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www.TheCreswellChronicle.com: Gardening
Save the Tomatoes!
There are plenty of things we can do with tomatoes to enjoy them in the winter. We can preserve them as they are, or cook them into other products such as salsa and ketchup. They can be dried, frozen or canned for storage.
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Supporting the Farmers
The idea behind CSA is that the customer shares in the risks of farming as well as the rewards by buying "shares" in that farm. Also called subscriptions, you basically purchase a share of what the farm produces.
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Why Farmers' Markets?
This is National Farmers' Market Week - and if you haven't been to one of the area farmers' markets, you don't know what you're missing.
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We're Jammin'!
Making jams, jellies and other fruit spreads is a fairly simple food preservation technique, requiring little more than cooking and stirring. The process is similar no matter what kind of spread you wish to make, the main differences will be in the preparation of the fruit itself.
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Mulch Magic
Now that the weather is warm and the garden is growing, it would be nice to maintain ideal conditions in the garden, and preferably with a minimum amount of work. Mulching will help achieve those goals.
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Fast and Fresh
Here's a challenge for you. Next time you go out to your garden or to the farmers' market, see what kind of meal you can come up with using what you picked (or picked up) and what ever is handy. You may be surprised by the results!
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Nutrition from the Garden
Sitting and observing my garden earlier today, it occurred to me that I was looking at a season's worth of multiple vitamin pills.
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Seasonal Cooking: Spring
but they're good when roasted.
Spinach and other salad greens are in abundance now, and with all the other vegetables above, you can vary the combinations to create a different salad every day.
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Growing Grapes and Currants
The grapevine is also an attractive and useful plant, and produces many varieties for fresh eating. Grapes are grown nearly everywhere in the world, and while growing good wine grapes may be difficult, table grapes are not so picky.
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Summer Vines
Cool and refreshing, melons and cucumbers are welcome sights in our summer garden. They are but two members of the cucurbit family, which also includes summer and winter squash, pumpkins and gourds.
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The Cane Berries
Berries are one of the greatest delights of summer. While best straight from the vine, they are good in baked goods, on yogurt or ice cream, made into jam and dozens of other ways. They're also beautiful to look at, and so easy to incorporate into your landscape.
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Hybrids and Heirlooms
The definition of an heirloom is a bit vague. Various plant enthusiasts define the term in slightly different ways. Most agree however, that an heirloom is a true strain that has remained in constant production for a long time, usually fifty years or longer.
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To Amend or Not to Amend
An amendment is something that is added to improve the physical properties of the soil, primarily water retention or drainage.
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Strawberries
Strawberries are divided into three types, June bearing, everbearing and day-neutral.
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Lotsa Lettuce
Lettuce is a good source of vitamins A, C, K and folate. It also supplies some calcium, iron and magnesium. A salad of romaine lettuce will have the most vitamins A, C and folate, but green leaf lettuce has more vitamin K, and butterheads more calcium, iron and protein.
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A World of Onions
There are an amazing number of onion types and varieties out there to be tried. From tiny pearls to humongous brown-skinned onions; flesh of white, yellow or purple; baseball round, disc-shaped or elongated, you could probably grow a new variety (or two!) every year and never get to them all.
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Cool Weather Kings
Brassicas prefer to mature in cool temperatures, which means they need to be started early for a spring/summer crop, or planted in late summer to mature during the fall. Some varieties grow over the winter and mature from winter through spring.
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Designing an Herb Garden
I like my herb beds to have themes, but they always seem to take on a life of their own and stray from the plan.
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A Test You Can't Fail
Good soil is the most important ingredient for a healthy garden. Gardening in poor soil will bring disappointing results, no matter how hard you work.
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Home Orchards
Even if you don't become famous by way of your trees, you can enjoy the taste and pleasure of fresh-picked apples, pears, cherries and more if you have a bit of room for a few trees.
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It Starts with a Seed
It's time to start my garden. Yes, I know it's still cold and rainy outside, but inside it is warm and dry. And that is where I will start, by getting some seeds sprouted and growing to transplant size.
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Cybergardening
I love books and, as you may know, I've got a couple of shelves full of gardening books. But I still find myself using the Internet more and more to find information.
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Plan Now, Plant Later
Now is the time for sorting through and testing seeds, checking on seed-starting supplies and deciding what to plant and where to plant it.
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New Traditions
This year I thought I'd look to tradition and try updating and personalizing some of the foods that remind me of the holidays.
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Holiday visits mean busy kitchens
Holiday time is more than just a couple of days of family feasts or serial parties. For many, it also means out-of-town guests, kids home from school and a much busier kitchen.
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Books for cooks that garden
Although I rarely follow a recipe, I love looking at and reading cookbooks. They're sources of ideas and inspiration, handy when I can't think of what to make for dinner.
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Pumpkin Pie Revisited
Pumpkins are usually assumed to be round and orange – though some white varieties have been developed. The flesh of the pumpkin is not as smooth or sweet as that of winter squash of the maxima or moschata species, and therefore is not as desirable for baking.
