It is November and believe it or not one of the last crops harvested was a late season planting of radishes.

French breakfast radishes to be sure.

The notion of eating radishes for breakfast isn't necessarily appealing.  Truthfully it sounds risky.  Especially if you have a really important meeting with a client at 9 AM.  There again; I am not from France.

Nonetheless, these radishes are awesome. They are not at all harsh.  They are rather sweet.  My father is an aficionado of the radish sandwich.  He is a big beneficiary of this year's fall crop.

The balance of the garden is pretty much played-out.  Carrots, onions and parsnips remain in their beds and I'll dig them-up later after the ground has chilled some more.  Leaving root vegetables in the ground after it turns colder makes them sweeter.  It has something to do with the sugars translocating to the roots.

I canned every last tomato I could before the early frosts.  I'll start converting those fruits to more salsa and sauce before too long.

Good eats!

Tom

If you haven't already done so - be sure to vote tomorrow.

One of my fondest memories from childhood is of the big family garden behind our garage.

Dad built a cold frame and topped it with an old storm door.  He showed me how to sow the seeds for the garden while winter still threatened an icy blast.

Those seeds germinated into tiny plants which were subsequently transplanted into the garden.

Bernie - from up the block - owned a rototiller that all the neighbors were allowed to borrow for getting their gardens ready to plant.  I remember the first time I was allowed to use it - it took-off on me and ran across the yard like a thing possessed until dad chased it down.  Yeah.  Once the clutch was engaged off you went - without a kill switch.

After that I was entrusted with the vast responsibility of wielding a hoe much taller than me to keep the weeds at bay.

Lettuce, tomatoes, onions, green beans, sweet corn and other truck were always on the family's summer table.

Summer turned to September - canning season.

A big production was made of driving to the farmer's stand on the corner of 76th Street and Good Hope Road (the northern edge of civilization back then) to purchase apples and pickling cucumbers.  The only other establishment was Claude Manning's simple tavern on the opposite corner.

I can still recall the steamy kitchen as dad sterilized glass jars, mom slicing pickles, me picking-thru and rinsing the dill and the smell of brine cooking on the stove top.  Dill pickles and bread and butter pickles were processed, canned and consumed until the ritual was repeated a year later.

Fall afternoons had Macintosh apples cooking with the smell of cinnamon and clove wafting through the house.  Cooked apples were turned through the grinder by hand to make homemade applesauce - the brown kind - not like the tasteless, pale, homogenized stuff you purchase in a grocery.

Sigh.  Mom is gone and dad isn't always himself lately.  We didn't even make picked beets together this year. 

But I digress.

It is pickle time. 

Pickling stuff allows for all sorts of creative expression.  Periodically I'll hand-select the largest and most handsome of garden green beans and pickle them in my secret garlic dill brine.  They are awesome in a Bloody Mary.  Besides, who doesn't appreciate receiving a home-canned curiosity at Christmastime?

Last year I made dill and Kosher dill along with sweet pickles.  The sweet pickles were tolerable - but not outstanding.  I've discarded what remained in favor of this new recipe. 

I have only a couple of humble pickle vines in the garden but they've been good producers.

Start with a big pile of cukes and allow yourself two to three days to complete everything.

Rinse and scrub.  Slice and soak in a food service pail (plastic or stainless - never aluminum) along with two gallons of water in which two cups of picking lime has been dissolved.  If you like - include a double handful of small sweet onions. 

Cover and store in a cool place for 24 hours.  Drain and rinse.  Soak in cold water and drain.  Do this two additional times.  Soak in cold water for three additional hours and drain.

Blend together in a large kettle the following:

2 quarts of vinegar

8 cups of sugar

1 T Kosher salt

1.5 oz (give or take) of pickling spice

Optional: a T of crushed hot peppers.

Heat the ingredients and stir until dissolved. 

Add the big pile of sliced pickles to the syrupy brine.  Cover and allow to sit for 5-6 hours or overnight.

Bring the pickle mixture to a slow boil for 35 minutes.  Stuff the jars with pickle slices and add the cooked brine leaving a half-inch of head space.  Seat the lids, screw-down the bands and heat in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.  Remove and allow to return to room temperature.  The lids will "pop" as they seal.

I ended-up with 15 pints and had to increase the brine and spices by 50%.

Interested in a bold serving suggestion?  Slap some of these zesty slices between the halves of an ordinary peanut butter or grilled cheese sandwich.  Yum.

