We visited our community garden plot at Howard County Conservancy yesterday. We found some treasures in the soft thawed soil. 
Vegetables
Frozen Peppers and Cherry Tomatoes
Only in winter can we enjoy last year’s harvest while starting this year’s garden. We still have about 2 bags each of frozen peppers and cherry tomatoes from our garden plot harvest 2010. We use the frozen cherry tomatoes and peppers on homemade pizza and in soups, chili and tomato sauce.
Last summer, we had an abundance of tomatoes and peppers in our garden plot. Along with canning, we tried freezing these veggies for the first time. The frozen veggies still taste sweet and fresh. I will use the same freezing method for this year’s harvest. To freeze the peppers… chop, blanch in boiling water for one minute, soak in ice cold water, drain, dry, freeze individual pieces on a cookie sheet then toss all the frozen pieces into a freezer bag. To freeze the cherry tomatoes…. cut in half, roast on cookie sheet for several hours in a 150 degree fahrenheit oven, cool, freeze on a cookie sheet then place in freezer bag.
While enjoying last year’s harvest, we started planting seeds for this year’s garden. This week we planted King Richard Leek, Genovese Basil, Italian Parsley, and Hybrid Shallot seeds in starter containers. In a few weeks we will plant our tomato, pepper, eggplant, swiss chard, escarole and lettuce seeds.
Our Garden Plot Dreams for 2011
Who says you can't dream big?
My husband dreams of installing a drip system so we can work in the garden (and visit the goats and snowball stand) while the plants are being watered. He also wants to combine the garden beds, reduce the walking paths and cover more plants with row covers so the plot has intensive plantings thus more produce and less bug damage.
I dream of a longer growing season so I can cook from our garden harvest all year. I want to plant new types of veggies and make a cold frame. For additional crops in early summer and late fall I would like to try planting leeks, shallots and peas and Asian greens, broccoli and kohlrabi along with our regular crops of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, zucchini, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, carrots, beans, spinach, turnips, greens and herbs. But, my biggest garden dream for 2011 is that our family has fun together with each other and other gardener friends in our community garden.
What are some of your garden dreams for 2011?
Happy New Gardening Year
A couple weeks ago, we covered our garden plot with one more blanket of mulched leaves and made our last harvest of 2010. We harvested spinach and carrots. The carrots still tasted fresh and crisp even though we had to pry them out of the slightly frozen earth. We loosened the ground with a garden fork and pulled out about 12 medium-sized carrots.
One stubborn carrot would not separate from its block of earth so my strong husband pressed down hard on the garden fork until its wooden shaft snapped in half. My husband sighed at the loss of his faithful garden tool. But he smiled after I announced, “we now have a dibber for the leeks we want to plant in early spring!” A broken off shovel or garden fork with an intact handle makes an effective hole digger for planting seedlings.
A garden blunder can be a gem to the gardener who dreams about next year’s garden.
Happy New Gardening Year, my gardening friends!
A Peppery Thanksgiving Thought
A couple week ago I pulled out the last of the pepper plants in our community garden plot. I collected several pounds of small to medium-sized, but crisp and tasty bell, banana and cubanelle peppers. It took a little creativity to use all these peppers. I made pepper and cheese casserole, Italian turkey sausage with sauted peppers and onions, tortilla chicken soup with peppers, and roasted peppers marinated in garlic and extra virgin olive oil. I blanched, then froze about eight cups of chopped peppers. Finally, I took a grocery bagful of peppers to our local food bank. I am happy to say that we did not waste our last crop of peppers!
Here is my peppery Thanksgiving Day thought….just like my peppers, I do not want to waste the gifts, big or small that God gives to me. In God’s economy a grateful heart grows and produces more fruit.
May we all give thanks and celebrate the blessings in our lives this Thanksgiving holiday. Have a safe and joyful Thanksgiving Day! (and enjoy the leftovers!)
Garlic
Many of the recipes I cook begin with garlic. I pound, peel, and crush garlic then let it sizzle in hot oil to start a soup, stew, tomato sauce, chili, and more. We grew garlic for the first time in our garden plot this summer. We planted the garlic last fall and harvested it in July. Now, in November we only have one garlic bulb left from that harvest. According to the Grow It Eat It Network garlic harvested in the summer can last until December. One of my husband’s garden goals is to be self-sufficient in garlic production. He purchased four California Select garlic bulbs and three Elephant garlic cloves for planting this fall. We hope next summer our garden plot will produce enough garlic to last until December with extra bulbs for next fall’s planting. Oh, simple garden pleasures….never needing to buy garlic bulbs for fall planting again!
A few days ago our Shiba Inu dog, CJ and I planted the garlic cloves. While I shoveled and raked the dirt to prepare it for planting, CJ dug in the dirt to follow a scent and a fuzzy brown caterpillar. He helped loosen the dirt a tiny bit. I planted 5 rows of 9 garlic cloves (3 inches apart and 1 inch deep) and 3 Elephant garlic cloves (6 inches apart and 6 inches deep) for a total of 48 garlic cloves.