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Time for Thanks
The first national thanksgiving day was in 1788, proclaimed by Congress as a day to give thanks for the Constitution. After that, colonies and later states proclaimed various days as days of thanks, and not necessarily for a good harvest.
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Read All About It
If you are choosing a book for yourself, then simply looking through it and reading bits and pieces should tell you if it is right for you, if it has what you are looking for and if it is at the right level of writing for your needs.
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Kitchen Creativity
That made me realize that it was already time to think about holiday gifts, which for me means something whipped up in my kitchen. Seeing as many more people are thinking about homemade gifts this year, I thought maybe I could help with a few suggestions and ideas.
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Reflections on a Gardening Year
This year I realize that I am actually thankful that the season is over. As much as I look forward in the spring to the rewards to come, after numerous zucchini breads, endless jars of tomatoes and a freezer full of beans, I can say "Enough already!"
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Winter Squash
Variation abounds among winter squash -- Butternut, Hubbard, acorn, delicata and vegetable spaghetti -- to name just a few. They come in all sizes, shapes and colors, and are fun to grow as well as good to eat.
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Falling for Garlic
Now is the time to plant garlic and shallots for harvest next summer. These are some of the easiest crops to grow. All you need is good soil and rainfall for an abundant crop of flavorful and healthy vegetables.
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Drying Fruits and Vegetables
It is time to put up, put by and put away all that we can of summer's goodness.
Of all the preservation methods, drying is the simplest
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A Taste of the East
Many of these vegetables grow well in our gardens and are easy to grow. While they are perfect to use in authentic Asian recipes, they can also stand-in for common vegetables on our tables.
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Fruit Desserts
Fruit is a natural for dessert; just don't forget that it is high in sugar, even on its own. When you think about it, the majority of desserts that aren't chocolate are made with fruit of some kind.
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Preserving the Precious Tomato
While precious and perishable, lucky for us, the tomato is also very versatile. There are many things we can do with this luscious orb, ways both to savor fresh and to enjoy later.
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Spice It Up
The available varieties of both sweet and hot peppers are astounding. All shapes, sizes, colors and heat levels can be found in the fruits of Capsicum annuum. There are somewhere between 150 and 200 named varieties of chilies, according to Mark Miller of The Great Chile Book.
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Home remedies can get rid of garden pests
If silent, uninvited guests with voracious appetites have been eating your vegetables and other plants, the good news is that ingredients to stop the intruders can be found at home in the kitchen or medicine cabinet.
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Easy Zucchini
Want to grow something prolific and almost foolproof? Try zucchini.
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Cheery Cherries
Cherries are one of the "stone fruits," so named because of the hard pits surrounding the seed of the fruit.
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Gardening 101
Ninety-nine percent of the plants you grow in your vegetable garden are annuals. These plants complete their entire growing cycle (seed to seed) in one year – or one season, to be precise.
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Taming the Unruly Tomato
The question is whether to stake them or not, and how to do so. Some tomatoes do better when staked, primarily the indeterminate varieties, while most determinates do well when left alone.
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Heat-Seeking Melons
Unless we have an unusually hot spring and early summer, you will need to create your own microclimate for growing melons.
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The Big Red
There is just nothing like a fresh picked tomato. A juicy mix of sweet and tart, it's bliss with vitamins. Growing your own is the best way to enjoy this oh-so-temporary pleasure.
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This Spud's for You
And unless you are buying only organic potatoes, the ones you grow yourself will be cleaner and healthier - grown without fungicides, herbicides or pesticides. Potato growers are among the heaviest users of these chemicals.
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Plant vegetable starts early to prevent bolting
Bolting is often a problem with biennial vegetables, including cabbage and other cole crops, beets and carrots that ordinarily take two growing seasons to mature, flower, set seed and die.
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The Edible Lilies
They may not keep vampires away, but onions and leeks have other reasons to love them. These edible members of the lily family are good for your health and your taste buds.
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Vegetables in the Landscape
Some vegetables sitting all alone in the kitchen garden are just too pretty to hide. Why not let them out into the world, and incorporate them into the landscape?
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Meet My Friend Herb
Herbs are to the cook as are paints to an artist. It is the herbs and spices she uses that change everyday dishes from dull to bright.
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My Favorite Root
Carrots are often categorized by their shape and size. Chantenay types are tapered, and usually grow four to six inches long. Nantes are a little longer and more cylindrical. They are the most popular and most common in home gardens.
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It's Broccoli Time
In addition to its cancer-preventing constituents (primarily a substance called sulphoraphane), broccoli is also high in vitamins C, K and A; folate, calcium and other minerals; and all-important dietary fiber.
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The Other Peas
But what of the other, more elegant peas? I'm speaking of the snow pea and the sugar snap pea.
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Spring Is in the Air
If you're thinking about growing vegetables from seeds this year, now is a good time to get started.
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Putting Together a Holiday Menu
If my company will be coming early in the day or I am planning a light supper, I might start with some appetizers or snacks. Sometimes I make my entire meal out of an assortment of appetizers or "small plates."
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