin and squash blossoms?

This post is part of the Barn Hop over at Homesteading Revival.

July Bride

I went to a wedding yesterday. The bride with red-gold hair was was dressed in white and her groom and attendants were dressed in purple.

I went out to my garden this morning and found the Echinacea flowers having a wedding party of their own, with attendants in purple surrounding a bride in white with red-gold hair.

(I've planted White Swan Echinacea several times in past, but have never been able to get it bloom. The seeds for these plants came from a friends garden last spring, The lone white flower is a pleasant surprise!)

On the wings of the wind

(Thistle down sails into the rose tinted clouds.)

Garden Update

 I think I over did the garden this year. It is twice the size of last years garden. One of these days I am going to take my husband's surveying tape and measure it. Until that happens, I haven't the slightest idea how big it is. All I know is that for the first time in my life my garden has weeds in it. Which must mean that I over did it a bit.

This photo was taken from the west end of the garden. This is the new part of the garden. You can see the piles of weeds I pulled up the other day. Next week I hope to get some of these rows mulched. This week I am just concentrating on getting the weeds pulled out before they go to seed.

This photo was taken from the east side of the garden and has mostly  been mulched. I haven't had the weed problem so much on this side. 

The garden is actually bigger than what you see in these two photos. I am not showing you the squash patch, which is almost 100% weeds minus the little clearings I made around each hill of squash.

This has been a challenging year in the garden. We started off with a very cold, late spring, then when it warmed up, the temperatures rose into the 90's then dropped back down into the 50's. This spring was all about extreme temperatures. As the result most of my early greens got stressed and bolted. I didn't get to harvest anything of the broccoli raab that I was looking forward too. (I did leave a few of the bolted plants to harvest the seeds. I will replant for fall as soon as I can.)

It has also been a very buggy year. One of the reasons I am so behind on weeding is that bug control had to come first or else I would have no vegetables left. I spent hours picking Colorado potato beetles off the potatoes and hours trying to defeat the squash vine borers. (The verdict is still out on whether or not what I am doing will work to prevent the destruction of this years pumpkin crop.)

(The first zucchini--maybe I will be able to pick it in the next few days?)

Now I am battling the cabbage worms on my cabbage and Brussels sprouts.

(Caraflex cabbage--an early conical summer cabbage. I think some of the heads will be ready to pick next week. This appears to be the cabbage worms favorite cabbage though.)

85% of my bean crop got killed off by some kind of maggot that burrowed up into the stems when the beans first sprouted. I finally replanted more green beans today. I always grow a lot of green beans to freeze and have never been able to grow enough to last us until the next bean crop, so I'm tripling the amount of beans I am growing this year. Today I replanted Royal Burgundy, Isar yellow filet beans, Tender Pick, and Burpee's Stringless Green Pod. I've never had insect damage on my green beans before and am hoping that what ever the maggot was, it won't destroy the beans I just planted.

(Royal Burgundy bean blossom.)

The tomatoes got stressed with the extreme temperatures this spring, but are finally starting to perk up and some even have tomatoes on them. They will be later than usual, but at least the plants look healthy.

(Heat Wave tomato)

All weed aren't bad, though. I've been tossing the lambs quarters in a bowl as I weed. Then at the end of the day, I de-stem them, wash and blanch them, then freeze them.  Lambs quarters is a mild tender wild green that can be used in pretty much any recipe in place of spinach. Since my spinach crop was a complete failure this spring, I am happy to have these weeds to freeze for winter soups and casseroles.

(Lambs quarters--at the perfect size for eating.)

We have been eating quite a bit out the garden already. The potatoes have come in beautifully. And we have been eating them almost every day. (I don't think it is possible to get tired of new potatoes!). My second planting of lettuce is doing well, we've started eating baby beets and carrots, and we are getting lots and lots of peas. Lots of Swiss chard and kale too. Garlic and onions still have some growing to do, but I planted enough to be able to pull them early as I need them.  On our camping trip last weekend the only things that weren't home grown that we ate were the meats and bread. Between the eggs from our chickens, the potatoes, green salad, and lots of grilled veggies, 80% of what we ate came from our little homestead. (I did pack some snacks, but we didn't even touch those.)

Then there are always the little delights that make gardening so much fun--like finding a fairy-like umbrella hiding under the red leaf lettuce:

 How is your garden doing this year?

Fairy Umbrella

Water Lilies

My husband and I did a quick camping trip at a nearby lake this weekend. I was torn between staying home and battling the weeds in my flower and vegetable garden or spending the weekend relaxing. As I haven't had much time to relax lately, I decided to just forget the weeds and get away for two days.

It was our first time taking a boat on this lake...it turned out to be a very weedy lake. Not the kind of lake you really want to use an outboard. But my husband valiantly fought through the weeds so I could take some close up photos of the water lilies.