final garden report 2015

[ljgeoff]

We're putting the garden to bed this week. It was a pre'good garden, though there were some disappointments. On the good side, we had a ton of tomatoes -- I made sauce, paste, and salsa. Tonight I'm going to be making a green tomato and mango salsa with the last of them. One disappointment with the tomatoes is that the main crop was a lovely beefsteak that had a very citrus-y tone. This worked fine with salsa and as a base for chili, but weirded the flavor of spaghetti sauce. It was particularly fabulous on sandwiches, tacos and burgers.



This was my first time growing rutabaga/swedes, and they came out woody, with a lot of worms. Root maggots are a common garden pest. Steinernema feltiae, a beneficial nematode, is supposed to help and I see that they go after fleas, too. Definitely going to invest in some next spring. Also, I planted my rutabaga late in the spring, and it was hot, and I didn't water -- which is why they were small and woody. I'll do better next year.

My corn and quinoa were a complete flop, due to the kids, including mine, wrecking the plants. I guess that big plants are just too tempting. And my neighbor mowed down the quinoa, thinking it was lambsquarters -- quinoa is really just domesticated lambsquarters. I got zero quinoa and one ear of corn, which I ate and it was fabulous.

The potatoes in the tires did better than I'd hoped, given that I'd ignored them all summer. We got somewhere between ten and fifteen pounds out of about 20 plants. Next year I'll add more of a mixture of cut hay and soil.



I have a ton of broccoli seed because I didn't get out there to pick the broccoli before it went to seed. We made broccoli pickles out of a lot of the stems -- cutting off the woody part of the stem was a lot of work and though I think the pickles are excellent, nobody else will eat them because they came out really strong tasting. Very dill and garlicky, and with the punch that true fermentation adds. But really, they're amazing if you're into a very spicy, crunchy pickle.

Selfie of the gardener:

Comments

[amaebi]

Howdy, gardener!

[ljgeoff]

:)

[kaffy_r]

Why would anyone mow down lambs quarters? They make great greens! We used to pick them every summer! (I had no idea they were connected to quinoa, largely because quinoa's gotten so fashionable that I automatically avoid it.)

I'd eat those broccoli stem pickles. I love both garlic and dill, and crunch is always wonderful.

As is your picture. You look tired, and I can totally understand why. I've never understood how you keep so much energy in one human frame, but even your frightening amounts of it have got to be taxed by job, study, kids, cooking, gardening, etc. Go, you, though!

[ljgeoff]

Yeah, lambsquarters grows all around here -- I'm actually wondering if I can grow true quinoa because they will cross-pollinate. We'll see next year!

In my experience, a lot of city folk have no idea of what wild things they can eat. About 20 years ago, I was working up at the county fair in Marquette and on break, I went and picked a couple cups of wild blueberries. None of the carnies would eat them. "How do you know those are really blueberries? They don't look like the blueberries in the store." So my friend Keith and I ate them. (Wild blueberries! *sigh*)

I am thinking of coming your way to talk my son Luke and a friend of his to the Natural History Museum in the next month or so; I will bring you some pickles and you can tell me how they rate!

And, yeah, it seems that I'm always tired these days. I haven't felt myself in a while.

[kaffy_r]

Let me know when you're coming; I'd love to see you (and taste the pickles, too.)

It's been a hard year for you, I know. All my love, my dear.