The Elephant garlic is huge. It is almost the same size as a garlic bulb. We never planted this type of garlic before. I wonder how large it will be as a garlic bulb! We may have lots of extra garlic for next fall’s planting.
Do you plant garlic cloves in the fall from your garlic bulbs harvested in summer?
Habanero Peppers and Pumpkin Chili
The one habanero pepper plant in our garden plot continues to supply us with more than enough hot peppers. I do not know what to do with all these small bright orange peppers. They are pretty, but so pungent! One tiny crumb size bite will burn your tongue. A week ago I roasted about 15 of the habaneros in our oven. As they roasted, the kitchen filled with a sweet smell that reminded me of a deli or a room filled with pepperoni sticks. Then the aroma became overpowering and grabbed my throat. I could not stop coughing and my eyes started watering. I opened our kitchen sliding glass door and stood outside on our deck until the coughing stopped. Those are powerful peppers!
Yesterday, while making chili for guests I wondered if my roasted habaneros had less heat than uncooked habaneros. I cut a speck of skin from a roasted habanero and placed it on my tongue. It gave a tingling burn, not a stabbing burn. The heat seemed reduced so I chopped one-fourth of a roasted habanero and added it to the sauting onions and garlic. My chili got a spice lift and tasted fabulous. It had a rich hot and sweet flavor. My husband and guests devoured my chili as they told their own hot pepper stories. Today, my friend, a creative cook, suggested that I add my leftover pumpkin soup to the leftover hot chili. Our spicy pumpkin chili was delicious, mild and creamy.
Don’t be afraid to add habanero peppers to recipes. They are hot and sweet. The website, Habanero Madness and the book, Habanero has more than enough habanero pepper advice and recipes for all my habaneros.
What do you do with your habanero peppers?
The Greens Mystery Solved
This summer, my husband brought home a surprise for me. Not a bouquet of flowers, but some brown wilted plants in moist paper towels. He knows I prefer plants over cut flowers. The plants were starter greens from his co-worker. I planted them in our salad table. I assumed the plants were romaine and green leaf lettuce because one had smooth broad leaves and the other had curly thin leaves. When the plants reached mound size, I questioned their identity. The leaves felt tough and tasted bitter. My husband told me it was endive. A quick search through gardening books and the internet solved my greens mystery. It was escarole and curly endive, something I never grew or cooked before.
Highlights of what I learned about endive: 1. Curly endive has the frilly leaves and Batavian endive or escarole has broad leaves. 2. Endive can grow in winter and is less bitter when grown in cooler weather. 3. Blanching endive can reduce bitterness. Curly endive is blanched by covering it with a porous pot. Escarole is blanched by wrapping it with string so the outer leaves will block light from inner leaves. 4. Endive is used in a lot in Italian cooking including soups and saute. 5. Endive is high in vitamin A,B,C and contains Calcium and Iron .
I wrapped my escarole plants with string to blanch the inner leaves hoping they will be less bitter. I plan to make Escarole Bean Soup and Curly Endive and Bean Soup with my hearty mystery greens. Do you have any mysteries growing in your garden?
Growing in Our Mini Plot
My husband built a salad table one Saturday afternoon this past spring. He followed the plans for the Salad Table from the Grow It Eat It Network. He built it from wood piled in our garage. After he completed it, we had a little more space in our garage and a mini plot on our deck. A variety of crops grew in our salad table this year. In early summer, swiss chard, romaine lettuce, green leaf lettuce and arugula grew in it. My son helped me pick the tender leaves. The table is the perfect height for him to reach and pick without bending over or standing on his toes. We ate lots of mixed salads and swiss chard this summer. I sautéed the swiss chard in olive oil with garlic, salt and pepper then tossed with pasta. Swiss chard is good in minestrone soup, too.
The fall crops are now growing in the salad table. Recently, this wild fennel shoot popped up unexpectedly. I learned that wild fennel can be an invasive plant. It does not have the celery-like stem of sweet fennel. Its delicate leaves have a strong anise or licorice flavor. Clippings of fennel leaves in a salad are a happy surprise to taste buds. Along with the wild fennel there is spinach, radishes and two mystery greens growing in the table. The mystery greens are transplants from my husband’s coworker. Our mini plot’s first growing season was a success. It grew some gregarious greens!
Tasty Green Tomatoes
Here are some of the green tomatoes that I picked from my toppled tomato plants. I had a grocery bag full of these green rebels. I could have put them in a bag with a banana to ripen, but tomatoes ripened off the vine are not as tasty to me. Not wanting to waste them, I searched for green tomato recipes. Most of the recipes had too much sugar so I adapted A Green Tomato Cake.
My changes: 2 cups white flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour instead of 3 cups white flour; ( 3/4 cup sugar, 1 ripe banana, 1/3 cup Agave ) instead of 2 cups sugar; 2 and 1/2 eggs instead of 3 eggs and 1 cup raisins instead of 1/2 cup raisins. 
It was yummy! My son liked it so much he hugged me for making it. He did not know it had tomatoes in it! My husband savored it over coffee after dinner. Don’t wait for the green tomatoes to turn red. Enjoy them now. A good little lesson from the garden ….live in the present with those around you, don’t wait for them to change.
Our Garden Plot 