garden cookery

a portion of that sinkload of jerusalem artichoke i harvested out of the community garden yesterday have become part of today's lunch...actually last season's gardens provided two of the main ingredients..the red pontiac potatoes i used came from my back yard last autumn and have been stored in the basement ( separate from the seed potatoes )...i diced up the potatoes and peeled the sunchokes ( i used a technique i learned form "america's test kitchen"...when they were peeling ginger they used the edge of the concave side of a spoon to scrape the peel off rather than paring it off..jerusalem artichoke peels are reasonably thin and this worked really well...quicker and not nearly as much waste of tuber...i'm sold ) and precooked them...i boiled pasta to serve as a bed and added some reasonably fresh mushrooms and fresh parmesan cheese as well as a taste of cream of mushroom soup to help hold it together...thoroughly mixed and baked in a 400 degree ( fahrenheit ) oven for about 35 minutes...i foresee a tossed salad as a side and leftovers to pick over as the day goes on...so even march isn't off limits as far as cooking fresh from the garden if you grow a mixture of vegetables and root crops...i an strongly biased towards intercropping and a health mix of plants in any given bed...the one the sunchokes came out of had potatoes and tomatoes in it all through the season...that sort of mixing can extend the season almost to year round.

pi day in the iuncg

went to the garden after work today to open up the second garlic bed...there's always a bit of anticipation when you peel back the fabric, clear the straw , and have a look...to my relief i found the garlic parker had planted up and running...at this moment there are seventeen garlic plants in two beds which leaves six yet to appear...they should be along soon...these are the ones that came up last fall and they have a head start on their roots...the others will be along soon...the first week of the season is always an adrenaline pump...there is still clean up work to do and some early crops to plant...then on to serious seasonal planning and preparing beds for planting day...there should be some additions this year...now to find gardeners.

going native

there are still several jerusalem artichoke plants standing in one of the beds and while i was out there i dug one up just to see what was happening...what happened is that plant rendered thirty-four tubers which is a fair haul so i bagged them up and brought them home...after a soak in some cold water and a rinse they made a sinkful of fresh and crisp tubers...they store well in ground over the winter and there are still a few weeks to harvest them before they start to sprout for the new season ( another impetus to dig the tubers...they will over run the bed if allowed...i containerized them and put them in the refrigerator...there will be native cookery tomorrow as they become some sort of lunch.

hit the silk!

the flower on the larger teosinte plant in the basement has emerged from its sheath almost completely and had begun to "bloom" they way grass flowers do...it is beginning to produce pollen...but it is the structures below the flower that have me geeked...silks...no mistaking them and they are growing out of the leaf node just below the flower..and in the bottom photo you can see where the stem is thickening below the silks...by april...if it all goes well...there will be an ear emerging there...and there should be plants up in the back yard as well...i can see another joint of the stem thickening just below the next leaf node down...two ears? that might be bordering on greedy...more as this develops.

new season unwrapped

garlic is not a shy plant and when one plant pops up in early march more are bound to follow...when i found garlic ( and ramps ) up and running in my yard yesterday i knew it was time for a trip out to the community garden to check on the garlic parker and i planted last autumn...i pulled up a corner of the fabric cover, shifted aside some of the straw a, and found the plant in the second photo...that iced it for me and i uncovered the bed ( i stashed the straw in a garbage bag under the picnic table...when i go back this coming weekend to open the other garlic bed i will be taking some compost along and will be mulching the garlic beds with it and the straw to keep down weeds...garlic has an intense aversion to competition ) what i found was eight plants in various stages of greening up for spring that are in the other photos...it's not spring ..yet...and there will be a bit of time before anything else can go into the beds...but this is the first sign of a new season and there will be root crops to plant in just a few weeks...probably some spinach too...good to be back outside...more this weekend as the other bed emerges into the daylight.

garlic...

came home from work to a couple of pieces if good news garden-wise...first up...garlic...the snow covering this bed has melted and the garlic was poking up through the mulch i laid down last autumn...two days earlier than last season and a sign that winter is in retreat if not gone...the other bed is not fully thawed yet and will be a few more days before it has green showing...garlic popping up in my yard means it is high time to visit the community garden and poke around under the fabric cover to see what's up there...35th and washington in the very near future...more on that as soon as i get there.

...and ramps!

finally! in late summer 2013 i planted ramp seeds in this bed...they need a cycle of heat and then a cycle of cold to break dormancy...perhaps i didn't get them in soon enough...or it wasn't warm enough that late or warm for long enough ( the winter of 2013-14 was surely cold enough ) but they did not germinate...so last autumn i bought roots to plant and they did the trick...the one in the top photo had been pushed up by frost heave so i covered the onion bulb to give it some protection..the third photo is of a second plant on the way up...i planted twelve roots...we'll see how many decide to have a season...there will be no harvest...the reproduce like bunching onions and when they mature i will be separating them and replanting them in the bed...next season we will be cooking with ramps ( you can use both the leaves and bulbs )...looking forward to that.