Tom

Easy Salsa

Begin with the Secret Weapon.

I told you it was easy didn't I?  You can find this stuff at the grocery or Fleet Farm.

Start with approximately five pints of fresh garden tomatoes.

Scald tomatoes in boiling water for about thirty seconds and plunge into cold water.  Slip-off the skins and drain.

Coarsely chop the tomatoes and place in a stock pot.

Add Mrs. Wages Salsa mix along with a half-cup of white vinegar.

You can indulge your creative side by adding to the pot any or all of the following:

A couple of fresh green peppers - chopped medium

A couple of vidalia onions - chopped coarsely

A jalapeño pepper - chopped fine

A large carrot - chopped medium

A couple of garlic cloves - chopped fine

A tablespoon or so of crushed red pepper

A handful of fresh cilantro - chopped

Bring to a boil then simmer for 10 minutes

Fill pint jars with hot salsa mix.  Leave a half-inch of head space.  Wipe the glass rims clean and seat the lids.  Screw down the bands.  Place in a canning pot, cover with hot water, bring to a slow boil and cook for thirty minutes.  Remove and allow to cool.  The lids will "pop" as the jars seal.

You can also freeze the stuff although putting it-up a jar is shelf-stable and saves freezer space.

I got carried away with the tomatoes and along with the extra ingredients ended-up with eight pints. 

If you are entertaining mix a jar of this with a can of black beans (drained) and a cup of fresh-frozen sweet corn (see below) and serve with chips.

Frozen Sweet Corn

Start with a pile of freshly-picked garden sweet corn.

Shuck the corn and remove all the silk.  Start a big pot of water to boil.

Scald the corn in the boiling water and immediately plunge into icy water.  The ears must be cold before cutting and freezing.

Note:  If you are putting-up whole kernel corn you will want to scald the ears for four minutes.  If you are freezing whole ears then scald for seven minutes.  Try limiting four ears at a time to any one pot otherwise you'll lose your boil and the scalding will be all screwed-up. 

For whole kernel corn slice the nibblets off of the ear with a sharp knife. Periodically strop the knife on a steel to keep the edge sharp and the cutting easy.  Call your dog to the kitchen to Hoover-up the kernels that will inevitably fly to the floor (saves clean-up time).

Put the cut nibblets in a colander to drain.

Vacuum seal with a Food Saver in portions suited to personal use.  Freeze immediately.

Enjoy!

Tom

A bit late but worth the wait. 

Just-picked sweet corn along with a mess of Wisconsin pan fish and you have a formula for terrific eating.

But I digress.

The garden is producing record quantities of green beans.

The tomato infection was resolved by picking and discarding all of the sick fruit.  

So far, personal consumption has matched tomato production. 

BLTs. 

Tomato snacks. 

Omelets with tomatoes and Feta cheese. 

Tomatoes with baby mozzarella and basil.

You get the picture.

When the Roma plants kick it into high gear I'll be shifting into salsa and pasta sauce mode.

The pickle bin is filling

Cantaloupes are coming on-line.

There is even this psychedelic kale.

Tom

The vast garden is doing its thing. 

Considering I had to replant my sweet corn I now have high hopes of harvesting a crop before too long. 

There is also a mutant pumpkin patch on the opposite side of the corn that is not shown.

I can barely keep-up with the green beans and starting today will be distributing beans to friends and neighbors and taking the surplus commodity into the office.

I'm starting to collect a nice crop of sweet onions too - they're terrific on pizza.

The peanut butter sandwich I'll eat at my desk recently sports some mayo and a layer of fresh, crisp garden lettuce.

However - a potentially serious problem recently cropped-up.

Bacterial spots on some tomatoes - not all of them - but the Early Girl plant and the Roma plant immediately adjacent.  It might be due to contaminated seed or maybe a bacterium that lives in a host plant like the green beans - who knows. 

This is an organic garden.  I don't use pesticides or fungicides or other chemicals so I picked all of the affected fruits and disposed of them in the garbage (not the garden or the compost heap where  the bacteria might linger).  I'll have to see if it's an isolated incident due to earlier cool, damp weather or a persistent infection.

With all of that terrific lettuce it would be a shame to not have really great tomatoes to accompany the bacon...

Tom

The garden has recovered nicely and fresh veggies are rolling in the door and finding their way to the table and freezer.

