Dinner Break -- Pickle Put Up

Our CSA friends, the Fowlers, have a glut of radishes and since we are doing a Jayber Crow kind of arrangement, they give us veggies and I have returned the favor with:

1. Some seedlings that died.
2. Some seedlings that I hope are surviving.
3. Pickled radishes of three kinds. (Asian-inspired, Mexican-inspired, and peppery)

There are so many radishes that the Fowlers passed a long a recipe from the Vasquez' who braised there. Whodathunk that braised radishes could be so yummy? Since Hannah V's recipe called for chicken broth, and we don't eat meat, I tried some alternate recipes. Here's my recipe and below that is Hannah's. It was lovely to enjoy the delicious dish with a drink I love. That has it's own little vignette, so read below for a favorite way to sip vino.

Vegetarian Braised Radishes
1 T Olive oil, preferably as extra-virgin and unfiltered as possible.
1 T real butter, not that agnostic "I can't believe..." stuff
2 C radishes, sliced or julienned
3 shallots, sliced thinly
1/2 t caraway seed, preferably ground.
1/4 Veggie bouillon
2T dry red wine
1T agave or honey
1 C water
Smoked salt or sea salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste

Saute shallots and radishes in olive oil and butter, until softened.Toss in caraway seed, wine, honey, then add water and bouillon. Cook for about 10 minutes and put on salt and pepper to taste. I happen to have Cherrywood smoked sea salt and smoked black peppercorns.

Hannah's recipes is
2T Butter
2 bunches of radishes, sliced
1-2 shallots, sliced thinly
1 1/2 C chicken broth
2T Sugar
salt and pepper to taste.

Combine all and bring to boil under cover. Uncover and reduce heat to medium for 10 minutes.

A few years ago, I started making a red wine cocktail and couldn't find a name or recipe for it. Then, watching 30 Rock a few seasons ago, Jack D walks in on an insecure colleague and asks him what he is drinking? He couldn't remember the name either but thought it was called "An Old-Fashioned." I've googled this and can't find it. Maybe it's like a pink rabbit.

2 ounces dry red wine
4 ounces diet tonic water
1 T kalamata olive brine with 2-3 olives.

Mix and drink.

Sometimes I grind smoked pepper or splash with Bitters. So, yeah. Now I'm part of the joke Tina Fey.

Together I had a lovely meal. There is nothing better than the variety a real garden brings. Now I have to clean the kitchen. Some of those asian radishes should wrapped in the fusion sushi we'll roll Sunday. I love to roll watermelon, cantelope, Thai Basil, Cilantro, mushrooms, mangos, cukes, asparagus, and I hope to incorporate smoky fried tofu with some of those, along with my famous spicy sweet potato-mayo.

Putting Money in your Pocket

Read this. I want her other book, The Essential Urban Farmer

Coffee Hour at church today was full of gardening chatter, even though we are supposed to get 6-10 inches of snow tonight. My early squash, melon, and heirloom tomatoes are up. Tomatillos, Nicotania, leeks, and other early starts will begin by the end of this week, once my indoor "greenhouse" is fixed up from last year's wind battering.

I'm not starting all of my own plants this year, because I'm in graduate school. I will buy my broccoli, cabbage, many more tomatoes and others. But I still love seed starting, even thought I'm a hack at it.  A few electric hand warming mits, some home recipe seed starting dirt- mushroom compost, peat, and organic mix, and press and seal to cover my well-worn planters. I've killed the lids. Press and seal works just fine for keeping in the humidity until it's time to open up the starts and let the light on them. (Don't let light be a worry until the seedling are up with two leaves.

We talked rain and potato barrels, recent research on attracting wild bees, back-yard beekeeping, and this excellent TED Talk, wherein Ron Finley says that "growing your own vegetables is like printing your own money."  It's true. He is doing what Novella Carpenter wrote about in Farm City: The Education of an Urban Gardener. 

I promised, as we signed off, to call and craigslist more food grade barrels, for water and potatoes. I will link "how-to's" here. 

My husband's spring to do's include stapling chicken wire to a huge window frame, to create a pea trellis. I will plant summer lettuce under it, to prevent bolt.