Been picking green beans, peas, kale and a couple varieties of lettuce.  The radishes are finished for the present and I'll sow more when the weather turns cooler.

There is hope for the late sweet corn.

I had some ripening tomatoes that disappeared.  Not just a bite out of a tomato - the whole tomato - gone.

My brilliant wife solved the crime when she found Girlfriend eating something in the garden.

Thinking the dog was dining upon a mouse she found out the dog had been selectively picking and eating the ripening tomatoes.

To freeze green beans simply pick, wash, cut the ends-off and cut to size if desired.  Blanch in boiling water for a couple of minutes and plunge into cold water.  Drain and package in two-cup  batches with the FoodSaver.  Garden to freezer in about a hour or two.  Yum! 

Tom

The replacement tomato plants added following the post-Memorial Day frosts are doing well.  We have blossoms and some green tomatoes on the larger plants that survived.

Almost all of the sweet corn, beets, lettuce, cukes, pickles, cantaloupe and green beans had to be replanted following the monsoons.  They are behind schedule and making a recovery - some better than others. 

Carrots, onions, parsnips, acorn squash, pumpkins, peas, red potatoes and the gourd patch were unfazed and are going strong.  The acorn squash and green beans began to set blossoms last weekend.

I've been picking and sowing radishes and my lovely wife has been cutting rhubarb.

The Brussels sprouts are toast.  Nowhere to be found.

It was only last month that we finally finished last year's potatoes.  We're down to the last few packages of frozen green beans and the last jars of canned tomatoes, tomato sauce and pickled beets. 

Replacements are on the way.

Tom

Garden was planted on May 23-24 and stuff is growing.  Well, sort-of.  Until last Sunday.

Here's what I have planted:

Sweet corn (bicolor super sweet hybrid)

Peas

Blue Lake beans

Acorn squash

Beets

Scallions and Texas super sweet onions

Touchon carrots, parsnips and a couple of types of radishes

Pickles and cucumbers

Brussels sprouts

Fancy mixed and goblin egg gourds

Miniature and Connecticut field pumpkins

Cantaloupe

Romaine lettuce

Roma, beefsteak, Early Girl and cherry tomatoes

Red Pontiac potatoes 

My lovely wife is building a kitchen garden and has extended to me the courtesy of establishing an asparagus bed and one Cascade hops along the rock wall.

There have been problems almost from the start.

A hard frost following Memorial Day clobbered my tomatoes.  I planted five replacement Roma plants.  One remaining Roma is on life-support and the cherry tomato plant is looking stunted.

Last Friday everything else was looking pretty good.  Corn was up about three inches, potatoes had emerged and received their first covering layer of dirt, asparagus was up, radishes too.  Pumpkins were thinned.  Most everything else had begun to emerge.

As of Saturday late afternoon two thirds of radishes were looking dead and 90 percent of the sweet corn looked like it shriveled-up and died. - all in the space of 24 hours.

Sickly corn on the left and dead or almost-dead corn on the right.

I replanted some of the radishes and most of the corn.  Radishes grow fast but I think I've lost my sweet corn for the year.

 What gives?  All the rain followed by a couple of really scorching days?

 Updates to follow.

Tom

Gardening season is almost upon us and I have the itch really bad.

I love to garden - so much so - I have cultivated what others have characterized as my Vast Garden. 

I cannot help myself.  It is my genetic makeup.  I was born a: Gärtner.

My lovely wife is a Master Gardener.

Not me.  What I lack in finesse and expertise I compensate-for with scale and experimentation.

This is my garden - it's a guy thing.

It's almost as large as my entire lot in Tosa.  (click on the picture to enlarge).

The fetching pooch in the picture is our black lab - Girlfriend.  She is the chief rabbit control officer.

I have just finished discing-in all of last year's dead vegetation along with wood burner ashes and a delightful mix of sheep and cow manure.  Yum!

That means gigantic and tasty vegetables.

Stay tuned as there is much more to follow.

What works and what doesn't work. 

Doing battle with the critters (remind me to tell you about early morning varmint control over coffee on the porch with a .22 Marlin). 

Harvesting, canning and preserving.

I'm always looking for ideas - so please share your garden tips and techniques.

Tom

PS - I've gotten all of my seed from Burpee - but the Jung Seed Company still hasn't sent me all of my seed.

I am getting nervous.