Then, to make these trellises between our beds, to link two more rain barrels up, to have Liam paint them black, and to make two potato barrels. I love sweet potatoes but we didn't rake in enough last year, and the water was inefficient..

Nothing like a long "Honey-Do" List, with a problem with a late Pascha (Cinco de Pascha!) 2013, right?

Here are some hints, if you are like me-- Read old issues of Urban Farming Magazine and share. Dianne shares with me. She's a saint. 

Look up verticle gardening. I'm not as worried right now about aesthetic. I should be, but I'm even more a hack at outdoor "style." I'm working on this idea for the year though-- I want it between my raised boxes.

Tea: A Drink with a Dancer

Last summer, my mother and I split four ounces of a loose leaf tea called "Ice Wine Blend" from a little tea shop outside of the Shipshewana Flea Market. To be honest, by the time we got to the tea shop, I was not expecting much. I hadn't perused the market since high school when I got the stellar shirt below. For some reason, it is not me wearing it here. I'm the cloud-haired girl with the golden handle-bar moustache. My cousin Kari was the sucker in my screenpainted "You Can't Touch This" wife beater (size XXL).

This time wasn't much more of an experience. But cheap clothes, chumpy toss offs aside, there were some gems there. Like the lovely tea shop. Mom and I brewed and iced the "Iced Wine" blend. And then, split the final few ounces. I saved it for a special occasion, like tonight.

Tonight I went for teach with Christina and I was reminded of a few things and people for whom I am thankful.

1. Elena, who taught me that self-care is sustainable living
2. Christina, for being a tool of God, in spite of what she struggles with daily
3. A cup of hot tea, for as the good Elder Sophrony says, "“Stand at the brink of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it anymore, draw back a little, and have a cup of tea."
4. A day off to have tea, to finish my grandmother's book, to make other's happy in some small way.
5. A husband who lets me write, work, and grade on my day off.
6. A warm house. It is very very cold out. Some folks can't afford this.
7. Food on my table. Some weeks are slim, but beans are amazing.
8. Life. My mother was a teen mom. She and my dad could have made more financially safe choices, but I wouldn't be here.
9. Great spiritual ancestors such as my great-grandma Edna, my Grandparents on both sides, my in-laws.
10. Loving my church as my family.
11. Being able to move still. It may not always be and I should be thankful for today and what is real today.
12. The Mother of God. I'm getting to know her. She's especially important today, as we remember lives lost to abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, the convulted ethics of war, medicine, and justice.
13. My two kids. I will never never ever not think that they have been a great tool of my salvation, and that I wouldn't go to heaven, except that they make me better persons.
14. My parents. For. Every.Thing.
15. My in-laws. For. Every.Thing.
16. Poetry, for being the best form of protest, and stories, for telling more truth than most essays.

Please enjoy "the mother" by Gwendolyn Brooks, a favorite of mine. 

ONLY TWO MORE MONTHS TILL DIGGIN' TIME!!! Yahoo!!!!

     It's January 12,  forecast is 62 for the day, and the seed catalogs are burning a hole in my "spend a hundred, get a hundred"  pocket.  Last year I opted for the row covers for tomatoes, brocs, and brussel sprouts.  I nurtured those babies, I watered, I fed, I crooned.  Little did we know that the summer of 2012 would be one of the worst on record.  Anything outside that could stick its little feet into the air did.   Most yards looked like a blow torch performer from the circus had been practicing on any piece of earth he could find.   Being a city dweller, my water bill started to become an important factor in whether or not my crops survived.  And being a flower lover, it became a hard decision, spend the water on the veggies, or on the flowers?   That's like trying to decide which child you love the best.   I finally broke down and kept the tomatoes and the brussel sprouts alive.   The front garden then  began to take on that late October look, withered and spent.  Even my extremely heat tolerant daylilies wanted to rootwalk to a shady spot under the big maple by the street.  It didn't help that in the fall of 2011 we had taken down the hollow Chinese maple in the front yard, a major source of shade for the garden.  My lovelies that were not used to sitting straight out in the summer sun were being assaulted by 105 degree heat and sun several day a week, EVERY week.  It was brutal.

     One of my biggest concerns was keeping alive two of my favorite new trees, a burr oak of substantial size, and a nearby pistachio dogwood.

description of the dogwood---because I can't get a photo to load...

 "New growth comes out burgundy colored then turns to a glossy dark green. Leaves are thick with mint green stems. Prolific yellow-white blooms"  and I add, stems are very red, which is what attracted me to it in the first place.

     Well, Bill and I have just walked to town and back, and  we have  inspected the new trees.  That consisted of bending twigs at the end of branches a certain amount to see if they would spring back or break. Both trees seemed to be alive, which makes all the hose work in the summer seem justified now.

     I don't like soaker hoses, so during the very hot days,  I used a regular hose, set to a slow, slow flow, and moved it about the base of the tree about once an hour a few hours every few days.  A long slow soak is better than dumping a gallon bucket because  a big bucket dump just erodes around the roots and whatever is left standing evaporates.    

     What probably saved the trees was the tremendous amount of rain we managed to ring from the sky in late summer and fall.  Torrential rains, weed-growing rains,  rains that we needed but didn't want all at the same time.   By the time growing season was over,  grass had grown tall and set seeds.  I braved the rain one day and pulled up great clumps of grass, and got a mudbath.  Tomatoes that had hung on during the drought were really not very fit to eat,  nor were there very many of them.  For the first time in many years, I did not can tomato juice.   I did, however, have a nice crop of brussel sprouts, which seem to come into their own later in the summer, and taste best once frosted on once or twice.  What I harvested now resides in the freezer,  to be served as  bowls full  of summer sunshine on a snowy winter's dinner table.

    A great stack of gardening catalogs is still beckoning to me.  After the last few years of droughty summers,  I'm just a little hesitant to start planning great things.   I don't have a greenhouse, nor am I very good with growlights and all that in the basement.  I am contemplating what I can start with the great number of pots that I have on the back deck that were full of flowers last summer.  I may start lettuce, broccoli, and some other cool weather plants there, using a bags to tent over then on cool or cold nights.  Having them stationed on my path to and from the car will make it easier for me to take care of them, I hope.  I miss my old greenhouse at our former homestead; it was a great place to escape to, and to smell warmed, moist earth when the snow was deep outside.

     Yesterday I made a trip to the Tippecanoe Library for a browse through gardening books and magazines.  I think this year I am interested in companion planting, and using less space in the garden.  I found several interesting publications.  I have a TCPL library card because I also have a Crawfordsville card.  See if you can do that where you live with a bigger library, it's wonderful for me, and I used it a lot when homeschooling.

Permaculture:  Inspiration for Sustainable Living    www.permaculture.co.uk
A British magazine that whose mission is to promote permaculture,,,

"Permaculture is an innovative framework for creating sustainable ways of living; a practical method for developing ecologically harmonious, efficient and productive systems that can be used by anyone, anywhere."

It's a very user friendly publication, not too dogmatic, but beware that all the ads are for British companies.  

Indiana Gardening: Indiana's Own Guide to Great Gardening and Landscaping  www.indianagardeningmag.com

Any time you can find a publication that deals with your specific area for gardening, grab and absorb it. 

Native Alternatives to Invasive Plants--from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden All-Region Guides
 http://www.amazon.com/Native-Alternatives-Invasive-Plants-Greener/dp/1889538779/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358010943&sr=1-1&keywords=native+alternatives+to+invasive+plants 

     This one rates a pot of tea, some snackies, and a long read on the couch in front of the fire.

The Complete Guide to Companion Planting  by Dale Mayer.
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Companion-Planting--Basics/dp/1601383452/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358011124&sr=1- 1&keywords=the+complete+guide+to+companion+planting

I know this is something that Maria has been interested in using in her raised beds.  I want to decrease my garden's square footage, so maybe this will help, if I actually follow through with it. 

I'll report back to you in my next posting about what I learn from this bookload's reading.

If you have a birdfeeder, keep it full this week, more snow on the way.

Contemplating getting the hands dirty,

Dianne

p.s.  I'll be buying more primroses this spring, when they are put out for Easter.  Every time we have a few days' thaw, those babies are out there blooming, like today.  I have them in a protected shade garden, near the house, and out of the wind.